Category Archives: Uncategorized

What happens if you don’t eat bread, or milk, or pasta…wil you die? 😉

Is there such thing as an essential carbohydrate? Well, no there isn’t! Your body can’t make fat, and it can’t make protein, but your liver can make sugar via a process called gluconeogenesis. Odd chain fatty-acids can be converted into glucose and that process can be your friend!

Your body is designed to utilize glucose in the blood as “fast energy” and once it runs out, it tasks the liver into producing more glucose through gluconeogenesis. Fat turns into sugar for use by the brain and other organs…that is a good thing if you are trying to lose weight. Why does restricting carbohydrates lead to weight loss? Simple, when you limit carbs your body has to turn to your fat stores to produce glucose. This is basic biochemistry, and if you choose to, you can use it in your favor to lose weight and be healthier. If you over eat carbs your body rarely has to utilize it’s fat to make glucose, and in fact extra glucose gets STORED as fat.

So, what’s your choice?! Are you going to utilize the pathway God gave you to burn fat for energy, or are you going to “lock” that fat in there by overeating carbohydrates? You can complain all you want about “just wanting to eat a sandwich” etc or you can understand the science of your body, and work WITH IT instead of AGAINST IT!

Pretty simple! Now, make your choice. And please, make the right one!

-Ernie

Check out my first YouTube Paleo cooking video!  In it you will learn how to cook a Paleo Moroccan Saffron Chicken. It sounds fancy, but it’s really old fashioned home cooking with a twist!  Simple ingredients, short prep time, fast cooking time, and a very versatile end product.  What’s not to love!

Like the video?  Please subscribe to my channel and be the first to know when a new cooking, or any other video is publshed on the channel.  Thanks for all the support, and I hope you guys enjoy!

I’m working on making the videos more advanced and professional, so give me some time while I learn more about what I’m doing and how to make things look the way that I want!

-Ernie

You do NOT have to be a prepper to know certain things, and this YouTube video reviews one of the most important tasks any homeowner should know how to accomplish.  Learn how to shut off the utilities to your house in case of emergency.  If there is some sort of emergency you need to know how!  Examples?

If there is an earthquake and natural gas lines are compromised, it is a real possibility that your home could be subject to secondary explosions or fires.  Shutting that gas off keeps your home safe…

If there is a compromise of the water system, whether it be from a chemical issue, or simple contamination from day to day occurances, isolating your home from the contaminated water supply can be of great benefit to you and your family.  Most homes have traditional water heaters, and those are excellent resoviours to keep potable water for your family in case of emergency.  This video both shows you how to shut off water to your home, and how to access that water from your water heaters.

Anyway, as I said, every home owner should know how to do this. It could save both your life and your property from serious damage in any emergency!  So go ahead, take 10 minutes of your life and watch the video.  You just may be glad you did one day!  And while you are at it, subscribe to my channel!  You just might learn from some of my other videos past and present.

-Ernie

People ask me all the time for “evidence” that the Paleo diet helps prevent chronic disease, and I have come to look at this two ways.  There are certainly scientific studies for and against this lifestyle, each with their own inherent biases.  So lets look at this very practically.

1)  Look around you.  Look at America, look at the world.  Look at the rate of obesity and diabetes, look at the rates of childhood obesity and diabetes.  Look at what we eat in America, how our diet has evolved over time to shift away from protein and fat and towards a carbohydrate based diet.  Look at the growth of the “health food” industry which is based primarily on cheap processed carbohydrates.  Look at the dramatic increase in diagnosis and incidence of auto immune disorders like lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, autoimmune thyroid disease.  Look at the dramatic increase in cancers around the world.  LOOK, open your EYES.  Do we have 100% definitive proof that our diet causes all this?  No!  But, what if, what if we are right.  What if the very logical link between what we eat and what we are seeing in the health of humans does have something to do with our diet!  What if…

God is pretty smart in my humble opinion.  He knew how humans would best introduce badness to our bodies…so he put 80% or so of our immune system in our gut 🙂

Want proof, open your eyes!

2) You want a study telling you how Paleo will make you feel?  Do your OWN study, just try it for 30 days.  In scientific literature the power of a study is largely determined by the number of patients in a trial.  I certainly agree.  But, when there is not clear defining evidence, my opinion is that the most powerful study has an “N of 1″…YOU!  So, certainly eating only meat, fruits, and vegetables won’t kill you for a month.  So try it, do your OWN study!  You’ll be glad you did

-Ernie

I recently opened a gym in the town where I live with two other like minded friends. (The Genesis Experience).  In the short amount of time we have been open we have already seen some amazing results in our clients.  All clients are taught the ins and outs of the Paleo Lifestyle, and also lead in fun group exercise sessions focused on functional based movements.  I wanted to share with ya’ll a recent post on the gym’s blog about one of our members…

“This month, our featured member is an Oncologist at a local practice in Alexandria. She tells us about her experience in deciding whether or not we were the right gym. The biggest obstacle to overcome when starting her journey was believing she could get herself out of bed, get dressed when the alarm goes off at 5 a.m., and fit in a workout in the early mornings before going to work.

Her mindset early on was to just “give it a try” for the first week. Little did she know by working out for an hour each morning she feels better at work, gets through the day more easily, coping with difficult situations are much better and has noticeably better sleep.

3 benefits of having a membership at The Genesis Experience is that she gets to share her experiences with her peers and feels our program is designed so everyone can manage the workouts, stick with it for a long period of time and see results quickly. After 2 months of working out, her clothes fit better and she has lost 5 inches overall.

So you know who we are talking about right? Ulla Knoepp! At age 63, she feels that she has accomplished meeting a goal to lose inches, eat better for her health, move her body and build strength and endurance. She has finally found a program which is very open with a lot of variety. Not only does she look and feel fantastic but as an insulin dependent diabetic, her need for daily insulin has been reduced by about 45% in the last 2 months.

Congratulations Ulla! Keep up the awesome work!

The Genesis Experience Staff

Look guys, Paleo works.  Functional CrossFit exercises work.  If she can do it, if I can do it, YOU CAN DO IT!

Greetings everyone! Ernie here, AKA the PaleolithicMD. You guys may notice some changes to the blog page, and I wanted to explain. First of all, I will once again start posting to this page starting TODAY! I’d like to explain my absence a bit, and also share my plans for the future.

My love of Paleo, and my following of the Paleo lifestyle has not changed a bit since I last posted. In fact, in the last year I have opened a local gym with two friends grounded strongly on the concepts of Paleo Nutrition. That said, one thing has…my kids have gotten older! When I started PaleolithicMD I put everything I had in to it, and it took a great deal of time. In fact, too much time. Regardless of any desires I have to advance Paleo from the medical standpoint, first and foremost I am a dad and a husband. With a busy medical practice, I simply did not have the time to dedicate to my blog and facebook page in that form and forum.

My passion for the Paleo lifestyle can only be overshadowed by two things: my commitment to Jesus Christ as my savior, and my commitment to my wife and kids to be the absolute best father and husband I can be. Over the years my family has steadily gravitated towards being outside more and more. Along with that we have started to enjoy as many outdoor activities as possible including hiking, backpacking, geocaching, canoeing, hunting, traveling, and generally just having adventures as a family!

Given all this, I have decided to get back on this page, and change the name to PaleoHikerMD.  This name encompasses it all to me.  I want to continue to share my experiences with the Paleo Lifestyle, but also my passion for all things outdoors.

What can you expect on the page? Continued posting about Paleo and it’s importance in overall health…of course! Pictures of my yummy Paleo creations?, yes! But, in addition, you will get more access to me as a dad, a husband, and an outdoor enthusiast. I now post Instagram under PaleoHikerMD and Twitter under the same handle (but if you already follow me there you will simply see a name change and nothing else. In addition I have started a YouTube Channel PaleoHikerMD from which I will post videos to this page. In fact, I will post several of them tonight so there will be a bit of a movie bomb in a few hours! Up until tonight the page was known simply as HikerMD, so that’s how I introduce myself in the vids. But, starting with the next one it will be PaleoHikerMD. I’m pretty excited about that.  If you don’t mind, and you are interested, subscribe to my YouTube Channel!  I have plans to publish a great deal of content, including videos on hiking, geocaching, backpacking, gear reviews, practical preparedness, disaster preparedness, fun with kids, and of course Paleo!  In fact, as I’m mainly doing videos now, I plan on doing a series on cooking where I share some of my favorite Paleo Meals!  Even if some of the other stuff does not float your boat, at least the cooking Paleo will 🙂

I will stop my rambling and keep working. I appreciate everyone who follows me, and I apologize for my absence. That said, I hope everyone can appreciate the pressures of being a father, and the desire simply not to miss a second of your children growing up. My hope and my prayer is that this new Page and Channel will allow me to continue my passion with the Paleo lifestyle, but include activities with my kids so that they come along for the ride. Thanks again to you all, and God Bless every one of you. Now…go eat some Bacon :))

Here are a few of the videos on my channel that will give you a good variety of what I am doing over there.  Thanks again, and I look forward to interacting with as many of you as I can in the months to come.

-Ernie

There is never a bad time for a Giveaway!…and this one is pretty cool IMO.

If you have followed me over time you may have read me mention an activity my family and I enjoy called Geocaching. What it is? Well, Geocaching.com defines it as “a real-world, outdoor treasure hunting game using GPS-enabled devices. Participants navigate to a specific set of GPS coordinates and then attempt to find the geocache (container) hidden at that location.” Basically, the point of the game is to find hidden treasure!

The website allows you to find caches in your area easily, and it is free to join.  There is an option for a Premium Membership at $30 a year that gives you access to more caches, and the app itself on iPhone or Android will cost around $10 one time.  As of this writing, there are well over 2 MILLION caches hidden WORLDWIDE.  Log on and check it out, you’ll be surprised to see what is just around the corner.

To play you find the cache you want to find on the net or on your phone, plug in the coordinates into your handheld GPS (or just click the “navigate to” button on your smart phone) and go to that location.  Once close you are at what we call Ground Zero, and it’s time to get looking.  Some are large and obvious, some are small and discrete.  Some are easily found, some take forever.  Some are easy to get to, some take a long walk.  Some are well hidden, some stick out like a sore thumb.  All are rated from 1-5 stars on Difficulty to find, and Difficulty of Terrain to reach it…that way you know what you are getting yourself into.  Once found you sign the log and record your find on the net or your phone which posts onto your Geocaching profile.  Larger caches have what is known as GeoSwag which you can trade.  Rules are simple: take something, replace it with something of similar value.  This is where the kids get very excited and mine love to trade swag and collect new things.  Here is an example of a cache of my own…And a few I have found recently.

Small bridge in the woods. It has several little support pieces like this one.

Small Bison Tube, just big enough for a log book. Gotta bring your own pen!

Can you see the Ammo Can hidden in the brush?!

Looks like an ordinary piece of wood near a stump right?

Flip it over and see what you find!

Another fun aspect of Geocaching is what are called “Trackables.”  These are items of your choice that you register at GC.com and assign a goal to.  You then release them into the “wild” and when found, they are logged as found, and moved on to another cache in hopes of achieving the desired goal.  Here is a link to one of my trackables named “One Nation Under God.”  It’s a good indication of how quickly something can move around the nation in this little underground society.  It’s fun to see your items move all over the world as it spreads from cache to cache.

So, why a post about Geocaching on my blog?  Simple…it gets you and your family outside.  My kids and I absolutely love heading into the woods to find caches nearby (although there are just as many, if not more in town known as Urban Caches).  We get time together, we see amazing new places we likely would have never found unless caching, and it gets us tromping around the woods staying active!  In addition, it takes on a whole new meaning when we are on vacation.  Finding new areas to cache in and searching out the most popular caches in that area has become one of the highlights of any family trip.  It’s something we love to do, and I believe strongly that if you try it, you will get hooked.  You’ll go to a beautiful location near your house and say “I can’t believe we have never been here” or “I had no idea this was here.”  Just try it and see!  Getting active, getting your muscles working, getting your mind working, creating quality family time, creating and hiding caches of your own…it’s all part of this wonderful game!

Lucky for you, this month may be the best time ever to start Geocaching for yourself! Geocaching.com is having a sweepstakes this month they are calling Gear Up For Geocaching! Three lucky entrants drawn at random will get a prize package with cool stuff from some of our favorite outdoor brands.  Each package will include some Swag (although this stuff is definitely better than anything you’ll find in a cache!) from Camp Chef, Mountainsmith, Greenlayer, 7eye, MHM, Kor, and Skratch Labs.  Also, each prize package winner will receive a one year Geocaching Premium Membership.  Three winners will be drawn and notified in early September. Share your stories and photos on Twitter @GoGeocaching with #GearUp.

Want more information? CLICK HERE! to visit the Geocaching.com Blog Info Page

Want to see an entry form? CLICK HERE!

So what does this have to do with you, and why am I mentioning it here??  The folks at Geocaching.com have given me one Premium Membership to give away to one of my readers!  To enter is simple.  Like my Facebook page and follow me on Twitter, once you do that comment to this post with your name.  At the end of the month one winner will be chosen at random and I’ll send you a code to cash in on your Premium Membership!

I’ll admit, not a traditional “Paleo” related giveaway, but I think it’s always good to mix things up a bit.  Living a healthy lifestyle is just is much about having fun as anything else.  If given the opportunity to stay active AND have fun, I’ll always choose both over one or the other.  I think you should to.  Step out of your box (to you CrossFit folks you can take that literally and figuratively) and try something new.  I dare you to go searching for a cache or two and not come back loving it.

I have no affiliation to GC.com, this all came about after one of their staff read a recent blog post.  He offered me a free Premium Membership in exchange for mentioning the sweepstakes on the blog.  I asked if I could just give it away, and he thought it was a great idea!  So here you go faithful readers, time to get out and go caching!

Well, it’s been around 8 months since I last posted, and I’m glad to be back! I’m sorry to all that I just kind of disappeared, but I hope this post explains what’s been going on, and I hope to be back to regular blogging now.

My wife and I have two beautiful children, now ages 4 and 7, and last summer we adopted a teenage family member from my wife’s side of the family. This child had been through a great deal in her young life including losing both her parents at a very early age, and being the victim of various types of abuse I’d rather not write about. To say that a teenager in the house changed things would be an understatement!

My life suddenly became very full, and any extra time I had was quickly eaten up by activities and working on moving our new child in the right direction. I won’t get into much, but I can tell you all it has been a very long year filled with highs and lows. My priority in life is leading my home in a Godly fashion, and given the new presence in the home, my roles quickly changed and required a lot more hands on approach. What did this do to “paleo”? It essentially put it on the back burner! Although I was able to maintain a primarily primal lifestyle, there were definitely more episodes of “stress eating” than I am used to having! It’s hard, if not impossible to try to teach someone all the lessons they need to live a good life in a matter of months, but none-the-less you try. In the end after approximately 9 months in our home, our adopted child decided to move back home out of state with her grandmother. It was hard to see her go, but I do believe God is in control and will guide her. It was a major period of growth for me personally, for my wife, and for our marriage.

As complex a situation as that was, it was only part of the story of the “PaleolithicMD’s” near demise. I’m not certain how many of my readers share my deep faith, but I am not afraid to say that my relationship with Jesus Christ takes priority in my life. I am a very blessed individual, and I try daily to give thanks to the one who blesses me through appropriate actions, attitudes, and commitment based on his teachings. One of the 10 Commandments states “Thou Shall Have No Idols Before Me.” So, what does Paleo have to do with that?

To put it plainly, Paleo became and idol. The PaleolithicMD became and idol! I started to prioritize my cooking plan, blog posts, twitter chatter, FB likes, Paleo networking, etc above my daily time studying scripture, as well as much needed time with my kids. I struggled with it for several months, and my loving wife called me out on it as gently as she could! Like many battles with pride, I did my best to ignore it. So what happened? The episode above happened! My home changed, my priorities were forced to change, and Paleo was essentially removed from my life for almost a year. I knew what I needed to do, I ignored what I should do, and God took care of it for me…

So why write about this? Well, first because I’ve been gone; second, because I’m human, and third, because it is a testimony to how you should not ignore where your heart leads you after deliberate prayer. I love my job, and one of the more important things to me is that I am always honest with my patients. Whether it’s me telling them the biopsy shows cancer and they are not going to live very long, or that the reason their test wasn’t done is because I simply forgot to order it, honesty is vital to a good relationship with my patients. Although you all are not patients, you do come here looking for some Paleo advice with a good dose of medical knowledge. I am who I am! I’m not perfect by any means… I’m human, I really like being human, and I want all of you to identify with me as fellow struggler in this thing we call life.

So where do I go from here? Well, my home has gone back to normal in the last few months, and slowly but surely my passion for the Paleo Lifestyle has been brewing up. More specifically, my passion for helping others through the blog has been rekindled. That said, I can’t make the same mistakes twice. So, I’m going in with some ground rules this time that I intend to keep!

1. I plan on having only one major blog post per week, likely on Tuesdays. Before I was putting way to much pressure on myself to blog every day or two (because of coarse the best way to gain followers and subscribers is to publish, publish, publish!). I want to enjoy this blog, have time to put together my posts, and not have the blog be a burden or distraction to my life.
2. I still plan on posting Twitter and Instagram posts frequently, so stay tuned to both those feeds for frequent pics of dinner at our house, and anything else I think may be the least bit entertaining of funny.
3. I hope to develop more recipes in the coming months and emphasize what really got me into Paleo in the first place…cooking food!

So there it is, a long winded explanation of my absence. If you understand where I’m coming from…thanks. If you don’t, sorry, but it is what it is!

One last thing, while you are here, check out my newest venture called The Genesis Experience. In a nutshell, it’s a two month Paleo/CrossFit program I’ve put together with two good friends of mine designed to “shock” people’s systems. Away with the SAD diet and gym visits to watch TV on the stationary bike, and in with Paleo education and eating combined with tri-weekly CrossFit workouts. Results have been awesome!

Thanks for listening, and I look forward to interacting with ya’ll on into the future.

Ernie Garcia

Just a quick note to everyone.  It’s easy sometimes to get a little lost as both a physician and a blogger.  Long days, long nights, all trying to get people to be healthier by making simple changes in their lives.  Many do not, but the ones that do keep you putting in the hard work.

I came across this post from Nancy at JustStartsWithMonday about her 4 month journey with the Paleo lifestyle.  I remember her post that many months back that she would have to “check into Paleo,” or something to that affect.  Well check in she did!  And just look at her results!!!  This is the kind of stuff that keeps me going.  If you are new to this blog, and wonder if it can work for you…just ask Nancy!  Talk to your doctor, check your labs, come up with a plan, and make a change.  It’s worth it…

-E