"Eat Like A Predator, Not Like Prey": Paleo In Six Easy Steps, A Motivational Guide

[chatton18]

So I don't know if this has been posted in here, and it certainly isn't pure paleo, but looks at why sugar is so bad for us and how fructose - which is in regular refined sugar, high fructose corn syrup, etc. is bad for us in larger quantities bc it is metabolized by only the liver where as glucose/starch is metabolized by the whole body. Also goes into some of the misconceptions and history of why we think saturated fat etc. are so bad for us. Longer, but interesting read.

Is Sugar Toxic?
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/ma...nted=1&_r=1&hp

[Spats]

I just wanted to give an update on my progress with eating paleo. To sum it all up, I am sold for life.

Congratulations! I'm glad it's working for you.

I've definitely found myself stronger, leaner, and more muscular without doing any extra work, and I'm glad that others are too.

I basically follow Kurt Harris's 'Archevore' diet and have had a very easy time adapting to it. Giving up all processed food and gluten was simple for one reason - after just two days of doing it, I was feeling great.

Yes. As you can probably tell from the references at the end of "Eat Like A Predator", I agree with what Dr. Harris calls "Paleo 2.0" -- as do most of the paleo researchers and bloggers with which I'm familiar. The paleo community of researchers (and adherents) has very much moved on from the "lean meats and nuts" version of the early days.

For those who aren't familiar, it emphasizes avoidance of modern food toxins (what Harris calls "neolithic agents of disease" -- n-6, gluten grains, and fructose), high consumption of saturated animal fats (preferably from grass-fed ruminants), and not obsessing about things like acid/base balance, macronutrient ratios, etc. that aren't proven to matter (and certainly don't matter compared to avoidance of the NAD).

[Sparky]

Many of the Paleo diet principles appeal . . .

However whilst I would agree that highly processed food, and excessive amounts of sugars are bad for health. Wholemeal / unrefined grains and rice are not necessarily bad per se, we've been eating them for thousands of years. The longevity of the Chinese would testify that rice is OK.

Globally there is not enough land for livestock agriculture to support the increase in meat consumption if most of the human population decided to eat predominantly meat diets. The Paleo diet on such a significant scale is unsustainable and would have a massively detrimental environmental impact.

Sure we are not ruminants, but if we evolved to primarily live off meat, where are our fangs and claws?

Eating fruit and veg is OK . . . but fruit juice and veg juice is bad! Why? (ref: "Eat Like A Predator").

I raise poultry for meat and eggs, and pigs for meat also. Whilst eggs are a good source of protein too many are a sickener. Our Paleolithic ancestors would not have found eggs in any quantity and neither would they have kept poultry until societies became more agrarian. It's disappointing that pig and poultry meat is not really approved of by Paleos.

Maybe I am being too critical and reading the blogs too literally, but I would appreciate clarification of some of these points.

Meantime I'm gonna eat more beef (it's all reared on grass round here)

[DeutschBag]

I'll take a stab at this. I can't get all scientific like Spats or some others, but I have been doing a lot of reading over the past couple of months.

unrefined grains and rice are not necessarily bad per se, we've been eating them for thousands of years

For hundreds of thousands of years these grains were not a part of the human diet. It has only been over the last 10,000 years or so that humans began eating these in large quantities. Coincidentally, this is also when a lot of the 'neolithic agents of disease' began showing up in our ancestors. The argument "but look at the Asians" is always brought up when I mention rice and soy to someone. They eat these substances in moderation, not due to any adherence with any type of preconceived diet, but it's just what they do. I have some experience with witnessing this first-hand as I lived in Japan for three years. Rice is a side dish, not the main component of a meal (in most cases). Same with soy.

Globally there is not enough land for livestock agriculture to support the increase in meat consumption

With the Earth's current population, this is very true. Humans f'd this up when they decided to stay put in one place and make raising food and growing crops a full time job and a business. Daniel Quinn's book, "Ishmael" is an interesting take on this topic and a great read. But, no, the planet couldn't support everyone eating a paleo diet now. Thing is, 90% of the people in western cultures (and more and more every day in eastern cultures) are content with McDonalds and Twinkies and potato chips and they aren't going to give that stuff up. As far as an environmental impact, read up on what monoculture has done and is doing to the planet.

Sure we are not ruminants, but if we evolved to primarily live off meat, where are our fangs and claws?

We have incisors and cuspids. Most herbivores do not. We also have highly-developed brains allowing us to hunt and get our food through means that will cause us the least harm.

Eating fruit and veg is OK . . . but fruit juice and veg juice is bad! Why?

How many oranges does it take to make a 12oz glass of juice? Last time I was in Amsterdam and bought some OJ from a street vendor (so good when you're partaking and wandering the streets!), it took 5 oranges to fill the glass! That is a ton of fructose which is NOT good! One orange - fine. But five? Talk about a sugar bomb. Fruit should be eaten in moderation. Veg juice? - same reason (carrots have a lot of sugar in them). Also, you're missing out on the fiber from eating the fruit whole.

Pig and poultry is fine for paleo. Where did you hear this? You just try to get the healthiest meat you can, preferably pasteurized. I do tend to trim extraneous fat from my chicken and stay away from the darker meat (my preference). I'm not a big pork fan, but do eat quite a bit of bacon each week. I can get the really healthy stuff here in Germany (took some time to find).

Eating paleo is not about trying to replicate how paleolithic people lived and ate. That would be virtually impossible thanks to what has been done to our food over the last 10,000 years. However, it is using a set of guidelines based off of their diet and adapting what we can to more closely eat how they did. The main point is, when humans began settling down and farming, the human diet drastically changed. There is plenty of scientific proof correlating an increase in neolithic diseases with this change in diet. By avoiding these advents of agriculture, paleo is also trying to avoid the diseases that came with it. I may not be saying that too well - it's early here.

I found giving up the processed foods, sugar, gluten, etc.. very easy. Others can't fathom giving up bread and beer and pastries, but I had no problem with it. I'd been eating pretty healthy already thanks to my gout condition - but hadn't been eating much meat. I was basically eating a vegetarian diet with lean meat once or twice a week. I felt like shit on this diet, had no energy, and COULD NOT lose weight! After doing a ton of research, I decided to give paleo a go. Everyone told me I was crazy since red meat 'is so bad for gout'. Turns out, that is bullshit. I've had my blood work done each month and the doctors have been amazed. No gout attacks or even the tingling of an attack since I've started paleo. My blood pressure has fallen dramatically and my triglycerides are better than ever. I have my life back, and it's great!

[Wild4umlauts]

This isn't strictly Paleo, but I've been reading "Why We Get Fat" by Gary Taubes and I've found the information he presents incredibly fascinating. I'm only half way through the book at this point, but what he's presented so far is pretty much mind blowing given what the common collective thoughts are in our society in regards to health, exercise, and weight loss.

Calories In =/= Calories Out
Exercise Does Not Make Us Thin

Much of this is about dispelling the lipid hypothesis. I also watched the series of 5 videos on youtube called the "Fat Fiasco". I'm just amazed at how these fallacies have permeated our society - including our governments who continue to push this crap on their citizens.

I've been doing Paleo for about 6 months. I've lost over 35 lbs. and never felt better. The hardest part is getting people to understand/believe how I've done it. It pains me most to see my wife continue down the wrong path even though my results are right in front of her every day. I now weigh 25 lbs. less than the day we got married and she weighs 25 lbs. more (and counting).

[jayfrizzo]

So I've been kind of half-assing paleo/primal/whatever for a month, maybe 6 weeks. Fell off the wagon a couple times and cheated hard througout. Like nearly a handle of whiskey and a pinto of Ben and Jerry's a week. Lost a couple pounds in the beginning then stagnated.

The past 2 weeks I've been strict except for a couple cheats here and there (half an icebox cake last weekend and a bunch of whiskey this weekend -- hey I still want to be able to handle my sugar and grains if I encounter them in the jungle).

Anyhow, it's pretty cool. I don't reel like snacking and can miss meals. I'm definitely trying to cut weight -- i want to be as light as possible for surfing -- so I've probably not been eating enough. But what I like about it is I can go to bed a little hungry and it's OK. Last summer when I was doing this for a surf trip I was miserable going to bed hungry.

I don't think my "performance" has suffered. I've been doing Cindy weekly to guage this and have been getting better, added a round last week.

I noticed this weekend the fattier meat and food tastes better to me. We had chicken this weekend and I was reaching for the thigh and skin and didn't like the breast. And I can taste the fat in plain Greek yogurt more now, instead of the sour.

And I've lost 6 pounds the past 2 weeks. Some of it is no doubt cutting the booze and Ice Cream. But all in all this is a smoother road.

[bagtagley]

You're so full of shit, Jay. You've always preferred the dark meat.

[Spats]

Frizzle:

I don't reel like snacking and can miss meals. I'm definitely trying to cut weight -- i want to be as light as possible for surfing -- so I've probably not been eating enough. But what I like about it is I can go to bed a little hungry and it's OK.

Excellent! You've made it over the hump and your body is now fat-adapted.

Now it's just a question of how strict you want to be vs. what benefits you feel you're getting...and that's entirely up to you. There's the Primal Blueprint 80/20 approach, the purist Whole 30 approach, the "white rice is OK too" Perfect Health Diet approach, and all the shades in between.

I noticed this weekend the fattier meat and food tastes better to me. We had chicken this weekend and I was reaching for the thigh and skin and didn't like the breast. And I can taste the fat in plain Greek yogurt more now, instead of the sour.

I absolutely notice the same thing. Once I got over that societal condition of "Eww, arterycloggingsaturatedfat", I started thinking "Mmmmm, delicious fat!" You'll know you've gone over to the dark side when you eat the entire prime rib, including all the big fat globs.

I still put fruit or a touch of blueberry syrup in my yogurt...but less and less as time goes on.

If you like Thai curries, they're dead easy to make. Whatever you have, cook it in coconut milk, Mae Ploy curry paste, and maybe a hint of fish sauce. Done!

[COLOR=white]This isn't strictly Paleo, but I've been reading "Why We Get Fat" by Gary Taubes and I've found the information he presents incredibly fascinating. I'm only half way through the book at this point, but what he's presented so far is pretty much mind blowing given what the common collective thoughts are in our society in regards to health, exercise, and weight loss.

I think there's more to obesity than just the carbs/insulin axis, but it's a huge piece of the puzzle...and as Taubes points out, it was well-understood by the medical profession until Ancel Keys came in and fucked everything up.

Much of this is about dispelling the lipid hypothesis. I also watched the series of 5 videos on youtube called the "Fat Fiasco". I'm just amazed at how these fallacies have permeated our society - including our governments who continue to push this crap on their citizens.

You're probably talking about Tom Naughton's "Big Fat Fiasco", which is indeed excellent, and I link to it several times in my articles. Here's Part I:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exi7O1li_wA

I've been doing Paleo for about 6 months. I've lost over 35 lbs. and never felt better. The hardest part is getting people to understand/believe how I've done it.

Congratulations on excellent progress! That's, what, an entire overnight backpack you're not carrying around with you day and night? Stoke!

May I request you drop a comment to that effect on the original article? (Here.)

As far as getting people to believe it: we've had anti-fat propaganda shoved at us for decades. Many of us have grown up with it and never known anything else. And it's making us fat, diabetic, and dead.

All we can do is keep being an example of great health, and making sure people know how we're doing it. They have to make their own decisions.

It pains me most to see my wife continue down the wrong path even though my results are right in front of her every day. I now weigh 25 lbs. less than the day we got married and she weighs 25 lbs. more (and counting).

In general, women are more prone to carbohydrate addiction -- especially the serotonin hit from pure sugar ('carbs') in candy and snack foods. Is it that, is she stuck on low-fat diets, or does she just not care enough?

[zion zig zag]

Will Gadd's latest blog entry is about diet:
http://gravsports.blogspot.com/2011/04/eat-this.html

[Trackhead]

Will Gadd's latest blog entry is about diet:
http://gravsports.blogspot.com/2011/04/eat-this.html

Will Gadd is a mutant, and can out climb, out ski, out run most anyone while eating chips and cookies all day long. So one must not take what he writes about diet with a grain of Paleo 2.Whateverthefuck salt, cause mutants just throw off the statistics.

[Dantheman]

If you ignore the hyperbole and anecdotes about elite athletes (who like TH points out are largely freaks who's genetics will respond to training more than yours no matter what) I largely agree with most of that. This statement from him in the comments though I don't agree with at all:

Anon--If everything else were perfectly identical then McDs will lose to Paleo. But anyone obsession over food and putting energy there will be wasting energy that could be put toward training.

[Spats]

On the whole, that's a great article: the only thing I disagree with is lumping "paleo" in with fad diets. I tried to write this comment, but it keeps not posting for some reason:



The irony is that Oreos post-race, plus a big traditional meat-and-potatoes dinner, is more nutritionally and metabolically sound than a bunch of chemicals and "low-fat" pseudo-food.

I completely agree with you that the most highly optimized supplement regimen provides a marginal improvement, one dwarfed by better and more focused training by anyone not already at the top levels of a sport. I'd rather spend money on gas to go ski or ride somewhere beautiful than on carb gels and recovery drinks.

Furthermore, it's ironic how the mainstream instructions for "healthy" eating require us to eat fortified food and take pills to regain a subset of the nutrients naturally present in a healthy paleo diet. <i>Fatty meat, egg yolks, and occasional liver: nature's supplements!</i>

For me, "paleo" is much more about everyday health than maximum performance. Avoiding frank toxins (gluten grains) and metabolic disruptors (trans fats, omega-6 fats in excess, fructose in excess) substantially improves my <i>baseline</i> health, performance, and body composition.


<i>Please note!</i> When I talk about 'paleo', I'm talking about the rational, science-based nutrition approach espoused by people like Dr. Kurt Harris (Archevore), the Drs. Jaminet (Perfect Health Diet), Dr. Guyenet (Whole Health Source), Peter Dobromylskyj (Hyperlipid), Jamie Scott (That Paleo Guy), myself, etc., who use evolutionary biology as a starting point for their research - not the fat-phobic pseudo-re-enactment (eat lean meats, throw away egg yolks) practiced by some of the earlier authors of popular books in the field.

This modern "paleo" movement isn't a fad: it's basing eating choices on the study of human evolutionary history and the biochemistry of human metabolism. As a bonus, I enjoy my food far more than before...and the restrictions aren't a problem when I can simply skip meals without effort. Right now I'm eating about 1.5 meals a day, within a six-hour window.

I'd love to link some websites, but that usually causes comments to end up in the spam filter. Do your own research, make your own decisions.

JS

[Trackhead]

On the whole, that's a great article: the only thing I disagree with is lumping "paleo" in with fad diets. I tried to write this comment, but it keeps not posting for some reason:

It's funny isn't it? Paleo isn't anything special. To me, it's eating FOOD, food not necessarily from Paleo times, but even just two hundred years ago when people had grass fed beef, pastured eggs/chicken, naturally organic farming, etc. It's not some big stretch of the imagination to realize that FOOD is healthier than shit out of boxes, wrappers, or packaging that has been bastardized into something barely recognizing FOOD.

My definition of my eating is simply "I eat food", not some laboratory product.

Any of you Paleo Homo's (homosapiens) read Weston Price's masterpiece yet? Amazing book! I have a copy if any Utards want it. I'm almost done with it.

[hitek79]

Thought I'd pop in and give a quick update. Work has been crazy, so my workouts have fallen off, but I'm down 15lbs so far and feeling pretty damn good!

[Trackhead]

Why America sucks.............a visual from my kitchen this morning.

[Rontele]

Anal bleaching. So hot right now.

[jayfrizzo]

Why America sucks.............a visual from my kitchen this morning.

I don't get it.

[Trackhead]

I don't get it.

Left=food, right=bastardized product of American agriculture.

[zion zig zag]

It may have already been discussed but has anyone seen Fat Head? It never mentioned paleo but it was sure selling it, lots of good points.

[DJSapp]

Random update: week 9, team sapp is down 54 lbs collectively (11.5% ). Most of our clothes don't fit well anymore; I'm pissed off that I threw my size 36 jeans away over the winter.

I guess that's a good problem to have.

Trackhead, I know exactly what you're talking about. My neighbors have 7 hens and I trade yard work for eggs. The difference is unreal. One real egg tastes like you're eating 4 yolks from commercial eggs condensed into one. They're so damn good. My yard is too small to take on chickens though, I couldn't deal with the shit everywhere, and my dog would likely kill them or harass them to the point of non-production.

The Mrs. made a kick-ass zuchinni lasagna last night. Quite honestly the best lasagna I've had in ages. I'll get the website that she pulled the recipe from and repost here, it took care of most of my pizza/pasta cravings, and the only cheat of it is the tomato sauce (and dairy, if dairy is an issue for you. You can take my cheese from my cold dead hands).

[zion zig zag]

I love the real eggs. My kids have 10 egg laying chickens now so I've got a steady source. I also bought them 3 lambs for them to raise the other day, 2 will be grain fed to sell at the fair for profit and 1 will be grass fed for us, pretty stoked on their farm life!

[Trackhead]

Pastured butter from grass fed cows vs. ABD (American Basterdized Dairy) butter.


Why does it matter? Read 500 pages of "Nutrition and Physical Degeneration" from Weston A. Price, then you'll know why. Cows grazing on rapidly growing grasses produce the best Vit A and VK2 butter and dairy products, especially cows grazing at elevations at or above 4,500ft.

Today's bounty. 3 gallons of raw milk from Utah pastured cows, two dozen eggs.


I'd love to have a mini-Jersey cow and some chickens, but for the time being, buying this stuff local is good enough.

Anyone want to share a mini-Jersey cow?

[altachic]

TH-where do you get all that good stuff?
And yes, we would so love to share a cow. We were looking into that a couple months ago

Also, I could see you raising your baby like this GUY.

[Trackhead]

TH-where do you get all that good stuff?
And yes, we would so love to share a cow. We were looking into that a couple months ago

Also, I could see you raising your baby like this GUY.

Hahahah, saw that blog post a couple days ago. I might grow my hair out just like that guy

Milk is from RealFoods in Orem. Eggs are from a new source in Draper. $2.00/dozen.

I'm trying to figure out the logistics of a cow share. Jersey cows apparently make milk with really high fat/cream content, and they have a mini breed that weighs about 200lbs and puts out more milk than you and your family, and mine, could drink.

[BeanDip4All]

The Mrs. made a kick-ass zuchinni lasagna last night. Quite honestly the best lasagna I've had in ages. I'll get the website that she pulled the recipe from and repost here, it took care of most of my pizza/pasta cravings, and the only cheat of it is the tomato sauce (and dairy, if dairy is an issue for you. You can take my cheese from my cold dead hands).

congrats on the weightloss! please post teh recipe when ya get a chance. thnx!