The fitness plan that encourages us to go back in time

The problem is many of us have already forked out money to join a gym or a local sports club and struggled to get into it. But what if there was a health and fitness plan which is not only fun but encourages the intake of healthy fats and avoids those punishing gym sessions?

Well, health writer and triathlon enthusiast Mark Sisson, author of new book The Primal Blueprint: Reprogramme Your Genes For Effortless Weight Loss, Vibrant Health & Boundless Energy thinks there is.

“I believe much of what we think we know about health, fitness and nutrition is wrong or misguided,” he says. Instead, Sisson believes we should behave more like cavemen. “We should model our diet, lifestyle and behaviours after our primal ancestors from 10,000 years ago, adapting them to the realities of a modern life.”

Sisson used to be an active endurance athlete, with experience in elite marathons and triathlons, but became disillusioned by the fact that his dedication didn’t seem to be paying off. “I was falling apart, perpetually sick, constantly hurting, and miserable. I had tendinitis, arthritis, and a host of other ailments,” he says.

“Yet my days were consumed with training. If I wasn’t running 15 miles a day, biking 50, and swimming laps, I was agonising over my impending workout session. It got to the stage where my home life suffered, and my social life evaporated or revolved entirely around training.”

In desperation, he looked into the history of human health to find something to suit the body’s original make-up. He developed a “primal blueprint,” instructions that allows people to control how their genes express themselves.

“Genes aren’t set in stone. They turn on and off in response to environmental cues, and these include diet, exercise, sleep, stress, sunlight, and a range of other inputs that we ultimately control.”

He says by providing what our primal genes expect we can attain stronger, leaner and healthier bodies. “Best of all, it’s not an epic struggle between will and temptation, because you’re giving your body what it wants.”

He believes eating well should be enjoyable, staying fit should be simple and that living without crippling diseases and prescription drugs should be the norm. But he points out that before making changes to our diet or exercise plan we should seek advice from a GP or trainer, especially those who have pre-existing medical conditions.

Sisson says that eating more fat and fewer carbs trains our bodies to burn fat and that having meat as part of a balanced diet is fine, as long as it’s not processed meat.

Eating well is one thing, but what about his idea of cutting the amount of cardio exercise we do? “Many people aim to do 45-minutes or an hour of high-intensity aerobic activity each day, to help with weight loss and heart health,” he says. “But when you spend an hour each day doing this kind of aerobic training, your adrenal glands secrete stress hormones as they assume you’re engaged in a stressful situation, like running from a predator or fighting for your life.”

This, he says, can drain the body of energy, which leads to increased appetite for quick-energy carbohydrates and encourages the body to store more fat.

He believes this should be a weekly, rather than daily, work out. “Whether you’re a casual fitness enthusiast or a professional athlete, you must establish a strong base of low-level aerobic conditioning before you can introduce more stressful, higher intensity workouts which should only be carried out once in a while,” he says.

“Substitute an hour on the treadmill, to try to maintain that elevated heart rate,or go for a long walk,” he suggests. “If you keep the pace light enough, you’ll never have to dip into your glucose stores, and you’ll burn body fat almost exclusively.”

Sleeping well also helps muscle building, but above all he says whatever activities we do we should enjoy them.

“Pursue challenges which turn you on instead of worrying about what the magazines say is the 
best workout or the marketing hype which glorifies extreme events, such as the marathon.

“Play and get physical, whether it’s doing sport or running 
after grandchildren, because 
it’s enjoyable, and remember there’s no reason why we 
ever should have stopped 
playing at some arbitrary 
age. Find, or rediscover, something you love to do and then do it.”