can you eat Paleo and do Macros?

You can fill your macros with whatever foods you like, so yes you can do Paleo whilst following "IIFYM".... Your choices will just be restricted to Paleo approved options

Paleo AND Crossfit...

Good luck!

sara1984 wrote: »

Hi, I am currently trying to get back on track and not sure what and how much to eat. I see the new thing is counting macros. Personally Paleo works for me. How would I incorporate macros? I am 5'1 approx 210 lbs. My goal is 140 lean muscle and within a year. Also I will incorporate crossfit at least 3-4 times a week. Thanks in advance.

People track their macros to make sure they're eating the right balance of fat, protein, and carbohydrates for their training/goals. If It Fits Your Macros (IIFYM) includes staying within your calories, which is required for weight loss, regardless of dietary plan.

If Paleo "works" for you, why did you stop?

I don't know about 140 lbs = lean muscle. Here's a good guide in order to set reasonable expectations: http://www.mybodygallery.com/search.html?gender=female&height=155&age=any&weight=64&pantSize=any&shirtSize=any&bodytype= I put in 5'1 and 140 lbs.

sara1984 wrote: »

futuremanda wrote: »

sara1984 wrote: »

sixxpoint wrote: »

Paleo AND Crossfit...

Good luck!

Do you not think it's beneficial or they don't compliment each other nutrition wise?

It's not an either/or. Your macros are just your macros... you have macros no matter what/how you're eating.

Counting macros means deciding on how you want to split your calories by macros. That's it. So if you normally eat 80g carbs (320 cal), 100g protein (400 cal), 60g fat (540 cal) = 1260 cals. But instead of trying to hit 1260 however it falls, you try to hit those macros specifically.

(Fat is 9 calories per gram. Protein and carbs are 4 cals per gram.)

So eat however you want. Vegan, paleo, "clean", vegetarian, or whatever makes you happy (want pizza, make it fit). Count macros or count calories, just stick to a target, eating how you want to.

I am going to set my macros to fit this and try it for a week. Or calculate as needed. Thanks

I made those macros up, so set your macros to fit your paleo or however you like to eat. If you need guidance, iifym would give you macros to start (but those might or might not be easy with paleo -- if you want to continue paleo). Personally, I'd log how you normally eat with the calorie target you want and see what the macros tend to look like. If you like how you've been eating, then use those macros as a starting point, and make changes as needed (like more protein/fat if you're hungry).

sara1984 wrote: »

I know it's a life style change. I have more years of unhealthy eating behind me then actual success. It's easy to revert to bad habits . It's a learning process and as long as we don't give up we are already ahead!

Oh I totally understand, I was just confused as to why other people didn't understand that no matter what plan you use making changes, especially to how you eat, is hard and sometimes life happens and people don't stick to their intended way of eating. BTW, I'm paleo now and love it and feel so much better than I ever have before so go you!

Just another annoying "fad" diet that serves no real purpose except to make the author of the book which promotes it rich.

Eat logical. Predominate your intake with whole, minimally processed foods and hit your daily calorie goal while at least hitting your macro minimums. A rational diet is as simple as that.

If Paleos had their way...





But unless you have a time machine, you can’t eat paleo. You can’t even get close to it, the food environment has changed that much.

“But, like, paleo is an idea of eating, man. It’s like a metaphor.”

A metaphor for eating like they did during a time when starvation was the #1 killer of humans, and you were lucky to live to 35? Sign me up for that. Living in the Paleolithic era sucked.

Nutrition expert Alan Aragon summed up paleo pretty nicely in an interview. He said the paleo diet, which is really just a form of low-carb dieting that its advocates presume our Stone Age, hunter-gatherer ancestors ate, is just another fad. “Paleo philosophy is wrong on a couple of different levels”. “They say our ancestors didn’t eat grains, and therefore we shouldn’t eat grains. First, our ancestors did eat grains. There is also the logical error that if our ancestors didn’t eat something we shouldn’t either. Well, our ancestors didn’t concern themselves with optimal nutrition, they just wanted to survive.”

“It’s just another fad,” sport nutrition expert and registered dietitian Nancy Clark echoed Aragon’s opinions on paleo. “There’s no science to support it.”

I already said it’s impossible to replicate any aspects of the diet, because our food supply. Even the meat, eggs, fruits and vegetables have been so manipulated since humans first began farming that what we eat today can’t ever possible resemble that of mammoth-slaying Stone Age. Oh, and like I wrote in this piece, eating mammoth or any kind of meat was exceptionally rare.

Our Paleolithic ancestors were far more likely to get protein from bugs. So instead of paying double for your antibiotic free, grass-fed methane dispenser meat, you should just head to your nearest field and commence chopping down crickets.

But the modern concept of the paleo diet is way stupider than that. Why? Because you can buy these products, that’s why:

Paleo butter
Paleo coffee
Paleo dog food
Paleo chocolate
Paleo chocolate chip cookies
Paleo turkey jerky, which comes in plain, spicy and extra spicy
Paleo caviar
Paleo energy bars
Paleo waffles
Paleo syrup
Paleo yogurt
Paleo ice cream
Paleo protein powder
Paleo protein powder? Really? These guys also sell you paleo Vitamin D (which I expect our ancestors got by, you know, going outside), and even paleo “recovery powder.” Check out those prices.

Being paleo is like paying a stupidity tax. Again, it’s not you who is stupid, but the diet sure is, because it lets you drink paleo coffee while putting paleo butter and paleo syrup on your paleo waffles before you drive your paleo minivan to the paleo office to sit in your paleo cube and do spreadsheets on your paleo computer. Do you see the stupidity in that?

See, the paleo diet made up a bunch of silly rules on how we allegedly ate, and then goes and twists them all to hell in the name of selling you a crappy, overpriced product. That is scientology-level stupid.

Let’s have some fun. I’m going to make up my own stupid diet with my own stupid rules. I’ll call it …


The Disney Diet

Everyone loves Disney movies. Just like the Paleolithic era, men were the heroes and women were the damsels in distress, although Disney damsels had way less body hair and much better teeth.

So, based on what I’ve learned from watching Disney films, here are the rules of the Disney Diet:

-Never eat anything given to you by an old woman, because it’s poison – Snow White
-Eat only fresh kills, but only the females are allowed to do the hunting – Lion King
-Unless you think you killed your father and ran away from home, in which case you can eat lots of bugs – Lion King
-Sugar can only be consumed while taking medicine – Mary Poppins
-Don’t eat turkey, popcorn or sweet potato pie. And definitely not pancakes piled up until they reach the sky, because if you do, it will cause mental deficiencies of Goofy proportions, not to mention the fact that you will eat and eat and eat and eat and eat until you die – Jack and the Beanstalk
-Spaghetti can only be eaten as a couple, and must lead to a kiss, followed by the male chivalrously passing the last meatball to the female using only his nose. Any fornication that results from this romantic gesture must be done doggie style – Lady and the Tramp

See how silly a diet can become when you start adopting arbitrary rules based on mythical thinking?



Why Paleo is Dangerous

Paleo can end up excluding nutritious foods for no other reason than its proponents think that we didn’t eat them a long time ago, and so we shouldn’t eat them now. Secondly, it’s dangerous for your financial future to be forking out big bucks for paleo-approved products, because such things usually don’t come cheap. Apparently that bulletproof coffee crap is paleo, and it costs a bloody fortune.

But the real problem? Following a paleo diet can lead you down a path to an eating disorder. That’s why I rag on this kind of crap.

The science of nutrition is complex. Eating shouldn’t be complex, but paleo is far from flexible. It creates a system of arbitrary, difficult-to-follow rules for eating that can lead to disordered eating. Primarily, it can cause one to obsess over eating the “right” foods and avoiding the “wrong” ones. This phenomenon has been coined “orthorexia,” which is not yet recognized in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, but enough mental health professionals are talking about it that it has gained some scientific legitimacy. While other eating disorders tend to obsess over calories and body weight, so-called orthorexics obsess over food quality. Again, which foods are right, and which foods are wrong. Some people end up thinking the right foods are 1,600 calories worth of butter paired with five eggs.

A lot of paleo is about which foods are right and which ones are wrong. This is not a healthy mindset to go through life with, constantly obsessing over whether something is paleo approved or not, several times each day. It creates a toxic mindset about eating, and anxiety and fear around certain food types that are not good for your mental health. Such unhealthy obsession can eventually lead to a full-blown eating disorder.

When people break these food rules they can feel like a failure, which increases stress levels and can cause binge eating because Well, I already blew my highly restrictive diet, so I might as well really blow it and go down in a blaze of gluttonous glory.

So what’s the solution? Stop falling for all the marketing. Realize that paleo is just a cheesy gimmick designed to sell an expensive pile of crap and adopt a more flexible approach to eating that isn’t so rule-based or restrictive.

I understand that the skeptical mindset is not easy to adopt. People are naturally gullible, it seems, and will fall for just about anything if it sounds scientifically valid, although having zero basis in actual science.