Sunday, August 9, 2009

Paleolithic diet

This week, Ashley and I have been following the Paleo Diet (Paleolithic diet). This diet is, in essence, the following of the presumed ancient diet of wild plants and animals that various human species habitually consumed during the Paleolithic—a period of about 2.5 million years duration that ended around 10,000 years ago with the development of agriculture.

In other words, 'what the caveman ate'.

Centered around commonly available modern foods, the "contemporary" Paleolithic diet consists mainly of meat, fish, vegetables, fruit, roots, and nuts; and excludes grains, legumes (alfalfa, clover, peas, beans, lentils, lupins, mesquite, carob, and peanuts), dairy products, salt, refined sugar, and processed oils.

There is a considerable amount of theory around the modern reliance on processed foods being our downfall. I don't know; I'm not a nutritionist (kind of makes sense though, right?).

I'm not sure if I understand the whole science behind the diet, there's a 266 page to read through, but a couple of things I have discovered in the last week -
  1. I have lost 3kg in the last week, the diet in the only thing that I've changed, ergo, I attribute the weight loss to the diet.
  2. Planning meals & cooking without the above mentioned food stuffs is harder than I ever though possible. I struggle with this all the time.
  3. Even though by the end of the week I thought I'd be craving cakes & doughnuts etc. the reality is, I would kill someone for a sandwich right now.
We're going to keep on with it, see what happens; I don't know if I'll actually end up killing someone for the sandwich, but I'll Tweet about it if I do.

You should check with your physician before starting any new exercise or diet regime
Sections of this post are referenced from the Paleolithic diet article on Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia

No comments:

Post a Comment

Your comments, feedback or questions are always welcome. Please note that they should be on topic and constructive.