The Fitness Adviser

Mark Sisson is one of the most well known people in the fitness community. He qualified for the 1980 U.S. Olympic Trials only to be sidelined by injuries and forced to retire from marathon running. After he retired from marathon running due to injuries, he began running triathlons (since he could still bike and swim), eventually coming in 4th in the Hawaii Ironman. In 1988, he completely retired from competitive sports to pursue a life of finding natural ways of achieving good health and helping people avoid making the same mistakes that he had made in the past in regards to living healthily.

Mark is a huge proponent of “Primal Living”, or living the way we used to live thousands of years ago. He runs an extremely popular blog called “Mark’s Daily Apple” dedicated to showing people how to live like we used to in the modern world. He is also author of “The Primal Blueprint”, a book dedicated to showing people how to get into peak shape and live healthily by living the way our ancestors did. I managed to land an interview with Mark, and here’s what he had to say:

Rafi: You’re known for talking about the importance of “primal living”. What is primal living and why do you believe it is so important?

Mark: We are the sum of over two million years of hominid evolution. Even more specifically, homo sapiens have been roaming this earth for over two hundred thousand years. We didn’t always have whole grains or vegetable oils or sodas; these foods only became available to the genome in the last 10,000 years (and in the case of vegetable oil and huge amounts of refined sugar, the last hundred years). Prior to that, humans lived off the land, hunting game and gathering roots, berries, and tubers. My Primal Blueprint simply says that the diet we’re more adapted to is the one we’ve been eating for 190,000 years, a pretty sensible notion. Mainstream nutritionists suggest the healthier diet is the low-fat, high-carb plan of the last forty years. I dunno about you, but I trust natural selection – a quantifiable, irrefutable process.

Primal living isn’t just about diet, though. It’s about providing the right environment for your genes – the very same (or as close as you can manage) environment that produced those genes. That means exercise, sleep, sunlight, rest, stress all figure into the equation. We live in a decidedly modern world, but we can mimic or recreate the environment that produced our genetics by eating the right food, exercising the right way, getting adequate sleep and reducing stress. The Primal Blueprint, which I discuss thoroughly on my blog, marksdailyapple.com, is my humble attempt at bringing it all together in a comprehensive, accessible manner.

Rafi: You often refer to “Grok” in your writings. Who is Grok?

Mark: Grok is the prototypical primal/paleolithic man. He was lean, strong, healthy, and knew how to throw a spear or two. He didn’t have access to doctors or dentists or pharmaceuticals or packaged food, but by all accounts (fossil records and studies of modern hunter gatherers), he was the picture of perfect health. Genetically, I’m Grok. So are you. What made him tick, makes us tick.

Rafi: Was there any specific event that led you to become more interested in studying health and nutrition, or is it something that happened over time?

Mark: I don’t know that it was a specific event. It was more like a gradual realization. It was the fact that, in my prime as a runner, the average person would look at me and say, “That guy’s in great shape,” but I wasn’t feeling like it. My joints were breaking down, I was always coming down with a cough or a cold, and I was constantly sidelined with injury. Sure, I’d still get in my hundred miles a week and my VO2 max was impressive, but it was wearing me out. And when I looked around at my peers, they were feeling the same way. Sniffles, limping, and complaining.

I’ve always been interested in nutrition and health, and I even considered medical school, but it was my own medical issues that got me thinking about evolution’s role in human wellness. Something wasn’t working, after all.

Rafi: You used to be a professional marathon runner, even qualifying for the 1980 U.S. Olympic Trials! Do you think that the life of a professional athlete is a healthy one?

Mark: I think it certainly can be. I can remember watching sprinters train. We endurance guys would spend all day at the track training, while the sprinters might take – at most- an hour to finish. They’d do a few sprint intervals and hit the weights and be done with it. You ever see a sprinter’s physique? It’s pretty much ideal, and they aren’t bombarding their bodies with chronic stress and inflammation from overtraining to get it. Marathoners, by virtue of their goals, are always going to be subjecting themselves to chronic stress – either through their carb-intensive diet or all the cortisol that releases when we over train.

Rafi: You’re in absolutely amazing shape, and you’re 55! What’s your secret for staying in such great shape as you get older?

Mark: 56, actually! My history as an athlete probably gives me a head start, but I maintain by eating plenty of good fats, keeping my carbohydrate intake (and subsequent insulin load) low, lifting heavy things two or three times a week, and sprinting once or twice a week. I’m also pretty much constantly moving (when I’m not at the computer), whether it’s going on hikes, playing Ultimate Frisbee, or taking walks with my family.

Rafi: Thanks for taking the time for this interview!

Mark: It was my pleasure!

This entry was posted on Friday, July 31st, 2009 at 1:47 am and is filed under Interviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.