You must be wondering why would you want to take a look at Paleo as a serious diet change to improve your lifestyle and health?
There is no shortage of medical journals and newspaper articles, internet bites, and TV infomercials that tell us what is good for the body, what is good for your heart, and what processed food substance will lower your bodies cholesterol. Earlier men and women had longer lives and lesser issues with their health because of natural and organic diets. This in itself should make you question what are you putting in your bodies these days and what are you feeding your children alike? You may find yourself easily tired at say, age 35, while your father at that age was a tough sport about marathoning through work hours, juggling family, and social activities alike. This is proof that even with evolved diets, eating organic food and eating less processed junk did their bodies actual good.
Now let’s enter the Paleo world. As with any other diets, one would be cautious about its overall effect on our body and mind. Scientific studies, while not a hundred percent accurate, but still, many studies have shown that Paleolilith men/women suffered from none of the hundreds of modern diseases that have been on the rise like an epidemic after the evolution of our diet, and the introductions of agricultural additives and processed food additives that have done the opposite of nurturing our bodies.
But as they all say the proof is in the pudding. Most people who have adapted this lifestyle have nothing but good things to say about this diet. Most importantly, this diet has helped many severely affected patients of different autoimmune diseases achieve restoration of their health almost immediately.
Most of us only hear about gluten in products and how it affects ‘some’ people badly. If you’ve heard about gluten free products several times, and don’t know why gluten is a common enemy affecting 1 in a 100 cases then, let’ talk about gluten.
Gluten is a protein present in all wheat based products and all its cross breeds like rye and barley as well. Today most processed food items apart from wheat products themselves also contain gluten, and it seems that more than some people are badly affecting by the presence of this protein in their foods.
Gluten has been linked to most autoimmune diseases, diarrhea, leaky gut syndrome, intestinal damage, and fatigue to name just a few. The worst part is that most of us don’t even know that we may be suffering from any gluten allergies. Many cases of celiac disease remain undiagnosed because sometimes the symptoms are subtle and grow over time, or just don’t affect us as severely as it does to some people with diagnosed cases of celiac disease.
Paleo is not just a gluten free diet, it is also a low carb and high fat that encourages the use of some nutritional fat that helps to create energy in a human body. Due to obvious myths that have been fed to us over time through commercials, articles, and scientists we feel afraid of the very mention of ‘FAT’ in our diet and disregard a high fat diet as complete misnomer.
Fat is not always bad, and carbohydrates only provide energy to that gets burned away immediately. Fats are another macronutrient that give your body the energy to get through the day. Proof of this is the cavemen themselves. They existed on high fat diets that allowed them energy and alertness to hunt and gather for themselves. That can be an intense workout by modern day standards. Out complicated routines of this day is nothing short of intense effort and exertion. A high fat diet will assist in enriching your lifestyle in many ways.
Another issue in our general diet is how our non-Paleo lifestyle affects your blood sugar level and how quickly the blood glucose level rises. All foods have varying glycemic levels (the rate at how quickly your blood sugar level rises with a food) and some make your blood sugar levels increase).
If it’s still hard to get a handle on why Paleo should be your diet then let’s take a look at the fat free craze that has been on the roll for the last few decades. Fats and saturated fats are both touted as ‘evils’ that encourage cholesterol and bad heart health, but this is a one sided story. Let’s not delve into heavy medical and cellular jargon for it. Keeping it simple, saturated fats aren’t all bad fats. Yes, there are good saturated fats, as well as bad saturated fats. The good fats contribute to good heart health, and don’t encourage build up of harmful triglycerides in arteries (what we call clogged arteries are the results of harmful triglycerides build up in our arteries). The macronutrients encouraged in Paleo are all sources of good saturated fats that are productive in increasing heart health and vitality.
Coming to the issue of losing weight with this diet, weight loss can be a seriously frustrating battle if your diet is the one that is hindering your success. Paleo is also know to help slim down those of us who have tried other diets and not found themselves close to shedding those annoying pounds. The low carb, high fat diet that Paleo encourages is also high in its protein quotient. A filling part of the equation that helps keep the individual satiated for longer, and revert to processed foods less. Once you cut out sugars, high carbs, and gluten out of your diet, you are bound to start dropping pounds. The high protein content also encourages more muscle development and promotes quicker fat burning.
Many organic ingredients in the Paleo diet encourage satiation of appetite and fat burning.
Based on this knowledge we can now move on to look at Paleo from the perspective of being a lifestyle choice that you can make for your own life.