Wildfitness is a fitness holiday company with the aspiration to help people eat, move and live in harmony with nature. Find practical tips in our Wild Eating, Wild Moving & Wild Living sections, or go to our Wonderations category for more philosophical musings on nature, the wild, our health, the role of science, the meaning of life etc! Enjoy and please let us know what you think.
|
 Biophilia - Love of Living Things Our food, our medicine, our energy, our water and our stuff all come from the earth. But also, we are directly and immediately affected by nature as soon as we come into contact with it. Even your die-hard city slicker will feel better after a walk outdoors with trees (even if wearing high heels).
Evolutionary Biologist E.O. Wilson coined the term ‘biophilia’: ‘the innate tendency to affiliate with other living creatures and processes’.
The common sense & evolutionary logic
Biophilia makes both common sense and works from an evolutionary point of view. Our physical and personal relationship with nature is very old and it is logical that this interdependence is complex and strong. Our ‘nature’ urges are still intact, from saving drowning bugs in swimming pools, to stalking rabbits, to watching the sun set or in my case, I am afraid to admit – hugging trees.
The science
- Studies in hospitals and prisons both show that rooms with a view of a natural landscape significantly affect our health positively. Natural landscapes have been shown to stimulate the parasympathetic system and reduce blood pressure (Studies reviewed by Roger Ulrich in The Biophilia Hypothesis).
- Recent research has shown that just five minutes’ “green exercise” – physical activity in the presence of nature – is all it takes to improve your mood and sense of well-being.
- Many things found in nature have been shown scientifically to have a healing affect on the body: including varying temperatures, micro organisms, uneven terrain, sunlight. But I suspect there are a plethora of more subtle and complex natural phenomena which have yet to be studied that are at work on our body when we are exposed to our natural habitat.
Wildfitness courses are an indulgence in nature. We spend all our time in the great outdoors and sleep and eat with the natural rhythms of the day. Nature exposure, we know, is a major part of the transforming results that people experience from our courses.
What to do
- Get out into nature as much as you can. Your body works best and heals best in its natural habitat. Train outdoors rather than the gym, have walking meetings under trees, bike home along the canal, dip in outdoor pools whenever you can. Naked. Or clothed.
- Be aware that our health is a reflection of the health of the earth, so think what you can do to help with earth health. Perhaps the earth also experiences a reciprocal version of ‘biophilia’ – people-love? – and gets something directly from us communing with mother earth.
Tara Wood – September 2010
 You don't have to hug trees to commune with nature
 - Luke & Drew practise being monkeys
We’ve included “combo” training in our holiday courses since Erwan Le Corre, the founder of MovNat, trained with us out in Watamu during April last year. A combo is a short circuit usually comprising 4-6 different natural movements. It should take between 30 sec - 1.5 minutes to complete one circuit and you then repeat the circuit 4 – 8 times, flowing from one activity to the next like an obstacle course. It’s a great way to engage with the natural environment around you – you can do a combo in the park, a forest, on the beach, in your back-yard… you are only limited by your imagination! Look at what natural features there are around you and how you might use them. Here’s one idea:
Example Wild Combo
1. Sprint to a tree – winding through obstacles or zig-zagging through trees if possible (about 50 meters).
2. Jump onto a higher surface (log / park bench) and down again (or balance along it for a while).
3. Bear crawl 10 meters (move forward on your hands and feet like a bear!).
4. Lift a rock or drag a heavy branch 20 meters.
5. Hang from a branch (or do pull ups if you can!) for 15 seconds.
 - Crawl like a bear! As demonstrated by Drew.
You can perform this as if it were a sprint, doing as many circuits as you can in 2 minute intervals, or you can use it as a more skill-based circuit, taking as much time as you need to do the circuit perfectly. Each outdoor environment will be different and lend itself to different combinations of the circuit or you can devise new natural movements (e.g. a short swim, a tree climb, a rock throw etc.).
The Wild Combo format is designed to: 1. Incorporate natural movement patterns that are the best way to create a functional body, 2. Deliver intensity so that you are challenged and therefore become ‘fitter’, 3. Expose you to nature with all the healing that comes from being active in a natural environment.
 - Raw Curry with Cauliflower “Rice”
(This is a guest post by Tanya Alekseeva, a raw food enthusiast and author of the food blog Better Raw. Our CEO Ed Drax joined one of her workshops recently and thought her recipes were delicious! Although our Wild Eating menu doesn’t follow strict raw food principles (it includes meat and cooked foods) we advocate eating as much raw food and veg as possible and have found that raw foodies offer some yummy veg-based recipes – for meat-eaters and ‘primate’ veggies alike!)
“I will never forget the time I tasted my first Indian Curry. It was only a few years ago and since that day, I’ve never stopped asking myself what took me this long. And I’ve never stopped tasting either! There are plenty of ‘not so good for you or your body’ ingredients that could go in a traditionally cooked Curry, but they are certainly not in the anti-aging, disease-fighting, immune-system-building Spices.
So when I became a Raw Vegan, my quest for the Healthiest Curry began. When this very dish was the most common request during my workshops and coaching, my quest for the Tastiest Curry began. I am now completely satisfied and super excited to share this recipe with you! What is even better than this most deliciously nutrient dense meal is that it is easy and fast!!”
Ingredients
1 Cauliflower
1 Carrot
1 Cup Cashews
2 Tomatoes
10 Sundried tomato halves, soaked in warm water 10 mins
½ Cup Dried Shredded Coconut
½ Avocado
½ Red Onion
1 inch ginger
1 Clove Garlic
2 Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 tsp Cayenne Pepper
1 tsp Paprika
1 tsp Turmeric
1 tsp Cinnamon
Fresh Coriander to garnish
Water as needed
Optional: Walnuts, Flaked Almonds, Sprouts
Method
- Roughly chop carrots and cauliflower and transfer to a food processer. Pulse, until finely chopped and resembles rice.
- In a blender put 1 cup cashews and 1 cup water. Blend really well until creamy.
- Add all the remaining ingredients (apart from optional ingredients and coriander) and 1.5 cups water. Blend well.
- [Note, you may need to pulse to make it easier on your blender or add more water.]
- Serve with either walnuts, sprouts or flaked almonds on cauliflower ‘rice’. Garnish with fresh coriander.
Enjoy, Tanya Alekseeva
For more super healthy recipes, to find out about Tanya Alekseeva’s upcoming Raw Food workshops, detox programs and One to One Coaching, go to http://www.betterraw.blogspot.com/
 Our personal health is intrinsically linked to that of the people around us. Looking at our individual health in isolation doesn’t make sense from a common sense, evolutionary or scientific point of view. Unless you live alone in a lighthouse.
The common sense
- When your flat mate has a cold – you’ll probably get it too. It is in our interest to keep the immune system of those around us high as well as our own. In fact you can look at our immune systems as one continuous interconnected web. I went to Ibiza last year with 17 friends and talked late into the night about how, fundamentally we were all one… 11 of us came back with swine-flu.
- Frank Forencich comments in his blog (No Body Is An Island – Dec 09) that so-called ‘life-style’ diseases have been classified as non-contagious but that the facts speak differently. (Unless you do live alone in a lighthouse). People catch habits and life-style from each other. If you hang out with unhealthy people – you are more likely to imbue their unhealthy lifestyle, and the same for healthy people. I have a friend who always makes me smoke – I feel I’d be letting him down if I didn’t. And I have friends with whom I bond over salad and herbal tea. My tribe instinct means I become a chameleon rather than get too body precious. But I have also been responsible for infecting others with early morning swimming and the savouring of custard apples. Continue reading Why good health is infectious
 Those who have been on a Wildfitness course in the past 6 months will know that our new favourite position is what we like to call “The Hunter-Gatherer Squat”. So what is it and why is it so very good?
The common sense
Squatting, the natural way to “sit”, is great for our bodies. It’s just a simple, age-old, self-sufficient, natural, sustainable mode of deportment that doesn’t rely on any man-made object but on the health and mobility of our own bodies.
The evolutionary logic
For thousands of years, humans didn’t have chairs. We didn’t have them on the African savannah and even for many years after the first chairs were around, they were only used for special occasions of state. Instead of sitting on chairs we would walk, run, jump, climb and generally move our bodies. And when we did gather round with our pals to rest and gossip and eat, we would squat. If you have travelled to Asia and parts of Africa you will have seen that the squat is still a massively popular position to hang out in. People squat to work, eat, drink, give birth and of course, poo. We may think it is more civilised and comfortable to sit in a chair but our bodies would disagree. Our bodies were never designed to stay in one position for as long as we often spend seated in chairs (maybe 5, 6, even 10 hours a day?!) so anytime we can squat instead of sit in a chair our bodies will be grateful for the change. Continue reading Wild Moving: The Hunter-Gatherer Squat
 Here at Wildfitness we don’t usually like to promote the benefits of just one food. People tend to go all super-food-crazy and start to think that if they don’t have their daily goji berries or wheatgrass they will shrivel in to miserable examples of un-healthiness which is untrue. If you don’t eat goji berries you will survive!
However in the lead up to the next Kenya season there is one fresh, local delight that we just can’t wait to tuck in to – COCONUTS! So we thought we’d just tell you why we think coconuts are so great and hopefully we’ll be sipping madafu with you (Swahili for young coconuts) later this year in Kenya.
The common sense
Science tells us that coconut has a range of health giving qualities. This makes sense because it is natural, tastes good and it’s a common ingredient in countries where people are good examples of health.
Coconut water has been used as an IV drip effectively at times where IV fluid has not been available. It feels like coconuts have a symbiotic relationship with us.
Plus, coconut just smells of summer and sunshine and if we could we’d take a bath in the stuff.
The evolutionary logic
Coconuts probably formed a part of the human diet for millennia and have evolved with us. Any food that occurs naturally and can be hunted or gathered, is going to vibe well with our physiology. Continue reading Coconut Love!
 - Exuberant Animal seminar in London
Back in April Wildfitness hosted the first Exuberant Animal seminar in the UK and we got to hang out with one of our gurus, Frank Forencich. We played all day in the park and ended up feeling tired and elated at the end of the day. And sore for about 3 days afterwards too! But our bodies felt strongly loose and energised, not with that unoiled / can’t-walk-up-stairs feeling you often get from exercise. Playing, we discovered, is not just stupendous fun and deeply bonding, but also IMPORTANT for our fitness and health.
All mammals play. Carnivores play more than herbivores, young’uns play more than adults, domestic animals play more than wild ones. But it is a remarkably widely preserved evolutionary trait.
There must be something to it.
Studies show that:
- The more play behaviour displayed by an animal, the greater its chances of survival.
- Play promotes oxytocin, which is a body chemical that makes us trusting and disposed to bonding.
- Play releases BDNF (brain derived neurogenic factor) which promotes brain growth. (We are, in fact able to grow new brain cells – phew!)
Play is an important antidote to stress and people become playful when they are healthy. In fact playful behaviour is a good barometer for overall health. Playing can also be a hard workout – plus it’s functional, it captures your attention, it’s non-competitive and makes you skilful. Continue reading Play. It’s serious stuff.
 - Mirror Run (Image courtesy of Exuberant Animal)
Here’s a fantastic functional fitness game from Exuberant Animal. It’s super-easy and you need no equipment – just a willing buddy and plenty of space to run around in. We played it at the Exuberant Animal seminar in London and apparently it was quite a sight to behold: 20 pairs of people playing follow-the-leader around Regent’s Park! It can be incredibly intense if you add in lots of jumps and variations – I remember being totally out of breath at the end of it.
Mirror Run (Excerpt from the Exuberant Animal website)
This one will develop a lot more than just your cardio capability. It’s a variant on follow-the-leader, except this time, the leader takes off with variations in gait: skipping, hopping, slaloming, leaping, leaning, twisting and so on. Any combination of posture and locomotion is acceptable. The partner simply follows a few paces behind and tries to duplicate exactly what he sees in front, down to the smallest detail.
You’ll probably want to limit this run to a short course. It’s surprisingly robust, especially for the follower. You can also try it with the leader running backwards.
In any case, if you’re the follower, keep your attention focused on your leader’s hips and torso. If you’re the leader, look for something comprehensible. If your movements are too chaotic or random, your follower will get lost. And finally, don’t forget to include occasional ground touches; this will add some power and hip flexibility to the mix.
And remember to keep swapping who is the leader and who is the follower! It’s a great chance to unleash your creativity.
For other brilliant games ideas visit the Functional Fitness Games section of the Exuberant Animal website.
 This is absolutely my favourite time of year in England and it’s a perfect time to whip out your green fingers! It always tastes so much better tucking into salad and veg that are in season but what could be better than plucking it from your own plant?! Obviously having a whole plantation in London would be pretty tough but even growing a couple of things like chilli, basil, tomatoes, etc can make such a difference! I’ve decided to start with a Chilli plant…perfect when I want to add a kick to my soups, smoothies (sweet and savoury), salads or hot chocolate (which is amazing by the way!) Plus, it’s actually a really beautiful plant so whack it next to your computer to cheer you up at work!
So, this morning I kick started my day by adding some chilli to this smoothie (and you can tame it down/up depending on how much you need waking up!) It might be a bit too chocolatey in the morning for some people so treat it more as a naughty 4pm boost!
Ingredients:
130g cashew nuts (preferably soaked overnight in water)
700 ml water
4 dates (medjool preferably)
2 heaped tbsp raw powdered cacao
1 chilli (keep the seeds in – it adds a bit of fire!)
Method:
1. Put all the ingredients in a blender and blend until all the mixture is smooth and thick.
2. Taste and add more or less chillis/dates for extra kick/sweetness.
|
|
