Thoughts on Paleo

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Burandt80
Burandt80 Posts: 37 Member
in Food and Nutrition
What are your thoughts on Paleo Lifestyle.

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  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,403 Member
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    I prefer to live in a house and have modern appliances. Thanks a lot. If you're referring to the way of eating: To be honest, I prefer carbs. Lots of them as they keep me full compared to much protein and fats. But other people love this way of eating.
  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,403 Member
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    And to comment on your other question: No, eating fat doesn't make you fat. Nor does eating anything else. What makes you gain weight is eating more than your body needs. Hence you lose weight by eating less. How you achieve that is up to you and totally individual. Some people feel great and full on a diet high in fats, others are left hungry. You need to figure out what works for you and your wife. And note: you both might actually have different needs.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,187 Member
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    Different eating styles work best for different people.

    If the Paleo rules help you manage your appetite, get appropriate calories and stay full/happy/well-nourished at the same time, then by all means go for the Paleo lifestyle.

    Personally, it sounds subjectively unpleasant to me, as a longtime (47+ years) ovo-lacto vegetarian. My Northern European ancestors have been consuming dairy products and grains for centuries, maybe millennia, plenty of time for my genes to be well-adapted to them. I like those foods, can stay full/happy/well-nourished while eating them (would have more trouble doing so without them!), so I eat them. YMMV.

    On top of that, I'm an aging-hippie hedonist, and I don't like rigid rules much at all, especially ones that would be unpleasant to me. Paleo is a hard no!

    If Paleo sounds good to you, give it a try. If it helps you eat nutritiously at appropriate calories while full and happy, stick with it. Otherwise, try something else - maybe even eating any foods you like, at appropriate calories, aiming at adequate overall nutrition and good satiety.

    P.S. I'm not recommending vegetarianism, BTW. I was thin, got fat, then obese, then thin again, all eating the same range of foods (in different proportions/portions), entirely ovo-lacto vegetarian all the way. It's almost as if eating style doesn't matter, except individually/subjectively, as long as there's good overall nutrition at appropriate calories . . . because (IMO) eating style truly doesn't matter, except subjectively.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,874 Member
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    Very 2012. In all seriousness, the whole foods concept is good...but then turning around and demonizing certain whole foods is kind of ridiculous...not to mention, it doesn't remotely resemble an actual Paleolithic era diet which would have largely consisted of tubers (not just sweet potatoes), seeds, and nuts, legumes, and flowers as well as small game animals...and basically anything that was fit for consumption. Also, contrary to the paleo diet protocol, humans of the paleolithic era did in fact consume grains and flour as barley was plentiful and was pounded into flour or consumed as a grain. But that is just a little quibble of mine.

    I'm all about a diet consisting largely of whole foods and that's the way I eat...and anyone consuming what is considered the SAD would definitely do well to do better in that regard...but restricting this or that because it was or wasn't consumed by "cavemen" is just kinda funny...especially considering my little quibble above.
  • Burandt80
    Burandt80 Posts: 37 Member
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    Thank you for all your input. Just to many to chose from.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,187 Member
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    Burandt80 wrote: »
    Thank you for all your input. Just to many to chose from.

    Here's one more to consider:

    http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10636388/free-customized-personal-weight-loss-eating-plan-not-spam-or-mlm/p1

    Basic concept: Log what you eat now, gradually remodel choices to hit your calories, then stay sated, then get good overall nutrition . . . all the way along, eating foods you personally enjoy eating, can afford, find practical.

    Like any of the others, it won't suit every single human being, but it's a flexible option, and it can really, really work. (It's what I did, and I'm in year 6+ at a healthy weight, after losing from obese to a healthy weight in 2015 . . . following 3 previous decades of overweight/obesity.)

    Named diets with special rules are optional. Eat food you like, at reasonable calories, strive for good nutrition: That's enough.
  • paperpudding
    paperpudding Posts: 8,998 Member
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    Paleo is so yesterday :D

    Seriously it was a fad thing, seems to have run its course - like most fads do.

    But if whatever version of Paleo suits you, of course you can still do it.
  • ciaoder
    ciaoder Posts: 119 Member
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    I think that in the US the diet and weight loss market can do $70 billion in a year producing a 95% failure rate. I put Paleo under that umbrella.
  • gmcurtis
    gmcurtis Posts: 24 Member
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    I’m just echoing most people here I guess! It really doesn’t matter what diet you do, it’s all about calories in and out. I’ve lost and gained weight on both an omnivorous diet and now a plant based diet. Removing foods from your diet for weight loss reasons will not help in the long run. You want this to be something you can live with and commit to!
  • Bridgie3
    Bridgie3 Posts: 139 Member
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    Paleo is cool right up until people want to eat raw chicken. At that point I suggest they cook it.

    Primitive man cooked meat because it made the nutrients more bioavailable. It vastly increased how much he/she got out of that meat. So I don't think you have to go full raw food to get paleo.

    Hunter-gatherer is probably good for us, it's what we evolved with, and that's certainly less GMO corn and roundup-ready wheat. So I don't trust the modern diet not to kill us all, but hey you've got to die of something.

    Bread even has changed in my lifetime, become lighter, fluffier, less filling and satisfying; but goes stale so much slower... Huge difference from 1975 bread. That's modifying the gluten content of wheat that has happened only in one lifetime. Humans just can't evolve that fast.

    So yeah, I would say to take out of paleo what makes logical sense, and then quit before you cross the line into the weird hoopy froopy cracking raw eggs into your mouth levels that will probably give you intestinal worms if not salmonella or listeria. :D
  • wilson10102018
    wilson10102018 Posts: 1,306 Member
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    I see Paleo and the other name brand diets as just a diversion from having to measure what one eats.
  • stephmofo
    stephmofo Posts: 21 Member
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    I think its a good diet because it prohibits processed foods. People can have food sensitivities to foods and preservatives that can stall their weight-loss and cause food cravings. I don’t agree how they ban potatoes! I still needed to log in my food intake with elimination type diets. I focus too much on all the wonderful foods I can have (like they suggest to do instead of all the foods you shouldn’t eat)and I overeat and obsess over them. It also gives me food anxiety but then by 4 months or so it evens out and I get more used to it.
    I tend to like low carb diets because they control my hunger and eliminate food cravings, which were a big problem for me before. There’s a learning curve, but with frozen “low carb lifestyle” dinners, ready and frozen veggie spirals, and all kinds of cauliflower rice and mashed cauliflower out there its easier to succeed, and most don’t contain preservatives since they’re frozen.
  • 13tjfrederick
    13tjfrederick Posts: 5 Member
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    I had to do a restricted carb diet for health reasons, diagnosed with SIBO (Small intestinal bacterial overgrowth). Although the restricted carb was helpful i ended up taking a very high priced antibiotic to clear it up. My health care provider recommended and I started on the paleo diet last July. I have lost 30 pounds. It's not an easy lifestyle to follow, but I do feel better. I also started using the Green Chef meal delivery and that has helped with meal planning and variety. Have gained a few pounds back, but have been sloppy. I'm going to start writing/journaling my food again, helps me to see my blind spots. The paleo is the only thing that has helped me lose weight and I don't want the symptoms of the SIBO to return.
  • paperpudding
    paperpudding Posts: 8,998 Member
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    I suspect that most people who felt better and lost weight on Paleo did so because the types of food recomended tend to be nutritious whole foods and the foods avoided tend to be less nutritious high calorie foods - therefore improved nutrition and less calories equals better health and weight loss.

    But you can do that ( eat more nutritiously and less calories) without following any Paleo rules and most people can do that and still include high calorie low nutrition foods in moderation if they want to
  • VegjoyP
    VegjoyP Posts: 2,715 Member
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    cmriverside wrote: »
    "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."
    ~Michael Pollan

    Ta Da.

    💪🥗🥗🏃‍♀️🧘‍♀️👏👏
  • Hiawassee88
    Hiawassee88 Posts: 35,754 Member
    edited April 2022
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    Burandt80 wrote: »
    What are your thoughts on Paleo Lifestyle.

    We don't need to go back 10,000 years to find out how to eat healthy. We couldn't duplicate it. Evolution, physiology and processed foods have completely changed the game. The best plan is the one that improves your heath.

    We don't discuss religion or politics and I think the best part about MFP is that no one is going to tell you what you should eat. When we scratch too far below the surface we can turn our food and lives into a science experiment. Trying to reenact everything my ancestors did is virtually impossible.

    Everyone has their own ideas about low fat, low carb, high fat and one diet favored over another. Abstainers, moderators, vegans, paleos.. the list goes on to signal our values and virtues. Moderate your portions and you'll never be on a diet. Many attempts have been made to simplify food but it's only served to make food so complex. We overthink, over-analyze every bite we eat leaving everyone so confused. I'm not going out like that.
  • phx92
    phx92 Posts: 87 Member
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    I have food allergies, paleo as a trend has been pretty helpful to me specifically because there is a lot of convenience foods available that I know will be safe for me to eat. Pagels are pretty great bagel substitute, but I don’t think they are probably any better than a normal bagel besides the portion size

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