Dare You To...

Last week, my dad sent me a link to an article about Michael Pollan and the Paleo diet.  He knows that I'm a big fan of BOTH, so it made sense that he'd forward this to me, and I was eager to read it.

You can read the original article here: Michael Pollan Explains What's Wrong With The Paleo Diet"- The celebrated food author dishes on how to eat well: less meat, more microbes, and cook it for yourself.".  Based on the title, you'd logically assume that this interview was just that: The Great Michael Pollan going through reasons why the "paleo diet" is wrong.  If you read the full article, you may still think that. But, if you listen to the actual interview... you see this title is completely misleading.



First, I read the article (by Cynthia Graber), and immediately sent my reactions back to my dad.  To be clear, my gripes below are with the article's framing and titling, not with Pollan's arguments.

My initial email response:

----- Thanks, b…

TGIF!  Today we've got a variety of topics, so take your pick -- they're ALL insightful and informative. Enjoy and educate! 
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Mark Sisson asks, "Are You As Healthy As You Think You Are?"
Dare you to go beyond "better" in comparison to others and shoot for your own BEST.

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Think you know what you're eating?  Think again!   Fox uncovers some scary truths in "19 Foods That Aren't Foods."
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In a similar vein, BuzzFeed highlights eight foods and ingredients
that we eat here in the U.S., but are banned in other countries.
Learn more by clicking here!  (Why oh why oh WHY hasn't this caught on here??)

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Remember when we learned about proper posture?  There's a lot more where that came from! Check out these 15 Blogs Informing You How to Improve Posture in You and Your Kids.
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This moving TED Talk by Peter Attia urges us to question our
long-held assumptions, following this surgeon's lead as he overturns his own
prev…

OK, so you set smart goals, and made a plan. Did you stick to it?  Here's my recap from last week for running and eating.

Running
I resolved to get back into my running game. After a stellar January and a less impressive February, I started March off right by running my goal of 12 miles last week.  Remember I dared myself to run 3 times a week, and to cover 50 miles over the remaining weeks in March, back to my original 2012 resolution.

That Sunday, I got started right away with a 3-mile run.  It was actually really motivating, because I was able to run those3 miles without walking.  This is something that I've only done a handful of times (mostly on the treadmill and once on the road during a race), so I was surprised when, after a month of barely training, I was able to do this without too much effort.  Just got on the treadmill, turned on a podcast (this was new; I usually listen to music), and pressed 6.0.  When the 30 minutes was up, I was elated that I was still able to ru…

Confession: I titled and began a draft of this very blog post a month ago.
Confession: I never completed my own dare.


... until now.

Starting over: I must clarify that I was not one in the masses of copycats avoiding gluten, mistaking a serious medical condition for a diet-sabateur.  However, I was inspired by a number of sources explaining why wheat is bad for us.  Why we were not made to digest it.  Why it causes all sorts of problems within our bodies.  See Rob Wolff's website,  this Ted Talk, these hilarious guys, or a zillion (exaggeration) other recent studies, papers, and videos.  The idea is simply that our bodies were not designed to digest gluten, and some actually argue the same is true of all grains (and legumes, and dairy, and and and...)
So, I decided that maybe my own gastrointestinal (GI) problems(regular bloating, abdominal cramping)and skin maladies (hand eczema in extreme weather)could be relieved by a change in eating.

Soooo... great!  New dare!  Go a week witho…