How to Feel Better: Eat a Paleo Diet

[royaldude]

about me, well im a normal guy probably drink more than most but im your typical american born in 1984 so for me and my generation the logic was fat is bad and sugar well isnt. i lived this way for 26 yrs the fact is i got fat not fat fat but my peak was 205 at 6 feet. i was 160 in college but as i got older my metabolism slowed and i got heavier. for the record when i got heavier i didnt exercise. i drank alot and ate whatever i wanted. then a friend recommended i try paleo eating. for those not familar paleo diet is eating what our ancestors ate so meat, eggs, fruits, vegtables, nuts. this isnt a diet because there is no calorie counting but it just restricts what you eat. dairy is allowed for those it doesnt cause problems for namely asians and some blacks. why dairy since it got introduced around same time as grains 10 thousand years ago is because it doesnt raise your insulin and doesnt have any sugar. the problem with insulin which is really prevalent in white foods, pasta rice and potatoes is it makes you more hungry so you eat more. sugar also spikes your insulin and makes your more hungry. fat and protein doesnt do this. but you may ask doesnt fruit have sugar, yes it does but if you eat whole fruit the fiber slows the sugar into the bloodstream. but dont we need to eat carbs? no we dont we need fat and protein. look at the eskimos no grains in there diet very low levels of vegtables and fruit yet no deficiencies in vitamins and minerals. they eat organ meats which are rich in vit and minerals. in fact heart disease, cancer and strokes are largely the result of modern man diet. weston price was dentist in the 1920s he visted primitive societies all over the world and found they had good teeth and also cancer and heart attacks were unheard in these societies. also people were lean and very few overweight. he has a website in his honor and a free ebook. for me switching to paleo i lost 25 founds in 6 weeks effortlessly. have 25% more energy and feel better than ever. i still have beer occasionally but usually stick to vodka or tequilla as it has no carbs. for those interested in learning more my knowledge came from

mark sisson
rob wolfe
gary taubes
all have youtube videos and the first two have web pages

[Cornfed]

Yes, paleo is the way to go. Where food is abundant, hunter-gatherer tribes tend to eat mostly fatty meat and supplement it with plant material in a similar way to how we use vitamin supplements. The problem with agricultural foods is that we eat mostly the seeds of plants that spend a lot of their resources producing seeds. This makes economic sense in that it is possible to produce a lot of calories in a small space. However, these seeds are not very healthy in that they contain a lot of sugar to provide a boost for the growing plant but not a lot of nutrients and so are really junk food. Also, the plants have evolved toxins to defend their seeds which are not completely deactivated by cooking.

[Jester]

........then a friend recommended i try paleo eating. for those not familar paleo diet is eating what our ancestors ate so meat, eggs, fruits, vegtables, nuts. this isnt a diet because there is no calorie counting but it just restricts what you eat. .............i still have beer occasionally but usually stick to vodka or tequilla as it has no carbs.

Hey RoyalDude...

Did you lose weight on the Paleo Diet while in Mexico?

Are you able to continue it there?

Is peer pressure a problem - i.e. people bringin you tamales, serving you enchiladas, handing you beer?

Do you eat out or cook for yourself?

[Billy]

maybe i should give it a new try someday.

[gsjackson]

Check out a website called 180degreehealth.com. The guy has made himself into an ongoing human health experiment. Says he had great results with paleo for a few months, but then it all crashed and burned. Go without enough carbs for a while and there will be hell to pay, he says.

There's just too much conflicting information out there about what to eat and drink. I go with what my body says it wants when I'm fit, which is what the guy on the website recommends.

[onethousandknives]

Check out a website called 180degreehealth.com. The guy has made himself into an ongoing human health experiment. Says he had great results with paleo for a few months, but then it all crashed and burned. Go without enough carbs for a while and there will be hell to pay, he says.

There's just too much conflicting information out there about what to eat and drink. I go with what my body says it wants when I'm fit, which is what the guy on the website recommends.

That's pretty much my experience. Going low carb, initially you feel awesome and great, but after 3-4 months, honeymoon is over. It'll work longer IF you're like totally sedentary, but any athletic activity at all on it, you'll crash and burn fast.

http://www.garynorth.com/public/9397.cfm
This guy here explains why the paleo diet's premise is illogical. The guy actually follows a low carb/paleo diet himself, but yes.

[Winston]

I don't understand something. If cave men were healthier then why did they have such a short life expectancy? Didn't they live to be like 30 or 35 years?

And why does the nutrition establishment encourage low fat/high carb diets, if the opposite is true? Are they involved in a conspiracy to make Americans more sick to profit the medical industry and big pharma?

Here is a US News and World Report that ranks the Paleo Diet low. But of course, this is an establishment source, not an unbiased one. I don't know why it pretends to be unbiased.

http://health.usnews.com/best-diet/paleo-diet

Btw, isn't the Paleo Diet the same thing as the Atkins Diet? What's the difference?

[Winston]

Btw, check out this documentary called "Fat Head" that supports the claims of the Paleo Diet. At the beginning, he debunks the "Supersize Me" documentary as flawed, and goes on to prove the opposite. The narrator eats a moderate sized meal at McDonald's everyday while exercising by walking a lot. He then loses a few pounds after a few weeks.

Then he goes on to explain, with clips from many health experts, why our notions about fat and carbs are wrong, and why high cholesterol is not unhealthy, and why grains and carbs are treated as sugar by the body and turned into stored fat, while real fat is burned immediately as energy. He also explained that calorie counting is oversimplistic, and that the key is in what the body DOES with the calories, not in how many calories it receives. Do you think he's right?

[Jackal]

Then he goes on to explain, with clips from many health experts, why our notions about fat and carbs are wrong, and why high cholesterol is not unhealthy, and why grains and carbs are treated as sugar by the body and turned into stored fat, while real fat is burned immediately as energy. He also explained that calorie counting is oversimplistic, and that the key is in what the body DOES with the calories, not in how many calories it receives. Do you think he's right?

Yes, I agree with the main points of this video, but you need to realize that he is not saying that the total amount of calories eaten per day is not important. He knows it's important, but he knows that other details (such as limiting the amount of carbs one eats) are also very helpful. But you will still get fat on a low-carb diet if you eat too many calories!

Skip to about 14:15 in the video when he discusses his basic plan for dieting. He used formulas to determine how many calories he should eat each day to lose weight. He also understood that the number of calories you burn is also important, so he went for a walk 6 times per week.
And yes, limiting carbs helps with fat loss, so he limited the amount of carbs he ate.

Anyway, Winston, I'm glad you're interested in this stuff, but it's almost impossible to be on a low-carb diet as a vegetarian, so are you thinking of going back to eating meat? If you only eat meat and vegetables for a while, you should get lean quickly.

[mrmillersd]

I think high meat low carb diets make people stronger....

Its so simple. Look at scandinaivan people-traditional diet meat and milk. Iceland for example, fish, milk meat

now look at southern asians-rice, veggies, fruits- tiny body frames etc. this is indisputable....just look at southern chinese who have adopted a western diet-much taller in a single generation

[momopi]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hara_hachi_bu