Stone Age Power

Stone Age Power by Matt Metzgar is a good primer and tutorial on the Primal Lifestyle.  The book begins with a more philosophical discussion and becomes more practical advice as it continues.  Although I do not adhere to the primal school of thought, I agree with many of its recommendations.  This book helped me to better understand the primal philosophy and I picked up some useful information as well.

I have read Matt Metzgar’s blog (www.mattmetzgar.com) for some time and recently noticed that he had a free e-book on the site.  You can download it from here; a link can also be found on the right side of his website.  Remember, it is the right price–free.

Matt opens the book by laying out his philosophy.  He feels that one can improve his health by adding variety to his life and trying to mimic the lifestyle of stone age peoples.  The general principal behind the primal lifestyle is that mankind evolved for a long time before agriculture and we are only a little removed genetically from our stone age ancestors.  Our bodies have not adjusted to the changes which have developed since agriculture not to mention the rapid rate of change since industrialization.  Consequently, by mimicking the lives of our ancestors, we can improve our health mental and physical health.

Related to the stone age life is the principle of variety.  Metzgar brings up a term I had not heard before: “Dynamical Diseases.”  These illnesses, such as epilepsy and Parkinson’s, arise when the body becomes to ordered.  It is healthy to have some chaos in your life; to have to adapt to change.  This is actually how the body is designed to function.

Matt then talks about diet and exercise.  Developing these topics involves investigating how cave men would have lived and determining how close we can come in the modern world.  Lean meat, fish, vegetables and nuts are promoted as being in the cave man’s diet while dairy, grains, and processed foods are to be avoided. Apparently stone age people work (exercise) around 20 hours a week on 1-4 nonconsecutive days.  While we do not have this amount of time available, we can still perform a similar but less time intensive version.

While discussing diet, Metzgar brought up a topic I had wondered about before.  What happened when people switched from the hunter/gatherer lifestyle to agricultural living?  The new farmers did not become fat, but they experienced more disease and had weaker bones.  The changes in diet also happened gradually as grains slowly elbowed lean meat out off the dinner table.  The gradualness of this process helped me understand why their deteriorating health did not motivate people to return to the hunter-gatherer lifestyle: by the time they understood what was happening they were unable to return to their previous lifestyle or they may have forgotten that better health ever existed.

An interesting part of Matt’s chapter on exercise was his discussion of dancing.  Dancing plays a large role in primitive cultures as a means of socializing, enjoyment, mating, and staying in shape.  I have done Irish dancing in the past and and gotten both entertainment and a workout from it.  Dancing is a fun workout not like a hard basketball practice which leaves you feeling nauseous.  I think most people in the world dance more than Americans.  When people have free time (and their religion does not prohibit it) they always dance.

Metzgar’s chapter on lifestyle brought up some topics which I have known about but not given much thought.  He discusses three ways in which the modern lifestyle goes horribly wrong: stress, sleep, and sunlight.

• Stress:  In the stone age people worked around 20 hours a week.  Their periods of stress even if intense were short and brief.  Overall they had a low stress lifestyle compared to today.  People often talk about “how easy” we have it today.  I did not live 1000 years ago, but I think in many ways people in the stone age lived a much easier life than modern folk.  Today many people take pride in their high levels of stress.  They faux complain about all of the difficulties they have and all of the responsibility they carry as a way of bragging.
• Sleep:  People slept more when their only artificial light came from flames.  In fact, stone age people may have bordered on getting too much sleep.  Today we do not get enough sleep and again I often hear people boasting complaining that they only sleep X hours per night.  We should instead brag about how much we sleep per night.  Your life is far better when you are rested.
• Sunlight:  If we listened to the experts today, we would spend our entire life in underground caves swimming in vats of sunscreen.  Dr. Mercola was one of the first people I heard discussing the need for sunlight.  I have always been somewhat confused because I have a hard time reconciling the need for sunlight to make vitamin D with sunlight’s links to skin cancer and leathery skin.  Metzgar’s hypothesis, which seems reasonable, is that we need to regulate our exposure to the sun.  Primal peoples avoided the hot part of the day and did not get sun burned; they got a tan from frequent low level sun exposure.  We need to get into the sun without getting a sun burned.  This is the key to healthy relationship with the sun.

Metzgar concludes with chapters on weight loss and exercise and diet plans.  I was really struck by this theory behind weight loss.  He advocates making your weight loss goal large enough so that it will be noticeable then using  the feedback from showing off your improved body as your motivation.  I think this is a good idea, but it will be a hard sell in the modern world where it runs counter to polite thought.

The goal of weight loss to to become attractive to the opposite sex; to be more beautiful.  This runs counter to the propaganda we hear today about how everyone is perfectly beautiful just the way they are.  It doesn’t matter what size or shape you are, you’re beautiful.  I agree that if you are a human being made in God’s image you are by definition beautiful, but everyone must admit that (in general) most Americans will look much better if they lost weight.  There is always too skinny, but in general most people need to lose weight AND becoming more sexually attractive is the main reason why people embark on weight loss programs anyways.