Natural Exercise – HumanaNatura

HumanaNatura Health Programs

July 1, 2023

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In plans I shared previously, HumanaNatura’s natural health programs have been converted into book form.

The book, Our Three Natural Paths, includes, expands, and refines the earlier website-based HumanaNatura Personal Health Program and Community Health Program, along with most of the supplemental tools and supporting materials from the website. As you can see via the link above, the book is available in both electronic and paper formats.

With this transition, the HumanaNatura natural health website – first developed in 2002 and formerly located at humananatura.org – has been closed. However, the HumanaNatura blog continues largely unchanged, providing uninterrupted access to HumanaNatura’s many natural health articles, the graphical OurPlate dietary model (updated with the book’s publication), and the popular HumanaNatura Calisthenics Poster (calisthenics instructions are included in the book).

If you are not familiar with the now-retired HumanaNatura website, its natural health programs, and its supporting content, the graphic above is a screenshot of its longstanding home page. For two decades, the site offered comprehensive personal guidance and tools for exploring naturally healthy modern eating, exercise, lifestyle, and community.

Although most of the content of HumanaNatura’s natural health programs has found its way into Our Three Natural Paths, this material has been revised significantly and its overall format is somewhat different as well. Key changes include:

Putting the project of personal and collective health into a larger context, and one that may be more aiding and motivating
Reformatting and expanding the Personal Health Program’s four natural health techniques into seven natural health tools
Revisions to the Natural Eating section of the Personal Health Program, once more including an updated OurPlate dietary model
Extensive updates to the Community Health Program and Community Assessment Worksheet

Beyond highlighting these health program changes, I want to add that publication of Our Three Natural Paths completes a long-planned three-book series on my part, and notably forms the first book in the series – even as it is the last of the works to be published as a book. This natural health trilogy of mine is an overarching project that has guided my writing and efforts for several years, and in total explores natural health successively at the individual, social, and philosophical levels.

In addition to Our Three Natural Paths, the other two books in this series and progression are The Seven Keys of Natural Life and Nature’s One Commandment, each already published and likely to be moderately updated during the 2023-2024 period.

If you used HumanaNatura’s natural health programs, either over the years or more recently, I would enjoy hearing your thoughts on its evolution into book form. You can reach me anytime at marklundegren.com+hn@gmail.com.

Health & best wishes,

Mark

Mark Lundegren is the founder of HumanaNatura.

Tell others about HumanaNatura…encourage modern natural life & health!

HumanaNatura Calisthenics Poster

July 1, 2023

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If you are looking for a copy of HumanaNatura’s Calisthenics Workout poster, you have found it!

The poster is nearly identical to the one contained in the calisthenics section of Mark Lundegren’s Our Three Natural Paths. It includes thumbnail photos of all 22 core, intermediate, and advanced exercises from this popular calisthenics program.

Workout Poster 11x17

Instructions for the exercises are included in the book, and the poster is distributed here for general use with permission from the author, subject to the book’s terms of use.

The HumanaNatura Calisthenics Workout poster is available in three formats, ones with increasing graphical quality, so that you can choose which one works best for you:

> JPG Workout Poster – the most flexible version of the poster, one that is easy to download, copy, and share online

> PDF Workout Poster – a higher-quality and more printer-friendly version of the calisthenics poster

> Professionally-Printed Poster – high-quality copies of the poster, available in several sizes and paper options, and all at a modest cost

Feel free to bookmark this page for regular access, or find it anytime at HumanaNatura.com in the resources column (select full website view if on your phone).

Good luck with your calisthenics workouts!

Tell others about HumanaNatura…encourage modern natural life & health!

HumanaNatura Book Conversion

January 1, 2020

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By Mark Lundegren

I am pleased to advise that preliminary work has begun on creating a book version of HumanaNatura’s natural health programs.

In the meantime, our comprehensive Personal Health Program and innovative Community Health Program remain accessible at HumanaNatura.

As you may know, I developed the HumanaNatura materials over a twenty-year period of learning, testing, community feedback, and periodic revision. Today, other than some pending changes to the nutritional information, I consider the programs complete, and my interest in converting the materials into a book format reflects this view.

In addition to refining the HumanaNatura programs, I have been writing about health-based life more broadly the last few years, including publication of my Seven Keys of Natural Life. This book of natural health practice is based on core ideas developed during the creation and refinement of HumanaNatura. It shows how key areas of modern life can be approached more naturally and beneficially, via a process I call the Natural Strategy method.

More recently, I have been at work on a companion book, this one almost entirely philosophical and centered on understanding why a health-centered approach to life is naturally superior. The new book, Nature’s One Commandment, is due to be published in 2020, and I am well into final proofreading now.

If you have used and benefited from the HumanaNatura programs, I would enjoy hearing from you with ideas and suggestions, as I plan and then begin work on the book conversion.

You can reach me anytime at marklundegren.com+hn@gmail.com.

Health & best wishes,

Mark

Mark Lundegren is the founder of HumanaNatura.

Tell others about HumanaNatura…give the gift of modern natural life!

Wishing You Healthy Holidays!

December 23, 2018

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In much of the world, winter and new year holidays are upon us, or soon will be – remembering it is the beginning of summer and middle of the natural year in the southern hemisphere.

This common cross-cultural occurrence suggests roots in ancient winter solstice celebrations, even in cultures that traditionally used a lunar calendar, and a common desire to mark the welcome turn from declining to increasing daylight.

Regardless of your culture and the timing of its seasonal holidays, another common theme this time of years is that our emphasis on happy holidays can make healthy holidays difficult. All too often, we are encouraged to engage in older, less health conscious customs, or new ones born of nostalgia for the past.

This can mean less healthy eating, less regular exercise, or less healthy and even patently health-indifferent social activities – all with the potential for significant inertia in our lives well beyond the holiday season.

With these ideas in mind, HumanaNatura would like to offer ten ideas to help make this or your next holiday a healthy one for you, your family, and your community, wherever you are and whenever your holidays occur:

#1: Eat before events – as an aid to avoiding unhealthy foods

#2: Offer to cook – greatly improving culinary control

#3: Bring a dish – ensuring at least one healthy option

#4: Morning walks – before becoming busy with events

#5: Group calisthenics – fun for kids of all ages

#6: Active activities – away from couches and chairs

#7: Share 2018 recaps – fostering learning & understanding

#8: Discuss 2019 plans – inspiring reflection & forward thinking

#9: Volunteer – to reach more people in the holiday spirit

#10: Renaturalize – by spending time in nature, quietly or adventurously

This list may encourage you to have other healthy holiday ideas, and we would enjoy hearing them in the comments section.

From all of us in the worldwide HumanaNatura natural health community, we wish you healthy holidays, whether now or next.

Tell others about HumanaNatura…give the gift of modern natural life!

HumanaNatura Program Changes

November 10, 2018

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As planned, and as outlined in our last few community newsletters, HumanaNatura has just completed an extensive update of the Natural Eating section of our Personal Health Program. If you are tracking the iterations, the new nutritional materials are in their eighth edition, extending back to when HumanaNatura first launched in 2002.

In addition, while editing the Personal Health Program, we also used this opportunity to make a change to one of the Core calisthenics exercises in the Natural Exercise section of the program – specifically updating the Body Twists exercise in its entirety.

HumanaNatura…Evolving In Time, As With All Natural Things

The revised Personal Health Program and companion OurPlate dietary guide and graphic, along with revised versions of our stand-alone Calisthenics Guide and Workout Poster, are all now live online and can be accessed via the above links. Please note that the updated Personal Health Program and Calisthenics Guide are each labeled version 3.6, so you can be sure you have the latest editions. As mentioned, this now completed work substantially updates the HumanaNatura Natural Eating technique.

Please note that no other material changes were made to HumanaNatura’s Personal Health Program and none were made to our Community Health Program. However, various supporting materials have been updated to reflect the Natural Eating changes, and these updated items are listed below:

Once again, the changes to the Natural Eating section are considerable, with substantial new material that nearly doubles the size of the Natural Eating technique overall. Among the new materials are expanded discussions of historical human diets and eating patterns, natural food intermittency and thus ketogenic fasting in human history, and the science of both intermittent fasting and ketogenic eating today.

Following on these points, we would add that special attention has been paid to better differentiate and also link the historical and modern dietary science discussions in the Natural Eating section. In addition, another notable change is that four model diets are presented and discussed in some detail, each with different fat-carbohydrate profiles. And while the Natural Eating section overall and its guidelines in particular will be familiar, all are significantly revised and updated.

Specific changes to the Natural Eating section include:

> Added discussion of modern dietary science consensus and controversy

> Expanded discussion of the naturalness of both fasting and low-carbohydrate eating

> Examination of the idea of essential carbohydrates

> Discussion and contrast of the pros and cons of four model diets with different fat/carbohydrate ratios

> Offering ketogenic eating as an option within Natural Eating

> Updating of the OurPlate graphical model to reflect this option

> Encouragement of at least short-term exploration of ketogenic eating as a tool to reduce hunger and increase dietary control – notably during the transition to Natural Eating and as needed over time

> Discussion of long-term ketogenic eating

> Consideration of ketogenic eating during pregnancy, lactation, and childhood

> Expansion of the fasting discussion, including added information on daily intermittent fasting, as well as the use of water and electrolyte fasts for weight loss

> Encouragement of daily intermittent fasting

> Discussion of healthy body fat levels in women and men, and girls and boys

If you have questions or suggestions on these changes, please let us know. You can comment below or message us via Contact HumanaNatura anytime, and with whatever is on your mind.

In the meantime, we would welcome and encourage your review of the new Natural Eating materials!

Tell others about HumanaNatura…give the gift of modern natural life!

Keto And Strenuous Exercise

August 10, 2018

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By Mark Lundegren

I am recently back from a fairly challenging 15-day summer backpack along a section of the Pacific Crest Trail, one covering 555-kilometers (345-miles) through central and northern California. If you follow HumanaNatura, you may know that extended walks of this kind are a regular occurrence for me, and something I encourage for anyone who is able.

What was different this time, however, is that I did the entire walk eating ketogenically, or with a very low carbohydrate intake and primarily burning ketones or fats for energy. Since ketogenic exercise at this level is still unusual, and because there remains quite limited material on ketogenic eating amid strenuous exercise and other demanding physical activity, I wanted to use this opportunity to summarize what I did and experienced. Hopefully, the discussion will be helpful to you and, as importantly, encourage researchers to explore intensive exercise and sustained activity amid intentional ketosis.

Looking South Across A Very Smokey Sonora Pass In Northern California

Before beginning our discussion, let me emphasize that I did this extended keto-enabled walk after a significant time of eating and exercising ketogentically in my regular life (technically, eating phyto-paleo-keto, or a diet that is plant-rich; free of grains, legumes, and processed foods; and then further largely free of fruits and starches – see here and here for examples of my typical once or twice-daily meals). Because of this, I had given my body sufficient time to become keto-adapted or able to readily (and naturally) use fats as my primary energy source.

Importantly, regardless of how physically fit you are or may become, I would recommend not engaging in strenuous or extended exercise on a ketogenic diet until you are fully keto-adapted (this normally takes a month or more), reasonably experienced in ketogenic eating overall, and have successfully exercised more moderately on a ketogenic diet for a number of weeks. I would also recommend avoiding alcohol entirely while eating, exercising, and living ketogenically, as is my practice.

Continue reading “Keto And Strenuous Exercise”

HumanaNatura’s Seventh Edition

February 8, 2017

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By Mark Lundegren

I’m pleased to announce that the new seventh edition of HumanaNatura’s programs and primary website are now all live and ready for you to review. Go to HumanaNatura to see the updated materials.

Long planned and almost a year in development, I am delighted to have the new materials up, and to see how far HumanaNatura has come since the first generation of our programs went online, way back in 2002.

HumanaNatura’s Seventh Generation – Better, Broader & More Interactive

I’ve written about the program and website changes in several of our community newsletters, when the seventh edition was in its planning and development stages. In case you missed these, and now that everything is live, let me recap what has changed, beginning with substantive changes and then highlighting secondary refinements:

> Personal Health Program (link) – HumanaNatura’s core natural health program has been extensively re-written, with numerous substantive changes, many editorial alterations for improved readability, and the addition of hundreds of inline research cites for further reading. Key substantive changes to the program include:

– Overall – new emphasis of the ecological health benefits of the HumanaNatura approach

– Our Past – discussion of the ecological harmony of earlier hunter-gatherer life; exploration of the history of human population levels, natural population dynamics and sustainability, and natural birth control; discussion of natural alpha-cycle and beta-cycle functioning (an idea from my recent first book, The Seven Keys Of Natural Life)

– Natural Eating – discussion of the environmental benefits of the HumanaNatura diet; inclusion of yogurt (but not milk and cheese) based on its potentially favorable ecological health impacts and at least neutral personal health effects for many people; greater emphasis on green eating and the goal of a low BMI score; discussion of bacterial flora health; discussion of the naturalness of cooked starches and the moderated role they can plan in a modern natural diet; inclusion of intermittent, partial, and water fasting as options within a natural diet Continue reading “HumanaNatura’s Seventh Edition”

Walking Versus Running

June 24, 2016

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By Mark Lundegren

When discussing the HumanaNatura natural health system with others, I am often asked why we advocate walking over running in our Natural Exercise technique.

For many of us, running seems like real exercise, while walking is, well, just walking. And this is especially true if we envision short walks on flat walkways, as opposed to long ones on hilly footpaths.

Still, it is true that, step-for-step, walking is clearly less intense, and seems less like exercise, than running – and than many other aerobic activities. But ironically, it is exactly because of this quality that walking proves superior as a health promoter, especially across many people and over time.

In practice, walking – including hiking – is a more natural and, for many of us, more naturally enjoyable human activity, compared with running and other forms of intensive exercise. For people overall, walking offers greatly reduced risks of injury, is easier to sustain as a practice in our lives, and is far more likely to be practiced on a lifelong basis. Walking is also flexibly practiced and requires no special equipment. For all these reasons, the case for walking is pretty strong.

Continue reading “Walking Versus Running”

HumanaNatura Gear Lists

December 1, 2015

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When first beginning to use HumanaNatura’s Natural Exercise technique, we often have many questions, especially when regular exercise is a new practice in our lives. One common and recurring area is needed gear and equipment, especially as we turn to all-day and multi-day walking and backpacking.

The sample gear lists we have provided below summarize typically needed equipment – first for our calisthenics exercises and then for walking at the basic, intermediate, and advanced levels. Please use the lists for guidance, but do make changes based on your personal needs and circumstances .

Please also note that we normally recommend fitness clothing made from synthetic fabrics, due to their superior performance and often modest cost, and especially as your Natural Exercise practice progresses to the intermediate and advanced levels. Continue reading “HumanaNatura Gear Lists”

A Four-Minute Workout!

May 25, 2015

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By Kurt Boyd

Are you spending a lot of time at the gym but not seeing the results you want? Maybe you want to get in better shape but can’t find time to go to a gym? What if you could get great results by working out only 4 minutes each day, 4-5 days week? And what if you could do all the exercises at home without buying any equipment? You can. This article will teach you how.

Tabata interval training is a highly effective training protocol designed to produce exceptional results in a very short period of time. Ifact, in just 4 minutes, you can get a rigorous strengthening workout that will improve your fitness performance, build muscle, and burn fat.

Tabata interval training is very simple. Perform 20 seconds of maximum intensity calisthenics exercise followed by 10 seconds of rest. Complete 8 sets of exercise and rest over the course of 4 minutes. These 4 minutes are of course challenging and intense, but can yield better results than many longer duration workouts.

The Science

In his ground-breaking study, Dr. Izumi Tabata had two groups of athletes perform one of two exercise regimes for 6 weeks, and then compared the results. The first group exercised for 60 minutes, 5 days per week at an intermediate intensity. The second group exercised in the short but very intense intervals I described (8 rounds of 20 seconds of exercise, followed by 10 seconds of rest, for a total of 4 minutes). After the 6-week study period, Dr. Tabata found:

Group 1 improved their aerobic capacity by 9.5% but realized no improvement in anaerobic capacity
Group 2 (the high-intensity trained group) improved their aerobic capacity by 14% and their anaerobic capacity by 28%

Later, a 2007 study in the Journal of Applied Physiology found high intensity interval training (HIIT) increased fat burning capacity in women after only 7 sessions over a 2 week period. In 2009, another study found that men performing HIIT doubled their metabolic rate and increased glucose and fatty acid oxidation (burned fat) for three hours after exercising.

In 2013, Dr. Michele Olson found that a 4-minute Tabata routine of jump squats burned 13.5 calories per minute, (5 times the calories burned in the average cardio workout) and doubled the subjects’ metabolic rate for 30 minutes after the workout ended.

Exercises In Tabata Interval Training

A variety of exercises can be performed, but they must be compound movements that activate a lot of muscle mass. So think squats, not calf raises. Bodyweight exercises like squats, sit-ups, and push-ups can be done as well as full body movements like burpees, sprints, and jumping jacks. You can also use weighted movements like deadlifts or power cleans. And you can mix and match exercises depending on your fitness goals.

In all cases, please be sure to check with your doctor before attempting Tabata interval training. Remember to start at your own pace and increase the intensity as you are able.

Continue reading “A Four-Minute Workout!”