I'm always looking for new diets out there to test out and see how they work.
As I've stated in the past, I think most diets DO work, it's just a matter of sticking with it that causes people to fall off of them.
Whether it's because they don't enjoy the food, or just simply they get bored.
In the end, I think people need to find a form of dieting that works for them. Meaning, they enjoy the foods, the feeling that they get, and they consistently see results (but let's not go overboard...the beer and pizza diet just isn't going to work).
So I tried out a diet that is based on eating similar to our Paleolithic ancestors.
Essentially, Paleolithic people were those that lived before the agricultural revolution. They were the hunter-gatherers of our history.
The theory behind the diet is that the agricultural revolution only came about roughly 10,000 years ago, and for the vast majority of the human population, agriculture didn't really become a staple in how we obtained our food until as recently as a thousand years ago (and it might even be more recent than that).
But, for the prior 2.5 million years of human evolution (and through all the various human forms), we hunted and gathered our food, and this is what the human body is still designed to handle and process today.
10,000 years might sound like a long time but, in a different perspective, the human genome has only changed .04 percent in 40,000 years.
The diet argues that we've made such a "quick" change from eating foods that we obtained from hunting and gathering to foods that are domesticated and processed, that our body has not and will not for some time, adjust health-wise to them.
When looking at some of the last hunter-gatherer cultures left in the world (and there are roughly only between 10,000-20,000 such people remaining that live like this globally) they tend to be leaner, stronger and healthier (meaning, things like cancer, diabetes, etc. are near non-existent).
Overall, the eating is very simple: You eat meat, chicken, fish, game meat, vegetables (except potatoes and yams), fruits, nuts (except cashews and peanuts) and some oils (canola oil, walnut oil, olive oil). That's it. No bread, no pasta, no beans, no legumes, no processed food or meat (ham, salami or bacon), no butter, no dairy (except an egg once in a while would be okay).
Black coffee was fine, and tea was fine.
Maybe most importantly, NO SALT.
A lot of times you hear the statement "Just don't add salt to what you are eating and you'll be fine." The problem is that most of the foods out there now in the grocery stores are so packed with sodium, not adding additional salt isn't going to matter. The goal on this diet is to NOT buy foods that are already packed with salt (which basically means, stay away from foods sold in a box).
I tried eating like this for 4 weeks and I ended up losing 5 pounds and about an inch and a half around my waist. Not bad. About what I would expect for any other diet.
I did enjoy eating this way though. No counting calories was a major plus. And because it's summertime, it was great to make a massive bowl of mixed fruit with strawberries, blueberries, oranges, apples, bananas, grapes, etc every couple of days and just stuff myself.
For the meats, it wasn't as bad as I thought not being able to add a little salt to it. There's a ton of other spices that I could add to it (like garlic and onion powder but NOT garlic salt or onion salt) to really give it some flavor.
Overall I'd give the diet 2 thumbs up and it's definitely something I'm going to stick with for awhile as I really liked the way I felt eating this way. Taking out the wheat, bread, rice, etc. completely out of my eating really has helped with getting down to eating away at those last few pounds of fat I've got in various places while at the same time, continuing to get a great source of fiber, vitamins and minerals from all the vegetables and fruits I was eating.
If you're interested in reading more about this diet and what foods you can and cannot eat as well as a whole section with recipes that you can make, click on the link below for the Paleo Diet by Loren Cordain and check it out.
That's it for the week. I know I've been blogging less lately and I apologize for that. I've been working on some new projects that I'm going to be launching in the coming weeks that I'm really focused and excited about and in the end, I think you are really going to enjoy them.
Have a nice 4th of July weekend!
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