Monthly Archives: July 2014

Episode #30: Primal Thrills: An Excerpt From Award Winning Book, The Primal Connection

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Description: Mark Sisson is back this week with host Brad Kearns to bring you yet another essay style podcast. This time Mark will be reading you a special excerpt of The Primal Connection. This follow-up to The Primal Blueprint goes far beyond diet and exercise; delving into lifestyle factors like sleep, sun, and play and their contribution to optimal gene expression. Since it’s publication, The Primal Connection has won numerous awards, including the bronze medal in the Health category from Foreword Magazine’s IndieFab Awards, two silver medals (Health and Body, Mind, & Spirit) from the IBPA Benjamin Franklin Awards, and lastly, The Eric Hoffer award for best self-published book from The Eric Hoffer Project. The Primal Connection has also experienced a resurgence during a promo earlier this month, skyrocketing it to #4 on Kindle and subsequently landing it on the Wall Street Journal bestseller list.

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Episode #29: A Case Against Cardio Essay, Part 2

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Description: Mark Sisson follows up his essay reading last week with an engaging discussion with host Brad Kearns about the dangers of chronic cardio, and some tips to help avoid the drawbacks of chronic exercise patterns. Brad and Mark discuss numerous real-life case studies of elite athletes in endurance sports such as ironman triathlon and long distance running, who have suffered serious heart problems. Mark and Brad mention the tragic deaths of multisport athlete Steve Larsen at age 39 (heart attack while running), and Ryan Shay (heart attack while racing the US Olympic trials marathon), along with an assortment of other high profile athletes and their ordeals.

Mark presents a compelling solution in essay form, pulling highlights from some popular follow-up blog posts on the subject. Mark mentions eating Primally, downscaling the “filler” workouts that happen between challenging “breakthrough” sessions, and realizing that interval and sprint workouts can deliver a training effect superior to long-duration workouts, while also alleviating the risks of drifting into a chronic pattern. For a good takeaway sound bite, Mark reiterates a message from a popular post about burning a total of only around 4,000 calories per week during structured exercise sessions. This is a general rule of thumb that correlates with an impressive assortment of different types of workouts that develop broad-based functional fitness, and helps protect against the excesses of chronic exercise.

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Episode #28: A Case Against Cardio Essay, Part 1

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Description: Mark Sisson tries something new with this podcast episode, as he reads an essay based on one of his most popular posts ever on MarksDailyApple.com: “A Case Against Cardio.” The original post, published in June 2007, helped shed light on the concept that extreme endurance training can actually compromise health and increase disease risk. Mark published several follow up posts over the years on the topic of chronic exercise and the ways to avoid the stress and damage caused when exercise patterns drift away from optimal stress/rest balance and into the extreme category.

Mark’s essay covers the original landmark post, along with assorted commentary from follow up posts. For devoted fitness enthusiasts with passions for Crossfit, marathons, triathlons, heavy gym class participation, or even high-energy weekend warriors who are balancing exercise goals with hectic daily life, this is a very important podcast to absorb and ponder carefully how your own exercise and stress management patterns are looking these days.

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Episode #27: Liz and Farhad Mostaedi Talk Work and Life at Primal HQ

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Description: Host Brad Kearns talks with Primal Blueprint employees Farhad and Liz, who experience the Primal movement from its epicenter at the Malibu, CA company headquarters. Farhad and Liz discuss how working at Primal Blueprint has helped transform their personal health and fitness, and how they support and motivate each other accordingly—successfully managing the frequently problematic task of integrating one’s significant other into Primal living (as Farhad said, “She said, ‘We can’t have bagels in the house anymore’…and I said, ‘Uh, okay’).

Farhad and Liz also provide a touching and romantic account of how they seamlessly evolved from respectful co-workers to becoming engaged in a short time period….thanks to Liz being the solo attendee (out of a dozen invited co-workers) to Farhad’s art show, and a riot and a rainstorm one crazy night in downtown Los Angeles.

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Episode #26: Introducing Dr. Cate Shanahan and The Primal Advantage

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Description: Mark Sisson interviews Dr. Cate Shanahan to discuss the launch of the exciting new Primal Advantage metabolic consulting program. In this podcast, Dr. Cate discusses her work with elite athletes, such as Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers; how your dietary choices affect your metabolic function (especially how adding oft-ignored food categories like bone broth can help improve joint function); how mainstream medical care essentially ignores the role of diet in promoting health and preventing disease; how the Primal Advantage can help everyone, from athletes stuck in a performance rut, to people who have sustained significant metabolic damage from years or decades of poor food choices, or even people with serious medical issues taking Rx drugs.

To be clear, while Cate is a practicing family physician in California, the Primal Advantage is a metabolic consulting service that cannot be construed as a formal doctor’s appointment (due to the remote nature of the interaction). However, the Primal Advantage allows Dr. Cate to work 1:1 with clients interested in improving their health, increasing energy, and minimizing disease risk factors through personalized metabolic consulting—while honoring the Primal/paleo/evolutionary health principles. This is a unique opportunity to engage with a Primal-friendly doctor instead of feeling the disconnection that is common when visiting mainstream practitioners.

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