Did you eat one too many easter eggs? Yeah, me too! Once you start it’s difficult to stop, I was 41 the weekend too and so I had a proper blowout which means I’ve put on about 2kg over one weekend. It’s temporary weight, and mostly water as my glycogen stores have been filled to the brim (glycogen is sugar in a form that can be stored in muscles and they facilitate holding on to water too). My stomach is also processing what I put in to it, and there’s probably a bit of fat stored too. So what! I’m not going to beat myself up over it, I let my hair down and became the squirrel again for a couple of days. Human beings are entitled to celebrate.
The trick is not to celebrate every day, but unfortunately some of us do this and it’s because of powerful marketing and recipes that trigger primal instincts within us, that kick off an inner dialog that basically talks us into eating things we know aren’t great for us. That’s the challenge of modern society. Nature used to moderate foods for us by season, but nowadays we have everything available at all times, which is what I mean by the infinite autumn we live in. It is up to use to simulate the natural environment we are designed for, if we want to be the healthiest versions of ourselves.
Easter eggs, they’re lovely with coffee and I savoured them and the chocolate melted with each sup… yum! But why is this so nice, why does it make me feel so bloody good when I eat it? My understanding of this is the ratio of fat/sugar/protein, about 50/40/10 in terms of calories, which almost exactly matches human baby milk!!! I term this the squirrel formula because it also matches the food environment of nature in Autumn time which primes us for fat storage. There are so many processes kicked off by this formula, it makes you tired, makes you feel good, and makes you store fat. Think about this, when an infant is nursing in mother’s arms, they feel good, get tired and store fat. We might not be babies anymore, but we sure as hell are human beings and our brains and bodies are wired in a particular way, some things are fundamental.
In spring time, there are practically no carbs, we would have had to work hard to get food at this time of year, fishing, hunting, scavenging, even to pick leaves and whatever vegetation was around we would need to work. Nature made us so that we would be optimal to work with her during these times. It was easy in autumn, tough in spring, we became lethargic and put on weight in winter, and became active and humming machines in spring. Perfection.
The balance is lost today because we live in a permanent autumn where we don’t even need to exercise, so we must simulate our ancient environment through eating well and exercising daily. This does not mean torture, it should be fun, and nothing is more fun than looking good and feeling great.
So if you’re feeling bad after the weekend, don’t do that to yourself. Understand that it’s primal, and make a conscious effort now to put it behind you and get out there today and start afresh. I’m putting on my rollerblades now to go out for a skate and work up a little sweat while having fun and i’ll enjoy my food today.
My strategy for eating is eating seasonally every day, because all foods are available at all times, I give myself the perfect amount of carbs a day for my body’s requirements and then I can hear what my body wants other than that because I haven’t set off the autumnal instincts. Once the noise of sugar (and sugar is both starch and sweet stuff) is gone, I can hear the nutrients I want through my appetite. This is part of our design.
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