FINlos reviews…

…Going Paleo

Oct 01

FINlosdaily life 2 Comments

A while back a friend of ours came to visit. She told us about a new diet she was on. After a few minutes of description I began to realize that she was not on a diet, she had changed her diet.

She spent some time describing the Paleolithic diet, or just paleo for short. It is not enough to simply call it a diet in the traditional weight loss sense. Going paleo is a change of lifestyle. In the strictest sense, eating paleo means giving up grains, dairy, sugar, and legumes, not to mention others.

Yeah, none of that.

Or that.

Definitely not that.

So we said thanks, but no thanks.

Now, this has been a road that my wife and I have been traveling down for some time. Health has always been a concern for us since both of our families are prone to obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. While neither of us were fat, weight loss has always been a goal. Four years ago we made a New Year resolution to stop eating fast food. That is something we have stuck to ever since. We stopped drinking sodas, a big step for me, the cola connoisseur. But what really pushed me was when giving blood two years ago the phlebotomist informed me that my blood pressure was 150 over 95. I was shocked. I knew I could shed a few pounds, but those numbers were shocking. My father had a heart attack when he was in his late forties and has been dealing with hypertension and angina for over 20 years. I did not want to end up like that.

The doctor was disturbingly unconcerned as he took my blood pressure reading the next day. It was not quite as high, 140 over 90, and he told me to try to lose a little weight and exercise. He also had some blood work done to check my cholesterol. It was 205. I can’t even explain to you how scary it is to be in your mid twenties and have both high blood pressure and high cholesterol.

So in addition to the fast food and the soda we dedicated ourselves to only whole grains and completely cutting high fructose corn syrup from our diets. We became label readers. Let me tell you, finding foods that don’t have HFCS can be difficult. And on top of this we began a consistent exercise plan. And while we found some success with these changes, and we certainly felt good about ourselves, we would make only modest gains in the battle against our weights.

Our friend came for another visit.

“Still Paleo?”

“Yep. And you know, whenever I travel I almost always have to eat something that I normally wouldn’t and I feel like crap for a week.”

She ate some stuff she normally wouldn’t while she was at our house, but I never had the heart to ask about the consequences.

I accepted that more drastic measures needed to be made. So I began doing what any sensible person does when they need more information; I went to wikipedia. Paleo practitioners come from all walks of life and spout all sorts of different rationale. Some say that they are returning to the natural evolutionary diet of paleolithic humans; the foods that we would eat if we were living in the wild. Others say the onset of agriculture set us down a path of eating foods unnatural to our digestive systems, from modified strains of corn to genetically engineered livestock. But the most sensible of arguments that I have heard, the one that I cling to, is that the paleo diet allows for one to be in better control of their blood sugar level by regulating glycemic indices of foods, the amount of sugar released into the blood stream by the digestion of carbohydrates.

In specific, we read an article called What if It’s All Been a Big Fat Lie by Gary Taubes. I’m not going to say that everything he states in the article is accurate, but it created just enough doubt and and rang true, at least relating to our own lifestyles and eating habits. In the article he questions the validity of the modern food pyramid, links common chronic illnesses from heart disease to diabetes, and even federal subsidies to agribusiness. He links all of them to the adoption of the low-fat/high-carb focus of the food pyramid.

So basically he took everything I ever thought I knew about the food I eat and chucked it.

Taubes mentions several diets that he feels have been wrongly slighted by society, the most notable if which is the Atkins diet. A common comment that I get when I begin explaining our eating lifestyle is, “Oh, so it’s like Atkins?”

“Kinda yes, but kinda no.”

What we have come to realize is that every type of food needs to be considered individually. We are not true practitioners of the Paleo Diet. We still eat dairy, but we try to only eat all natural yogurt and aged cheeses so that the lactose has been broken down by the bacteria (did you know lactose allows funky bacteria to grow in your tummy?). We eat legumes, but usually only lentils since their health benefits far outweigh the risks, and we do so only sparingly. And we still drink wine, our biggest vice. But all of these things are done with careful attention to the totality of our diet, and in careful moderation. But the bulk of our daily meals conform to paleo guidelines: we eat only lean meats (lean vs. fatty, and fat levels in general are some things other low-carb “diets” don’t address as much), Fruits and vegetables account for the bulk of our caloric intake, we have cut processed sugar completely from our diet, and nuts are our snacks of choice.

The first weeks were hard. Sometimes it was the cravings, peanut butter being the biggest (peanuts are legumes, DUH!). Sometimes it was the frustration at a seeming lack of options in food choices. But as we did more and more research, looked up more and more recipes, it got easier. And honestly, I really don’t miss anything. In fact, when we go out to eat and select our lean steak with steamed vegetables and no garlic bread, thank you, or our salad with sliced chicken, my wife and I share a knowing glance with one another as others in our party order their carbs with a side of carbs, and a chunk of meat. If we ate that stuff now, we would simply die.

And that is one of the biggest benefits. We are very in tune with our own bodies, and we know when we have eaten something that we shouldn’t have. Either our tongues will swell from all the salt, our we will have upset stomachs, or our weight will suddenly spike for a couple of days. Yes, it happens that quickly.

It’s not for everyone, but it works for us. We have both lost weight; me, 45 pounds in five months. Eva, two pants sizes. We feel great, we move faster, and I know that we are healthier. The biggest step was moving past the idea that it was some sort of sacrifice and more of an increase in quality.

You can even have some cake, paleo style!

You really don’t realize how much crap you are eating until you stop.

 

Rated four and one-half stars for weight loss, health, and a happier life. Would have received a perfect five stars if not for the three wardrobes that I have gone through in the past five months.