You may have heard one of your CrossFit buddies talk about the Paleo Diet, or maybe you saw the NY Times article regarding modern cavemen in New York, or maybe you were sent this link by a friend who has stopped eating all grains and started rapidly increasing their meat intake, either way, welcome. I am going to give you a quick introduction to the Paleo diet as well as some links where you can find more information, if you so desire.
The premise of the Paleo Diet is that human evolution is not suited to the modern American diet,primarily because of the processed grains which results in high daily carbohydrate intake. Agriculture is the culprit, as grains are the cheapest food item to produce, store well, and are easy and profitable to manipulate into processed foods. All of this is great, except that these grains are killing us. Grains contain all kinds of dastardly particles, like gluten and lectin, so at best they are making you fat and at worst, they are doing actual harm to your body. You may ask What about Whole Grains? Unfortunately, these are just as bad for you, and should be avoided at all costs. Yes this means bagels, donuts, muffins, pizza, sandwiches, calzones etc. You always knew most of these things were bad, and I am not about to tell you different!
The premise of the Paleo Diet is that human evolution is not suited to the modern American diet,primarily because of the processed grains which results in high daily carbohydrate intake. Agriculture is the culprit, as grains are the cheapest food item to produce, store well, and are easy and profitable to manipulate into processed foods. All of this is great, except that these grains are killing us. Grains contain all kinds of dastardly particles, like gluten and lectin, so at best they are making you fat and at worst, they are doing actual harm to your body. You may ask What about Whole Grains? Unfortunately, these are just as bad for you, and should be avoided at all costs. Yes this means bagels, donuts, muffins, pizza, sandwiches, calzones etc. You always knew most of these things were bad, and I am not about to tell you different!
Lets move on to some of the things you can eat. I have included a couple of food pyramids that show what a primal diet looks like, with obviously the most important foods at the base. First of all, you are going to want to eat a lot of meat, and not just lean meat like boneless chicken breasts! This category also includes fish, eggs, and occasional dairy. Secondly, you are going to need to eat more vegetables, these provide a ton of great vitamins as well as fill you up, enjoy what you like! Towards the top of the pyramid are healthy seeds and nuts and the occasional piece of fruit. Nuts and seeds are nutritionally dense, and in the end calories do count, so don't go overboard! Fruits contain a lot of fructose, so for those of you interested in the paleo diet to lose weight, may want to avoid fruit.
This definitely seems counterintuitive to our conventional wisdom and the USDA, which says we should eat nearly half of our calories from carbohydrates. These same people say that we get our energy from these carbs, but on the paleo diet, you will be getting your energy from fat. Fat sounds like a terrible thing to reccommend, but that's only because of an aggressive smear campaign from agriculture's benefactors. Fat is a much better source of energy, and although eventually the high caloric value can make you heavier, eating a reasonable amount of it is the way to health. Of course, we are talking about healthy fats, not partially hydrogenated coconut oil and transfats, we are talking about high quality fats from nuts, healthy oils, and meat.
Just taking these first steps might seem hard, and it is going to be, because the high carb diet we are eating is addictive. However, once you get past this first hurdle, you will be in the clear and feel much better than you did before becoming paleo. There are tons of online resources for the paleo newbie.
Mark Sisson wrote the Primal Blueprint and maintains MarksDailyApple.com and Robb Wolf's book and blog are two of the best sources for information on primal lifestyle.
Some other lesser known sites like NerdFitness and ATerrificLife are good sites for information on the primal/paleo diet and related information.
NomNomPaleo is one of my favorite sites for paleo foods/recipes and her husband's site Fitbomb is not bad either!
This definitely seems counterintuitive to our conventional wisdom and the USDA, which says we should eat nearly half of our calories from carbohydrates. These same people say that we get our energy from these carbs, but on the paleo diet, you will be getting your energy from fat. Fat sounds like a terrible thing to reccommend, but that's only because of an aggressive smear campaign from agriculture's benefactors. Fat is a much better source of energy, and although eventually the high caloric value can make you heavier, eating a reasonable amount of it is the way to health. Of course, we are talking about healthy fats, not partially hydrogenated coconut oil and transfats, we are talking about high quality fats from nuts, healthy oils, and meat.
Just taking these first steps might seem hard, and it is going to be, because the high carb diet we are eating is addictive. However, once you get past this first hurdle, you will be in the clear and feel much better than you did before becoming paleo. There are tons of online resources for the paleo newbie.
Mark Sisson wrote the Primal Blueprint and maintains MarksDailyApple.com and Robb Wolf's book and blog are two of the best sources for information on primal lifestyle.
Some other lesser known sites like NerdFitness and ATerrificLife are good sites for information on the primal/paleo diet and related information.
NomNomPaleo is one of my favorite sites for paleo foods/recipes and her husband's site Fitbomb is not bad either!
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