I stumbled across this blog post earlier today and thought I'd share it with the group. I have come across a few blog posts similar to this so I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.

http://thehealthyjessie.com/2014/01/17/how-the-super-healthy-low-carbsugar-paleo-diet-ruined-our-health-and-sanity/

(I must admit, I don't care much for the blogger's writing. She goes on a foul-mouthed rant and basically tells anyone who doesn't agree with her to F-OFF/shove judgement up their @ss:noway: )

I feel like she went through something, took it to an extreme and then went back the other way.. The important thing is that she hopefully is on the right path... personally, its obvious to me that you have to take a little bit of everything you read and apply it to yourself and SEE how you feel.. we are all different.. i feel bad that she suffered.. i also beleive that thats HER experience only... not by far mine or yours or whoevers... bottom line, poor girl.. i hope she finds a way to be balanced and happy.

This article to me emphasizes why 80/20 is so important. I bought a awesome looking butternut squash sauce a few days ago. It was all organic, had only 5 ingredients with the first being organic butternut squash, but the last ingredient was organic sugar. I'm glad to say that because of the 80/20 principle, I happily bought it. I don't fear sugar. I plan to have this over zoodles next week.

I would have to imagine that the author's tone can be attributed to the small minority of people in the paleo community (even here) that come off high and mighty and/or arrogant about how they eat. I see it in the CrossFit community as well and it is always gross to come off smug/superior. That being said, responding to snark with more snark only makes for super obnoxious conversations.

Personally, if anyone asks what I do I tell them what works for ME and that they might benefit from what I do but then again they might not. I don't have all the answers nor do I pretend to (except when it comes to being charming and handsome because I've obviously got that on lock! :smooched: )

and Charming COUNTS. !! ha ha ha... and being nice.. my cousins are crossfit and they are the ones who in a very NICE way told me about paleo and how my low fat is not ever going work out... since i have been doing it and its has not. but they were nice and charming like you.. which is WHY i started it in the first place...

Two things stick out at me:

1. She sounds like the obsessive type, and her partner seems go-with-the-flow enough to go along for the ride without much resistance. She's basically "blaming" Paleo for something that started before she found Paleo. Hell, she was on a diet that restricted her down to 10 food items at one point (and, I think, enjoying it). I think Paleo is getting blamed, because it happens to be the diet she picked. Veg*n or any other even half-restrictive diet (even calorie-counting, for that matter) would probably have been under fire had she chose it, instead. The only difference is the target of the obsession.

2. It seems that she twisted Paleo into something it really isn't, and I think illustrates the flaw in Cordain's version of Paleo (with its still-inherent kind of fear of fat). She mentions about further and further restricting carbs and sugar. Paleo doesn't require that (in fact, I know of a sweet potato recipe that begs to differ). Some people need that to deal with certain things would do better/best on a heavily carb-restricted diet, but not everyone needs to reduce their carbs to next to nothing. Even Sisson's Primal Blueprint is aimed at those who are overweight and have metabolic syndrome, primarily, and even reiterates time and again that highly active people may be able to consume more carbs. She mentions that she was "bored" of the diet (suggests limited variety), and several of the things she talks about in the last few paragraphs suggests that her fat intake was rather limited (nearly all her carbs in the "I ATE ALL THE FOOD" list were paired with a fat that had a significant amount of saturated fats). I also think she simply wasn't eating enough in general (she even states that she wasn't hungry and barely ate in some instances). Get rid of most of the fats (particularly saturated fats) and all of the carbs, and what are you left with? A ton of boneless, skinless, chicken breast. Of course she was having issues.

Here's the quote:

Clearly we were ****ed and our bodies were literally starving, particularly funnily enough for CARBOHYDRATES (that devil **** that is making us all fat and sick) and SUGAR. As well as salt, saturated fat, sleep and starch. The s’s for dealing with stress.

I think she puts more emphasis on the carbs, because that's what she obsessed over, but if you look at the things she was eating to feel better, in addition to the carbs -- cheeseburgers, ice cream, butter, raw milk, pie with sauce (? given she's in Australia, I assume "pie" refers to a meat pie, I could be wrong, though) -- what do they all have in common? They don't skimp on the saturated fats. I suspect the scarfing down 2/3 of a cake was more due to her being overzealous with stripping out carbs and her body overcompensating as a result, especially since that was a binge.

Ironically, if you look at her "Nutritional Guidelines" page, it's pulled nearly verbatim off the WAPF website (with credit), and excludes the one about grains. Her guidelines are, for all intents and purposes, the Primal Blueprint.