Paleo Diet
I’ve been reading a lot recently about the Paleo or Primal diet. It’s a high protein, low carb diet but unlike Atkins, includes lots of vegetables and some fruit.
You can read more about it at Mark’s Daily Apple and read some success stories at Primal Journey. I think Kristin at AquaFit has a Paleo diet too. Those are blogs I have been reading for a while but today I came across another success story. This guy lost 71 pounds following the primal diet.
Primal — or paleo, as it’s also known — is inspired by the way our ancestors ate and moved before the rise of agriculture 10,000 or so years ago. It eschews grain-based carbohydrates (breads, pastas, cereals, the high-fructose corn syrup that’s in just about every bit of commercially prepared food) and legumes (beans, peanuts) and replaces those calories with copious amounts of veggies, moderate amounts of (raw) fruit and nuts, and unashamed portions of high-fat, protein-rich meats and fish, and encourages short bursts of intense physical activity rather than endless hours on the treadmill. Within 10 minutes of clicking around the site, I was hooked — it just made sense to me that since humans evolved in times of both unpredictable abundance and prolonged scarcity, dietary fat (long-lasting, efficiently metabolized stored energy) couldn’t possibly be the enemy it’s been portrayed as over the past 30 years or so. And as I thrum with renewed energy and watch my body get visibly leaner each day while counting nary a calorie, I’m convinced I’m right.
I’m definitely leaning towards this for my diet. It will be a pretty major lifestyle change for me because I love my carbs but I know I have to do this or I’m going to stay fat forever.
Healthy Lifestyle Food Pyramid
Lately I’ve been debating with myself as to the best kind of diet to follow to not only help me to lose weight but to be healthy too.
I’ve always leaned towards a vegetarian diet purely due to the fact that I don’t like meat and fish very much. I eat a little chicken and occasionally lamb but that’s about it. I never eat pork, beef, and seafood, and very rarely fish.
This means my diet is quite heavy in carbs. I eat a lot of fruits and vegetables but always with bread, rice, potatoes or pasta. I’m sure this is the reason for me being overweight because I don’t eat junk food like McDonalds or frozen or other processed foods. I also believe this to be the case because whenever I have gone on a high protein/low carb diet, I have lost weight.
I was thinking to go on a super strict high protein diet to try to drop some weight. I need to lose at least 10-15 kilos and I know if I could stick to this diet in the long term, I could easily reach my goal. However, I also know I could never stick to eating meat each and every day. I wouldn’t last more than a week.
Another option is to try to follow the following food pyramid which is high in fruit and vegetables (which I can easily manage) but which is also low in meat. I would have to eat more fish but I’m sure I could manage that. I’m not sure I would lose a lot of weight on this diet but it does look to be the healthy way to go.
Food Pyramid
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