100% Compliance

Let’s face it, 100% compliance is off the radar for most people. For some it’s not necessary anyway, but for a few of us, it’s that or misery. Are you 100% compliant? Take the survey.

The Good Genes People

These are the people who never suffered any chronic health problems. A lot of them may not have actually eaten a fantastic diet but they didn’t fall apart either. They can thank their genes for that. It is amazing that these lucky people go paleo despite their already vibrant health. The Good Genes People go paleo a priori, or independent of direct experience. They thought about it, it made sense, and they went with it. Obviously, 100% compliance isn’t a necessity for The Good Genes People. They can get away with 80% or even 70% and feel great.

I guess this is their reward for the superior intelligence that brought them to the diet long before they actually needed it.

Unfortunately, I am not one of these people.

The Bad Genes People

Some of our bodies are so damaged and our gene expression so poor that any small deviation from primal foods is a travesty to our health. The more symptoms a person endures the more compliant they must be to control them.

For example, I cannot eat grains or I WILL break out, still, after all these years. It doesn’t matter that I am 33 years old. It doesn’t matter that my skin problems started 12 years ago. It doesn’t matter that I’ve been eating healthy for many years, taken herbs, eliminated stress, and cleaned up in just about every way known to man. I cannot eat grains or I will look pubescent by the next morning. And if I eat fiber my stomach will bloat and my joints will hurt by evening. I can’t cheat and feel good in concert, and neither can a lot of people.

To deviate Means Symptoms – Do I Really Want Them?

I lost my taste for junk food more years ago than I can remember. For me, these days, deviating from my primal diet is having some of sweet potato chips, some honey, or just some vegetables (I drink a lot of broth). Mine is a restrictive diet to be sure, which leads to occasional phases of eating foods I know I don’t tolerate. I usually end up looking and feeling terrible for a week or two until I miss not the absence of symptoms.

For me anything less than 100% compliance (some foods are worse than others) leaves me looking and feeling icky day in, day out and I don’t want that.

Everything Falls Apart When I Forget I Don’t Have Good Gene Expression

Here’s the thing about 100% compliance: when everything is great, one begins to forget just how troublesome the symptoms used to be. You start thinking about all the foods that other people tolerate with no problem. It seems that you are all fixed up now and should be able to eat what everyone else is eating. And then you try it, not like McDonalds or anything, but just to something that you remember loving, and that you see other people enjoy each day with no ill effect;

and then you remember that you aren’t everybody else…