Get Wild — Stay Wild.
Healthy, Fit and Sexy You the way nature intended it. “The Wild Diet” by Abel James.
“Wild adjective (of an animal or plant) Living or growing in the natural environment; not domesticated or cultivated. Passionate, vehement, unrestrained. Untamed.
Diet -the kinds of food that a person, animal, or community habitually eats. “The native human diet.”
“It really isn’t that complicated — you just listen to your body and eat when you’re hungry. It’s great. I’m full of energy and feel fifteen years younger.”
“Whoa, Abel, you’ve put on a few pounds! What happened to you? Too many sweets, eh?” Nope — I was dieting harder than ever.”
“When I started my new “diet,” I did the opposite of what most well-meaning nutritionists might tell you. I chowed down on the most delicious and rich foods of my life — real butter, scrambled eggs, fresh veggies, rich meats, coconut, aged cheese, steak, and chocolate. I flushed my pharmaceuticals and called my mom, an author and herbalist, once a week to reincorporate adaptogenic herbs, teas, and tonics back into my daily habits.
HERE’S WHAT HAPPENED . . . The mounting health problems that I’d been told were just part of getting older — high blood pressure, heartburn, low energy, thyroid issues, insomnia, dry skin, acne, kidney stones, the spare tire, and much more — quickly improved. My sugar cravings, nagging hunger, and mood swings gently faded with each passing week. I began to feel a glowing energy and clarity that reminded me of what it was like to be a young buck in his prime. My double chin quickly receded, and my belly fat followed close behind.”
“In The Wild Diet, you’ll find that we are not meant to starve ourselves or count calories. We’re wired to eat and live well without getting fat. That’s what we’ve been doing effortlessly for thousands of years, in fact, before we started following the wrong advice.”
“If you think that you’re stuck with the genes you inherited and there’s nothing you can do about it, read closely. The Wild Diet paints a different picture, one in which we have the power to influence our genetic expression by taking control of the environment around us. As a testament to the healing power of fresh food and a good sweat, I’ve seen my family, friends, fans, and clients lose many hundreds of pounds, reverse degenerative disease, recover from cancer, extend their life-spans, and win Olympic gold medals using the principles you’re about to learn.”
THE SECRET TO FAT LOSS IN ONE SENTENCE
:Stay away from sugar and processed grains,
especially in the morning.
I’ve been into wild lifestyle for quite a while — eating the foods from a caveman menu. I don’t know what exactly cavemen ate, but their food for sure didn’t come pre-packaged, pre-cooked, treated with preservatives and chemicals!
My food.
My rule for wild eating — if I can recognize every ingredient in my food, if I can identify it, name it without having to know the names of chemical substances — I eat it. The simpler — the better. 2–3 main ingredients (maybe some spices and herbs on top of it), colorful, as fresh as possible, as local as possible, as organic as possible. The closer to nature, to wilderness — the better. Even my chocolate (that I eat daily) is just cacao beans cold-pressed into a chocolate bar, not 70 or 80 %, no, 100% cacao, nothing added, nothing taken away. — That’s how I eat most of the days. And that’s how I believe it worked for cavemen.
A caveman didn’t have a store with a huge variety of plant and animal foods available all the time. The food was of a few ingredients, that changed seasonally. Fewer ingredients are much easier to digest, absorb and assimilate — “you aren’t, what you eat, you are what you absorb and assimilate” — quote from a recently finished book “The Wild Diet: Back to Your Roots, Burn Fat, and Drop Up to 20 Pounds in 40 Days” by Abel James, the Fat-Burning Man. Book I decided to read after hearing about it in the interview with Abel on Zestology podcast with Tony Wrighton.
Wild lifestyle is not about food only. It’s about everything — the way we move, the way we sleep, the way we live daily.
My movement.
I sit on chairs close to never. I work on my computer standing (I don’t have a standing work station made, I get creative. I travel often and make it work no matter where I am). When I sit I prefer cross-legged position on the floor or sofa. When I’m out on social occasions I try to find places where I can sit on a couch cross-legged, or on the floor on some pillows, Asian or Middle-Eastern style. When waiting in a bank or any line, I never sit down, I stand reading a book or roaming around looking at stuff. Just like an impatient kid.
I walk wherever possible, sprint across the street or up a flight of stairs, jump on elevated surfaces — do all kind of fun stuff walking through the cities, it feels so good! City is my playground, not a place to wear my daily “mask and a uniform” that confine me to predefined borders. The right choice of clothing is essential. Comfort is the key! Style is important for me too though — I’m a stylist/image consultant, artist — I love things beautiful.
My sleep.
I sleep early, not always with the Sun but before 10 pm most of the nights, and I’m up in about 5 hours. I might take a nap during the day, especially if I have a heavy workout in the gym. I don’t use alarms ever. Sometimes I can sleep only 3 hours, sometimes 8 — I don’t force anything. When I feel like sleeping — I sleep. When I don’t — I don’t.
Same with eating. With movement. When I’m hungry — usually it’s once a day — I eat, when I’m not — I don’t. I might go a couple of days with no food sometimes.
My flow.
I’m a very flow person.
I do things when they feel right. Work, food, movement, social life, art — anything. Over the years I learned my flow and I create a schedule daily accordingly, but sometimes it just doesn’t feel right and then I switch the activities, the times when I do things. I do schedule my appointments and stick to them, stick to my commitments to others, but that’s all I stick to always. The rest is pretty much open to change, to life, to flow.
Living, eating, moving, playing, creating, working — for me it all has a flow nature. I don’t force it, I let it flow through me staying open and ready — taking care of my health — physical, mental, emotional, spiritual — that makes me ready to go when I get the call from the Universe.
What do I get from this wild flow lifestyle?
Off-the-chart energy, creativity and productivity levels, no blocks, or anything I can call stressful (because I know I’ll deal with anything life sends my way).
That’s me. Wild. In the Flow.
When we live like nature intended, wild, in the flow — healthy, fit, well, creative — all that comes kind of natural.
The book, “The Wild Diet” by Abel James, made me realize I’m not the only one who came to the same conclusion. The book is not only about food, “the diet”. It’s a whole wild package — diet, movement, sleep, wild cooking and shopping, wild living.
Contents of the book:
How “Healthy” food made us Fat and Sick
All about the lifestyle of our modern society, what’s wrong with it, why it causes problems, what to do instead, some history, stories, insights into food and marketing industries, how we got to the point where we are the sickest and fattest.
The Wild Body
How our body is designed to work, how we burn fat and build muscles, how we store fat, sex drive in relation to nutrition and lifestyle choices, our microbiome or gut bacteria, fasting and feasting daily, fasted exercise for rapid fat loss and muscle gain, circadian rhythms, other lifestyle choices like getting enough sun and sleep, sample menu on the wild diet program.
I especially liked:
HOW TO LIVE WILD IN A WORLD OF TECH: A CASE STUDY
Breakfast: The Most Dangerous Meal of the Day
HOW TO BEAT FALSE HUNGER
The Movement
All about the movement we were designed to do. Best workouts to burn fat and build/save lean muscle mass. Why hours of cardio are stupid and can be dangerous. Why we don’t need to exercise much to burn fat. Examples of workouts. 7-minute workout for maximum fat burning.
The Wild Diet
All about foods on the menu. Truth about fats and carbohydrates. How much one should eat. What kind of food is best and when. Fresh (RAW, Recently Alive and Well), organic, local explained — why it’s important. Importance of green vegetables. All about meat, foul, fish, eggs, dairy — it’s all about quality, how to choose the right ones. All about nuts and seeds, fruits, vegetables — how much, what kind, when is best. “Free meals” — time to indulge, how to do it.
Wild cooking. Meals. Recipes.
Cooking principles, methods, what to buy, how to prepare, lots and lots of recipes of meat and fish dishes, eggs, desserts, fruits and vegetables. Recipes for every day and for special occasions. This is the biggest part of the book not surprisingly.
The Wild Diet survival guide
Very useful chapter that talks about maximizing the food value of your dollar (how to buy, when and where), about how to eat out, how to savor meals, how to snack, how to hydrate, about wild diet for athletes, wild diet for vegetarians and vegans, for kids, wild diet for pets.
So much is covered in the book! It’s practical but also has a lot of mind-changing data about nutrition and modern lifestyle that made us sick and fat. Many interesting facts and stories.
That’s what I live, that’s my lifestyle there. I believe everyone needs this book to re-learn what healthy lifestyle is all about and why healthy is fun and simple, when you do it right.
What are the main steps of “The Wild Diet” you can take today to start the change?
Step 1: Toss the Low-Quality Food
First step to change your eating habits — get rid of all the stuff you are not going to eat. If you don’t eat it, why keep it? It’s as simple as that. If you leave it in your house — you gonna eat it, and you know it. So quit lying to yourself and toss it all. Have family? I don’t think they need garbage on their plate either.
Step 2: Shop for Great Food
Organic, Local, Grass fed, Pasture raised, Wild caught, Extra virgin, Cold pressed, Raw, Unpasteurized, Non-GMO verified, BPA-free — Learn these words and look for them.
Get the best quality of food you can afford. It’s not expensive, when you learn where to shop for good food and how — buy from local farmers, learn how to pick and store your food properly to maximize nutrient content and make the most out of your dollar. It all might take some time at the beginning, to learn, to change habits, but with the power of Google, not so much really. Change your stores, figure out where it’s best to buy food, ask friends, check out online local communities of healthy eaters and you are good to go. Soon you’ll be thinking, “Why didn’t I do that before?”
Step 3: Feast
Abel talks a lot about fasting and feasting. In nature we never ate on schedule. We would eat when we could, as much as we cared for. And we’d fast when there was no food — that happened often. We’d eat, when we were hungry and we’d fast when we were not.
Feasting.
Your meals should consist of mainly vegetables (not starches like potatoes only), some sort of protein (meat, fish, foul, eggs — any animal food should be the best quality, otherwise it’s more harm than good, unprocessed, good quality is the key), good fats that come with your protein and additionally from good quality oils and butters (olive oil, coconut oil, avocado oil, lard, butter, nut butter etc. — the key here, unprocessed, no trans fats, make sure oils don’t go bad), some fruit (the less sweet — the better) — berries are the best.
Step 4: Avoid These Foods
All white carbs: sugar, any products made from highly processed grains like bread, pasta, cereals. In general for carbs — you should be getting most of your carbs from unprocessed whole vegetables and low sugar fruits.
All processed/packaged foods
Liquid calories, any kind of. You can lose quite a lot of weight by getting rid of ALL the liquid calories in your diet — all the sugar in your drinks, all the juices, milks, energy drinks, shakes — ALL liquid calories. The only exception to this rule is high quality fat in your coffee — butter, coconut oil, good quality cream, but NO sugar calories.
Step 5: Exercise
The rule of Wild exercise is quite simple — move, as much as you can, sit as little as possible. Walk, stand, play, work standing, if you have to sit at the desk, take breaks, sprint a few times a week, lift weights sometime or do some body weight exercises. There is a 7-minute workout in the book. But the main idea is — move. Sitting is killing us. Literally. Sitting is a new smoking — so don’t. And what is the opposite of sitting? Moving. So move. As much as you can. And more.
…
Wild living is simple. The only thing it requires — changing your habits — getting wild again! No starving yourself, no difficult recipes or diet and nutrition principles, no. Eat food that comes from nature — tree or carcass, move, sleep, get sun and fresh air — live basically. And stop putting shit in your body, shit I like to call “crap in a bag” — anything that is prepackaged for you and has any non-whole-food ingredients — anything of that nature is not supposed to be on your daily menu.
Here are the results you get following the Wild Diet program:
Rapid fat loss, Clearer skin and decreased acne, Healthy color in skin and even tone, Less water retention and puffiness, Reduced allergies, Reduced inflammation, Improved sleep, Increased lean muscle, Increased energy level, Improved strength, speed, and athletic performance, Decreased recovery time, Increased sex drive and sexual performance, Heightened sensitivity in taste and smell, Decreased blood pressure, Reduced inflammation, Improved digestion, Little to zero gas, Decreased dandruff
Resources:
Interview with the Author, Abel James on Zestology podcast with Tony Wrighton
Two of my earlier articles on FoodMatters.TV — how to pick, store, eat your veggies and fruits to maximize the nutrition and dollar value of food, NOT to waste it:
Maximize The Nutrient Content Of Your Food!
Maximize The Nutrient Content Of Your Food: Part 2
Get Wild — Stay Wild!
Healthy, Fit and Sexy You is waiting for you!
Some more quotes I think you’d love:
“If you’ve given up some of your favorite foods — like gooey cheese, chocolate, grilled steak, bacon, butter, full-fat cream, eggs, wine, cheesecake, ice cream, or anything else delicious — for the sake of “health,” you’re about to have a really good time eating this way. If you’ve exercised for hours a day, gritting your teeth and sweating pure misery, I’m going to teach you how to burn more fat with just minutes of exercise a week. Sound impossible? Take it from the Fat-Burning Man: Burning fat can be a lot of fun.”
“This isn’t a diet book, but a book about how to reclaim your health by following the laws of nature (with a few delicious recipes to boot) for people who don’t like diet books.”
“When you’re hungry, your body doesn’t necessarily want food; it craves nutrition. If you try to quell your hunger with empty calories or doctored food, your brain and body will never really feel totally satisfied. The key is to feed yourself nutrient-dense foods that satiate your hunger.”
You can ask any rancher in Texas:
How do you fatten a cow?
Feed it grains.
How do you fatten a human?
Feed it grains.
“Sort of — fat loss doesn’t depend on how many calories you eat, but on which calories you eat and when.”
“our bodies are incredibly complicated, intelligent, and self-regulating systems that want to be healthy. When you eat real food and trust your senses, you’ll never have to count a calorie again.”
“Real food gives your body the signals it needs to know that you just ate, while processed food encourages overeating, food intolerance, and eventually most of the diseases of the modern world. If your food doesn’t go bad, or if ants refuse to eat it, drop that corn dog.”
“The main philosophy of The Wild Diet is that the closer we can get to the environment our genes expect — the world of our ancestors — the more our bodies will thrive.”
“Forget the scale and measure your progress by how you look and feel instead. Watching the scale won’t help you lose fat more quickly, but watching what you eat will.”
“Eating your most substantial meal in the evening can help release endorphins, improve sleep quality, reduce next-day hunger, and provide energy to fuel activities the next morning.”
“research suggests that constant grazing may accelerate the aging process by decreasing the length of telomeres. Fasting, however, signals your cells that it’s time to focus the body’s energy on conserving, restoring, and repairing your body’s internal machinery.”
“effects of eating Wild and exercising in a fasted state are synergistic; eating low-carb boosts the body’s responses to human growth hormone, while fasted exercise boosts its production. If you’re looking to gain muscle, improve recovery, and upgrade performance, this is exactly what you want.”
“The best use of exercise isn’t for burning off calories but for setting off a hormonal cascade in your body that results in an adaptive response.”
“When someone asks for my secret to six-pack abs, I tell them that it’s as much about how I live as how I train. Here’s the truth: I eat clean and fast several times a week. I spend most of the day with my core engaged — standing, moving, or sitting cross-legged. I schedule intense full-body workouts in my calendar and stick to them like I booked a flight. Exercise isn’t about your vanity; it’s about your well-being.”
“Actively moving and training your body helps your brain grow and has been shown not just to improve your body but increase your intelligence as well.”
“If you want to burn fat, boost your metabolism, tone your muscles, and strengthen bone mass, then lifting weights is far more effective than cardio.”
“Food is the foundation for life. It’s meant to nourish and bring your body to its optimal state of health — burning fat, building muscle, and bringing peace of mind. The closer you can get to a food’s source — straight from the ground, tree, or carcass — the better. Is all modern, post-agricultural food harmful, fattening, or unhealthy? Not necessarily, but the Wild Diet follows this principle: Eat plenty of whole and naturally edible foods; and be skeptical of manipulated, processed, and invented food products. This way, your body will burn fat as its main fuel source, returning you to the lean human body that’s already a part of your genetic code.”
“Sugar becomes fat. And the good news. Fat becomes energy. When you follow the Wild Diet, we’re going to help your body adapt from a fat-storing “Sugar Burner” to a lean and mean “Fat Burner.” How? By avoiding sugar and grains, and eating plenty of delicious veggies, meats, nuts, and legumes instead. I transformed my flabby belly to lean, sculpted abs by eating butter, heavy cream, animal fat, bacon, cheese, nuts, avocado, coconut, and even chocolate. You can, too.”
“Don’t do what the rules tell you. Do what works.
Remember: This is about you — your needs, your tastes, your preferences, and your pleasures. Experiment and have fun!”
