Lately I've been asked alot questions about nutrition, diet plans, eating habits ect. My answer to most of these questions is, have you heard of or tried out the "Paleo Diet"?
Like most of us I grew up eating alot of grains and dairy. Typical day of eating consisted of cereal or toast for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch, pasta or rice with dinner plus alot of grain and or dairy based snacks, such as yogurt, cheese, crackers and cereal bars. Over the last couple years I really cut back on my grain and dairy intake to the point where I may go days without consuming any at all. I train about the same amount as I always have, but I feel better then ever before. I'm now lighter, stronger and also have alot more energy. Cutting out late nights at the Roxy might also have helped too:)
What I really like about the "Paleo" style of eating is that it doesn't require you to count calories or weigh and measure your meals. Meals are easy to prepare and can be cooked many different ways (grilled, steamed, baked, raw ect.). I'm not 100% strict paleo as I may have the odd bagel with an early am Tim Hortons coffee (balck of course), dip my sushi in soy sauce, snack on 'elevate me' bars (contain whey protein) and If I'm a guest at dinner I'll eat whatever is being served.
Example Day
BREAKFAST: scrambled eggs, half avocado, mixed berries
SNACK: handfull of almonds, apple
LUNCH: grilled chicken, asparagus, zucchini
SNACK: lara bar
DINNER: grilled steak & mushrooms, steamed brocoli
SNACK: celery and almond butter
Paleo Overview
Features
- The Paleo diet attempts to mimic the food intake of our distant ancestors by excluding foods that entered the human diet during the Neolithic Age, mostly grains, legumes, and other products of agriculture. These foods are not edible in their natural state, but they must be cooked to convert toxins into safe substances and to become digestible. Instead, the Paleo diet focuses on foods that are edible in their natural state and would have been available to low-technology hunter/gatherers.
Function
- The claim of Paleo diet proponents is that the human body evolved for millennia with the fairly consistent food sources available to hunter/gatherers. Over time, it adapted to these foods and reacted to them optimally. They claim that grains and other agricultural products were introduced relatively recently in human history, and that they not only are not well handled by the body, which suffers as a result, but they are not as nutritionally beneficial as the traditional foods of the Paleolithic era.
Types
- The kinds of foods the Paleo diet allow are meats (especially seafood, lean meats and organ meats like liver and kidneys), raw vegetables (especially roots vegetables like carrots, but not potatoes), nuts (especially walnuts, Brazil nuts, macadamia, and almonds, but not peanuts or cashews) and fruits (especially berries).
Effects
- The Paleo diet is not intended to be a faddish or temporary tool for producing immediate weight loss but rather a lasting lifestyle change. Proponents of the diet claim that not only will it prevent the onset of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and other "diseases of affluence," but it also leads to a gradual realization of an individual's ideal body weight, maximum health and top athletic performance.
Considerations
- The Paleo diet is a low-carb diet, not unlike the Atkins or South Beach diets. Unlike those diets, however, the Paleo diet does not advocate counting carbs or calories. Instead, it maintains that a simple focus on the right kinds of foods will naturally increase overall percentage of energy coming from protein, reduce the intake of carbohydrates and lead to improved health and longevity. These claims are not uncontested, however, and several studies link vegetarian, Mediterranean and Asian diets with health and longevity. Scientists agree there is insufficient evidence as to the relative proportion of plant and animal foods that constituted the diet of Paleolithic humans.
Comments
Post new comment