LiDona Wagner

Re-Sculpting Your Body

Recently I gave up eating grains. In three weeks, I lost three inches from my waist. It was attending a health presentation that upended my food assumptions. I learned that when it comes to the shape and health of our body, our ancient ancestors, the hunter-gatherers from whom we’ve all descended, have wisdom to share with our ultra-modern culture.

Some of the research we were shown compared the diet and health of hunter-gathers with that of the contemporary American family. It seems that once societies become affluent they move to a grain-based diet that reduces the quality of their health. I’m not just talking about the skyrocketing obesity in the United States, but the diabetes epidemic in India.

We can blame the success of the agrarian revolution 10,000 years ago for both the amazing cultural advances that settled life produced but also for the decline in our health. Our bodies are the product of hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, most of which were spent hunting, fishing, and gathering fruits, berries, vegetables and nuts. During the last 10,000 years our bodies have confronted a more sedentary lifestyle and the geometric expansion of a grain-based diet. We are now seeing the results from the last 10,000 years and they are not pretty.

The presentation included evidence that twenty minutes a week of high intensity training (HIT) will do more for your fitness than hours of workouts in the gym. HIT is geared to build muscle. Muscles burn calories, especially from protein and fat. So building muscle begins to use up all the fat that your body stored from carbohydrates in preparation for days and weeks of famine that modern societies do not confront with the regularity that our ancestors did.

Along with giving up grains, I bought the book, 21 Day Total Body Transformation by Olympic athlete Mark Sisson to learn how I could do the high intensity training. I was relieved to learn that I don’t have to go to a gym. I get most of the basic exercises recommended by Sisson in my yoga classes: push-ups, planks, and squats To do pull-ups I have to go to a nearby playground once a week.

I have no idea how long I can keep this going, but so far it’s been fun to watch the physical changes in my body. Right away I began to notice an increase in energy. I no longer felt slow and sluggish. Next I saw my midriff begin to shrink. Then it was my sagging belly. Now it’s my hips. Then the stiffness in my right hip diminished, allowing me to move gracefully from lotus position to child’s pose for the first time in three years. Now I’m noticing diminishment of the chronic pain in my right arm caused by a vein that chemotherapy caused to atrophy.

Over the last three years, stress at work has taken a physical toll on me. While I don’t expect the gray hair and wrinkles in my skin to disappear, if I can get my waist size into a healthier range and regain the vibrancy that I have enjoyed in former years, I will be a very happy camper. The path I have laid out does not involve scales. To gauge the success of becoming a modern day hunter-gatherer, I am going purely on measuring my waist, seeing how my clothes fit, and improved energy, flexibility and strength. I'd love to hear about your latest health discoveries.

Berries, nuts, and plenty of veggies to all of you!

Images from Google: Savannah Hunters, Cave Art, Nollman Hunter, Veggies