My son swears by the Paleo diet, which he uses to combat an auto-immune issue.
Dealing with issues of my own, starting to seriously consider following the same path. Would welcome any feedback from those who are on it, and how it is working for you.
Changed my life.
Cured my lifelong allergies.
Read the book, it makes good sense.
I have a copy. If anyone wants it, PM with me with mailing address and I'll send it to you.
EDIT: Sorry, my one copy has been sent.
Much better than the crap diet most people eat but…
High intake of what is called “high quality” protein i.e. animal protein, raises IGF-1 levels and that promotes tissue growth. Great for body builders but it also does promote growth of incipient cancers, making it less likely for immune system to catch and eliminate them in before they blossom out of control. Also, almost always Paleo type diet contains too much fat and esp saturated fat. Despite the propaganda from the Weston Price Foundation, there is good evidence that high fat and esp sat. fat intake increase risk of cardiovascular disease and cancers.
Dairy is most common food group that causes or exacerbate autoimmune conditions, gluten next in line. So Paleo approach has good chance there. Eliminating those two things along with all the sugar and chemicals in standard diet will cure a lot of ills!
My copy is now spoken for.
FWIW Doc Strange, the author of this particular book stresses 'lean' animal protein... preferably wild, not feed lot variety. Some of it made sense to me but some of it contradicts what I've been led to believe by other authors.
One of my other diet books is "Diet For A New America" by John Robbins. Another thoroughly researched book with hundreds of footnotes in a single chapter. I liked being able to cross reference some of the stuff he stated.
Fred Van Dyke is the guy who recommended it to me. That guy is an inspiration. If he said "Read it", you can bet I read it.
John, what book were you referencing, that has been spoken for?
Yea, Fred Van Dyke is classic. Ran into him some years ago at OB in SF, ended up talking story, some surfing, mostly fly fishing which we share a passion for. Said if it was up to him, he’d live in his Montana place most of the time…too cold for Joanie…
Hi -
The book I have is "The Paleo Diet" by Loren Cordain, PhD. Revised edition 2011.
I think there are other variations of same. It's just the one I got.
In a nutshell, it breaks down like this:
Protein 19%-35%
Carbs 22%-40%
Fats 28% -47%
…nobody knows what happened in previous centuries with Cancer and other diseases due to no data.
Possibly most died by Cancer and similar things like in this time but no technology, etc to detect and confirm those diseases.
If you think that dairy is the evil, and just add the previous sentence, we can say that a high % died by the same things centuries ago, mostly in Europe.
Any opinions on the “One Meal A Day” diet…???..
I sort of fell into that eating pattern while in Australia for a couple of months…My energy level was stable, nothing peaky about it…I lost 90% of the belly flab and side handles I had…
I basically had tea at 11am with a piece of fruit, then ate whatever I wanted and as much as I wanted in the late afternoon…After a couple of weeks, my food quality and quantity choices became leaner and healthier…I found it easy to walk past the kitchen without thinking “What’s in there to eat?”…
Back here in the PNW, in the winter, my body is craving “comfort food”, and I’m resisting the urges pretty well…I think it’s an outside temperature thing…So far, even with all the food avalable at the holidays, I’m maintaing a lower body fat level with just one meal a day…
Paul, one meal a day works for some. For me it just pushed me to grossly overeat the one time. I can’t really even do 2X/day. I need three squares to get me through
China Study is the current “classic” but it does seem from the research that under 10% of total calories is probably safe. BUT that IMO means 10% from animals raised in humane, natural way. And that means, cows roam and eat grass only, chickens roam and eat greens, seeds, and bugs, fish are free swimming and wild and only from far North deep ocean (for reasons of pollution). Oh and pigs, let’s not forget pigs, who are very happy and healthy if outdoors w/ shelter available and can forage and root as well as get handed a ration of what they truly need (not GMO corn grits)…
For books w/ lot of referenced research about this, Dr Joel Fuhrman is an excellent source: “Eat to Live”, “Super Immunity”, “The End of Diabetes”, “Eat for Health”…
Speaking from experience, I found the Paleo diet to be tough to balance, Carbs especially. Maybe that's just me. I had good results with it overall and still strictly limit my intake of grains and other 'no-no' foods. Beforehand I tended to be thin and lacked muscle mass but after 2 years of Paleo, I'm was more stocky than I wanted to be! Now I'm trying to lighten up and lean down again....
Good luck with it
One key to making Paleo work is to keep meat and fat calories low and get in enough complex carbs. Hard to do if whole grains and legumes are banned I know. I know a number of athletic trainers and a Naturopath who all were strong, low carb, Paleo advocates and all found that after awhile their thyroids and adrenals started to tank and their energy plummeted. Whole grains and legumes are not the devil! The argument that we have not had time to evolve digestive capacity for them (because such “recent” adds to our diets had been soundly disproven. Recent research (tribes in New Guinea changing genetically to be resistant to Kuru [from cannabalism]) have undergone significant genetic changes and immune system changes in only a couple hundred years.
I disagree DrStrange… Grains and legumes are the devil. ; )
Grains are starvation food.
I can feel a drastic difference if I “cheat” more than once in a week.
Night and day difference if I stay off of 'em completely…
From what I’ve read, grains have little to no nutritional value.
The idea is to get your carbs from vegetables / fruit (more veggies than fruit).
That way, you are also getting vitamins and nutrients from the veggies that the grains would be otherwise taking out of you.
What propaganda from the “Weston Price Foundation” are you talking about… I’m not familiar with them.
Personally I don’t do so well on grains either due to the starch kicking my blood sugar up; beans work great for me-stable blood sugar, sustained energy… Tons of research though showing increased consumption of WHOLE grains (not stripped and processsed and bleached ones) reduces cardiovascular disease incidence, all sort of benefits.
http://www.tcolincampbell.org/courses-resources/article/abolishing-heart-disease/
"World War II provided a graphic example of how the ravages of these diseases could be totally halted. Norway was one of several western European nations occupied by Nazi Germany during the conflict between 1939 through 1945. The Germans removed all animal livestock from these occupied countries. The native population subsisted on whole grains, legumes, vegetables and fruit. Almost immediately death from heart attacks and strokes in Norway plummeted. With the cessation of hostilities in 1945 animal products became available as well as an immediate return to the prewar levels of deaths from these illnesses."
Definitely veg and fruit should make up the far biggest part of your intake. But you need to get calories from somewhere without consuming too much fat which happens if get a lot of calories from critters soooo, legumes I would put as first choice, maybe sweet potatoes and other roots as #2, then intact, whole grains, and small amounts of raw nuts and seeds and if desired, beast.
Weston Price was dentist 1st part of 20th century, traveled the world checking cultures still eating their traditional diets and their younger generation that was eating more “modern European” diet. Found of course the elders very healthy and the kids ill. I read his book and out of 13 (I think) cultures he visited, all but 2 or 3 were eating mostly plants and a little wild game. The 3 heavy animal consumers included Inuit and Zulu I think, who recent research has shown to have had severe health problems or potential problems from their high intake that was necessitated by their environment. WPA is run by folks who seem to have a saturated fat and meat love affair and are trying to get everyone else to join the party. Long story but if you look deep, a lot of their “research” reported is bunk and/or does not support their conclusions.
So whole grains are good if your body tolerates them well though legumes have better nutrient profile. AND definitely, eat yer veggies, just like Grandma said.
Right on Dr.Strange
…one meal per day…well, may be all the nutrition for sports books from the last 35 years are wrong…there s no way you can maintain the right levels in everything, if you train and practice sports, eating one meal per day in daily basis per years.
And if you really paddle hard take lots of waves, know how to surf and do all that in the morning, do you think that with a cup of tea (flavoured water, by the way) and a fruit you are covered?
-Dr Strange,
I think the problem with vegetables is that you should “start” with a bulk body type. You cannot bulk with vegetables and fruit.
What I see, at least in several countries is that the new generations are bigger (but a bit less wiser) no matter what they eat. All are tall at teenagers…without do any sports too.
Check also the hands and feet, extremely big when still short and young then suddenly they are tall “instantly”.
Check the women, they have better bodies than past times, and most do nothing to eat right.
I think that’s due to steroids and hormones in the food Reverb.
The negative health fallouts from that hardly outweight the “gains”.
Totally agree w/ Chris about the hormones and xenoestrogens in the food. Also, high protein modern diet, does promote IGF-1 secretion, just from the intense protein intake. That much protein and ALL the cells say, “Oh boy, let’s just grow really really fast…” and so yes, people do get bigger. Works for bulking if that is what you want. But you can be crazy strong without bulk from right type of exercise. And if “big” you have to lug all that weight around. However–
Rapid growth accelerates metabolism and therefore accelerates aging. And higher levels of IGF-1 in circulation promotes not only muscle cell growth but cancer cells as well. We all have cancer all the time; a cell here and there goes haywire. The huge majority of the time, our immune systems spot the abnormality and kill the few cells before they have a chance to really get going. Having high level of IGF-1 is like running around tossing cans of gasoline on all the little lightening started brush fires and hoping the fire dept. can still get there in time. Many do get away with it, but there does seem to have a very large increase in cancer over the years and that is very likely a part of the reason, the super high protein/high quality aninmal protein diets of the “affluent”.
Chris mentioned the negative fallouts and much of that may take years to manifest, but it the bill will come due.
I’m on a diet of foam. Why don’t you girls take it over to the “Cosmopolitan” or “Oprah” site. Lowel
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