One key mantra of paleo nutrition is that we should use our ancestral hunter-gatherer heritage as a model for the present day.  We were designed to eat certain foods that are optimal for our health: if we deviate from this we suffer.

Most of us begin this journey by researching books on paleo nutrition improving our intelligence with the knowledge of what constitutes real-food and see significant improvements in health and body composition.  But there is usually one other factor missing for most of us.  Physical intelligence.  The physical intelligence that comes from experiencing movement.  Not only were we designed to eat certain foods.  But we were designed to move.  Our ancestors chased prey and fled from predators.  More recently, they laboured in agriculture and industry.  Unfortunately we are now increasingly seduced by technology and labour-saving devices into the lure of a repressed and sedentary state.

The way our environment has become is conducive to being less active.  We create artificial habitats, equipment and technologies to make even physical activity in the gym easier, mundane and less intense.  We celebrate activity by watching others do it - as spectators, living our lives through other's sacrifice.  Or we perceive activity only as a way to "lose weight" or "build the body beautiful" rather than the maintenance and guardian of health.

Studies show that activity protects us from lifestyle diseases such as diabetes, cancer, obesity, stroke, coronary heart disease, depression.  It also boosts memory, develops new neurons in the brain and improves mental intelligence.

Based on this we should model our movement patterns on our ancestral heritage.  It doesn't mean we need to hunt and gather foods, but we can choose movement patterns that help us to thrive and be in good health.  

Food is medicine, movement is medicine.

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