Healthy fats rule for energy!

4oz grass-fed burger, 3oz chicken breast, half avocado, asparagus, garlic, onions, little tomato, sea salt steam fried in olive oil. Satisfying too.

Clean fat from pastured, organic, grass-fed animals are good for omegas and dont come with junk: nitrates, hormones, pesticides.

Asparagus is great for smelly pee.

Morning meal: grass-fed burger, scallions, peppers, garlic, olive oil, roast beef, spinach, bok choy, lemon, sea salt.

Pluses: healthy fats from grass-fed animal, green leafies alkalize nicely, peppers with colorful caratenoids, no sugars.

40+ gms protein, about 500 cals. 30+ gms good fats.

This post covers quite a bit of stuff, so excuse me as I tell various bits of the story and try to cover it all. The short version of it is that I’m really making great gains with paleo/primal eating/lifestyle. It’s surprising – rather shocking, the discoveries I’ve found. This post, itself will evolve.

I went vegan for 8 months, ending about April 2012.

It was a mess. I started sleeping poorly, wicked dreams, awakening like a train wreck and feeling frail. Now, mind you, I don’t know all that went on and there could be more to the story like lifestyle habits, etc. I do know that had made a serious effort after having some initial great benefits of cutting out meat at the start.

But over time, towards the end of it, I felt very frail, fragile, and irritable. Not always, but more so each week. I definitely felt something wasn’t right. Was missing.

Possible answers: lack of protein due to very active lifestyle (hoops, gym) and lots of brain work on the computer. Possible lack of calories / fat … I may not have been eating enough.

It’s still possible, and I won’t rule out the possibility, that vegan or vegetarian is the correct course. I do no that it doesn’t seem that way after I’ve been paleo for the last, again 8 months, running to now.

My take on vegan/vegetarian is that I think our bodies need the benefits of meats, fish, fowl that just won’t come from other sources. Until I found out otherwise, it’s omnivore a-la-caveman for me.

Pics of me at the time I stopped Vegan. Bloatiness was a struggle.

How I describe Paleo / Primal eating

It comes down to eating the foods we were (so we believe) meant to eat. That being meats, fish,  veggies, fruits … essentially stuff from the land. I’m told insects are a good move too, but that’s taking me more of a mental leap to be ok with. This ant was in my soup the other day – down the hatch you go. ;D

Mistakes I believe I’ve made.

• Expecting things to change fast when my body needs to adapt. Eating earlier in the day, recommended, took me a while to get used to. 
• Also, I felt drained at times, this I believe was due to the shift from loads of carbs (typical modern diet of breads, cookies, pasta, pizza, and sugary drinks), to getting my energy from healthy sources which arrive in the body slower and steadier.
• Eating too many nuts and chocolate. I believe I’m sensitive to sugars, as in I love them! That sometimes I’d overeat on nuts and chocolate (approved paleo) and think I was playing by the rules. In fact, I believe I was just binging on the yummy flavorness. Gotta watch out for the comfort foods.
• Not eating enough – Especially protein sources. For my level of activity (lots of hoops, gym, jogging tendencies) I started eating more, a bit of forcing, to keep pace with my activity levels. I also started nutrition shakes (paleo) to increase nutrition intake. So far good.

Two examples of meals I eat.

Some Primal / Paleo moves I’ve made as a Long Islander NYC Day Trippin.

• Central Market in Penn Station for a quick all around meal 
  They have a salad bar, neatly placed, with good options. Now I doubt it’s organic, grass-fed, etc, but you can pick and choose vegetables, meats, and create an inexpensive, fast paleolithic meal. I paid 4 bucks for a good size bit on-the-go whilst I hit the train home to Long Island. It beats just about every other option in Penn Station. Unless you’ve found something good – please comment below.
• St Mark’s Market for a great walk-by snack: Nuts and Dark Chocolate - Good quick stop for nuts and dark chocolate. I got macadamia nuts and Green & Black’s dark chocolate 85%. Yes, they have loads of other foods as it is a grocer. Seem to be open late too.
• Down and dirty: Ham and nuts.
  At any grocer, you can grab a packet of ham (or turkey) and a small bag of nuts, and stop off at a nearby Starbucks (better cause more traveled-thru and bustly than cozy coffee shops like The Bean where people are hanging out more like Friend’s on TV), wash your hands, and have at your ham and nuts with a tea or coffee of your choice. VERY good move if you’ve only got 10 minutes to wolf something down before a meeting.
• Wholefood’s cafe & Fairway Market’s cafe.
  These are perfect for semi-quick paleo meals. Warning: it’s easy to pile your plate up high due to the massive choice options – thus grab the little box, fill it with lots of greens (get kale if you don’t regularly eat it).

Some obvious benefits I can attest to.

• More libido.
  I’ve got more stamina in the bedroom and more intense experiences.
• More of an animal on the court.
  I play much better basketball. Starting to score in the 20s and up in church games – like when I was in my teens.
• More of that inner “umpf”.
  There will be times when I’m doing pull-ups when I want to just stop and other times, I’ll have that inner “umpf”, that mustering of all your energy to squeeze out that last rep. I like that energy.
• Eczyma gone (big).
  A bit thing for me was this dry, itchy  crackiness on my hand. One day I did a pull-up and a drop of blood squeezed out of my finger due to the pressure of holding the bar. That was a defining moment – to figure out wtf was going on.
• Deeper, nicer sleep.
  I get tired at night, which is really nice. I can feel the “want” to sleep. Not a crashing that comes after a sugar binge, but a natural one of those I-know-I’m-gonna-conk-out-nicely kinds of sleeps.
• Patchy sunspot on face half gone. 
  
  The left side sunspot patchiness on my face, not a big deal, cleared up and the other side is clearing up too.

Getting leaned out in the mid section. End of 2013.

Some great resources:

• Mark’s Daily Apple – Primal lifestyle with lots on Paleo nutrition. Great book: Primal Blueprint. Go Mark!
• Whole 9 Life – their book is great too: Whole 30.

In summary

I’m very confident I’m doing something right with nutrition by following paleo styles of eating.

I’m sitting here, yes at Starbucks in Massapequa, my home office and I’ve found a source of positive energy that was, a moment ago, a source of energy drain.

I’m working on a digital product and there’s this woman sitting in front of me. Without paying much attention, I sensed she was feeling down, uncomfortable, and need distraction, peace of mind, something to set her at ease.

I gave her my sketch pad and invited her to draw. She drew two pictures of women, sketches. Not bad sketches, but her face was lit up like a child. She was very happy, 10 minute later. I felt good about it and was a little surprised by how fast she changed. Nice.

Then, as I built my product, I need take some shots of myself. I had her take them with my iPhone. 20 minutes later, lots of fun, we had a bunch of shots. That’s when I figured out she was down on her luck in life. Down or experience change, etc. Who am I to decide down or up or whatever.

I got uncomfy. She asked for my number and started talking a about spending time together and I got a little weirded out. Those were my reactions. I thought she was going to be trouble for me, needy and seeking someone to support her … all kinds of thoughts. I felt like I had to get out of there. I’ve had friends in the past who latched on to me and I felt very bad/odd/weird. I don’t fully understand it, but it was what it was.

But, this is where it got fun. I hope we can call this spiritual development or a higher state of being for myself. I didn’t do anything special, except just realized that whoever she is, she is and it’s her life, not for me to judge. Just the same, my feelings and thoughts, the weird ones I was having, were mine. I felt a detachment from it  - a watching over them and a seeing of the situation from 10 feet away as if it were a tv show.

Then I stopped feeling weird and started feeling good. I bought her tea and got her almonds for being my photographer. She felt great about it. A calm and ease came over me. A burst of good energy filled me.

Of late I’ve noticed two states of being I can classify myself in:

1. Fear, worry, concerned, confused state, and

2. Calm, easy, loving, energetic, happy-to-be state.

And I’m noticing a better ability to be/move/stay in #2.

Nice if it can be an instant choice whenever I want.

Ever been in a similar negative state? Think it possible to turn it positive? By choice? Practice? Perspective? Anything along this lines come up for you? Love to hear about it. Comment below.

On the odd occasion that I meet a coach in person and get asked if I have a business card, I have to say no and give my excuse, “I do all my business online. Never network in person.” And then proceed to take their email address or give them my website on a napkin.

As I move to network more offline to build up my personal circle of friends and as I explore more advanced social media marketing strategies (just picked up Shama’s book, the zen of social media marketing), and well yeah, for the funny helluvit and geekyness, I made a social card – a “me” card.

I am finding it awkward and tough to share contact info given the whole world of options available and that Facebook’s search sucks. There should be an easy way to connect with someone via just 1-click on your smartphone. Like a proximity connection tool on Facebook that will show you the face of people near you so you can just both click accept.

Here the “me” card.

I did it at VistaPrint by simply uploading an image that I added text to in Photoshop. I chose a glossy thick card stock. The flimsy stuff is just so flimsy. All in all, with shipping, it was about $25 and I got 100 cards.

This social card simply sends people to my site, phone or email. My personal site is the one you’re at, k3nn.com, and will give anyone the round about of what I’m up to and easy ways to get in touch.

Nerdy? Tacky? Narcissistic? Smart? Fun? Savvy? Heh. I was gonna put, “professional friend” as my personal title but wimped out.

What goofy, fun, playful title would you give yourself? Comment below!

1. Fast to setup.
2. Easy to update.
3. Is low cost.
4. Boasts your benefits.
5. Elicits action.

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Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book.

It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.

Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book.

It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.