by Josh Turknett, MD
Interested in Primal Provisions but have questions? Then read on!
(and if you have a question but don’t see it answered here, feel free to post it inside of our Facebook group.)
Q: What is Primal Provisions?
Primal Provisions is a meal planning service created for those who are eating in accordance with the Migraine Miracle plan.
We see meal planning as the most important habit for long term success, especially for those still getting started, where eating like this has yet to become second nature.
And outsourcing the planning to us ensures you’ll be able to do so.
Many folks feel overwhelmed at the prospect of changing long established dietary habits, especially when much of it is new.
Primal Provisions allows you to take the leap and follow the plan without worrying about whether you’re doing it right, or having to immerse yourself in the finer points of protein and fat ratios, nutrient density, saturated vs. polyunsaturated cooking oil, smoke points, etc.
Plus, you continue following the plan week by week, preparing the meals, following the plan will ultimately become second nature.
And you’ll save loads of time in the process.
Q: Why would I want to eat in accordance with the Migraine Miracle plan?
A: The Migraine Miracle plan is hands down the best method we know of to prevent migraines and slay the migraine beast.
I’m a neurologist and migraine specialist, and have had my own mighty battle with migraines since I was a kid. My battle ended when I adopted this way of eating, and the same has come true for a great many others, many of whom thought a life of migraine freedom was a fantasy (click here to read just some of the incredible stories of folks ending their lifelong battles with migraines).
In my work with thousands of migraine sufferers, I’ve identified what I refer to as the “3 pillars” to lasting migraine relief. They are
1) The establishment of metabolic flexibility / fat adaptation (the ability to readily shift from carbohydrate to fat to meet energy needs – essential for those looking to lose fat).
2) Elimination of mismatch foods and behaviors.
3) Elimination of rebound headaches.
(RELATED: Click here to read more about the 3 Pillars of Migraine Freedom.)
This meal plan addresses pillars 1 and 2. It maintains carbohydrate content in the range that promotes metabolic flexibility, and eliminates mismatch foods from the diet (these are evolutionarily inappropriate foods that are not fit for human consumption, despite forming the bulk of calories for many modern day humans)
This is also how I advise friends, family, and patients to eat for optimum health and well being.
Q: What does it include?
A: Each Saturday, subscribers will receive their plan for the upcoming week. This will include:
- Recipes for meals for that week.
- A grocery / shopping list of ingredients.
- Prep day instructions, a.k.a. all the things you can do at the beginning of the week to minimize prep time during the week (great if you tend to have less free time on your weekdays than your weekends).
Additionally, you’ll receive not 1, but 3 separate versions of the meal plans, so you can choose the one that best meets your needs. The are:
- The PRIMARY plan: the main plan, which includes 5 meals and an occasional “extra” (snacks, breakfasts, beverages, etc.)
- The BASIC plan: 5 meals with 5-7 ingredients or less. Designed for those who are trying to minimize time in the kitchen (but still want delicious food). The primary menu recipes may be simplified for this menu.
- The KETO plan: the primary plan adapted for those who are staying ketogenic.
Q: Well that all sounds amazing. How do I sign up?
A: Thanks! Just click the button below to get started:
Q: Who creates these recipes?
A: Jenny (my wife, and creator of all the recipes in the book) is the recipe mastermind, culinary magician in chief, and a dyed in the wool “foodie.”
She has many years of experience in the world of food, having worked in catering and event planning, and most recently as the restaurant critic for the Atlanta Journal Constitution. She too has suffered with migraines since childhood, and so also uses this way of eating to keep the beast away.
Q: Will this also help me lose weight?
A: This way of eating is the way I (and many other experts in the field of nutrition whose opinion I value highly) advocate to achieve optimum body composition.
As mentioned above, one of the goals of this approach is to achieve “metabolic flexibility,” or the ability to readily switch between fat or carbohydrate/sugar to meet the body’s energy needs. Metabolic flexibility is essential for sustained weight loss.
The typical western diet, high in refined carbs, results in metabolic INflexiblity. As a result, the body’s ability to readily tap into stored fat is compromised, increasing the reliance on dietary carbohydrates (the body is “carbohydrate dependent”), and making weight loss impossible without suffering through persistent hunger.
This not only results in endless cycles of hunger and satiety as we move from one sugar fix to the next (the “blood sugar roller coaster”), but it also makes weight loss impossible without having to suffer with persistent hunger (an approach that is unsustainable, hence the long term failure of calorie counting “starvation” diets).
Most people will lose excess fat with this plan, especially those moving from a more traditional western diet. And, unlike restrictive calorie counting diets, you’ll do so without always feeling hunger.
We do not count calories. Once you start giving the body the foods it expects, and has been exquisitely designed over millenia to digest and metabolize, you can once again trust your hunger as an accurate reflection of your body’s energy needs.
In fact, since weight loss is such a predictable effect of eating this way, we end up fielding more questions about ways to GAIN weight (or stop weight loss) on this plan, rather than lose.
Lastly, the establishment of metabolic flexibility results in significant improvements in energy levels, and a significant reduction in hunger during the day (no more feeling ravenous by lunch time).
Q: How do I cancel?
A: You want to do what?!
Only kidding. To cancel, simply get in touch with us by contacting us directly, or replying to the weekly Primal Provisions email.
We want this to be something that changes your life. If you’re not putting it into action for whatever reason, then that won’t happen, and we wouldn’t want you continue on if that’s the case.
Q: I have issues with dairy. Will I be able to use this?
A: We do use dairy in some of our recipes. However, it’s entirely possible you can still make this work. Read on.
When it comes to the world of “dairy” issues and sensitivities, there is much confusion.
This is partly from the fact that, in many instances, dairy has been wrongly blamed for symptoms that were arising from other problems, but also from the fact that “dairy” is a large category that encompasses many different things.
Just as you might be sensitive to pineapple but have no problems eating other types of fruit, most folks with a dairy issue will only have problems with certain forms of dairy.
The two types of problems people can potentially have dairy are:
1. Lactose intolerance. This results from an inability to break down the sugar in milk, which is in the form of lactose. This results in bloating and digestive upheaval.
Lactose intolerance isn’t considered a dangerous condition, but does result in unpleasantness after eating dairy that has lactose. Usually these symptoms are obvious after drinking milk (the form of dairy with the highest dose of lactose).
The degree of unpleasantness also correlates with the amount of lactose in the dairy. Forms of dairy that are free of lactose (butter, ghee, sour cream, cream cheese, heavy cream, and some cheeses) do not pose a problem.
2. Dairy allergy. Dairy allergy results from an immune system reaction to dairy protein, usually casein (and potentially only certain breeds of cow).
This causes an allergic reaction after consuming dairy that has dairy protein in it. The most common symptom is a rash that develops after eating dairy (more intense reactions with hives and breathing problems can occur, but are rare, and more commonly occurring in children).
Forms of dairy that have had the dairy protein removed (butter, ghee, sour cream, heavy cream) do not provoke an allergy (since the allergies are caused by immune system reactions to proteins).
To recap, dairy products that have had the substances that cause a reaction removed do not pose a problem. And these also happen to be the primary forms of dairy we use in our recipes.
In cases where we have used a form a dairy you could react to, then it’s more than likely you’ll be able substitute with a recipe from one of the other plan variations, or leave out the dairy if it’s a non-essential ingredient (e.g. salad topping, etc.).
As I said earlier, it’s not uncommon for symptoms that have been attributed to dairy sensitivities to be from something else entirely (typically “leaky gut syndrome”).
We’ve had many folks now who previously thought they had problems with dairy, only to find that they cleared up after adopting the Migraine Miracle plan (likely through improvements in gut health), and that dairy had been falsely accused.
Q: I’m allergic to tree nuts. Will your recipes contain nut flours or nuts?
A: We very seldom use nut flours. We do use nuts occasionally, but if so it’s as a non-essential ingredient that could be left out.
Also, since we’ll have both the “primary” and “basic” plans, in all likelihood you could always switch out for one of those basic meals if the primary one included nuts.
Q: Is this way of eating restrictive?
A: We certainly don’t think so.
While eating this way does involve eliminating certain items from the diet (most notably added sugars, highly processed foods, refined and processed vegetable and seed oils, and gluten grains), these are not things we miss, as they not only invite visits from the beast, but they are also associated with all manner of chronic illness, degeneration, and decrepitude.
We’d prefer to avoid such things.
It also involves adding back certain foods that we were wrongly told over the past few decades that we should avoid, advice that has led to a crisis of obesity and metabolic syndrome. So while you lose some things, you gain some others.
We are also blessed to live in a time of incredible food abundance, with access to a range of ingredients our ancestors could’ve only dreamed about, and are able to eat a diet that’s more rich and varied than at any other point in human history.
Thus, we choose to focus on all the wondrous things we CAN eat and still enjoy migraine freedom, boundless energy, and good health, rather than the few items we choose to avoid to save us from throbbing head pains, chronic fatigue, and a hastening of our demise.
And without a doubt, since adopting this way of eating, we not only eat a wider range of foods, but enjoy eating more than ever before.
Q: I don’t have migraines but would like reap the benefits of eating this way. Can I join?
A: Of course!
I began eating this way initially to reduce my chances of chronic, preventable illness and degeneration (things like diabetes, obesity, stroke, heart disease, cancer, Alzheimers, Parkinsons, arthritis, all of which are considered to be “diseases of civilization”), and it remains the plan I recommend to anyone looking to lose weight / reach optimum body composition, or optimize long term health and well being.
The fact that it ended my migraines was an added (and most welcome) bonus.
This is the way of eating I recommend to all friends and families, many of whom have fully adopted this approach as well (several of whom are now part of Primal Provisions!).
Q: I want my migraines to go away, but I really don’t like to cook? What can I do?
A: There’s no better way to know EXACTLY what’s going into your body than to prepare your own food. And so there’s no better way to reduce your chances of being visited by the migraine beast than to prepare your own meals.
In fact, one of the main reasons we created Primal Provisions was to help those folks who don’t love meal planning and cooking, but who still want to enjoy the benefits of eating this way.
It’s also why we’ve included a BASIC plan (simple and easy recipes with 5 ingredients or less) for those who want to minimize their time in the kitchen.
Q: How much does it cost?
A: A subscription to Primal Provisions is currently set at an introductory price of $14 per month (you may cancel at any time).
While the meal plans require a substantial amount of time and effort, our goal is to make this plan as affordable as possible. We want this to change your life, and for you to feel like this is the best investment you ever made in yourself.
This is also a way of buying back your time. It takes roughly 4 to 6 hours each week for us to put a full plan together, or roughly 20 hours per month (and we’ve been doing it a while!).
Doing the math, you’ll be buying back 20 hours per month at a cost of 70 cents per hour by outsourcing the planning to us.
I totally think you’re worth it. 🙂