Right quick, let’s get this out of the way: I am an affiliate for the Personal Paleo Code, meaning that if you click through my site and decide to buy it, I’ll get a commission. Nevertheless, every opinion expressed here is truly what I think. I don’t feel the need to lie to you for a few extra bucks. Cool? Cool. Onward.

Not long ago, Chris Kresser released what’s probably the most thorough guide in existence for paleo eating, while it by no means limits one to “strict Paleo” foods. You can really kind of choose-your-own-adventure this thing and use it to suit your particular needs/issues and the goals you have in mind.

There are three main stages to it, which are Reset, Reintroduce, and Refine, each with a guide to keep you anchored in the purpose of that particular stage. All the while you have the Progress Tracking App to record your vitals and your goals, and the Meal Plan Generator to churn out a variety of recipes from a large, varied database compiled from lots of blogs and cookbooks.

Some of the included guides

Beyond this, there are enough guides included for everything that it really will save the Paleo newbie or someone refining their routine a hell of a lot of legwork and research. These guides include: what to shop for, kitchen equipment, fats and oils, an on-the-go guide (man, this would have made traveling easier in the past), as well as worksheets for you OCD-ish hyper-organized types to document just about anything you’d possibly like to.

Reset

Reading through this first step, it walks you around the pitfalls and dogmatic thought patterns and habits to avoid. A guide gives you a large pool of the types of foods you can eat freely or in moderation during the reset period, and the specific ones that you cannot eat, in order to get the best results.

There are listed caveats and tweaks for what to do in your individual situation with a specific issue, e.g. insulin resistance, autoimmune issues, gut issues, adrenal fatigue, etc., and you can search recipes based on your situation. Of course, you don’t have to exclude anything in the recipe database if you don’t want to, since you know you won’t come across anything nefarious, i.e. the so-called “neolithic agents of disease.”

Part of the food reintroduction list

Reintroduce

The “Reintroduce” section has a spreadsheet of different food groups that you may have eliminated during the “Reset” stage, such as dairy, nightshades, and sweeteners, with a thorough list of each and the best order in which to reintroduce them, and why. This could save tons of googling and deciding which of the many information sources out there to believe.

Refine

This is where you can really nerd out on this stuff if you want to. For shoring up any issues that are nagging you, this step serves as a great “what do I do if…” kind of FAQ. It will point you to procedures for a different specific situations, such as the Iodine Protocol guide for thyroid irregularities, the FODMAPS guide, autoimmune protocol, and others.

Positives

I totally made this

Well God knows life would have been easier if this program existed when I first changed my diet. One thing that it does really well beyond any program or book that I’ve seen is realistically acknowledge the nuance and grey areas involved with finding a diet/lifestyle that works optimally for you. There’s no true-believer “THIS STUFF WILL KILL YOU” going on here.

The ability to customize it to suit your needs in a multitude of ways based on your goals, allergies, likes and dislikes, etc., and have it kick out a specific set of meals, routines, and eliminations/reintroductions like some kind of black magic – this is probably the best thing about it.

I think I track with Kresser’s general approach to diet more than just about anyone else I’ve come across, with his gathering of supporting research and extensive clinical experience which provides a lot of real-world experience with people to draw from. It’s one thing to have coherent ideas about how things work, and another to have put it into practice with real people and identified the often non-intuitive situations that you run into when making a lifestyle change.

Negatives

I thought at first that the array of features was kind of intimidating and took me a minute to figure out where to start. There’s a “before you begin” link at the top of the home page, but it sidetracks you into the tools section, and once you get into the action workbook, you’re pointed back to the home page again to watch the intro video. The intro video could be made more immediately obvious from the outset.

The program overall takes some sitting down and reading through to get your bearings and decide how to proceed. Then again, if you can’t pull it together to do that, then you’re probably not going to pull it together to go from an all-over-the-place crappy diet to an optimal diet, anyway.

This might just be my own peevishness as someone who isn’t in love with cooking for cooking’s sake, but I think it could use some more quick, simple recipes. Everything I’ve seen in the recipe database looks great, but am I going to make a breakfast dish with 17 ingredients or do things like zest lemon or finely dice veggies for my lunch regularly? In a perfect world, I would. That said, most recipes will be fine when you’re short on time if you possess at least one skill of a good cook, which is to improvise and make a recipe more simple or fit what you have in your spice rack at the time.

Conclusion

It won’t be quite the godsend to the veteran as it is to the newbie. If you’re humming along perfectly health-wise and you’re satisfied with your food and your supplements, then it’s probably not for you. It’s clear to me that the people that have the most to benefit from this program are relative Paleo newcomers who are needing some structure to make a big change, or someone who still has some nagging issues and really wants to get their specific health concerns worked out as much as they can with diet. For those people, it’s unbeatable.

If you want to try it too, click below and get going.

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Thyroxine, aka T4

Apparently one possible symptom of hypothyroid is losing the outer third of your eyebrows. I don’t know why it was that of all things that really got my attention, but it did when I heard it recently on a Revolution Health Radio podcast episode with Chris Masterjohn as guest, in which they were touching on thyroid and goitrogenic (thyroid-suppressing) foods, which I realized have for a few years made up a significant portion of my daily dietary intake. I had noticed the eyebrow thing with myself in comparison to old pictures before I’d ever considered the possibility of having a thyroid issue or iodine deficiency.

Goitrogens include cruciferous vegetables like kale, collards, and broccoli, along with sweet potatoes (these have been out for a couple of months for me since being on GAPS, though), almonds, pears, raspberries, strawberries, etc. That’s not to say that I aspire to cut all of these out, but it does mean that I need to be more careful to have sufficient iodine intake, something I had never really been mindful of until recently.

So I ordered a urine iodine and bromide spot test from Hakala Research Laboratory (Bromide is another halide that adversely affects iodine utilization, found in brominated flour and Mountain Dew, as well as potentially leaching from plastics and other manufactured goods). Amazingly, from ordering to having the results in the mail was about ten days. My iodine was .137 mg/L, with the World Health Organization defining deficiency as anything below .15 mg/L. Bromide was .82 mg/L, while 5.0 mg/L or above can affect iodine utilization.

Both of these were actually what I hoped to see. The iodine gives me one clear abnormal marker that may be a contributor to my issues (Rosacea, primarily). I’m glad for the low bromide as well since I read everywhere that the bromide detox from iodine supplementation is a motherfucker, potentially causing rash, digestive distress, bromide acne, and all kinds of other terrific symptoms. But thankfully, not the case.

The alarming goitrogen for me was sauerkraut, which I’ve been destroying with nearly every meal in keeping with the GAPS fermented food guideline. And no, the fermentation does not eliminate the goitrogenic effect of cabbage. I really haven’t been eating that much fish or other seafood either, apart from a can or two weekly of sardines and maybe biweekly salmon. The sardines are small portions and probably don’t add up to much in the iodine department, and salmon being a freshwater fish part of its life isn’t the best source.

So I’m planning on starting iodine supplementation using the iodine protocol guide in the Personal Paleo Code (shameless affiliate link), eating more seafood, and working with my naturopath on what other thyroid support might be necessary.

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A typical Saturday Farmers Market haul

I’m happy to report that the GAPS Diet protocol I’ve been sticking with in the last couple months has brought about great improvement in symptoms. The sometimes painful rosacea outbreaks I had been getting have abated a great deal and I’m looking and feeling better in general. After getting my lactulose breath test results back in January, I learned that I did in fact have mild SIBO (small intestinal bacterial overgrowth). The stool test revealed that the my lower gunnyworks seem mostly normal: good microbial population, bile acids, digestion, and ph (although that was actually a little low, on the acidic side). The only weird marker was beta-glucuronidase, which was sky-high. But more on that in a minute.

In trying to get better, it wasn’t possible to do this precisely enough to really know for sure what I’m doing that’s most effective and what isn’t. Still, by adding or eliminating one thing at a time, I have a pretty good idea at this point of what factors are helping the most.

What Works?

It seems at this point that the most effective things for my recovery have been:

-Flora Balance probiotic first thing in the morning 20 minutes before food, to work on the pathologic bacteria in the small intestine.

-Bone broth with fat, marrow, and a raw egg yolk or two, morning and night, to rebuild and reenforce the gut lining and barrier while getting all of the nutrients that egg yolks provide as well, since I hadn’t been tolerating whole eggs very well.

-Fermented cod liver oil, two teaspoons a day, an amazing source of vitamin A, as well as D, omega-3s, and quinones like different vitamin Es.

-Eating fattier and more bone-in cuts of meat (usually cheaper, too, which is nice)

-Lots of sauerkraut and sauerkraut juice

-Twice daily therapeutic-strength probiotic (20 billion)

-Calcium d-glucarate?  (more on this in a minute)

-Topical aloe along with a moisturizer

This isn’t my whole routine, but just the things I think are most effective.

I also went back and started the intro phase of GAPS at the end of December, which kind of “baselines” you by starting you taking in only bone broth, probiotics, and stewed meat, and then gradually reintroducing foods one step at a time to allow your gut to heal from whatever might be giving it issues and then allowing you to reintroduce and see what gives you problems and what doesn’t.

I thought this was going to suck, and it did at first, especially trying to mostly eliminate caffeine, which lasted all of about four days because I was miserable and accomplishing nothing. I have cut back on caffeine overall though, going from two strong cups of coffee in the morning to one or two weak ones, while still feeling perfectly fine and motivated.

The stewed meat and eventually vegetables were bland and boring at first, but with the magic of salt, pepper, and bone stock, I actually came to enjoy it and really didn’t feel that deprived or like I was craving anything. I’ve ended up going through the six phases of the intro much slower than I thought I would since I’ve felt mostly fine and I want to be sure I’m getting the most out of it. It’s been about seven weeks and I’m just about to move into the full GAPS.

This is probably good since I’ve realized my thyroid function may be getting compromised by the combination of  the low-carb nature of the GAPS intro, not eating much seafood (and therefore not much iodine), along with a boatload of sauerkraut, a goitrogen (thyroid surpression) every day. Any of these things alone could be fine for most people, but all three together plus my semi-low T3/ semi-high TSH could be bad news. I’ve noticed an uptick in energy and mood in the last several days while adding in more seafood and carbs (fruit and kombucha mostly). and dialing back the sauerkraut a bit.

Deprivation and the Downsides

The rosacea has not by any means been completely eliminated. I’m still getting a few spots a week and am pretty self-conscious most of the time going out. My mood has been improving and I’ve been better able to focus on work and business, but have been largely a hermit. I haven’t been drinking and haven’t gone out much due to the self-consciousness and getting sick of explaining why I’m not drinking.

Thankfully, I’m talking to my naturopath on Wednesday and we’ll probably implement some sort of natural antimicrobial into the routine, like oregano or peppermint oil possibly, for a bit more focus on eliminating the SIBO. I’ve sort of plateau’ed lately with recovery.

I’ve certainly saved money on going out to eat, since I’ve now only done so literally twice in the last three months, and it was really difficult to find anything I could eat. It is practically impossible to do while in the GAPS intro. I’ve met friends out a few times and just talked and drank water since there was really nothing on the menu that I could eat or drink.

I feel perfectly fine and well-nourished doing my thing at home, but the feeling of deprivation kicks in big time when trying to go out to a restaurant with people. For three years, I did paleo when going out with no problem whatsoever, but this has been a major challenge, such that I just haven’t bothered mostly. I do think it’ll be fine when I’m in full GAPS, which should be more or less like paleo except I’ll just need to be a bit more strict and inquisitive about the oils and other ingredients the place uses.

Beta-Glucuronidase And Calcium D-Glucarate, And What That’s All About, If You Care

The high beta-glucuronidase from my stool test was a mysterious one. The reference range is 337 – 4,433 U/g, and my result was 28,746 U/g. My primary care doctor seemed unphased by this, saying it could be a problem if it was low but not really if it’s high.

From some research on my own, I find out that excessive b-g can be produced by pathologic bacteria, which could be what’s happening here, but not many of the bad ones had been found in the lower bowel. Maybe it came from the small intestinal guys. In any case,  I find out that high b-g can sabotage one of the main detoxifying mechanisms in the body. Specifically, the liver binds different “toxins” and hormones with glucuronic acid and releases them in the bile to the intestines to be excreted.

The BG unbinds these toxins meant for excretion and sets them free to be recirculated in the enterohepatic cycle. Sounds like bad news to me and seems like it could account for some skin problems if substances that should be leaving the body are being recirculated, exacerbated by bacterial overgrowth in the small intestine.

This is usually a problem for women, as it causes excess estrogen to circulate. The ways to bring b-g down are to eat more fruits and veggies that contain glucuronic acid, such as broccoli, apples, and especially oranges. This hasn’t really been possible for me until recently, being in the restrictive GAPS intro. The other way is by supplementing calcium d-glucarate, which I’ve done, and it seems to be hastening my improvement a bit. Even if it really isn’t making much difference to the rosacea, I figure it’s probably fine to bring my level down into the normal reference range.

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The short ribs really are an underrated cut. They’re fattier (if you’re into that sort of thing) and tastier than ribeye, and they’re waaaay cheaper – about $6.00 or $7.00 a pound for grass-fed. They don’t seem to be a real hot-ticket item, judging from my getting a compliment from one of the farm stand folks about my buying up like five pounds of them.

Until the last couple of months, I guess I was kind of mystified by what to do with them, but solved that problem with two minutes on the internet. Really difficult. Good reason to avoid something for years, Sean, that steep two-minute learning curve.

I was spurred on by seeking out fattier and bone-in cuts of meat as part of the GAPS diet protocol that I’m following for some gut healing, since the more gelatin, glycine, and glutamine-rich connective-tissue parts (mmm, connective tissue) you can get, the better for healing. Necessity is the mother of getting off your ass and trying new things.

So while an elaborately planned, complex recipe can turn out wonderfully, and I really *want* to love cooking, but in fact I just don’t quite love it and it’s more just a means to eat, the recipes I use on a regular basis generally get boiled down to their easiest and most necessary steps and ingredients. This short ribs recipe is no exception, but luckily the ribs can be delicious without having to do much at all.

So it goes like this, see?

Prep time: 10 minutes

Cooking time: 75 minutes

Total time: 1 hour, 25 minutes

You need:

-2 lbs grass-fed beef short ribs

-1 TBsp lard or tallow (ghee, butter, or coconut oil could work, too)

-(optional) 1 pint of homemade meat stock (any type, I use beef), 

-if not stock, then about a pint of water

-salt and pepper to taste

1. Heat a large saute pan to medium heat, adding the TBsp of fat and heating until it’s just starting to smoke.

2. Brown the ribs on both sides (or all sides – they’re sometimes square-ish) for a total of about five minutes

3. Add stock and/or water to the pan halfway or 3/4 up the side of the ribs

4. Wait for the liquid to come to a rolling boil and reduce heat to low

5. Braise 60 – 90 minutes until desired doneness. 75 minutes seems to work best for me. I’ve seen recommendations to two hours and beyond, but they get very well done that way. If you’re looking for the falling-off-the-bone thing, cook them two hours

6. (optional) Flip the ribs over with tongs about halfway through cooking. They come out a bit more even that way but it doesn’t matter much.

7. Move to a plate and “tent” for 5-10 minutes, with aluminum foil draped over

8. Cut them up, removing the bones, which happens really easily at this point, and store the bones in the fridge to thrown into your next stock batch

9. (optional) Pour a bit of the fatty liquid over the ribs or save it for later cooking. You could probably make a nice gravy from it with some kind of nut flour, but I haven’t tried this

10. Thank your God-figure for this bounty

11. Cut to bite-size pieces, put them into your face, masticate, swallow, etc., until they are gone from your plate.

12. (optional) Save some for later

If I can do it, anyone can. Enjoy!

P.S. Dammit, I’ve made these fifteen times in recent months yet I have no photos to share. I’ll add some next time I make them, which will probably be in the next few days.

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Meditation involves one thing: doing nothing. Perhaps you could call that zero things. It’s simple, but it’s not easy. It is quite rewarding when you practice it consistently, though.

The rewards of meditation don’t involve enlightenment, becoming a perfect being, or eliminating all stress, impatience, or troubling thoughts. The meditation is not going to change the circumstances of your life by some kind of spiritual transformation. All of the incidental rewards from a consistent sitting practice stem from one idea: You are not your thoughts.

You realize that your constant stream of thinking every conscious minute of your life is a lot less useful a thing than you would assume otherwise. Most of it is distracting, useless chatter. While you’re walking on a beach on a warm, cloudless day, there is no reason why you need to be thinking about what your mother said that pissed you off the night before, or whether that guy on NCIS was one of the kids in The Sandlot. It only puts more distance between you and the present moment. It’s a great thing when you can train yourself to just let those thoughts go without them taking up too much mental processing time.

I first began a meditation practice a little more than a year ago after having it recommended to help alleviate stress and depression, which it certainly does. As is taught in various “schools” of meditation based on Zen Buddhism, though, it’s important not to do it as a way of striving to change something. That is, don’t sit down to meditate with the idea in mind that “okay, I’ve blocked out this 20 minutes to alleviate some stress and depression, let’s get focused and do this thing.” It’s not an action item. I’ve found this is the best way to get frustrated and discouraged when you find yourself lost in thought after a few minutes and beat yourself up for “doing it wrong.”

Thoughts will come up, but the trick is to, as best you can, not get caught up in them and just focus on your breath. It helps me to think about it as not taking phone calls, except in this case, it’s thoughts. The thoughts still happen, you’re just not taking them. They will naturally occur to you, but you don’t run with them. They just kind of pass over you like clouds. You’ll get distracted often and notice you’re stewing about something, but you just bring yourself back to the breath.

I had been using some guided meditations for a while from Jon Kabat-Zinn’s The Mindful Way Through Depression, which I think is really valuable to anyone wanting to start meditating for that reason, or really anyone else for that matter. The book comes with CDs with the guidance, which include different exercises to get you in the right “headspace.”

I’ve since gone back to non-guided meditations, since I was getting to used to the guidances and was tuning out. I sit usually 20-30 minutes at a time, either in silence or sometimes I’ll listen to sounds on the iPhone “Meditation” app, such as beach, storm, sailing, or others.

It might sound new-age-y, but really it’s just about allowing yourself to get into a state where your mind settles and you feel what I can only describe as a more expansive awareness. A constant inner dialogue is not necessary, and sometimes even harmful, which is why meditation can work to alleviate depression.

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Well if I come out on the other side of this thing I’ve been dealing with, I will come out with a whole host of knowledge about the gut and how it relates to the skin beyond what I ever wanted to know.

The issue is Rosacea. I don’t think it can rightfully be called acne since this is unlike acne I’ve experienced in the past – it’s generally more flat and red and itchy. I’ve been lucky in a sense that it’s been mostly confined to either side of my nose and part of my cheeks under my eyes. I’m now nearing the point where it almost just looks like a weird, moderately severe sunburn from skiing, or like I was in a title fight in the last couple of weeks.

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Update 11/22/11: Long story short, the BCAAs may well have been contributing to my issues, but that was certainly not the whole story. Since writing this post, rosacea/acne issues have flared up again and I’m discussing this with a Naturopath (ND). I have been taking Flora Balance and acidophilus probiotics which have been helping. To be continued.

Update 12/12/11: See this newer post going into detail about all this.

I’ve been dealing with some acne issues for the last six months or so that have ranged from mild to briefly severe, and I could not for the life of me figure out where they were coming from. I’m now nearly positive I’ve got it worked out and I’m feeling kind of stupid.

To get this post to be brief in length and not overly self-involved is proving impossible, so bear with me while I just let fly.

I think ultimately it was my hubris in thinking that I could take as many supplements as I was and still be able to keep track of what each one was doing and which could be a problem or not. I had been taking a silly number of them for someone who is 35 years-old, healthy, minimizes processed food, and is not a competitive bodybuilder or something.

I’ve since cut many of them out now in the last week or so, most notably branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs), that I’ve now figured from a bit of research and process of elimination were the root of my skin issues these last several months. I’m actually working on another post about my “problem” with supplements and also discussing blood work I’ve had done recently, which may also be long, but hopefully will be useful to someone in the process. I wanted to roll it into this post originially, but it was becoming a monster.

Dermatologists Don’t Officially Know Where Acne Comes From

So before figuring it out, I threw what I consider to be a Hail Mary pass by going to see a dermatologist in hopes that maybe in the past few years one of them might have found a vague notion of what is actually causing the problem, and that perhaps there had been a shift from the “we don’t know where it comes from, let’s just nuke it from orbit with antibiotics and super-drying benzoyl peroxide or some such prescription creams.”

No, no they have not moved an inch from this position. Diet continues “not to have any effect” on acne, and any other lifestyle factor they’re kind of dodgy and agnostic about. Mine said, quote, “we don’t know where it comes from.” Super. I guess yesterday’s trepanning is just today’s accutane.

Now, do I expect the dermatogist to go over what supplements I take and everything I eat? Of course not. But just the fact that asking the question “why?” elicits a dismissive response as if I asked “is there a God?”, and we proceed to overbearing treatment of the symptomes immediately, is infuriating. I really shouldn’t be surprised anymore, though.

So I took none of the dermo’s advice for creams, creams, creams, and antibiotics. At first. I tried some dietary and supplement tweaks, including going way low-carb and taking more fish oil, and then less, and with not much change either way.

Then in a moment of desperation in August, I filled the prescription for a 30-day course of Doxycycline and then regretted it within days, knowing that I was mowing through my gut flora and setting myself up for all of the potential complications that go along. I had to stick it out, though, since stopping short on a course can actually strengthen “bad” bacteria and help evolve ever more resistant super strains.

I tried to buy back my soul by somewhat aggressively taking probiotics and drinking lots of kombucha, but of course this isn’t a barrier against the killing off of a lot of floral diversity. After a month, there was improvement but I was getting some spots still regardless.

So Just What The Hell Is Going On Here?

My fuzzy math evaluation of the branched-chain amino acid (BCAA) supplement I was taking, in relation to acne, was “in effect, it’s supplementing protein” and so really couldn’t have anything to do with acne issues. I thought my problem had to do with something like omega 6/3 balance, therefore perhaps systemic inflammation, or the type/quantity of carbs I was taking in, meaning insulin levels and blood glucose. Even when I had tried eliminating each supplement one at a time as a test, I somehow inexplicably continued to take this one that now seems to have been the culprit.

You may know that BCAAs are taken pre- and/or post-workout to keep muscles in an anabolic (building) state to help recovery and therefore help with muscle growth. I casually started taking a relatively low dose for a while to see if they’d give me any kind of boost with strength and muscle growth, and they did seem to. BCAAs of course occur naturally in many types of meat and fish, bound to other amino acids in the form of protein, but since they have a particularly anabolic effect above other amino acids, they’re isolated and taken as a bodybuilding supplement. There really weren’t any bad side effects that I could turn up beforehand with internet research.

I can’t put a finger on exactly what the mechanism would be for BCAAs to cause cystic acne. Based on the fact (assertion?) that they are insulinogenic, and having read Loren Cordain’s The Dietary Cure For Acne which details the moderately complex process in which chronically high insulin levels cause breakouts, I’m postulating that this is the process that was at work and giving me problems. In addition, I was reading in a bodybuilding forum about a guy in his 30s who started taking roughly the same dose of BCAAs and started getting cystic acne out of nowhere. I’m generally skeptical of broscience coming from a forum, to say the least, but the situation in this case kind of nailed it.

So it’s now been about ten days since I’ve taken the supplement and things have calmed down almost completely, although not 100%. Just in the last 24 hours there have been a couple of spots, and I may know why. Again, possibly supplement related (do I ever learn?).

Another thing I suspected recently was thyroid dysfunction, which has been known to contribute to acne issues. The possible symptoms can be kind of a Rorschach test where you see what you want to see (“I have cold hands sometimes!”), but I did check off a few of them. Blood work came back clinically normal, although the numbers were definitely in the low range. I started taking 200mcg of kelp (iodine) and 100 mcg of selenium, but I’m going to lay off the iodine for now to be sure that’s not an issue.

Sigh. This is the tangled web you weave when relying too heavily on supplements for different issues. As I said, this very subject (supplements) is what I’m going to elaborate on in what will probably be my next post.

In the meantime, if you’ve had experiences with these types of self-experimentation shenanigans, I’d love to hear about it.

Update 11/22/11: Long story short, the BCAAs may well have been contributing to my issues, but that was certainly not the whole story. Since writing this post, rosacea/acne issues have flared up again and I’m discussing this with a Naturopath (ND). I have been taking Flora Balance and acidophilus probiotics which have been helping. To be continued.

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Literally, get off your ass. Not in some kind of figurative way. Just get out of your chair or off the couch or off the barstool or wherever you’ve planted your ass for longer than 15 or 20 minutes. Shit’s not good for you to do all day every day. Turns out, you can’t really make up for it by working out  later either.

You can get huge benefits from standing while you work, including relief from headaches and neck and back pain, to increased and more consistent energy throughout the day. It takes a short break-in period to get used to it, and your feet may be sore at first, but that passes quickly in my experience. You can take breaks for a few minutes occasionally, too.

I had a standing desk at my last job for a year, albeit fashioned with a cubicle shelf for the monitor and stack of decommissioned web servers for the keyboard and mouse. While I took some ribbing from coworkers at first, that passed and I noticed my energy throughout the day was higher and more consistent.

It helps if you have your own office certainly, or your cube walls are high enough so that you’re not looming over everyone like Superman with your hands on your hips. If not, you can still see some benefit from standing up and walking around for a minute or two at least once every half-hour or so.

But can I ever sit down?

I took some sitting breaks, for lunch for instance, but the vast majority of the time I was standing. It actually got to where I would notice my energy plummet when I sat down for longer than about 20 minutes, like I had been hit with a tranquilizer dart.

Then there’s the question that I’ve had about the whole idea: what if anything do you do differently when you’re at home, i.e. not working? Is standing while working for however many hours a day enough to be able to flop down when you get home?

Certainly we need a certain amount of rest, but I’d like to figure out what the ideal ratio should be. I’m not going to stand in my living room in my off time like a maniac.

What’s a good standing desk height?

Sit at your desk with your laptop or keyboard in front of you and get in your comfortable typing position. When you find it, keep your arms frozen and stand up. This will give you the quick-and-dirty idea of the height and ergonomics of it.

For more precision, do this with a post-it note handy and, keeping your arms frozen, walk to a wall or doorframe and mark the height with the post-it. Measure the height and you’ll know how high to set the desk, or stack the boxes or web servers or yearbooks.

If you already have a standing desk or you’re going to get crazy and build one, this is a great post about deciding the height.

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While working from home for the last few months, I’ve kind of “fallen off” from the standing desk thing, with my couch and standard desk calling to me. Until this week, I had occasionally worked standing at my kitchen counter or at my dresser in the bedroom but not consistently.  The need for a nap sometimes in the afternoon and the drained feeling at the end of the day have returned as a result.

So it’s time to renew the commitment to standing work this week, using a section of my kitchen counter that’s spacious enough and has a couple of windows I can see out from. In fact, I had been standing while working all day today until I sat down to take a break and start this post, and bam, I was starting to feel sluggish after 20 minutes.

Have you had any success with this, and do you know of any good, cheap standing desks? Please let me know in comments below if you have.

P.S. Thanks to Mark’s Daily Apple for the post about standing at work from last year that originally gave me the idea.

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Contrary to what I used to think, there is life after beer. At least when that life includes gluten-free beer, if that counts. I suppose you could survive even without that, but I don’t want to think about it.

In my regrettable intolerance for standard, barley-containing and therefore gluten-containing beer, it’s been a great consolation that I’ve been able to find good gluten free beers. Coming from someone who used to be a beer snob and wouldn’t have been caught dead with a Miller Lite in my hand, that should hold some weight. You’ll just have to take my word for it.

Come to think of it, most of the gluten-free beers I’ve tried are all comparable with good craft beers. None of them really taste anything like your standard American bright-yellow piss beer, like a Coors or a Miller Lite, to beat up on them a little further. The closest to that would probably be Anheuser-Busch’s offering Redbridge, but more on that in a minute. If you loved piss beer and had to go completely gluten-free, you’d be shit out of luck from what I can tell so far. I haven’t had them all, though; perhaps there is a watery, boring-ass gluten-free beer out there somewhere.

I have to make the disclaimer that I haven’t actually had a “regular” beer for over a year now, so there’s a chance that my palate is kind of bent out of whack and someone used to standard beer might find the gluten-free ones to be farther off flavor-wise than I do, but I don’t think I’ve really forgotten my good from bad beers entirely since I did used to be pretty particular about what I drank.

So the following are my top five gluten-free beers, which also happen to be the only five gluten-free beers I’ve ever tried. Here’s the big countdown to the one I’m most enthusiastic about:

5. Green’s Discovery Amber Ale – A fairly hoppy and substantial brew made from Sorghum that is passible but I just don’t find it terribly easy to drink. It’s not bad. It’s fine. Just fine. I just don’t get enthusiastic about continuing to drink it once I’ve started. Like “..oh yeah, I still have half a bottle. Okay…guess I’ll keep going.” A really great beer is one I want to last forever but I also want to take to the face all at once, while if I started one of these and left half of it somewhere and remembered later, I’d think “Eh, it’s for the best.” But it’s fine. Just fine.

4. Redbridge – As generic and unremarkable but pretty decent as you’ll find in a gluten-free offering. I had my first two at a bar last week and it’s a pleasant, smooth drinking beer that would probably appeal to those who are afraid of beer with any kind of bold, distinctive flavor. A cut or two above Anheuser-Busch’s other little offering, Budweiser, it’s easy drinking and relatively unremarkable. Again, fine. I haven’t disliked any of these that I’ve tried.

3. Bard’s – Admittedly, I haven’t had one of these in many months so I can’t give you I clear idea of the taste here, but I recall it being full-bodied and a little bit of bitter aftertaste. A complex but cloying attack with a citrusy nose and a lush, buttery finish. Not really. It’s a solidly good beer and I can drink a few of them and not be tired of it, which I can’t really say for the previous two, but there’s something…missing in the flavor I can’t put my finger on. When I have another one and if I figure it out, I’ll come back and update you. Verdict: Better than fine, pretty solidly good.

2. Lakefront New Grist – I hadn’t heard of it before I had a few in a bar in Charlottesville, VA a few months ago when playing a band gig, and I was pleasantly surprised. The bartender also expressed being pleasantly surprised that someone was ordering them and getting them the hell out of their cooler. Guess they’re not a hot ticket. This one is made with both rice and sorghum and is bright and quite flavorful compared to the others so far reviewed. I must have liked it and it must have agreed with me  considering I went through two six packs in a week at the beach last month, for which I was bent over the barrel to the tune of 15 bucks apiece at the fancy pants gourmet market in Duck, NC. It was the only close store and it was the only gluten-free beer, but still, no regrets. It’s tasty. Crisp, slightly fruity with a soft, well-balanced finish. No, really.

1. St. Peter’s Sorghum Beer - My baby. This one is my favorite. I first heard about it being great from Robb Wolf at one of his Paleo Solution seminars and it turns out he was right. It manages to simultaneously be hoppy and light and refreshing at the same time. I’m feeling an odd pressure from myself to give these a more detailed, specific description, but I’m not going to bother. Shit’s good. Too bad it’s only sporadically available at the local Whole Foods and I’ve never been able to find it when I’ve looked at the Total Wine. They do have it on the beer menu at a restaurant called Rustico here in Arlington, VA, God bless ‘em. A bit expensive at $5.00 a pint at the store, but it works for an occasional treat.

So, do tell: Have you tried any of these? Have you tried any that I haven’t that were horrible and to be avoided or ones that were really good? Let me know in comments below.

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I was getting to where I was being borderline obsessive about food quality. I wouldn’t go so far as to say it was orthorexia, but I was getting into that territory. Thinking that I wasn’t getting enough green vegetables or Vitamin A or Vitamin C or omega-3 fats or too much omega-3 fats or omega-6 fats or trace amounts of wheat in something I ordered at a restaurant and on and on.

An iStock Photo result for "obsess"

I think it’s positive to keep an eye on these things and keep boundaries and general guidelines for what we eat, but within reason. It’s something that we can arrive at through trial and error and have it become the “new normal;” that is, something that eventually you don’t have to really think about anymore. When you start regularly spending significant amounts of mental CPU time to “eat clean,” though, it’s a problem.

For instance, I eat no wheat. That’s something that would seem extreme to a lot of people, especially in this country. It took a lot of thought and diligence at first, thinking of what my staples were that contained wheat, what they could be replaced with, other things containing wheat that should be avoided (they’re more pervasive than you might think), how often to “cheat,” etc. Nowadays, it’s just life. Doesn’t take much mental overhead.

When you find yourself discovering new things to avoid or worry about on a daily or weekly basis and you’re running through a list and stressing yourself out before every meal, then things are getting counterproductive. Also, the things you can eat without anxiety get whittled down to nothing and you’re eating only grass-fed beef from this farm and this certain type of greens for every meal. This is practically where I found myself at one point during the summer.

My canary-in-the-coalmine has always been my skin, and noticed I was getting more breakouts despite my ultra-diligence with what I was eating. I also noticed that when I left town and was forced to eat out more, things got better. This despite probably taking in things I would never use at home, like vegetable oils or small amounts of dairy. It seemed to short-circuit the problem when it was out of my control and I didn’t stress about every little thing.

Point being, self-experimentation is good and knowing what foods and ratios work well is positive for troubleshooting problems when they arise, but inducing stress only makes things worse.

I’ve learned the following for when I suspect something of being a problem and want to cut it out, or want to add something I don’t normally eat and see how it goes:

-Try one thing at a time and do it for at least 5-7 days straight. When you change eight things at once and still have problems or they get worse, it gets bewildering fast.

-Have a clean eating weekly meal plan. If it’s laid out in advance, it’s harder to obsess. Also, you can look over your meal plan for the week and see if you’re being batshit insane about avoiding something or featuring something too heavily as a result of avoiding everything else.

-Most importantly, enjoy.

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