Leo Dimilo
Tonya Lachey
Denise Gabbard
Dianna GThe Paleo Diet- Would a Caveman Do It If He Were Alive Today?
April 9th 2010 15:45
Can you lose weight with the Paleo diet? Of course. And very quickly. In fact, I played around with this diet a year or so back and found that I was losing about a pound and a half every other day. And if you are thinking that this is an endorsement to this highly restrictive diet that actually works and will make you feel great, you won't get one from me....
The paleo diet is hard. In fact, although it is effective, you will find that food will become more boring on the paleo diet....
Let me explain....
The Caveman Diet
For those of you who don't know what this diet is about, it uses the assumption that we, as humans, aren't evolved to eat the diet that we all currently eat. It asserts that our species evolution into agricultural things is primarily the reason why we are unhealthy and fat. It boldly makes the claim that many modern day diseases probably didn't exist 15,000 years ago when we had stopped living in trees and became hunters and gatherers.
Things like arthritis could be cured if you jump on this diet. Diabetes, Gout high blood pressure, high cholesterol and other very modern day conditions would go away....still interested?
Before you make those reservations in the Bahamas and pre-purchase that size 0 bathing suit that will take the place of your size 10 frame in a couple months, understand that the paleo diet will require some serious modifications to your diet.
I say serious because in this day and age, I highly doubt that there is more than a fraction of the population that currently and naturally could last for a week on the Paleo diet, nevermind making it thier lifestyle diet....
But you will lose weight and be healthier....happiness becomes optional though if food is what makes you happy (and you may be surprised that this is the case even if you don't consider yourself a food addict).
What you can eat on the Paleo Diet
Rather than the laundry list of things you can't eat on this diet, I feel it better to say what you can eat....
You are allowed to eat anything that you would be able to eat if you were hanging out in the woods foraging or hunting animals on your own....just like a caveman.
This entails primarily 2 things-
Animal Protein
Fruits and Vegetables that can be eaten in a raw state.
Just in case you didn't realize what that doesn't include, think of it this way...
Cavemen didn't have access to processed foods...
They also didn't have access to sugar, alcohol, or so many other vices that are considered "normal" in today's society...
Because Potatoes are toxic precooked (yeah, bet you didn't know that), potatoes or "tubers" are off the menu as well....
Same goes for peanuts (toxic if eaten raw), although all the other nuts like almonds and what not are perfectly fit for the caveman in you.
Dairy, breads, rice and all the foods that we oh, so love is gone as well...all that stuff was developed with agriculture.
All in all, the paleo diet would require a huge change in lifestyle.
The Caveman Diet- Fruits, Vegetables....Protein....Repeat....
Now, you are probably wondering why someone would want to torment themselves with this, right?
Well, although science hasn't proven that the Paleo or grain free diet actually has anything to do with arthritis, it is a fairly well known fact that you would be healthier if you diet consisted of meat, veggies and fruits. Your blood pressure would likely go down. Your cholesterol would likely be normal.
But the more likely reason would be that your diet is so clean, you body wouldn't have to spend it energy and resources trying to constantly detoxify your body of all the processed foods and sugar that you stick into it.
And as far as weight loss is concerned, I doubt that anyone would debate that if you dropped that 6 pack of cokes, fast food and twinkies daily regimen, then chances are very good that you would likely drop weight very quickly.
And chances are also good that if you are dropping weight quickly, this would be a huge boost to morale and you may even experience the placebo effect of getting somewhere quick (remember that size 0 bathing suit?)
Think about it this way for a second....
How much weight do you think you could lose if you killed all the sugar (ketchup has sugar in it...so does marinara....so does peanut butter...), drop kicked breads and pasta, and kung-fu-ed all the food you would typically buy in a bag and replaced it with fresh vegetables and fruits and meats?
The answer is an astonishing amount...very very quickly...
But it won't be fun...you will likely find a void in your life that needed to be filled (food is pretty much the meaning for existence for a good part of society)...and chances are you would be miserable.
And my two month foray into my inner caveman proved one thing to me- food is pretty god-danged important and a life centered exclusively of fruits, vegetables and chicken ain't necessarily my idea of a good time.
Never mind all the parties I spent watching my friends doing drunken renditions of "jukebox hero" karaoke style while I quietly nursed by paleo friendly glass of water and wondered why the heck I thought that was such a cool song.....
And while I managed to drop down to the weight I was when I was in high school some 20 years ago, I found myself actually wondering what was the point? A couple compliments here and there? For the six pack that I was sporting?
By the way, I am not the only one who has seen this kind of radical change with the caveman diet. Here is a blog that is basically a diet diary of someone on the diet.
I eventually found a gentler, kinder lifestyle diet that was a more evolved paleo diet, put back on some of the weight (but not all) pre-paleo and am happy to report that I am back to being able to join the rest of world again when I eat at restaurants.
...and "juke box hero" karaoke style is once again cool...
But here is my question.....If a Caveman suddenly plopped down into our society today....Do you think that he would go Paleo?
The paleo diet is hard. In fact, although it is effective, you will find that food will become more boring on the paleo diet....
Let me explain....
The Caveman Diet
Today's version of "hunting"
For those of you who don't know what this diet is about, it uses the assumption that we, as humans, aren't evolved to eat the diet that we all currently eat. It asserts that our species evolution into agricultural things is primarily the reason why we are unhealthy and fat. It boldly makes the claim that many modern day diseases probably didn't exist 15,000 years ago when we had stopped living in trees and became hunters and gatherers.
Things like arthritis could be cured if you jump on this diet. Diabetes, Gout high blood pressure, high cholesterol and other very modern day conditions would go away....still interested?
Before you make those reservations in the Bahamas and pre-purchase that size 0 bathing suit that will take the place of your size 10 frame in a couple months, understand that the paleo diet will require some serious modifications to your diet.
I say serious because in this day and age, I highly doubt that there is more than a fraction of the population that currently and naturally could last for a week on the Paleo diet, nevermind making it thier lifestyle diet....
But you will lose weight and be healthier....happiness becomes optional though if food is what makes you happy (and you may be surprised that this is the case even if you don't consider yourself a food addict).
What you can eat on the Paleo Diet
Rather than the laundry list of things you can't eat on this diet, I feel it better to say what you can eat....
You are allowed to eat anything that you would be able to eat if you were hanging out in the woods foraging or hunting animals on your own....just like a caveman.
This entails primarily 2 things-
Animal Protein
Fruits and Vegetables that can be eaten in a raw state.
Just in case you didn't realize what that doesn't include, think of it this way...
Cavemen didn't have access to processed foods...
They also didn't have access to sugar, alcohol, or so many other vices that are considered "normal" in today's society...
Because Potatoes are toxic precooked (yeah, bet you didn't know that), potatoes or "tubers" are off the menu as well....
Same goes for peanuts (toxic if eaten raw), although all the other nuts like almonds and what not are perfectly fit for the caveman in you.
Dairy, breads, rice and all the foods that we oh, so love is gone as well...all that stuff was developed with agriculture.
All in all, the paleo diet would require a huge change in lifestyle.
The Caveman Diet- Fruits, Vegetables....Protein....Repeat....
Now, you are probably wondering why someone would want to torment themselves with this, right?
Well, although science hasn't proven that the Paleo or grain free diet actually has anything to do with arthritis, it is a fairly well known fact that you would be healthier if you diet consisted of meat, veggies and fruits. Your blood pressure would likely go down. Your cholesterol would likely be normal.
But the more likely reason would be that your diet is so clean, you body wouldn't have to spend it energy and resources trying to constantly detoxify your body of all the processed foods and sugar that you stick into it.
And as far as weight loss is concerned, I doubt that anyone would debate that if you dropped that 6 pack of cokes, fast food and twinkies daily regimen, then chances are very good that you would likely drop weight very quickly.
And chances are also good that if you are dropping weight quickly, this would be a huge boost to morale and you may even experience the placebo effect of getting somewhere quick (remember that size 0 bathing suit?)
Think about it this way for a second....
How much weight do you think you could lose if you killed all the sugar (ketchup has sugar in it...so does marinara....so does peanut butter...), drop kicked breads and pasta, and kung-fu-ed all the food you would typically buy in a bag and replaced it with fresh vegetables and fruits and meats?
The answer is an astonishing amount...very very quickly...
But it won't be fun...you will likely find a void in your life that needed to be filled (food is pretty much the meaning for existence for a good part of society)...and chances are you would be miserable.
And my two month foray into my inner caveman proved one thing to me- food is pretty god-danged important and a life centered exclusively of fruits, vegetables and chicken ain't necessarily my idea of a good time.
Never mind all the parties I spent watching my friends doing drunken renditions of "jukebox hero" karaoke style while I quietly nursed by paleo friendly glass of water and wondered why the heck I thought that was such a cool song.....
And while I managed to drop down to the weight I was when I was in high school some 20 years ago, I found myself actually wondering what was the point? A couple compliments here and there? For the six pack that I was sporting?
By the way, I am not the only one who has seen this kind of radical change with the caveman diet. Here is a blog that is basically a diet diary of someone on the diet.
I eventually found a gentler, kinder lifestyle diet that was a more evolved paleo diet, put back on some of the weight (but not all) pre-paleo and am happy to report that I am back to being able to join the rest of world again when I eat at restaurants.
...and "juke box hero" karaoke style is once again cool...
But here is my question.....If a Caveman suddenly plopped down into our society today....Do you think that he would go Paleo?
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