Dan's Plan

female jogger courtesy of mikebaird via flickr

Last month we devoted some time to discussing different variations of paleo or evolutionary diets. We also wrote a bit about the importance of light and sleep/wake cycles and we asked whether your daily movement included kurtosis, or random deviations from your normal routine. Today we’ll try to tie these ideas together under the umbrella of ancestral or evolutionary health.

In 1973, Theodosius Dobzhansky published an essay titled, “Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution.” Indeed, evolution is the unifying theory of all of biology. Trying to understand the science of life in the absence of evolution is like trying to understand physics in the absence of Newton’s laws or Einstein’s relativity. Thus, it is imperative that to understand our own biology and health, we must consider how our species has lived over the course of thousands of years on this planet. This leads us to focus on evolutionary or ancestral health.

There is an organization called the Ancestral Health Society whose mission it is to, “foster interdisciplinary collaboration and translational efforts between scientists, healthcare professionals, and laypersons who study and communicate about the human ecological niche and modern health from an evolutionary perspective to develop solutions to our health challenges.” One of the key descriptors here is “from an evolutionary perspective.”

There are many potential angles by which one might approach ancestral health, but ultimately, they are all likely to be related to one another. A paleo or primal approach to diet involves eating as we might have done before the advent of agriculture. A paleo or primal approach to movement involves activities that might mimic daily labor such as walking long distances, climbing over barriers, and lifting heavy objects. A paleo or primal approach to sleep involves synchronizing your sleep/wake cycles with your environment, paying attention to how much rest you are getting, and recognizing the influence that light, temperature, and sounds can have on your sleep.

At the end of the day however, both in paleo times and now, each of these domains are interrelated. Food fueled movement and movement was required for procuring food. Lesson: we should eat according to our movement and move in response to our appetite. Likewise, a day of movement promotes sleep and a good night’s sleep permits more effective movement. Lesson: we should move for better sleep and sleep for better movement. Finally, a satisfying and nutritionally complete diet can promote sleep, whereas poor sleep is associated with poor dietary choices and weight gain. Lesson: we should eat (and drink) in ways that facilitate good sleep and we should sleep well in order to make better choices and promote hormonal regulation that will aid proper metabolism.

So, like many things in life, we find that there are important relationships that exist between areas that we might tend to think about separately. This is why we say it’s a lifestyle, not just a diet. Diet, or what you eat, is only one part of the equation. Applying the same evolutionary approach to movement and sleep completes the picture and yields success where diet alone has failed.

Photo courtesy of www.4wideracing.com/podcast/

Earlier this week Dan once again joined The BodyRx Show with Dr. Scott Connelly (creator of MET-Rx) and guest Dr. Layne Norton. This show was entitled, “Energy Balance: Is Your Brain to Blame for Weight Gain? (Regain After Weight Loss).” You can listen to the show on iTunes by clicking here.

Walking the dog courtesy of h.koppdelaney via flickr

Here at Dan’s Plan, there’s no secret that we are huge proponents of walking. As a means of transportation, movement, recreation, or social bonding, walking is a wonderfully versatile activity with a variety of associated health benefits. Below are five things that we think you should know about walking.

1. Jared walked a ton. I live about a half a mile away from the Subway restaurant that made Jared Fogle a popular spokesperson for the business. If you’re not familiar with the story (see the link above), Jared lost a ton of weight by eating at Subway, choosing healthier options, smaller portion sizes, and walking to and from the shop each day. Interestingly enough, you might only remember the “Subway Diet” from the Subway commercials. After all, it doesn’t really help Subway’s bottom line to promote smaller portions and walking, right? The takeaway though is that, “the Subway diet, combined with a lot of walking, worked for Jared.” This is not simply a disclaimer – it is likely the key to his successful weight loss.

2. You don’t need special shoes. Shoe companies like Reebok have been selling shoes under names like Easytone that they claim will strengthen and tone leg and butt muscles. Well, this past week the Federal Trade Commission called shenanigans on Reebok after a study out of Wisconsin by the American Council on Exercise showed that there were no differences between wearing normal running shoes and “toning shoes.” Guess what? Physical activity like walking helps tone leg and butt muscles. The good news? Reebok settled the case for $25 million, so if you have a pair of Reebok toning shoes that you’re not crazy about, visit the link above for a refund.

3. The health benefits of walking are many and varied. Here is a controlled study showing that walking significantly improved the quality of life of people with diabetes and peripheral artery disease. Here walking significantly improved the quality of life of people following heart surgery. And here, walking improved sleep efficiency for people with Alzheimer’s.

4. You can record, track, and display your walking effortlessly. Here at Dan’s Plan, we value and rely on data and on behavioral economic principles. It is difficult to know how your movement is changing if you cannot easily track and display it. We also know that keeping track of all that data over the long run is not likely to happen if it’s not simple and easy to do. That’s why we use tools like the Fitbit and the Suunto wireless heart rate and activity monitor to wirelessly track and record our movement. These devices even download and graph the data automatically for you – how much easier could it get?

5. Walking can even help improve our relationships. Here is an interesting TED talk (jump to 10:30 in the video to skip the introduction) about how taking a walk with someone can facilitate conversation and dialog. There is something about moving together side-by-side that allows us to feel that we are traveling in the same direction and not confronting each other. Walks are great opportunities for social bonding, working through problems, and better understanding each other.

So, today when you feel like you need a break from work or the kids, take a walk, either alone or with other people. You just might realize some of the mental and physical benefits of walking before you know it.