What Aikido Means to Me and how it Relates to a Paleo/Primal Lifestyle

Long time no write.  Life has gotten in the way.  I’ve been busy with work and family functions this summer.  In fact, I just had a reunion in Chicago on the 20-22 of July, which was lots of fun.   Anyways, back to what I wanted to write about and it’s not about how my diet is going or even explicitly about the Paleo lifestyle. It’s about Aikido, the Japanese martial art founded by O-Sensei, Morihei Ueshiba.
In early May, I started to seriously looking into re-joining the same dojo I belonged to in my adolescence, Aikido of Madison.  I had just gotten a new job as a meat and deli clerk and could now afford to pay the monthly dues.  Even though I wasn’t a complete newbie, I still had to watch one class just to make sure this was what I wanted to do.  I didn’t officially start until June and am I glad I did.
One Sunday in either late June or early July, I don’t remember  which, I had an incident at work that made me realize just how much I needed Aikido.  It was a busy Sunday, and I didn’t get a chance to take a break to eat.  That’s six hours without food.  A little too long.  This made me grumpy and not exactly cooperative.  In fact, ten minutes before my shift ended I was trying to slice some roast beef to eat, but customers kept coming up to the counter to buy things. 
Thinking customer comes first, I kept leaving the roast beef in the slicer to go help them.  That’s not the case (pun intended).  A senior employee kept trying to wrap the meat and put it back in the case so flies would not get at it.  After some back and froth of me taking it out and him putting it back, I got frustrated and charged at him to grab the roast beef.  Not the smartest move, but all my stomach cared about was getting some food.  Now I know you put the lunchmeat back in the case right after you slice it and that going six hours without food is not good.
Upon further reflection, I realized how important Aikido was to me.  I needed a more appropriate outlet for that kind of energy.  Since I’ve started regularly going to Aikido classes I’ve noticed I feel lighter and calmer than if I don’t get to class.  I try to get to class at least twice a week, sometimes three, but I’m still not sure as to what the upper limit should be.  Don’t want this to turn into chronic cardio and get burnt out now do we?
This brings me quite nicely to my next point.  Having checked out The Essence of Aikido: Spiritual Teachings of Morihei Ueshiba from the library, it talks extensively about how the center or core of one’s being is the belly and that all energy or Ki should flow from there.  With all the research, I’ve done in the past year and a half on diet and exercise, particularly that on the importance of a healthy gut, I had an epiphany.  The scientific evidence for O-Sensei’s and many other martial arts masters’ teachings is starting to present itself.
Finding and having a strong core or center is essential to practicing Aikido or any martial art.  I believe this applies not only to external organs, but to the internal organs as well.  In other words, it’s not just about having strong muscles, but a healthy digestive track.  There is an enormous amount of evidence suggesting that digestive health plays a much larger role in overall well being than previously thought.  The gut is considered by many scientists to be a second brain.  In fact, there are more serotonin receptors in your belly than your brain.  Chris Kresser at chriskresser.com has written extensively on the subject.
That being said, if I am understanding the context correctly, your gut is your center, so you’d better make sure it’s healthy.  For me, that’s where Paleo/Primal eating comes into play.  Eating only real food, not the processed crap that crowds most grocery stores, that’s the food around the edges of the store: the produce, meat, eggs and full-fat dairy (if you can tolerate it). 
Here’s the kicker for most:  no grains.  Yep, you heard me right.  While, kicking the added sugar and processed foods makes sense, many don’t understand that despite what we’ve been led to believe grains, even the “whole” grains are actually what I call “poisonous food-like substances”.
If having strong core or center is imperative to good Aikido practice, why should anyone stuff themselves with the digestive track eroding anti-nutrients found in grains, legumes and to a lesser extent nuts, dairy, and nightshades?  We are talking about lectins and phytates.  I’ll start with lectins.  Lectins are particles that attack the villi or lining of the small intestine, making nutrients harder to absorb.  Mark Sisson at marksdailyapple.com has an excellent article on the subject:  http://www.marksdailyapple.com/lectins/#axzz22PZewESx
On to phytates or phytic acid.  These little buggers bind to nutrients also making them harder or near impossible to absorb.  Kind of hard to have a strong center if your body isn’t getting the nutrients it needs, isn’t it?
As an example, on my birthday, a week and a half ago, I went down a little hard on the mat and scraped my elbow.  Funny thing is, I don’t remember any blood and the wound had scabbed over by the end of class.  There’s no way, this could have happened had I not been eating a mostly Paleo/Primal lifestyle and therefore having stronger center.
-Sayonara

A Change in Plans

If you may recall, I'm supposed to be doing gettinstronger.org's Deconditioning Diet.  Well, guess what?  I have decided to discontinue it.  It was getting to time consuming and I think I was becoming a little to obsessed with food as a result of starting the craving log(which I haven't used in several weeks).  I just wasn't liking how this "diet" was making me feel and it took me away from one of the original reasons I went "Primal" in the first place; learning to really listen to and be in tune with my body and not always be obsessing over food.  Just eating when I'm hungry, stopping when I'm full, and what my body's supposed to eat.  What it's really telling me it wants.

I had better luck not being so hungry simply following the Primal Blueprint way of eating than with this Deconditioning Diet!  So, I think it's time to return to the basics of a Primal/Paleo lifestyle with a few tweeks (thanks to Healthy Skeptic's Chris Kresser to hopefully clear up my skin issues).

There's a blog post (more of a podcast, really) on his website about clearing up skin conditions by healing your gut.  It's a rather good post which talks at length about the brain-gut-skin axis and the importance of having a healthy gut lining and flora.  Did you know that the is considered by many scientists to be like a second brain?  80% of your serotonin receptors are in your gut, not your brai!

Anyways, back to the reason I brought this up in the first place, my eczema.  In this podcast, Kresser has what he calls his "Gut Healing Protocol".  It's basically a Paleo/Primal with no dairy, nightshades, FODMAP foods, minimal insoluble fiber, and lots of choline rich foods (bone broth in particular).  I think the Paleo part is pretty self-explanatory.  It's been well documented that eating grains with their anti-nutrients that attack the lining of the small intestine and lock onto nutrients making them harder to absorb, can not be good for one's digestive health.  Also, eating processed foods and too many unnatural simple sugars is also not good for ones health (diabetes, etc.),

No diary makes sense for me because of the lactose and casein issues I have.  The only exception on this rule is Ghee or clarified butter.  For those who don't know how wonderful or what ghee is, it's butter with all the lactose and casein removed.  I recently got some and have been using it to help my coconut oil last longer.  No nightshades (potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and mushrooms) also make sense because of the small amounts of neurotoxins that can build up.

However, FODMAP was an acronym I'd never heard of until I listned to this podcast abd whose meaning escapes me at the moment.  But, apparently fruits and vegetables with excessive fructose, fructans (still don't really understand what those are), and polypols can cause gut problems for some.  We shall see if such is the case for me.

Another thing I've started to notice is that I'm being increasingly drawn to a more strict Paleo diet.  I'ver been following (for the most part) Mark Sisson's "Primal Blueprint", a less strict version of the Paleo diet, for almost a year and it has helped me out a lot with loosing 85 pounds and keeping it off.

However, some skin issues have come up, mainly ezcema that I'm wondering if a more strict Paleo diet will help cure.  I've gotten a steroid cream from the doc which I use twice a day and I also use a moisturizing lotion from Kiss My Face once a day.  My ezcema has improved quite a bit since using these, but I can't help but wonder if cruching down on my diet hasn't helped as well.  

I hope things continue to improve and clear up over the coming months and that I can move towards an even healthier lifestyle with this switch to a Paleo, as opposed to "Prima" diet.

Sayonara