The Paleo Diet

Okay, so you just heard from a friend about this totally awesome new diet called the Paleo diet. You take a step back and look at him again and realize he looks slim, fit and healthy so you begin to wonder if you could do the Paleo diet. Well the Paleo diet is also known as the caveman diet, basically you eat like a caveman, pretty simple, eat straight from the Earth (except legumes and grains, of course). As a participant of the diet you eat fish or lean meat as your protein, then fruits and vegetables and fats (like nuts, avocados and natural oils). Only those things.

Of course there are some great advantages to this diet, it gets people away from refined processed foods and adds diversity to their diet (if followed correctly). These are things that almost anyone could benefit from and is relatively sound nutrition advice with one possible minor problem... how likely is this to be an actual lifestyle change? After all isn't that the real goal, if you have some unhealthy habits, change them, forever.

My other frustration with this diet and what people tend to say about it is the weight loss. Yes, if you go on this diet you would likely lose weight, unless of course you eat an endless supply nuts and avocado. However, this is not because grains and milk make people fat, it's because you stopped eating bread with sandwiches and started drinking water instead of water. If you cut out two slices of bread and one glass of milk a day, that's around 300 calories less. Eating a normal diet including milk and grains you can still lose weight if you cut out 300 calories.

A diet should become a way of life, so that it is not something you call a diet any more, if it cannot be changed for good then how was it useful? And before trying an extreme diet, if you want to lose weight try cutting a few calories first.