Anybody else paleo?

juliawhite4477 wrote: »

I've been on paleo for the last month and absolutely love it!! By cutting out processed foods, sugars, grains, dairy and legumes I feel amazing and see such health benefits. The thing about paleo is you don't have to count or weigh your foods out.. Which I initially loved. Realizing a month in that I've only lost 4 lbs I decided to join my fitness pal to count my calories and also see where I needed to improve on my nutrition while still doing paleo. Any tips for someone who's counting calories but mainly just eats protein, veggies and the occasional fruit? It adds up on this app so quickly, but I'm eating 'whole foods'

Paleo isn't a weight loss plan. You can get fat eating whole foods, because many are nutrient dense,and you can still over eat.

Your food adds up because it all has calories. To successfully lose weight you need a caloric deficit, which you can accurately determine by weighing all solids, measuring all liquids and finding appropriate entries in the database.

(depending on you size and how much you have to lose, 4lbs in a month might be a good rate of loss. Losing too fast isn't necessarily a good thing)

I actually eat between 2500-3500 calories a day (literally over half of my calories come from fat) following a low-carb paleo-type diet with intermittent fasting called the Bulletproof Diet. I started logging my intake on Feb. 1st just to see my macros, not my calories, but I admit that I do have a bit of an internal struggle with seeing exactly how many calories I'm eating.

That said, I actually work out a *fraction* of what I used to while I ate a strict vegan diet (which was roughly in the 1500cal/day range). Also during the ~3 years I've been eating this way, I have had blood tests every several months that run the gamut from hormone & vitamin levels to a full lipid panel (my choice, not my doctor's, I love to see those results to make sure I'm actually improving my health not just lowering a number on the scale)... *everything* has improved, my overall cholesterol went up mostly from higher HDL and my triglycerides have been cut in half. I think it also has a lot to do with the hormonal effect of certain foods for us women - I source local & grass-fed eggs/meats/butter (more CLA, more omega-3's), and make my own "treats" in order to avoid soy, gluten, canola/soybean/vegetable oils and sugar that are in most packaged foods. It's hard work, but I'd rather put in some hard work than feel deprived!