About the Reluctant Primalist

My name is James O'Rear a.k.a. The Reluctant Primalist a.k.a. JSlugman in the Flickr world and I'm a photographer, author and sound man/musician currently living on Yokota Air Force Base just outside of Tokyo, Japan. My lovely wife is a nurse in the Air Force and as a result we have lived in some fantastic places: Alaska, the Azores, England and currently Japan.

Two monkeys, one horribly overweight.

I have subscribed to the many variations of the Standard American Diet SAD for many years. The Food Pyramid, the Plate, the whole-grain low-fat, the I-don't-give-a-flip-I'll-eat-what-I-want. And as one of many Americans my life was too busy to be wasted on exercising (there's sooooo much to do, right?). And so over the years I piled on the pounds and found that getting to some of the exciting places I enjoy photographing was getting harder and harder to do. I had developed cholesterol deposits on my eyes and that scared me so I ended up getting put on cholesterol and high blood pressure meds. I'd have to say the big thing that really opened my eyes is that I would get winded walking up our two tiny flights of stairs in our house.

Wow, I'm in big trouble.

So on my 45th birthday I decided I needed to figure out a way to die slower than I was. After carefully looking at conventional wisdom CW I thought to myself that there was something that must be amiss if so many Americans are trying to follow what this CW and as a whole we're a country in pretty damn dismal shape. Then I remembered reading a post of a friend here in Japan who was talking about her struggles with grains and that led me in the direction of a primal/paleo lifestyle. More research and hard looking into some of this community's claims brought me to a conclusion: trying this for a month probably won't kill me any faster than what I'm doing to myself now. The same pivotal friend also introduced my to a jogging program and I also do body weight resistance workouts 2-3 times a week.

And here I am. Dieing slower. Its a nice place to be.

Feel free to drop me a line. james @ jamesorear . com (remove the spaces)