Fitness of any kind is always an important part of a healthy lifestyle. You don’t have to be a marathon runner (in fact, it is recommended that you aren’t) or spend hours at the gym on cardio machines and lifting weights using more weight than you can ever imagine. Fitness can and should be kept fairly simple and attainable. The only true difference between “regular” fitness and Paleo fitness is the approach.
In doing my research for a fitness program that would fit into my lifestyle, health challenges, and daily schedule, I came across for about the hundredth time, Mark Sisson’s (of The Daily Apple and The Primal Blueprint) outline for a Primal Fitness program, and I really liked what I saw. I didn’t have to kill myself to get into shape and loved that I could use my own body weight for resistance.
His suggested fitness program is as follows:
Monday – Sprint
Tuesday – Lift Heavy Things
Wednesday – Move Slowly, Play or Rest
Thursday – HIIT
Friday – Move Slowly, Play or Rest
Saturday – Lift Heavy Things
Sunday – Move Slowly, Play or Rest
This is the schedule I chose to follow, and you can read ll about it here: Primal Blueprint Workout Plan Basics. And while you are there, don’t forget to grab a copy of his free Primal Fitness eBook, which explains things more in depth. (Not an affiliate link).
Now, since most people begin fitness and nutrition endeavors on a Monday, please don’t jump into sprinting on Day One! I took two weeks at the Move Slowly, Play or Rest phase before adding in any additional activities. Keep in mind that I was also following an AIP Lifestyle 30 days prior to that, and did NOT exercise during this time because I wanted to allow my body time to heal before adding on any additional stressers.
Once I was ready to begin a fitness regimen, I started with a simple Isokinetic set of pedals I placed under my desk at work. This was perfect at first since I was clearly out of shape and simply needed to get into a routine. It wasn’t long before I wanted to track my movements, and this invested in a Mi Band fitness tracker that I attached to my waist using a drawstring pouch and a shoelace. I counted one revolution as a step in order to aspire to get in 10,000 steps a day.
Within a few weeks, however, I have outgrown the resistance of the Isokinetic and upgraded to the well-reviewed DeskCycle and I can safely attest that the DeskCycle lives up to its name, and highly recommend it despite the pricier price tag. Now, I use the same Mi Band tied below my knee in order to gain 15,000 revolutions a day.
Note for those who like a display screen, MiBand recently released the Mi Band 2, which I will be getting soon.
But, back to fitness. Paleo fitness takes a more ancestral approach to fitness, as would be expected. Some do choose to do CrossFit, Spartan-style approaches, but understand this type of activity is not for most people and I honestly would not recommend it for anyone with auto-immunity issues. For more information on AIP Fitness approaches, please visit this page.