jstogdill

For the record, I think pies are awesome too. Now that I eat them so rarely, I think so even more.

I've read it and found myself nodding a lot while I dug through it. However, I felt like his points were scattered and, what am I trying to say here, a bit instinctual. I found myself instinctively agreeing but thought that his points were mostly assertions without basis.

You aren't the first to mention that, and it's a good point. But I am not just day dreaming when I'm not looking at my phone or whatever. I spend a lot more time with people these days, and I'm loathe to pick the damned thing up when I'm with them.

Wow. Cool story. I assume you've seen the PBS special "Alone in the Wilderness"

True. Those are good points. I'll just say the piece isn't really about paleo diet so I didn't make any effort to justify it there. I only mentioned it because my lifestyle choices wrt food got me thinking along parallel lines for my technology addictions.

I don't know if "paleo" is the answer. I'm not sure there is "an" answer. I do know that eight months into a significant lifestyle change my HDL is up, my LDL is down, my body fat is 13% (down from > 22%), I don't crash in the afternoon, and I'm wearing a pant size I last saw when I was 22.

Of course, none of that says anything about longevity - which is the primary reason I started my fitness and dietary changes. To address that question I'm cloning a thousand instances of me and will feed 200 vegan, 200 paleo, 200 atkins, 200 standard american diet...

Obviously I can't know with any certainty that what I'm doing is the "right" answer, all I know is that I feel good and am no longer manifesting the typical pathologies of the standard American diet. That makes me happy.

Yep. Great experiment. My thinking was also influenced by a book I read a few years ago. Better Off by Eric Brende published without irony, if I remember correctly, by MIT Press.

I think the question of balance is difficult if you really believe in addiction. For people that aren't addicted, moderation / balance is a great strategy. If behavior crosses into addiction the moderation strategy is much less realistic. That's the crux question for me.

I wrote that piece a few months ago when I was taking time off. Now that I'm back at work (I work for O'Reilly Media's Radar group) it's like being an alcoholic working behind a bar. I'm having a much harder time with it. I try to do intermittent fasting and I still won't touch my phone/email before about 10am - I even got a separate alarm clock so I wouldn't be relying on my phone for that.