An exploration of the Paleo Diet

If you can think back a few years, what differences between your diets then and now come to mind? For many and especially myself, I always broke even. That is, I always ate just enough bad foods to cancel out the hard work that I had put in to get rid them.

Plateauing of two years in college was probably the result of equally weighing bad eating and good eating. We don't want that. We want to create an imbalance where the right food choices always outnumber the wrong ones.

Recently, a friend introduced me to a new concept of dieting – the Paleo Diet. As most of us would guess, Paleo is short for Paleolithic age, the time period 2.5 million years ago when hominids lived by hunter-gatherer standards, as opposed to the advent of the Neolithic era when humans first learned how to farm crops and animals.

The Paleo diet suggests eating as our ancestral cavemen did; we should stick to things that can be hunted, fished and gathered. Before you join the fad of calling this nutritional plan a fad, consider the rationale behind living as a modern person and eating as a Stone Age person. We humans have been evolving for the past two million years with Darwinian Fitness producing a seemingly final winning species in the form of Homo sapiens. Our DNA is inherently programmed to best handle "Stone-Age" food. It has only been 10,000 years since the dawn of agriculture and just over 100 years since the introduction of manufactured chemicals to expedite the farming process.

One might argue that life expectancy has risen to 70 years in most developed countries. Why would we want to eat like our ancestors who at the age of 40 were considered old? Remember that, aside from dieting, we have millions of technological gadgets all contributing to the increased life expectancy. Our genetics haven't changed to allow us to survive for 30 more years in the wilderness compared to someone from a million years ago.

Since evolution is an extremely tedious process based on trial and error, and while some scientists argue that humans have stopped evolving, the fact remains that time is on Paleo's side.

So what exactly does going Paleo imply?

The bottom line is to ditch the carbs and go for what you can hunt and gather in nature (but make sure it's edible by developed country standards). Meats, eggs, animal fat, fish and seafood are the obvious choices of protein, iron and essential fats.

Berries, fruits and plant derivatives have antioxidants, vitamins, phytonutrients and low-carb sugars. Nuts and seeds also provide protein and healthy fats. Mushrooms are one of the only sources of vitamin D in the produce aisle and have an amazing combination of vitamins, antioxidants and compounds that can help protect many kinds of cells and reduce the risk of different types of cancer. And, of course, vegetables are always just plain good for anyone.

Throw out grains, breads, pasta and even most or all dairy products. It may seem crazy, but the rationale behind Paleo makes a strong case as to why it's okay to give up all of the processed carbs we so heavily rely on today.

From an evolutionary standpoint, we love carbs because it has so much potential energy packed into such a small amount and our bodies can metabolize and store that energy very efficiently. But we no longer live in a world where the supermarket is going to disappear the next day.

We don't have to horde grains on the off chance that we might experience a famine every other week  and our survival is at stake. So while it does taste delicious, you can surely find the fuel that a freshly baked baguette provides in other foods and still maintain a well-balanced diet.

A Paleo diet also in no way implies that you need to stop eating. It just cuts out the bottom of the all-too-skewed food pyramid that we learn about in elementary school.

In fact, because a Paleo diet includes everything but most grain-based products, it can be very tasty. Sashimi, bacon, steak and almonds all fall into the allowed category, and it may come as a pleasant surprise how different but equally tasty the meal of a cave man may play out to be.

Another way to look at Paleo is to consider it an advanced version of carb-cycling, the method of eating high, medium, low and no amount of carbs on different days to induce higher metabolism. If you can eat the right combination of fruits, vegetables, meats and nuts, as Paleo suggests, there is no reason you should expect to have decreased levels of energy simply because bagels no longer has a place in your meal plan.

Paleo doesn't deprive you of certain nutritional groups but, rather, puts an organic and original spin on the way we look at nutritional intake. Eat the sandwich without the bun, order the wrap without the tortilla and get the salad without croutons. I certainly wouldn't recommend any of this if there was no nutritional value in it.

Expect to feel clean and become lean. Try Paleo for 21 days.

 

Always consult a doctor before making changes to your exercise routine or nutrition.