With so many different diets to pick and choose from what exactly makes the 'Paleo Diet' so special?
And why are so many people dumping their fashionable fad diets and beginning to take notice of what doctors, top sports coaches, athletes and scientific researchers are saying, and what the converted have been saying all along!
This is NOT a diet program that limits you to "x" number of calories per day... this is a lifestyle diet that lets you eat without calorie counting.
Doctors with previously mixed opinions on nutrition and balanced diets are beginning to see the immense benefits in following the paleolithic diet, and many are now recommending Paleo to their patients.
Many top trainers and top sports coaches only recommend a paleo friendly diet to athletes. Infact it has rapidly become one of the most popular fitness and weight loss regimens worldwide.
Do you suffer from allergies?.. the Paleo Diet can help, in fact it's truly amazing in how it can greatly reduce your risk of illness. The whole family can be eating the same foods and enjoying the benefits that this diet has to offer. But most importantly, this diet is easy to follow and you will not have to starve yourself in order to be successful with it.
For more than two million years, early man foraged and hunted for seafood, meat, vegetables, fruit, nuts, roots and seeds. This period of time before the development of agriculture is known as the Paleolithic era. The 'paleolithic diet' is also known as the Stone Age diet, Hunter Gatherer diet and the Caveman diet.
No matter what you call our ancestors, some things simply haven't changed. Our digestive systems have evolved by only the very slightest amount in the 10,000 years since farming changed our diets.
The modern caveman diet is an approach to healthy nutrition that mimics our ancestors diet for ultimate health and fitness. Although we might live in a modern world with many scientific, technological and medical advancements that have helped to prolong our lives, our bodies still require the same foods.
Gastroenterologist Walter L. Voegtlin first popularized this diet in the 1970's. He argued in 'The Stone Age Diet' that humans are carnivorous animals that chiefly need fats, proteins and a small amount of carbohydrates for optimum performance.
Since the 1970's there have been many doctors and scientist whose research firmly support the paleolithic diet. Amongst them is Robb Wolf, a former research biochemist and review editor for the Journal of Nutrition and Metabolism. This is what he had to say in the introduction to his book 'The Paleo Solution'.
'...I have about 30,000 emails from people living all around the world that I've worked with in some capacity testifying to the fact that Paleo nutrition has transformed their lives. People with cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and autoimmunity have all benefited from Paleo nutrition..'
Since the 1980's obesity has been rapidly increasing not only in the United States but also in Europe, according to the World Health Organization:
"Obesity is one of the greatest public health challenges of the 21st century. Its prevalence has tripled in many countries of the WHO European Region since the 1980s, and the numbers of those affected continue to rise at an alarming rate."
The answer is actually staring us in the face... It is all down to our modern lifestyles and our modern diets. Unhealthy fast foods and diets that are laden with preservatives, sugars and processed carbohydrates.
Unlike todays popular diets which are designed with only one specific purpose, to help people lose weight, the Paleo diet began as a way of preventing illnesses and many of our modern diseases through healthy nutrition and eliminating toxic foods, weight loss just happened to be the beneficial 'side-effect' for overweight people.
Below is an extract of an interview with Dr. Frank Comstock who specializes in anti-aging medicine and health optimization. In this short interview he shares his expert advice on Paleo nutrition and healthy eating for weight loss and optimal health.
We try and put our patients on a diet that supports their hormone levels in many ways but specifically a diet that supports the insulin hormone level because this allows the body to burn fat, and when we burn more fat not only do we lose excess body fat but we produce more energy so we feel much much better.
So we put people on a diet that is very consistent with what we evolved at, a diet that we call a 'Caveman Type Diet' to give the body foods that it needs to rebuild and repair cells each day.
So it's a very healthy balanced diet of meats, fish, eggs, fruits and vegetables and we try to avoid as much as we can the processed carbs (carbohydrates) because they excessively raise our blood sugar and excessively raise our insulin hormone levels thus leading to fat storage
A lot of patients once we get them off the processed carbs, a lot off patients feel better within days, most patients will feel better within about a week. But you will feel better off the carbs...
It's a little bit hard to believe when you do it because when you are eating a lot of processed carbs your blood sugar is on a kind of roller-coaster pattern, so we temporarily feel a little better when we eat as our blood sugar goes back up, then within an hour or so your blood sugar is sinking again and you are going to have cravings for more carbs so it gets to become a vicious cycle.
So we break that cycle, and again within a few days to a week, you will find that as your blood sugar becomes nice and consistent and level you no-longer have the cravings for the processed carbs, your energy levels will be better because you are burning body fat, and you will I guarantee it, you will feel better ultimately.
So it's a win win scenario you're going to feel better and you are getting healthier at the same time... so that's the goal.