Book review: Primal Endurance by @Mark_Sisson

Posted In: Fitness July 25th, 2016 divider No Comments »

So I picked up another book about fitness last month, what else is new? This one was Primal Endurance by Mark Sission.

You might know who Mark is without really knowing. He’s not only a former standout triathlete (4th at Kona) and runner (5th at US Marathon Trials), he’s also the man behind Mark’s Daily Apple. It’s one of the top fitness blogs on the internet, specializing in fitness, nutrition and everything primal.

Anyway, a great intro to the book is Mark and his co-author (Brad Kearnes, another former pro triathlete) talk about how they used to train and fuel in the good old days (80’s and 90’s). After they got tired of the grind, they looked for better ways. It mirrors my foray into triathlons and Ironman where I would beat up my body on a daily basis in order to finish longer races.

The sub-title is “Escape chronic cardio and carbohydrate dependency and become a fat burning beast!” and it’s quite fitting. It’s a cool and fairly innovative way of looking at training. I didn’t know but I was already doing most of it in my new regime. Less “training” and more movement/activities. It also makes a pretty convincing case for the fact the current food pyramid is pretty screwed. It also aligns with my new fat-focused intake.

It highlights some great case studies such as the Faster Study, Zach Bitter and world-class triathlete Sami Inkinen, who was featured in “Running on Fat” documentary while rowing from the US to Hawaii on a fat-based diet.

Anyway, I highly recommend it for anyone who’s not completely happy with their training and nutrition. It really resonated with me since I wasn’t really gung ho about training or racing recently until reading these pages. And now the last 2 months have been my best 2 in recent memory and I’m really looking forward to the Raid in September.

Basically it talks about going slower to get faster, just keeping moving and looking at fat as a serious nutrient. All quite aligned with my philosophies. I loved it so much that I actually enrolled in their Primal Health Coach program. Stay tuned!