Thanks for promoting this. Since this is here, I’d like to provide a little background on these communities, because I set them up.

I’ve been an animist since the early 90s. I feel like it’s a glimpse into our most primal connection to spirituality and a gift carried down through the tens of thousands of years by indigenous peoples around the world. It is spirituality without all of the lore and trappings of religion. It doesn’t conflict with science from my perspective and it doesn’t demand faith or worship.

The total primal lifestyle is newish to me. I was diagnosed with type-2 diabetes in 2013 due to my overconsumption of sugar and processed foods. I was morbidly obese and in my 40s. My A1C was 13. I struggled with this for years. I researched and tried diets and exercise programs. I got gym memberships. I bought expensive “keto” foods. None of these worked. Not because the methods were inherently flawed, but because I just could not stick to things.

My health continued to deteriorate. I developed arthritis in my lower back and that combined with general inflammation reduced my mobility and eventually left me in constant pain. I was on an increasing slope toward becoming disabled.

But then in 2020, I learned about the primal lifestyle. It’s not just a diet plan (although many keto diets are based on the dietary specifications of the lifestyle). It’s not an exercise program. It is truly a way of life. And for whatever reason, I got excited about it and jumped into it fully.

It’s about eating what your body was intended to eat. The bodies we have, at our core, are the same as our ancestors were over 100,000 years ago, with minor surface changes so to genetic adaptation to environment.

We were not eating grains 100,000 years ago. We were hunter gatherers. We ate game meat, fruits, nuts, berries, vegetables we find. This is what our bodies have evolved to eat. As you all know, big evolutionary changes do not happen in 10,000 years. That means as a species, we have not adapted to eating grains. In fact, nothing our bodies need come exclusively from grains. Breakfast companies have to “fortify” their foods with additional supplements (try our cereal with 9 essential vitamins and minerals!) just to make it have any value at all.

My first step was to give up grains. This was not easy. Our bodies just turn the grains into sugar. Processed grains are turned into sugar even faster. On top of that, most grain products have additional sugar mixed in.

In that first month, only giving up grains, I dropped 20 pounds! Obviously that didn’t continue. I’ve been losing about 2 lbs a week now. I’m at 217 as of this morning. My A16 was 5.6 in July. Changing what I ate had a dramatic impact. This of course inspired me to continue to explore the lifestyle.

I don’t do gyms. I exercise outdoors. It’s fun and not repetitive. I do sit up to strengthen my core and help with the back pain. I do short sprints up a moderate incline hill. I jump on things: rocks, steps, etc. I had a tree fall out in the middle pasture and cut part of the trunk into various sizes from six inches to two feet in height. I set them around in a circle so I can leap from one to the other. I jump with one leg and land using the other. This is great for balance work. I don’t do cardio or distance running. I focus on agility and burst speed.

I lift heavy things now and then. Usually grain bags for the barn, they are 50 lbs. You don’t have to work hard to build strength, just be active. Lifting heavy things occasionally is enough to cause the gene expressions that help with metabolism and muscle development.

The primal lifestyle is a mind/body/being thing. It’s about taking care of the body naturally by being mindful of the type of fuel you consume and staying active. I rarely watch TV anymore. Instead I walk and listen to audio books. Small things like this are easy to change. That’s what I write about on my blog and what I research and read about from others like myself.

I also want to note that I do not sell any services or products. I make no income from the WordPress blog. This is a passion for me and I like to share what I learn and hopefully have some discussions with others who are interested.

Finally, these communities exist on lemmy.world as well, but it is offline more and more these days, making it difficult for people to access it reliably. So I am in the process of manually moving my posts from those two communities to here.

So come stop by, leave your thoughts, share your experiences, ask questions if you are interested in either topic, animism and the primal lifestyle.