Does anyone have any experience with the Paleo diet?

Specifically anyone with very little time on their hands?

I've been researching it and I think if I can make it work with my schedule it might help with my constantly changing body weight. I seem to be VERY carb sensitive. Over the past year I've gone from just above 200 lbs to the high 170's and now I'm back in the mid 190's. In the summer of 2006 I was in the high 160's and just under 2 years later I was 220+. Obviously I'd like to be in the 170's but the extremely low calorie, nearly vegetarian, diet I used to get there (recently) completely drained my strength.

I exercise/lift anywhere from 3 to 6 days per week and I'm concerned that the only reason this diet works for crossfit practitioners is that they have the metabolism of a field mouse with a hyper-active thyroid and a 10 gram per hour coke habit.

Strength is a concern as I'd like to enter a bench press competition this spring and I'd like to be in the 181 lb class.

Thoughts?

Funny, I just had a conversation about paleo with a guy at work (it's quite popular there). The reason we had the conversation? Saw him at the gym the previous say and he was no longer the giant fatass he was a year ago.

He said detoxing from carbs was rough, and that he still occasionally craves them, but the excuse to have a nice steak more often makes up for that. Also, the idea that paelo is all you can eat and still lose fat is pretty much just for two-a-day athletes. Didn't much change his exercise patterns for it to work, either, if his PT score was any indication. He's in his mid 30s, seems to be staving off the middle-age bulge now with it.

in 4 months, down 48 lbs. I am now thinking about my next move though, I am tired of eggs meat and cheese with salad.

It does seem to work though.

Just giving it the quick once over it looks legit. As in: it looks like a really healthy way to eat and lose weight at a reasonable pace. I think the only way you will shed pounds in an outrageous fashion is if you have some sort of crap habit right now that it eliminates. If you currently drink a gallon of sweet tea a day and eat a dozen doughnuts this diet will make you drop lots of weight fast. Otherwise it just seems to get rid of the worthless starches and sugars we eat all the time that contribute nothing but calories to our diet. Cleaner foods will make your caloric intake drop just because it's damn hard to get that many calories in with healthy foods. The cleaner foods will also level out your blood sugar levels throughout the day and make you less hungry for the sugary/starchy crap most people use to fix the crashes. If you can stick to it i would say go for it.

EricM wrote: in 4 months, down 48 lbs. I am now thinking about my next move though, I am tired of eggs meat and cheese with salad. It does seem to work though.

You get to eat fruit right?

What exactly IS the paleo diet for us dumb folks?

EricM wrote: in 4 months, down 48 lbs. I am now thinking about my next move though, I am tired of eggs meat and cheese with salad. It does seem to work though.

Cheese isn't paleo, holmes.

MrJoshua wrote: If you currently drink a gallon of sweet tea a day and eat a dozen doughnuts

It's like you're watching me!

mndsm wrote: What exactly IS the paleo diet for us dumb folks?

Meat, meat, veggies, more meat, nuts.

Had a co-worker that did this.It seemed to work for him. It will take a week for your colon to adjust.

I go to a forum where pretty much everyone does it in one form or another.

Biggest thing they say is that the stuff you aren't supposed to eat stops looking like food after a month or so, and with a decent exercise plan you can cut a good deal of fat and gain a lot of muscle. You also seem to have more energy and get sick a lot less.

Still working on convincing my family members to switch.

On a side note, any good paleo site that are not just trying to sell books?

I can throw up the site I go to, I figure as long as you stay in the weightlifting and nutrition section you shouldn't get too pissed off/offended. E36 M3's kinda rough compared to most places*.

http://www.manlyexcellence.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=11

*Correction, E36 M3's rough compared to everywhere else on the internet, but the stuff in that subforum there is good info.

I was under the impression that low glycemic load was cool. Including kind of limiting fruit intake (still high GL) and that eggs/beef/dairy/pork was on the "watch your intake" list.

Interesting discussion, if anyone needs further info or guidance you can find lots here: http://paleoworks.wordpress.com

We have a great deal of knowledge on these type of diets and would be happy to share this with anyone interested. Contact through this site is free untill our website proper is fully commissioned.

I would just add that this type of diet is not know as the worlds healthiest diet for nothing, though it's much more than dieting, it's a way of life. Weight loss is effortless and optimal health is achievable.

Thanks,

Mike - Paleoworks

Paleoworks wrote: I would just add that this type of diet is not know as the worlds healthiest diet for nothing, though it's much more than dieting, it's a way of life. Weight loss is effortless and optimal health is achievable.

Is not know as CANOE.

I wasn't sure if we should think of this as a canoe or not....after all, it is on topic. clearly, though, it is an outsider trying to drum up business.

JoeyM wrote: I wasn't sure if we should think of this as a canoe or not....after all, it is on topic. clearly, though, it is an outsider trying to drum up business.

My take is that if you have a business that you are trying to drive traffic to, especially one where you profess to know something about a complex subject, taking the time to form a proper sentence shouldn't be that much of an effort.

I can get away with these long run-on sentences with poor use of comma, dashes and ellipses because I am a regular poster - not a representative of any chinglish marketing strategy...

I'd stay away from "fad" diets. Your body needs carbs, they're essential, along with protein and healthy fats. They're the holy trinity of nutrition. Carbs give your body fuel to burn, especially if you're exercising.

Losing weight is a very simple formula. Calories in < calories burned. Make sure you're getting a proper balance of your macros (proteins, fats, carbs) and eat smart. Good things will happen.

Sounds like that Atkins diet that was all the rage a few years ago.

Klayfish wrote: I'd stay away from "fad" diets. Your body needs carbs, they're essential, along with protein and healthy fats. They're the holy trinity of nutrition. Carbs give your body fuel to burn, especially if you're exercising. Losing weight is a very simple formula. Calories in < calories burned. Make sure you're getting a proper balance of your macros (proteins, fats, carbs) and eat smart. Good things will happen.

I agree completely. There seems to be tons of variations on eating less sugar, processed foods, etc. That is a great idea. But there is no need to get extreme with it. Just eat a healthy diet and exercise. What is so damn hard about that?

Diets don't work. Only permanent lifestyle changes work. Reread that.

Paleo/SouthBeach/Atkins/whatever are good because they cut out the really heinous stuff in the modern diet. They don't seem like diets I could deal with as a permanent change, though.

The problem with weight loss is not that it's unpleasant (though it is if you want to do it fast) but that it's inconvenient. I just don't know how anyone keeps weight off without cooking all their own food. That's a commitment. There's almost nothing I can buy at the store in a box, bag, can or frozen aisle that achieves the goal of limiting sugar (in any of its forms), white flour, white rice, white pasta, soda, fruit juice, etc. Fast food is even worse.

Fruit and whole grains are not the enemy. You'd have a hell of a time gaining weight eating apples, strawberries, cooked grains, etc. Refined stuff that's been stripped of anything that makes it hard to digest is the problem. No one has trouble eating 1000 calories of white bread, but I defy you to eat 1000 calories of wheat berries cooked in orange juice with salt, bacon and dried fruit tossed in. Same basic ingredient, but the unrefined version is incredibly filling.

If you start a spreadsheet listing exactly how many calories you eat at each meal, and really do limit yourself to a deficit of maybe 500 calories a day for weight loss, you will very quickly come to figure out which foods make you feel full and which ones leave you dying of hunger an hour after eating. It'll be the meals with lots of vegetables, protein and some fat.

Most traditional cuisines will keep you in pretty good shape if you cook them yourself and are moderately active. Obesity rates don't skyrocket until countries start eating a modern western diet and people start driving everywhere in cars. There's some kind of lesson there...

My easy weight loss plan, which has kept 30 lbs off over a couple of years: walk everywhere you can, buy a good general purpose cookbook (How to Cook Everything, Joy of Cooking, etc), make everything you eat (meals AND snacks) and record the calories you consume and your weight every day. If you don't lose weight, consume fewer calories. Keep it up even after you've lost the weight.

About.com has a pretty sweet page that spits out nutrition info from a typed recipe. This article in the Times was interesting, too.

I'm not a fan of these fad diets. I got excellent results by working out and eating a reasonable diet. You wanna eat a brownie? Make sure you run an extra mile to make up for it.

SkinnyG's diet plan: Eat sensibly, and get your ass off the couch.

neon4891 wrote: It will take a week for your colon to adjust.

Am I completely demented or did anyone else picture a grizzled intake officer at the Federal pokey saying this to a nervous, frail young man doing his first bit of time?

Just how my mind works...

Thanks for the info and links, fellas.

Klayfish wrote: I'd stay away from "fad" diets.

How is eating what our body is supposed to be eating a fad diet? Seriously, paleo is called paleo for a reason, it as close as you can get to what we ate for the few hundred thousand years before we figured out agriculture and starting berkeleying stuff up.