Paleo/Primal anyone?

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zenweeder
zenweeder Posts: 23 Member
in Food and Nutrition
Is anyone following the Paleo/Primal lifestyle? Reading message boards can be confusing when people describe their breakfasts as egg-white omelets with toast with margarine when Paleo/Primal eaters do eat egg whole eggs (yes, the yolks), do not eat grains at all, and do eat saturated fats rather than processed, polyunsaturated fats.

I'd love to read what others are eating and what Primal Workouts they're doing. Share your Grok!

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  • queenliz99
    queenliz99 Posts: 15,317 Member
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    I think this group may be for you?

    http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/group/394-low-carber-daily-forum-the-lcd-group
  • kommodevaran
    kommodevaran Posts: 17,890 Member
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    Yes, it's confusing until you learn what's the basics and what's the icing on the cake, what you need to do and what's optional. Nutrition isn't that complicated. May I suggest eating what you like (and add a label to that if you want), instead of trying to follow a set of aritrary rules that you don't even understand the purpose of. If you need to lose weight, reduce calorie intake.
  • BigMikeP81
    BigMikeP81 Posts: 46 Member
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    Honestly I'm not sure what my diet is. I think maybe a combination of multiple diets. I cut out all breads, rice, pasta's, regular potatoes, and sweets with the exception of a piece or two of dark chocolate daily for the antioxidants. I drink water and diet pepsi. I'm trying to cut out the diet pepsi but it's harder than cutting out everything else that I did.
  • Lyleth58
    Lyleth58 Posts: 2 Member
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    Just started the paleo diet and am five days in. I already feel better and am losing my carb cravings. I have not been able to lose on calorie counting in any form, so my 5 lb drop already might be the sign this could work. Fingers crossed.
  • michelekay2015
    michelekay2015 Posts: 6 Member
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    I'm Primal too. I've made things from MarksDailyApple website. I've only been doing it a few weeks. One simple recipe I eat is fried eggs over medium with Smoked Paprika on them. I'll have a few bing cherries or blueberries & vegetables with them. I'm glad to see more Primal people. I really like the Primal Blueprint book. It makes a lot of sense to me.
  • zenweeder
    zenweeder Posts: 23 Member
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    I'm starting the second week of my second 21-Day Primal Challenge. If you're interested in doing a guided primal challenge, check out the vimify website. Mark's Daily Apple offers it free every January, but it's only $10.00 the rest of the year-worth it to me to get the accountability. I really enjoy Mark's posts-he explains the science well and has a great sense of humor.
  • goldthistime
    goldthistime Posts: 3,214 Member
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    I don't know much about Paleo/Primal but I happened to talked with someone a few weeks ago that had what I would consider a dangerous set of beliefs, that seemed to come from her interaction with other Paleo people on online forums. Recently I read a comment on here saying "why does everyone treat Paleo like its some kind of cult?". Based on this woman's forcefully voiced misinformation (like drink bone broth soup to add protein to your diet), and a few follow up forays into Paleo websites, I'd just say keep your sense of skepticism high.
  • DapperKay
    DapperKay Posts: 140 Member
    edited August 2016
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    zenweeder wrote: »
    Is anyone following the Paleo/Primal lifestyle? Reading message boards can be confusing when people describe their breakfasts as egg-white omelets with toast with margarine when Paleo/Primal eaters do eat egg whole eggs (yes, the yolks), do not eat grains at all, and do eat saturated fats rather than processed, polyunsaturated fats.

    I'd love to read what others are eating and what Primal Workouts they're doing. Share your Grok!

    I have been Paleo for around 9 months now. But I dont think of Paleo as a diet or a lifestyle, I think of it as a barometer that I use to *kitten* my fitness and nutrition choices. It is NOT a cult and certainly not a challenge you do once, it is common sense. You basically eat the stuff your body can handle very well and maxes your nutritional value, you cut out stuff that our body struggles in digesting and gives us long term issues.

    Ease into Paleo for max success. Start by using good non-inflamatory oils (olive oil, ghee, grass fed butter, coconut, etc), then cut out grains, a little while later cut out dairy, finally legumes. But some stuff in Paleo are not for everyone and there are grey areas. So its important to customise what works for you, use your own history as a guide. For instance I eat rice, potatoes (both white and sweet) and occasionally dip into some dairy. I found this works fine for me. So long as Im away from grains life is sweet. Refined sugar is another biggie, avoid it where you can and you will reap rewards.

    Happy for you to DM me so I can give you more tips and explain why Paleo works wonders. Life has never been better for me or for a close person to me who has an autoimmune disease. But it is important to understand why Paleo is so good before you do it, it takes patience and dedication. But once you start it becomes part of you. Good luck.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
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    DapperKay wrote: »
    I have been Paleo for around 9 months now. But I dont think of Paleo as a diet or a lifestyle, I think of it as a barometer that I use to *kitten* my fitness and nutrition choices. It is NOT a cult and certainly not a challenge you do once, it is common sense. You basically eat the stuff your body can handle very well and maxes your nutritional value, you cut out stuff that our body struggles in digesting and gives us long term issues.

    I did paleo for a while and have followed various blogs and podcasts (I love podcasts even if I don't agree with them and the blogs sometimes have good recipes) and I think this is kind of misleading -- it's more restrictive than this.

    I found it an enjoyable way to eat and agree with some of the things (eating lots of vegetables, concern for the sourcing of the meat, eating mostly whole foods, eating the whole animal), but didn't find any of that especially exclusive to paleo, and since I mostly did all that already I didn't find the paleo ideology or bad science needed to encourage me. What I didn't like were the claims that dairy, grains, and legumes are inherently bad for us because of when humans supposedly started eating them (inaccurate to some degree, as humans were eating grains and legumes before agriculture according to current belief of those who study these matters and the available evidence). I also realized that I think that for many of us who have no problems with dairy that dairy can be a positive contribution to the diet (certainly an easy source of protein and for me very easy to digest), that legumes are for most (I think the SAD would be better if more people ate legumes in greater numbers), and whole grains too. Beyond that, I have no temptation to overeat any of these foods (I'm more likely to overeat some of the things that are paleo approved) so for me it would do nothing for health or weight loss/maintenance longterm.

    I'm not negative about it as an eating style for those who like it (like I said, I enjoy reading paleo recipes and use them for ideas), but I don't think it's healthier than other health-conscious ways of eating, and merely cutting out the banned foods and not focusing on such things as eating lots of veg strikes me as not healthy, so I think people can follow it in a healthful and non healthful way, like all diets.

    I do think there's usually a focus on activity and since activity is one of the most important things for health, that's great.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
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    zenweeder wrote: »
    Is anyone following the Paleo/Primal lifestyle? Reading message boards can be confusing when people describe their breakfasts as egg-white omelets with toast with margarine when Paleo/Primal eaters do eat egg whole eggs (yes, the yolks), do not eat grains at all, and do eat saturated fats rather than processed, polyunsaturated fats.

    Why is this confusing? People eat a wide variety of different things. I normally eat a paleo-approved breakfast (although I'm not) -- vegetable omelet with whole eggs and smoked salmon. Sometimes I add cheese or have cottage cheese or plain greek yogurt with it, though, oh no! ;-) I don't find the fact that others like egg whites (although I don't) or bread at breakfast (which I never have) or bacon (overrated) confusing, however. (And I admit to occasionally having bacon on the weekends.)

    I'm on a summer smoothie kick now, however. Local, seasonal fruit is so good, and I add in some vegetables too. That in some versions of paleo eating seasonally like this isn't paleo because too many carbs or some such is one reason I find the practice of the diet often quite odd.
  • BoxerBrawler
    BoxerBrawler Posts: 2,032 Member
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    jeffkirkwold wrote: »
    For all of the people that believe a calorie is a calorie, please don't say it like the gospel. Get some data behind your assumptions. Research YouTube and watch Gary Taubes talk on Good Calories Bad Calories and come back and see if you are sure whether all calories are the same. A few months ago, I would have agreed. I started to educate myself and look at the research and it would seem not all calories impact the body in the same way. PLEASE, share your successes but be wary of becoming an uninformed know it all on the matter. I am LCHF and by far, my fat loss and general heath are more rapidly improving over my "All Calories are the Same" beliefs. Some of us have hormonal imbalances like insulin sensitivity and metabolic disorders. HOW the body metabolizes certain foods in certain people really matters.

    I agree with this but also believe hormonal imbalances, metabolic disorders, etc... all comes down to the type of foods that are being consumed. Food is medicine.

  • brower47
    brower47 Posts: 16,356 Member
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    jeffkirkwold wrote: »
    For all of the people that believe a calorie is a calorie, please don't say it like the gospel. Get some data behind your assumptions. Research YouTube and watch Gary Taubes talk on Good Calories Bad Calories and come back and see if you are sure whether all calories are the same. A few months ago, I would have agreed. I started to educate myself and look at the research and it would seem not all calories impact the body in the same way. PLEASE, share your successes but be wary of becoming an uninformed know it all on the matter. I am LCHF and by far, my fat loss and general heath are more rapidly improving over my "All Calories are the Same" beliefs. Some of us have hormonal imbalances like insulin sensitivity and metabolic disorders. HOW the body metabolizes certain foods in certain people really matters.

    Research and YouTube should not be in the same sentence.
  • minniemoo1972
    minniemoo1972 Posts: 295 Member
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    brower47 wrote: »
    jeffkirkwold wrote: »
    For all of the people that believe a calorie is a calorie, please don't say it like the gospel. Get some data behind your assumptions. Research YouTube and watch Gary Taubes talk on Good Calories Bad Calories and come back and see if you are sure whether all calories are the same. A few months ago, I would have agreed. I started to educate myself and look at the research and it would seem not all calories impact the body in the same way. PLEASE, share your successes but be wary of becoming an uninformed know it all on the matter. I am LCHF and by far, my fat loss and general heath are more rapidly improving over my "All Calories are the Same" beliefs. Some of us have hormonal imbalances like insulin sensitivity and metabolic disorders. HOW the body metabolizes certain foods in certain people really matters.

    Research and YouTube should not be in the same sentence.

    Research and taubes shouldn't be either.
  • brower47
    brower47 Posts: 16,356 Member
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    minniemoo1972 wrote: »
    brower47 wrote: »
    jeffkirkwold wrote: »
    For all of the people that believe a calorie is a calorie, please don't say it like the gospel. Get some data behind your assumptions. Research YouTube and watch Gary Taubes talk on Good Calories Bad Calories and come back and see if you are sure whether all calories are the same. A few months ago, I would have agreed. I started to educate myself and look at the research and it would seem not all calories impact the body in the same way. PLEASE, share your successes but be wary of becoming an uninformed know it all on the matter. I am LCHF and by far, my fat loss and general heath are more rapidly improving over my "All Calories are the Same" beliefs. Some of us have hormonal imbalances like insulin sensitivity and metabolic disorders. HOW the body metabolizes certain foods in certain people really matters.

    Research and YouTube should not be in the same sentence.

    Research and taubes shouldn't be either.

    Agreed. I didn't get that far after my brain exploded with the first impossible word combination.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,874 Member
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    I don't have any kind of fancy/trendy name for my diet...it's actually pretty old fashioned and I got the idea from my grandma growing up...

    The only real positive I see in paleo is that it gets people eating more whole foods...but then at the same time it demonizes other very nutritious whole foods (think legumes) and there's absolutely nothing wrong with grains either...so I have a bit of a hard time taking it seriously.
  • esjones12
    esjones12 Posts: 1,363 Member
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    jeffkirkwold wrote: »
    For all of the people that believe a calorie is a calorie, please don't say it like the gospel. Get some data behind your assumptions. Research YouTube and watch Gary Taubes talk on Good Calories Bad Calories and come back and see if you are sure whether all calories are the same. A few months ago, I would have agreed. I started to educate myself and look at the research and it would seem not all calories impact the body in the same way. PLEASE, share your successes but be wary of becoming an uninformed know it all on the matter. I am LCHF and by far, my fat loss and general heath are more rapidly improving over my "All Calories are the Same" beliefs. Some of us have hormonal imbalances like insulin sensitivity and metabolic disorders. HOW the body metabolizes certain foods in certain people really matters.

    OMG there is life on this planet. Keep on educating yourself @jeffkirkwold! This, all of this. A calorie is not just a calorie. The body treats different things differently. There are tons of free podcasts and YouTube videos with top world-renowned fitness and nutrition experts who would laugh at the advice given out on this forum...

    Personally I stick to full fat, local, organic, grass-fed foods. Tons of veggies volume wise. High fat and low carb macro wise. I monitor portion sizes but don't count calories. I focus on getting quality sleep and reducing stress.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    edited August 2016
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    esjones12 wrote: »
    A calorie is not just a calorie. The body treats different things differently.

    Foods are different (in other words, the body treats different "things" differently). That has NOTHING to do with what a calorie is a calorie means and once again anyone who thinks it does either isn't reading carefully or is willfully misunderstanding or misrepresenting.

    No one claims that a food is a food.

    That, of course, doesn't make Taubes reputable or the "science" on which paleo is based valid.

    Also, who are these "world renowned" folks? There are tons of podcasts that say any number of things (I'm a podcast junkie) including remarkably stupid things such as "calories don't matter," as well as dramatically contrary things (one can listen to a HFLC podcast by such luminaries as Jimmy Moore -- that's sarcasm -- followed by an interview of T. Colin Campbell by Rich Roll (I quite enjoyed that one, although I'm not sold on all of T. Colin Campbell's ideas or veganism, even though they appeal to me somewhat and I like Roll, even though he likes more woo than I normally do), followed by something like the Fitcast or Evil Sugar Radio or Layne Norton (pretty in line with what lots on MFP believe). Or Sigma Nutrition, which has a variety of guests with different POVs (so do the Rich Roll, Fitcast, and ESR ones; Jimmy Moore probably does not).
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,874 Member
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    esjones12 wrote: »
    jeffkirkwold wrote: »
    For all of the people that believe a calorie is a calorie, please don't say it like the gospel. Get some data behind your assumptions. Research YouTube and watch Gary Taubes talk on Good Calories Bad Calories and come back and see if you are sure whether all calories are the same. A few months ago, I would have agreed. I started to educate myself and look at the research and it would seem not all calories impact the body in the same way. PLEASE, share your successes but be wary of becoming an uninformed know it all on the matter. I am LCHF and by far, my fat loss and general heath are more rapidly improving over my "All Calories are the Same" beliefs. Some of us have hormonal imbalances like insulin sensitivity and metabolic disorders. HOW the body metabolizes certain foods in certain people really matters.

    OMG there is life on this planet. Keep on educating yourself @jeffkirkwold! This, all of this. A calorie is not just a calorie. The body treats different things differently. There are tons of free podcasts and YouTube videos with top world-renowned fitness and nutrition experts who would laugh at the advice given out on this forum...

    Personally I stick to full fat, local, organic, grass-fed foods. Tons of veggies volume wise. High fat and low carb macro wise. I monitor portion sizes but don't count calories. I focus on getting quality sleep and reducing stress.

    A calorie is just a unit of energy...why do people constantly confuse energy and nutrition? Nobody has ever said that nutritionally all calories are created equal...but saying a calorie is not a calorie is like saying a mile is not a mile or something...it's just a unit of energy.

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