The Paleo Diet: Getting Eaten by a Lion and Losing Weight

ByJeremy Hendon

It's gone by a variety of names (the Paleolithic diet, the Caveman diet, or simply the Paleo diet). By any name and in any of its forms, though, the Paleo diet has become increasingly popular and also increasingly ridiculed.

It's not uncommon to hear critics say that the Paleolithic diet is a "fad" or simply weird or ridiculous. However, despite all of the criticism, more and more people are adopting the diet. In addition, a growing body scientific research supports and underpins the core principles that make up the Paleo diet.

What, then, are the core principles of the Paleo diet and lifestyle? And why have so many people chosen to adopt it?

A. The Food (the Diet)

Although many experts emphasize the need for change in various aspects of the modern lifestyle (stress, sleep, exercise, etc.), Paleo is first and foremost a diet centered around food choices.

The core dietary principle of Paleo is that modern humans should attempt to eat more like our 'cavemen' ancestors. No matter where your ancestors originated from, it wasn't until pretty recently that humans were able to eat certain foods. For most of human existence, foods such as processed sugar, as well as wheat, rice, and other grains were not able to be eaten by humans.

The primary problem with eating these foods is that the human body never evolved to digest these foods very well. And because we can't digest the foods very well, they can cause a lot of problems in our body, especially if we eat these foods for a long time. Prolonged ingestion of these foods can often lead to long term illnesses, such as heart disease, Alzheimer's, and diabetes. Highly processed grains and sugars (such as cakes, cookies, breads, and sodas) are particularly bad and are highly discouraged by experts.

What should someone eat if they want to adopt a Paleo diet?

Basically, most experts encourage us to eat a lot of unprocessed meats and vegetables (especially green leafy ones), along with small amount of fruit and nuts. If you think about it, these recommendations are not all that surprising - after all, how many people really think that cakes, cookies, breads, and sodas are particularly healthy? Very few of our mothers or grandmothers would have encouraged us to eat our bread and soda at every meal.

One of the main complaints about the Paleolithic diet is that preparing unprocessed meats and vegetables can take a lot of time. After all, we don't actually live in the Paleolithic area, where our primary concerns would be hunting and gathering food and escaping predators. We all have high-stress jobs and kids to take to soccer practice.

That's why many Paleo diet practitioners adopt a more flexible diet. If you're able to cook your own food every day, then kudos! However, if you don't have the time, then there are more and more ready-made "Paleo" products being made available for purchase. These products range from cereals to diet drinks. As the diet grows in popularity, more and more of these products are becoming available.

B. Exercise (and Movement)

Besides the dietary aspect of Paleo, most experts recommend also trying to be more like our ancient ancestors in terms of exercise.

In particular, our ancestors rarely sat in one place for very long - very unlike we modern humans do for 8 or 10 hours in our office jobs. When possible, Paleo practitioners try to move around more during the day, rather than sitting for a prolonged period of time. Unfortunately, this is one of the aspects of the Paleolithic lifestyle that is the most difficult to actually implement, since most of our bosses wouldn't appreciate us getting up from our desk every half-hour to stretch, walk around, and do a few squats.

Although many of us can't adopt that aspect of the lifestyle, there is another aspect that is easier to fit in. If you picture life in the Paleolithic Era, then it probably involves images of running from lions and bears and also images of chasing and hunting deer and wild boar (or similar animals). The common theme to these activities is that they required our ancestors to exert a lot of energy and strength in a short period of time. These activities didn't require our ancestors to run for an hour or to be continuously exercising all day.

Many Paleo dieters seek to replicate this sporadically but intensely active aspect of our ancestors' lifestyle. One way that this is done is through a program known as "CrossFit." CrossFit is a brief, high intensity workout involving a lot of strength training and emphasizing "natural" movements. Many of the movements involved in CrossFit workouts seek to imitate the movements often performed by humans in a natural environment (i.e., not sitting in an office chair!).

CrossFit exercises are very diverse, but some examples include pull-ups, squats, and deadlifts. In each case, our ancestors probably didn't do these exact exercises, but the exercises approximate movements that they did do. If our ancestor wanted an apple or coconut high in a tree, they probably had to pull themselves up the tree to get it. If they wanted to move a big rock or create a temporary shelter, they needed to be able to push heavy objects around to do it. Likewise, if they killed an antelope and actually wanted to get it back to where the rest of their tribe was, they were going to have to lift it off the ground in order to carry it.

Conversely, although our ancestors were in pretty good shape and could probably jog for quite a while, it's unlikely that they did so particularly often. One doesn't "jog" away from a dangerous animal or after a fast-moving meal. In addition, continuous work-outs that take several hours and occur several times a week can cause severe inflammation in our bodies and often lead to overuse injuries.

C. Stress

Weren't our ancient ancestors stressed? Surely when a hungry lion wandered by, our ancestors got a little worried, right?

Of course our ancestors got stressed. However, it was most often what's called "acute" stress. In other words, the stress was severe, but it was very short-lived. Either you got away from the lion or it ate you. Either way, you weren't stressed for very long.

Experts emphasize that the modern human faces a lot more "chronic" stress. We may not be quite as worried about our job or our bills as we would be about seeing a hungry lion, but the stress our jobs and bills cause never ends. Having this sort of chronic stress actually does physical damage to our bodies because of the hormones that constantly get released as a result. Like the dietary advice, this is not particularly surprising, since most of us know that we feel much worse physically during times when we're constantly stressed.

Getting rid of the chronic stress is the hardest part, but many Paleolithic practitioners find that eating better, exercising well, and just paying attention to what stresses them help to begin relieving some of that chronic stress.

D. Sleep

Most cavemen slept a healthy 9 hours while the sun was down. After all, it's pretty dangerous in the dark.

Experts suggest that we should all sleep when the sun sets and wake when the sun rises, perhaps by using thick curtains to ensure that street lights don't disturb our sleep. This is not controversial for the most part, but many people don't know just how much lack of sleep can affect their lives. From heart disease to weight loss, lack of sleep has been scientifically shown to negatively affect almost all aspect of our health.

Weird, Ridiculous, or Mostly Common Sense?

Now that you know all about the Paleolithic diet and lifestyle, what do you think? Is eating more vegetables and fewer cookies ridiculous? How weird is it to suggest sleeping for 9 hours every night? Does it really defy common sense to exercise in ways that mirror movements we might need to use in our every-day lives?

Perhaps mirroring some aspects of the caveman lifestyle isn't so crazy after all. Cavemen may have died early due to a lack of medicines and many natural dangers, but they didn't die very often from cancers or diabetes-related illnesses. Many of our modern-day foods, exercises, and stresses combine to put our minds and bodies into situations that we simply were not designed to handle. Perhaps one day we will evolve to easily digest grains and work for 72 hours straight without sleeping, but sadly(?), that day has not yet come.

Jeremy is one of the founders of Flax Gold, which produces food products designed to make it easier to adhere to a healthy diet. In particular, Flax Gold produces a healthy and delicious breakfast cereal designed for anyone trying to stick to a Paleo or Low-Carb diet.

Jeremy also regularly blogs about health and nutrition issues and how to more easily stick to a healthy diet. You can find his blog at simplehealth.co.

Article Source:http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jeremy_Hendon

Did you find this article helpful?00Get Involved0 commentsSuggest a topicArticle ToolsPrint this articleE-mail to a friendEzinePublisherReport this articleCite this articleStay InformedGet notified by email when new articles are added to this category or written by this author.Subscribe to New Article Alerts:

Health and Fitness: Popular-Diets
Jeremy Hendon

Email Address:SubscribePopular Diets Article FeedFind More ArticlesSearchSimilar ArticlesPrimal-Nutrition: Ancestral Wisdom for a Modern EpidemicLose Weight In 2 Weeks By Eating RightConsider Calories In Vs Out AND Macronutrients For Maximum ResultsRecent ArticlesWhat's the Deal With Gluten?Top Ten Health Benefits of RaspberriesCookie Dieting - Why It Will Become Mainstream One DayAbout the Atkins Diet and Great Atkins RecipesLearn Important Methods on How to Lower Cholesterol NaturallyPaying More For Nutrisystem Frozen Foods: Three Reasons It's Worth ItHow to Reduce Water Retention NaturallyDo Food Habits Affect Your Singing Performance?Is It Required That You Have Your Medifast Lean And Green Meal At Dinner?A Guide to the Paleo DietSubmitted On April 08, 2012. Viewed 33 times. Word count: 1,438.

Important Disclaimer: Articles provided are for general information purposes only and are not intended to substitute for informed professional medical, psychological, tax, accounting, legal, investment, or any other professional advice. EzineArticles.com expressly disclaims liability for any product, manufacturer, distributor, service or service provider mentioned or any opinion expressed by any of our members or anywhere else within the site. Lastly, EzineArticles.com does not endorse any article. Use at your own risk.

MLA Style Citation:
Hendon, Jeremy".".8 Apr. 2012EzineArticles.com.25 Apr. 2012 .APA Style Citation:
Hendon, J. (2012, April 8). . Retrieved April 25, 2012, from http://ezinearticles.com/?The-­Paleo-­Diet:-­Getting-­Eaten-­by-­a-­Lion-­and-­Losing-­Weight&id=6988878Chicago Style Citation:
Hendon, Jeremy "." EzineArticles.com. http://ezinearticles.com/?The-­Paleo-­Diet:-­Getting-­Eaten-­by-­a-­Lion-­and-­Losing-­Weight&id=6988878EzineArticles.com© 2012 EzineArticles.com
All Rights Reserved Worldwide

About UsFAQContact UsMember BenefitsPrivacy PolicyShopSite MapBlogTrainingVideo ArchiveAdvertisingAffiliatesCartoonsAuthorsSubmit ArticlesMembers LoginPremium MembershipExpert AuthorsEndorsementsEditorial GuidelinesTerms of ServicePublishersFollow UsTerms Of ServiceEzines / Email AlertsManage SubscriptionsEzineArticles RSS

Czytaj więcej »

Healthy eating to fuel your weight loss can be broken down into 7 important and must-follow categories. These are - 1) How often do I eat 2) How do I fuel my muscles? 3) Getting Vitamins and Minerals 4) Which Carbohydrates 5) Good Fats please 6) Hydration 7) Planning and control.

1. How often do I eat?



This is a very important place to start as controlling you're eating times and changing your eating patterns is a very important factor in helping control hunger and helping promote weight loss. The pattern to follow is eating every 2-3 hours, reducing the size of the main meals so you can have 5-6 smaller but nutritionally packed meals. This will prevent your body from entering into starvation mode, and will give your body the confidence that it is going to continually get food throughout the day. This will super-charge your metabolism and will keep your body fuelled for weight loss.



2. How do I fuel my muscles?



It is important understand that muscle is made from something called amino-acids and it is long chains of these molecules which make muscle fibres. Some our bodies can make themselves, but the most important ones when building muscle have to be obtained from our diets. It is massively important to understand where the best place to obtain these nutrients is, so you can factor them into your small nutritionally packed meals. Eating low fat, high quality protein is the best place to obtain the nutrients you need for muscle building.



Meat such as lean red meat, low fat chicken, fish, low fat cottage cheese, white turkey meat and pork tenderloin are all high quality sources of protein with reduced saturated fat content. An excellent way to boost your protein intake is to drink whey protein shakes which will provide a quick boost of amino-acids to help fuel your weight loss.



3. Getting vitamins and Minerals



Vitamins and Minerals are essential for a range of physiological (that's basically your body working) functions. They will help immensely with your weight loss but it is important to increase your intake if you are exercising on a regular basis. First and foremost is obtaining these vitamins and minerals from your diet and this will involve eating a good variety of fruit and vegetables. The more colourful and varied in colour the better for obtaining a wide range of vitamins and minerals,also try to eat good quality produce. Unfortunately it is not always easy to do this so I would highly recommend supplementing your intake using a good quality multi vitamin and mineral supplement. This will ensure you are at least getting your daily requirements with your diet boosting this, it is important to note that the supplement is not in place of a varied diet.



4. Which Carbohydrates to eat?



Sticking to the correct types of carbohydrates will ensure the best supply of energy for your workouts and recovery. It is important to eat as much fruit and vegetable to obtain good quality carbohydrates but also compliment with wholemeal rice, wholemeal pasta, potatoes and yams. This will ensure you are avoiding processed carbohydrates which offer lower quality nutrition and ultimately can affect your weight loss efforts.



5. Good Fats Please.



Eating the correct types of fats is massively important if you want to control your metabolism, control your weight and fuel your muscle recovery. It is important to eat higher levels of mono-saturated and polyunsaturated fats than saturated fats. Saturated fats are needed for nervous function and hormone production but it is important to eat small amounts to ensure your body is dealing with them efficiently. To obtain mono-unsaturated fats you can eat foods such as mixed nuts, olives and olive oil. Polyunsaturated fats can be found in flax seed oil, fish oils and again mixed nuts. The better quality fats, known as good fats, will help regulate weight loss and aid muscle recovery after workouts.



6. Hydration.



With nearly 65% of the human body being made up of water it is obviously important to keep hydrated. The best way to keep your body hydrated is by drinking plain old water on a regular basis throughout the day. The amount depends on age, gender, size and activity levels so it is important to check your basic requirements first. If you increase your activity levels then it is important to increase your intake of water, do not wait till your thirst response kicks in, keep topping up with water throughout your workouts and throughout the day. A good habit to get into is to hydrate as soon as you wake up with 500ml of water before you drink or eat anything else.



7. Planning and Control.



Plan your weekly eating in a diary, making sure you keep a balance of the nutrients and food types mentioned above. Look into the amounts of each food you need to eat in each of your small power meals so you create balance. Track your foods and your progress and look for weaknesses in your diet so you can address them in your planning. Not every day will be perfect and some days you will find it hard to stick to your plan so it is important as a rule of thumb to try and eat 80% of your plan and let yourself have a treat meal or snack within your week. This way you will not deny yourself treat foods and you will be less likely to gorge and binge on them which will really knock you off your weight loss pathway.

Czytaj więcej »