The Paleo Diet - Loren Cordain [15]
Compared to the faddish low-carbohydrate weight-loss diets, the Paleo Diet includes all the nutritional elements needed to encourage weight loss while promoting health and well-being. The Paleo Diet is designed to imitate the healthful diets of our preagricultural ancestors. It contains the proper balance of plant and animal foods—and the correct ratios of protein, fat, and carbohydrate required for weight loss and excellent health.
So, don’t be fooled by the low-carbohydrate fad diets. The Paleo Diet gives you the same weight-loss benefits, but it’s also a delicious, healthy diet you can maintain for a lifetime.
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The Ground Rules for the Paleo Diet
With the Paleo Diet, you’ll be restoring the diet you are genetically programmed to eat. You’ll be following the diet that every single person on the planet ate only 333 generations ago. It is the diet the modern world has completely forgotten.
The Paleo Diet is simplicity itself. Here are the ground rules:
1. All the lean meats, fish, and seafood you can eat
2. All the fruits and nonstarchy vegetables you can eat
3. No cereals
4. No legumes
5. No dairy products
6. No processed foods
The Paleo Diet is not a fat-free diet, it’s a “bad fat”-free diet. It has few of the artery-clogging fats found in the typical Western diet, but there is plenty of low-fat protein and good fats—such as those found in salmon and other cold-water fish, as well as in nuts and olive oil. It is not a fanatically strict diet, either.
There are three levels of adherence that make it easy to follow the diet’s principles. Each level contains a limited number of Open Meals—in which you can still eat your favorite foods. If you enjoy an occasional glass of wine or beer, that’s fine—it’s allowed here. Because the Paleo Diet is a lifetime program of eating—and not a quick-fix weight-loss diet—it has built-in flexibility to accommodate a little cheating and your own individuality.
Try it, and from the beginning your appetite will be reduced and your metabolism will be increased. This means you’ll lose weight without the hunger pangs that accompany so many diets—and ultimately doom these diets to fail. There’s no need to count carbohydrate grams in this diet. You can eat as much carbohydrate as you want, as long as it’s the good kind—the kind that comes from low-glycemic fruits and vegetables. There is no need to count calories. This is how our diet was meant to be: Eat until you’re full. Enjoy nature’s bounty. Lose weight, and be healthy while you’re doing it.
Here’s how the Paleo Diet compares to the faddish low-carbohydrate diets we discussed in the previous chapter.
Item The Paleo Diet Fad Low-Carb Diets
Protein High (19-35%) Moderate (18-23%)
Carbohydrate Moderate (22-40%) Low (4 -26%)
Total fat Moderate (28-47%) High (51-78%)
Saturated fat Moderate High
Monounsaturated fat High Moderate
Polyunsaturated fat Moderate Moderate
Omega 3 fat High Low
Total fiber High Low
Fruits and vegetables High Low
Nuts and seeds Moderate Low
Salt Low High
Refined sugars Low Low
Dairy foods None High
The Fundamentals of the Paleo Diet
The Paleo Diet is based on the bedrock of Stone Age diets:
Eat lots of lean meats, fresh fruits,
and vegetables
From the work my research team and I have done in analyzing the daily food intake of hunter-gatherer societies, we have found the ideal dietary ratio. Although you don’t need to count calories with the Paleo Diet, if you did you’d find that a little more than half—55 percent—of your calories comes from lean meats, organ meats, fish, and seafood. The balance comes from fresh fruits and vegetables, some nuts, and healthful oils.
My research team and I have spent years analyzing what Paleolithic humans ate—running hundreds of computerized analyses exploring every conceivable dietary component, varying the amounts and types of plant and animal foods that were available to our ancient ancestors. No matter