Paleo Diet Is the Athlete's Diet

ByMarco W Cepeda

The Paleo diet which consists of foods that our Stone Age ancestors ate is today gaining more and more adherence as the perfect diet for athletes because of the health benefits it provides in terms of boosting one's energy, gaining muscle strength and keeping body weight down. What's more, the person on a Paleo diet can maintain his normal weight without controlling his food intake. You can eat as often and as much as you want.

Not all of us are athletes but we all want to be fit and healthy. So everyone can switch to a Paleo diet to be trim, stronger and free from the common diseases brought on by the fast food culture. It has been consistently shown that the foods in the Paleo diet help prevent diabetes, obesity, cancer and heart diseases.

Paleo foods

When you think of Paleo foods, think of what the cavemen ate before agriculture became a systematic activity. There was a great variety of foods available during the Paleolithic era. These included animal meat, fish, fowls, eggs, tree nuts, fruits, vegetables, berries, roots and mushrooms. This means that a Paleo diet does not limit your food choices.

For healthy meat, wild game meat is the best but meat that comes from grass-fed animals is also very Paleo. Processed meat is not as well as meat coming from animals raised on artificial feeds and pumped with all sorts of growth boosters.

The same criteria go for fish and vegetables. In order for fish to be a Paleo food, it must be caught in open seas instead of fish farms where commercial feeds are used. As for vegetables, they should be the organic types without being bombarded with pesticides.

Of food plants, it is now known that our early ancestors knew more than 300 kinds of edible plants that they foraged on. Many of these were green and leafy plants, which included herbs and spices. For this reason, the health buff of today who wants to go Paleo has vast choices of food plants to eat. It is healthy eating as long as the leaves, stems and roots of plants used for eating are prepared according to the Paleo principle: no overcooking, no additives, no oils, no processing and no oils.

Unacceptable additives

Oil is acceptable as part of the Paleo diet if it is extracted from fruit trees like olive and palm as well as from selected nuts such as coconut, almond, walnut, pecan and hazel nut. The oil you use to cook food is harmful to health if it is seed oil produced industrially.

Other food additives that should be used sparingly are salt and sugar. Remember that salt and sugar were not yet known in the Stone Age. It is believed that the taste buds humans developed for salt and sugar do not yield health benefits at all. If we use these additives rarely, we can eliminate our yearning for them.

When it comes to beverages, only water is acceptable and we have to drink only when we are thirsty. The best is spring water with no chlorination or fluoride added. However, fruit juices are also recommended under the principle that fruits are healthy foods. Again, the fruit juice should be freshly squeezed and never processed or preserved.

Marco W.C. is a paleo diet expert. For more great information on paleo food lists, visit http://www.cavemanpaleolithicsecrets.com.

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Health and Fitness: Popular-Diets
Marco W Cepeda

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Cepeda, Marco W.".".21 Mar. 2012EzineArticles.com.25 Apr. 2012 .APA Style Citation:
Cepeda, M. W. (2012, March 21). . Retrieved April 25, 2012, from http://ezinearticles.com/?Paleo-­Diet-­Is-­the-­Athletes-­Diet&id=6953187Chicago Style Citation:
Cepeda, Marco W. "." EzineArticles.com. http://ezinearticles.com/?Paleo-­Diet-­Is-­the-­Athletes-­Diet&id=6953187EzineArticles.com© 2012 EzineArticles.com
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