Art of Manliness - Latest Comments in An Easy Health Plan and Workout Plan | The Art of Manliness

Re: An Easy Health Plan and Workout Plan | The Art of Manliness

Brian Bales — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 00:52:22 -0000

First off to anyone whining about not being able to run barefoot on hard surfaces or that being harmful you are just plain wrong. Barefoot running is great for your feet and you can run on hard surfaces without any problem. I speak from personal experience. I currently run about 5-8 miles in a week barefoot and other than the odd blister I have had no problems. Barefoot training has even improved my arches.

For anyone who enjoyed this article and wants to learn more I would strongly suggest you look into MovNat.

Re: An Easy Health Plan and Workout Plan | The Art of Manliness

DJ — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 16:44:52 -0000

True the cavemen did do most of these things, but they didn't live as long as humans (about 20 years actually) do now and the nutrition wasn't exactly balanced. They went into famine because they HAD too and there were no other sources of food, and as a result weight gain was near impossible. I'm also pretty sure that they suffered from atrophy and muscular diseases at times out of not having enough protein and nutrients to build it, not to mention the other diseases that they had then that are pretty curable now. Caveman life was likely VERY hard. It seems like de-evolution to go back to it.

Re: An Easy Health Plan and Workout Plan | The Art of Manliness

low-calorie-diets — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 23:50:59 -0000

Likely some good points about fad diets… but I’m not sure I want to look at someone who lived a hard life and mimic that.

Re: An Easy Health Plan and Workout Plan | The Art of Manliness

Rebecca — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 20:40:19 -0000

"The point being that rates of degenerative diseases (heart diseases, cancers, osteoporosis, arthritis, etc..) are low to non-existent compared with modern culture today."

How do we know that? In modern days people don't usually get the sort of diseases you mentioned until they are old, and cavemen in general didn't get anywhere near that old. Yes, there are people out there getting arthritis or what have you at younger ages, but I would blame that on obesity more than anything else. Certainly, being obese is not healthy, but is anyone arguing that it is? And if you remove obesity from the picture, how is the caveman healthier?

That said, I agree with a lot of the paleo diet stuff I have read, except those that are big proponents of cutting grains out of your diet entirely. Most of the advice in this article is common sense (or at least should be, though I suppose with so many fat people maybe it isn't).

Re: An Easy Health Plan and Workout Plan | The Art of Manliness

adam — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 16:42:40 -0000

@ Vu -The animals don't "man up," they just die.

The problem with all of this is that it is the cavemen themselves who adapted out of their lifestyle that we so highly value today. They created shoes, they created other things to make life easier. This is like hearing a caveman write an article talking about his wussy neighbors who are using stone now instead of wooden tools. The lazy pansies!

Looking back to an ancient culture isn't always the best answer. Yet, we can certainly learn from them. We don't need to become savages to do this. Let's just not put the cavemen on the pedestal. It's too easy to do that.

Re: An Easy Health Plan and Workout Plan | The Art of Manliness

cep — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 12:15:08 -0000

How long did cavemen live?

Re: An Easy Health Plan and Workout Plan | The Art of Manliness

Emily Fine — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 13:12:16 -0000

I'm gonna disagree with the people here posting those life expectancy figures of 15-35 here. I have a problem with this being an assumption of an unhealthy lifestyle because none of these people themselves have taken into account all the modern advantages that keep us alive to what we think is the norm now versus life for a caveman. We have climate control, hospitals, vaccines, government, agriculture and farming of our protein, and especially true in America, a fuckton of food going to waste in our garbage cans every day. We have developed all of these technologies, and although we are technically living longer, we have developed more diseases, more stressors, heart disease and cancers rising in number, war weapons to take out millions, HIV and AIDS, STDs and all of that.

You think that the cavemen way of life was so unhealthy? Look at the way we all live now.

Also, look at the infant mortality rates of then and now, and given the provisions we have these days to make sure every baby possible lives (in America, because America is the most current and more extreme example of this lifestyle).

None of these doubting commenters have paid any attention to these factors, as all they see is that distorted life expectancy rate. If half of the people here had to actually hunt down their daily meal, didn't have the current luxuries of air conditioning and heating, of running water and electricity, a lot of them wouldn't be alive to write their little comments here because they would have died at 35 :P

Can't see the forest for the trees, I swear. What you should take from this article is to avoid the modern things that do you more harm than good and learn from the survival skills of those who didn't have the luxuries you currently do, because to make it to 35 in those times versus now was a lot tougher.

Seriously.

Re: An Easy Health Plan and Workout Plan | The Art of Manliness

Vu — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 00:38:05 -0000

You're saying that cavemen never sustained injuries like sprains and stuff? Of course they did. Even animals today get those all the time, but they just grow a pair and deal with the pain instead of getting physical therapy for it. They didn't use those straps and stuff because they don't have them. The idea of natural body movements and everything does have merit but saying they never had injuries and stuff is just wrong.

Re: An Easy Health Plan and Workout Plan | The Art of Manliness

MIKE — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 12:06:09 -0000

another good book on the subject is NEANDERTHIN by Ray Audette... a little hard to find... i found a copy in Rite Aid! in 2000 AD i weighed 235# very overweight and followed this neander diet.. basically cut out bread bagels & concentrated on meat, veggies, fish etc and got more active... i didn't lift weights.. that would come later.. i just walked 2 miles everyday on my lunch hour, rented a plot at the local community garden, planted tomatoes, and peppers, herbs, and lost 70#... it took a long time but it stayed off.. i think the problem is we are trying to apply our way of thinking to the way our ancestors lived and thought 10,000 years ago.... kids didn't go to school so maybe breakfast wasn't the most important meal... i doubt strongly that women were constantly pregnant... most indigenous women know how to abort a pregnancy w/o going to a clinic if and when necessary... living to 35? maybe... but all evidence points to the fact that our ancestors had a much different view of death and the after life... physical death just came with the territory.... no big deal... just a transition to the "happy hunting grounds"... i am 62 years old... i run long distance.. i lift weights (bench press 265#), body surf, and was flattered when a man half my age asked how he could get a "flat stomach" like mine... i told him the first thing you gotta do is drop that Bojangles bag! Shaka!

Re: An Easy Health Plan and Workout Plan | The Art of Manliness

Pirate — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 16:58:18 -0000

@myo:

What about caveWOman? Would I be healthier if I were in a state of constant pregnancy and nursing from age 13 until 40? This article seems like just another way to say “Don’t eat junk and exercise more,” which is great advice… but the caveman comparison is just silly.

Ummm... Am I missing something?

The blog title is "The Art of Manliness", not "The Art of Personness".

I don't go to classical music blogs and complain that they're not addressing heavy metal issues. Doing so would make me sound pissy and like I was looking for something to complain about.

I'm not trying to say you're being a griefer, but... actually no. That is what I'm saying.

Doesn't mean you're a bad person, merely acting like a troll in this instance.

-Pirate

Re: An Easy Health Plan and Workout Plan | The Art of Manliness

Ron D' — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 12:08:38 -0000

Nice article. Great to hear some common sense. I'd be you are from Massachusetts. Your phrase "so didn’t" gave it away. My late old roommate Dave used to say "so don't I" all the time, and that is the only place on earth people talk like that...

Cheers.

Re: An Easy Health Plan and Workout Plan | The Art of Manliness

ryan barger — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 12:30:15 -0000

all awesome stuff, as usual. i personally am a big fan of crossfit (http://www.crossfit.com/) which advocates a great program of high-intensity conditioning workouts, olympic weightlifting, and basic gymnastics, in addition to similar ideas about diet. i'm going on the warrior diet for the new year.

Re: An Easy Health Plan and Workout Plan | The Art of Manliness

Chris | Martial Development — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 18:09:22 -0000

How do we really know that cavemen suffered from less chronic stress than we do today? I might argue that they had less "time to relax".

Re: An Easy Health Plan and Workout Plan | The Art of Manliness

Victor — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 10:55:12 -0000

Genetic Medicine is a new field of medicine that hypothesizes that diseases are byproducts of misadaptation of humans relating the environment. If we continued living as cavemen probably we would live free from diabetes, many cancers and other degenerative diseases. A good explanation of such diseases can be foud here: review of degenerative diseases.

Re: An Easy Health Plan and Workout Plan | The Art of Manliness

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Re: An Easy Health Plan and Workout Plan | The Art of Manliness

Myo — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 11:54:49 -0000

@karmazon -

What about caveWOman? Would I be healthier if I were in a state of constant pregnancy and nursing from age 13 until 40? This article seems like just another way to say "Don't eat junk and exercise more," which is great advice... but the caveman comparison is just silly. Why would you want to make people reject your message by delivering it in such a controversial way? And breakfast IS important. Kids who eat before school consistently retain more and test better. That has to mean something.

Re: An Easy Health Plan and Workout Plan | The Art of Manliness

Wylde Brumby — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 10:02:59 -0000

I think that this concept of "average lifespan" being increased since the 1920s is false. Do abortions count towards calculations of the "average lifespan"?

Walking on flat surfaces, pavement,etc is like isolation exercises for certain muscle groups. At least Cavemen walked on uneven terrain that promoted all muscles in their feet and legs to work together (Anybody see how walking on flat surfaces for most of your life could put unnatural stresses on you spine?).

Re: An Easy Health Plan and Workout Plan | The Art of Manliness

Chris — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 21:27:24 -0000

Breakfast is actually as important as they say, especially when it comes to blood sugar and insulin levels. Our bodies' blood sugar levels increase naturally in the morning hours (believed to be an evolutionary byproduct allowing your caveman to get out of bed and go kill some food), and stabilize after eating. When we go without eating, those higher blood sugar levels can stick around into the early afternoon. Granted, eating four bowls of Cocoa Puffs probably isn't the way to go, but eating a healthy breakfast is a good thing.

Re: An Easy Health Plan and Workout Plan | The Art of Manliness

Rich — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 15:09:01 -0000

Jared Diamond has a fantastic article on how the lifestyle of hunter-gatherers compares with societies that have developed agriculture. The basic thesis is that until very recently in human history, hunter-gatherers have typically lead longer, healthier lives than humans in agricultural societies--except for elite members of society or those who live in white-collar, post-industrial societies.

http://www.environnement.en...

Re: An Easy Health Plan and Workout Plan | The Art of Manliness

Constantine — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 21:40:44 -0000

I agree with basically everything the author had to say excepting the portion about "working out naked" After more than a decade of organized football playing as a center, a few broken fingers and general wrist problems kind of come with the territory. When I'm deadlifting or doing power/hang cleans I need wrist straps to physically hang onto the bar; not to unnaturally improve my ability or avoid doing the work myself.

Re: An Easy Health Plan and Workout Plan | The Art of Manliness

Dennis G. — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 11:32:04 -0000

Just wanted to agree with this!
Crossfit is a great way to do it with Paleo and Zone diet!

Part of the reason scientist think cave men were healthier has to do with Bone density. They had the same bone density as pro athletes.

Also as mention earlier weight loss deals with Insulin levels. 25 present of the population have adverse effects to eating grains. Their body reacts with lots of insulin which tells the body to store the excess carbs as fat, which deprives the brain of the carbs it need so then giving you a carb craving putting you in a yo yo type situation.

But eating veggies, which are carbs, it puts the carbs in the blood slower so you don’t get the spike in insulin.

Re: An Easy Health Plan and Workout Plan | The Art of Manliness

Tristan — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 05:53:13 -0000

Overall, this article is good, but I think you've sort of shot yourself in the foot with the faulty logic that because cavemen were more healthy than us, anything a caveman would do is more healthy than what we do. I mean, cavemen also charged at wooly mammoths, I wouldn't advise people that charging elephants is healthy.
Any of the things you say in the article could well be true, but you should really explain why they're better, as opposed to simply appealing to the "cavemen were better" principle.

Re: An Easy Health Plan and Workout Plan | The Art of Manliness

Greg — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 11:23:10 -0000

"There was no jogging for hours at a time" have you ever heard of persistence hunting?
Where hunters chase the animals for hours at a time until they drop from exhaustion, then they move in for the kill?
Some scientists have even theorised that the reason we have such a large achilles tendon is precisely for long-distance running, and we are built for endurance running(Sweat glands,achilles tendon, better developed gluteus maximus then other apes)

Re: An Easy Health Plan and Workout Plan | The Art of Manliness

James — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 15:37:28 -0000

Well done Bo. You certainly are the eloquent one!

Re: An Easy Health Plan and Workout Plan | The Art of Manliness

Bo Pigpusher — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 13:02:37 -0000

Hey Michael ....

Whatever.