This woman’s experiment with the Paleo diet supports a theory I’ve long held that people who turn to pretty radical diets generally seem to have the equivalent of muted taste buds:
Paleo also requires you to give up processed food, refined sugars, and alcohol, which makes sense because those things are wonderful. But you’re also supposed to avoid grains, starches, and natural sweeteners (like honey), and you are supposed to limit your fruit intake. It’s sort of like the Inquisition, but less fun.
In some respects, it’s worked: being Paleo has killed my will to live, so I’m too sad to snack. My abs look pretty damn good, but I suspect that’s from all the nights I spend wracked with sobs because I can’t eat anything fun. I would take a selfie to show you, but this isn’t Facebook and I’m not your misguided teenage niece.
3 years ago I lot 50 pounds on low-carb.
2 years ago I quit the low-carb diet and put on 20 pound.
1.5 years I went back on low carb and lost 80 pounds.
2 years ago I was walking with 2 canes.
Today I bike, dance, do karate (all with some knee pain …. but manageable).
So in your case your carb consumption had something to do with having to use two canes? Explain please. Seriously.
“A study in Arthritis & Rheumatism found that among overweight and obese adults with knee osteoarthritis, each pound shed resulted in a four-fold reduction in the load exerted on the knee. Translation: if you’re overweight, losing one pound would take four pounds of pressure off your knees. ”
Imagine losing 100 pounds.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15986358
To do the paleo thing properly, you really need a complete change in lifestyle too.
To the cave! Get out there and get hunter-gathering!
Oh, and anyone over 54? You’re supposed to be dead now.
Thanks. I can see the reasoning.
A Paleo diet? JJM is right, not many people lived past their fifties even as late as 100 years ago. Also not many had any teeth left if they did happen to reach their fifties. Humans worked for thousands of years to improve the diet of people and now some want to go back to prehistoric times?
Just more wing-nuts looking for a religion replacement.
Paleo is based off of the premise that humanoids were never sexier or healthier than when they were cavemen.
I’ve moved to the paleo medical plan, where if you get sick a shaman chants to you for the price of a goat and you have the life expectancy of a German Shepherd, and the paleo dental plan where if your tooth hurts you pound it out with a rock.
Also I’ve taken up paleo obstetrics where a woman has nine children in the hopes that two of them make it to adulthood.
You’re only saying that because the cavemen used to eat a lot of rabbits.
Actually, I’ve found a Renaissance of taste buds by eliminating grains, processed starches, processed sugars and limiting domesticated fruits to condiment portions. I can now easily distinguish, for example, different growing methods for celery, being much more attuned to variations in sweetness.
The actuality is that modern Western diet is so overblown with sugar and starch it is like being shouted at all the time, so there is a down-regulation of taste sensitivity, especially regarding sweetness. It is like the maturation in taste buds going from Baby Duck wine to Chateaux Margaux, Starbucks frappuccino to genuine espresso.
She did it wrong. For Paleo all you need to do is get yourself some ring and tape worms and you’re good to go. Eat anything you want. Oh and never go to a doctor. Like Rabbit says, visit a shaman when it hurts.
I’m entirely fine with anyone eating whatever they wish. What I don’t like is the Endless Preaching of [more than a few] vegetarians. I was at a group dinner a few months ago when one woman, who I’d never met before, decided it was entirely appropriate to try to guilt us “horrible” meat eaters in the most passive-aggressive way possible. What a nitwit but she was attractive so has likely gotten away with such behavior her entire life, with most men hesitant to say anything.
There’s rather a lot of paleo/primal recipes that try to be paleo-ified versions of foods that aren’t paleo. This is like veggie-patty burgers; it’s just dumb and it doesn’t work.
All the people sneering at paleo/primal are managing to miss the fact that it’s based on some pretty sound science: evolution takes a while to catch up with human ingenuity. For some 150,000 years, human beings adapted well to eat what was reasonably available in their environment, in the proportions that were available in their environment. Six thousand years of baking bread is not enough time for the homo sapiens genome to adapt to efficiently process that much starch and carbs in the human diet. Humans like carbs because they’re a great source of energy, and they were rare in a premodern environment. It was hard to lay hands on carbs 60,000 years ago, so humans evolved to desire them and seek them out, because the environment itself acted as a brake on just how much honey or beets or fruits a nomadic hunter-gatherer could shovel into their piehole.
Biochemically, modern diets are like being a kid in a candy store – sure, it all tastes good, but snarfing down all those carbs and processed oils is not going to be good for you in the long run, and your genome still thinks it’s hard to find carbs so it’s not going to stop making you want them.
And yes, some paleo advocates are off their nut and don’t understand the biochemistry behind it (ignore anyone who uses the word “inflammation”). Following the sensible core paleo or primal principles works, although it is true that it works better for men than women, which is why so many disaffected paleo foodies are women.
I have radically changed my diet in the last month. We’re following the ‘Fast Metabolism Diet’ by Haylie Pomroy. I would call it pseudo paleo with an emphasis on fresh, non-organic foods. No wheat (unless sprouted or spelt wheat), no dairy, no sugar, no caffeine. No artificial sweeteners.
In three weeks I’ve lost 17 lbs. The wife has lost 10. The kid 8 lbs. The kid’s acne disappeared within a week. My acid reflux basically switched off. I’ve been having difficulties with super ventricular tachycardia — episodes are down by at least half. Energy level is up and I’m sleeping better.
I’ve spent my whole life scarfing Big Macs and laughing at granola crunchers. I’m now on the cusp of the depressing realization that they may have been partially right about some things (although completely by accident, I’m sure).
I just stick to the 4 food-groups.
1. Steak
2. Wine
3. Baked potato
4. Scotch (for dessert)
Lance, it’s not so much that health food nuts hate food. It should be remembered that food fetishes have probably been the subject the world’s oldest superstitions. They’re not new; they’ve been around for thousands of years.
I too have had success with Paleo on weight loss and acid reflux. Reflux gone after a lifetime of it. Mainly cutting out sugars and carbs. But one still has to live, so you don’t need to be a nut about it. You still occasionally eat some of the non paleo stuff but more as a treat than a lifestyle.
IF you already enjoy a high protein diet, it is not as restrictive as you might think.
No wheat (unless sprouted or spelt wheat)
Only pure malt scotch then. None of that blended crap, with its unsprouted barley.
And at least 15 years old, just to be on the safe side.
Lost interest when the airfreight price of “genuine lion killed” half rotted wildebeast carcasses went through the roof.
Roadkill Cafe try the Smear of Deer or Swirl of Squrrel maybe Poodles and Noodles and the Chicken that did’nt make it besides as Garfield has observed Diet it Die with T at the end
I simply stopped eating wheat, stopped drinking fruit juice. Weight dropped 50 lbs. Reduced alcohol intake. Still eat potatoes, rice, 100% rye bread. I eat full fat yogurt, lots of home cooking, no processed foods. Takeout treat about once a month. BTW my type 2 diabetes has gone.
I like nuts. There are walnuts, peanuts, almonds, pecans, etc. If duty called, I would eat a female health food nut 😉
Try standing on your feet, it may relieve the knee pain.
And what’s wrong with natural dentistry?
I am sorry. I think Paleo means NO FIRE, 700,000 years of fire use, not paleo. The use of fire increased human brain size due to the greater absorption of good stuff in the food.
sad simplicity http://waltherpragerandphilosophy1.blogspot.ro/2014/08/sad-simplicity.html
Correct. When Count Otto von Bismarck introduced old age pension legislation in 1889, it was – according to Wikipedia – to cover workers from age 70 on. And this was at a time when life expectancy was about 67 years. Another source said the pension kicked in at 65, but the powers-that-be obviously did not expect a pensioner to live very long after qualifying. True, there were some people who survived to a ripe old age even then, but most did not.
What really surprised me about the “paleo diet” this woman described was the absence of fruits. Fruits and berries would have been an essential part of the diet, particularly in the late summer and fall. Leaves (nettle, dandelion, etc.) would have been the main vegetable source, with roots (bitterroot in North America as an example) another source of nutrition. Not certain how much early carrots, etc., would been a major source of food; do think wild onion/chives/garlic were consumed early.
If we want to look at how the body processes carbs, we can look at our First Nations people. Europeans were early farmers and incorporated grain into the diet very early on. Central/South Americans had potatoes; southcentral US and the east coast had corn. But the Plains Indians the west coast Indians, and the Inuit had no such carbohydrate sources. So we are seeing people just a few generations removed from a high protein/high fat/low carbs diet now getting a good percentage of their daily nutrition from carbs. It’s not working well for them. Out Alert Bay way, on the west coast, researchers are working at getting the locals back on their original diet, including oolichan grease, and relying less on grains and potatoes. The hope is that this will slow down or stop diabetes, which is endemic in many First Nations communities. At the very least, this type of research should provide some clues as to how the human body processes various foods.
Wheat Germ looks like sawdust and grapefruits putrid. But i can still remember great stuff like Blackberry Cobler
Typically, people go off the deep end. Its a trend thing. You guys know you don’t benefit from sugar or a lot of damaged oils and endless flour products.
When I was doing low carb I certainly did not exclude dairy, just grains and sugars and I lost about 150 lbs. It goes faster if you also control portions a bit and get away from the kitchen some.