Lovelyish

As a person who’s suffered enough gastroeintestinal problems for 20 people, and who needs a very very strict diet in order not to spend days deciding which end to put on the toilet, I can just say, fad diets are bad, and they screw you over in the long run. So gluten is today’s enemy, remember when it was carbs, cholesterol, HFS? Diets help a lot but they’re often not the main cause of whatever problems you have…

My best friend is currently on it. She has not lost weight but she says she feels more energetic.

I don’t like how cutting out gluten is becoming the new popular thing, I don’t eat gluten because I have Celiac disease and physically cannot digest it. It’s actually not healthy for people who don’t have Celiac or any gluten intolerance to not eat gluten.

Did you know cavemen barely lived past age 30?

People have shorter life spans because they eat like a fatass & they don’t exercise.

I tried it for three days and lost five pounds! But I was just doing a cleanse, which you made sound like the exact same thing. Im going to start doing it once a month now…it feels so much better to be healthy, and I kept the weight off. I just feel like if you do it for long increments at a time, your body will become used to it and it won’t have as much as an affect. 

I think it’s a good idea as people eat so many processed foods these days which contain a lot of sugar and carbohydrates.  I’m actually doing the Atkins diet which has helped me to lose 15 pounds so far.  I also used to get stomach aches 3-4 times a week before I started doing the diet and now I don’t have them at all (which I’m convinced it had something to do with all the sugars & high amounts of carbs I was eating).  It may not be for everyone but I think it’s good for some people.

Why are we suggesting a diet that people followed when they a) had NO other option, and b) rarely lived beyond 30. People need to get off their backsides and exercise – THAT’S why people are fat. They’re eating more calories than they’re using. It’s pretty simple. Eat less and exercise more. If you don’t have medical issues preventing you from losing weight, it works. People are just lazy, and when they don’t get results ASAP, they give up and move on to something else.

I haven’t even heard of this, but that’s probably because I’m from Missouri and we don’t hear about anything here. I think there are way too many extremes. Everything in moderation. 

It makes plenty of sense when you consider the fact that fast food and junk food tends to not properly fill you up. Take those out and you’re going to be likely eating less, not just because you will fill up better/faster but you won’t have the easy options anymore that you’d be snacking on.

So it’s not about “going back to how our ancestors ate” or whatever thing peopel will claim, it’s about just refining your intake and eating better portions. Btw I don’t follow the Paleo diet. I just try to eat as fresh as possible, i.e. homemade stuff, and I am trying to get back into eating more veggies and fruits like I used to. And I still eat processed foods, but those are mostly just rice pasta, rice crackers, and other (dairy esp) products that I cannot make myself.

@daydreams_nightmares@xanga - I agree. People definitely need to exercise – although in my case diet is waaay more important for losing weight, exercise just helps me with building muscle. 

@colorMEpurple2@xanga - I don’t see how it’s unhealthy to not eat a food group if you are still getting nutrients from other things. Going gluten-free doesn’t mean you can’t eat grains still, you are just eating a different TYPE of grain. I still eat plenty of grains. I don’t have an intolerance (at least medically documented) to gluten but I feel infinitely better without it especially when I make sure to eat smaller portions overall.

I’m tend to follow the diet school of thought of, no matter what you eat, if you consume more than you exert, calories wise, you will gain weight, and vice versa, and for me its 1200-1400 cal daily. I don’t deny myself anything, but try to eat everything in moderation, and always make sure I drink plenty of water(I don’t drink ANYTHING sweetened), and eat four servings of fruit, and take a multi vitamin. I find that with this, I can maintain my weight (105 lbs, 5″2′), my mood is stable due to no deprivation, and my skin/gerenal health is better than when I was dieiting as well

I tried gluten free for one year and nothing changed. I agree with all things in moderation. Many people in the world survive on grain diets. They have nothing else. Personally, I survive on carbs with a good dose of protein thrown in once or twice a week. I’m 55 and my dr. can’t find anything wrong with me.

@ashleynicole - Nice reply; thank you for sharing.

mm…. just another fad diet

I wrote a blog about this back in October, so I’ll just copy and paste:

The “Paleo Diet” is (Largely) Wrong

The long-held idea that, since Paleolithic humans didn’t eat
grains or processed foods, we shouldn’t eat them now, either, is
incorrect. 

We did, in fact, evolve eating grains, including
barley, wheat, and flour made from cattails.  Starting from 105,000
years ago (Middle Paleolithic era), some humans in Africa began eating
grains, as is evidence by the thousands of residues discovered on stone
tools.  Widespread consumption of cereal grains spanning across the
Eurasian continent, from Italy to Russia, began around 30,000 years ago
(Upper Paleolithic era).  The gene to create an enzyme for good starch
digestion was already developing and aiding hunter-gatherers who relied
more on grains than their rainforest- and arctic-living counterparts. 
That same gene was necessary for the humans who invented agriculture
tens of thousands of years later.

Dried fruit, which is also
incorrectly forbidden by some so-called “Paleo diets”, is another
example of food that was processed and eaten by the Cro-Magnon.  Smoking
and drying meat, as well as drying other edible plants, was also
common.  These are all examples of processed food — food that had been
modified by human skill.

There are conflicting views on salt. 
While generally, the person eating a “Paleo diet” is not supposed to add
salt to their meals, people living near seas or other salt outcroppings
(like in certain caves) during the Paleolithic era likely used it in
their food.  Their overall intake was definitely lower than ours, but it
seems unnecessary for the average modern person to remove such a
versatile seasoning entirely.  Besides, it’s not like the Cro-Magnon
couldn’t think to use other salty things instead.  They consumed herbs
in abundance, and coltsfoot, which is common in Europe and Asia, is not
only useful for medicines, but for its saltiness, as well.  In fact, it
can be dried and burned to make a type of salt.

Eating according to a “Paleo diet” isn’t a bad
idea, however wrong the creators of the diets may be.  The problem is in
the name, the willful ignorance, and the misinformation that people are
taking to heart and spreading to others.  A lot of the articles I used
as resources for this blog were from research done two or more years
ago, and I doubt most subscribers to the flawed diet have bothered to
check up on the recent findings.  After all, we’ve been hearing about
this “(r)evolutionary” diet since 1975, and few revisions have been made
since.

Note:  I left out the sources from the blog entry, but I’ll add them if anyone wants them.

Also, anything is toxic if you eat enough of it.

Whoa whoa whoa… looking over these comments surprises me… 

Sure, this might be a fad diet… but seriously, tell me… what could POSSIBLY be bad about eating meats, veggies, fruits and nuts? O_o Seriously! Those are the things that God intended for us to eat! Totally organic, lovely food. O_o How could this possibly be a bad thing? 

Wow, we should eat fruit and vegetables and we’ll lose weight? What a breakthrough.

People from the paleolitic had a life expectency of 20.

I think that paleo diet don’t fit the recent ‘paleological” archeoligic informations. And that paleolithic lasted 4millions years, so… one diet ? NO !

I’m against dairies (we know that lactose intolerance runs during neolithic, and that they were sufering from cardio vascular problems… Ötzi last info), I’m vegan… So no paleo diet for me, but  more wholegrains, seed, raw vegetables and fruit (most of the time), herbs (collected on nature or bought). I think it’s better than eating meat meat meat. (Dukan power….)

It may make you lose weight, but I’d still much rather actually eat tasty things that they didnt have back then.  I’ll work out and eat things in moderation instead.

@TheDeadWhale@xanga - @daydreams_nightmares@xanga - @Nele - the notion of life expectancy is misleading.   it’s not like people just dropped dead at age 30.  life expectancy is an average, and most of what accounts for a low life expectancy is a high mortality rate among infants and children.  for the most part, there’s no reason a Paleolithic human couldn’t live til age 70 or so if they made it out of childhood.  

Makes perfect sense not to eat excess sugar or processed foods.  

@flapper_femme_fatale@xanga - agreed. Besides the fact that the average gets skewed by infant and child mortality, the life expectancy thing has more to do with people dying from diseases and injuries than from anything related to diet. Medicine was a bit more touch and go for the cavemen.

My stand on it is if the diet works for you, great. You are losing weight, the doc says your healthy with no deficiencies, and you are happy with the diet, then great. I think if all these diet fads have taught us anything is that nothing works for everyone. My point is that if someone wants to try the paleo diet, that’s fine, but they shouldn’t go around acting like everyone else will see the same results, good, bad or mediocre. And they shouldn’t continue it if they find out it is hurting them in some way. 
I think knowing what you eat by looking at the label or doing research, and caring, and being aware of what you are eating is the first step. Not so you can feel guilty, but because you need to know WHY your body might be feeling bad, or why you gained or lost weight. Maybe someone on the paleo diet isn’t feeling better and losing weight because they got rid of gluten, but because they are eating more fruits and veggies than they did before. 

The diet itself doesn’t sound bad at all. We do eat too much processed crap. Just talk to a nutritionist. They’ll tell you to eat Organic, if you can afford it. To stay away from processed foods and white sugar and chemical laden box meals if you can.

My personal take on what one should eat is to get yourself a genetic test. There are companies out there like Inherent Health that do mail order tests and tell you whether or not you need to lay off carbs, protein, or if you need a balance of both. Structure your diet around that. There isn’t a one-size-fits-all diet out there because not all of us have the same genes.

My wife used it for three years, until her system really stopped reacting to ANY diet.  If it helps some people reach their goals, go for it.

The bad thing about the paleo diet is it is not environmentally friendly and the saturated fats in it are unhealthy.

oh ho, don’t know how I ended up over here on a place called lovelyish. somehow I doubt it’s about what I might like it to be about.  No diets in my future, no way.

I don’t get the purpose of any diet.  Don’t eat so much.  I’ve been a vegetarian for as long as I can remember, and don’t have any weight issues.  If you don’t want weight issues, cut down your portions.

The Paleo Diet has its questionable moments. What interests me more is an understanding of WHAT makes us fat in terms of understanding blood sugar. Low blood sugar usually has us feeling hungry and weak. Blood sugar around a middle range is a fat burning zone. While spiked blood sugar (which demands higher insulin to manage it) in the body puts you in a fat storing zone with a blood sugar crash that puts you right back in the hungry and weak zone. Foods like lean meat and healthy fats claim to normalize spiked blood sugar.

The goal seems to be AVOID foods that spike your blood sugar into the fat storing zone. Some of those choices are obviously refined sugar, pastries, cakes, pies, and hidden sugar within ketchup, salad dressing, juice… but its also things like bread.

A new book out called WHEAT BELLY talks about eliminating ALL grains from your diet including corn, barley, rice, oatmeal, etc. But the author further states that you ought to avoid legumes and fruit too.

While I think excessive bread, even if its nutritionally sound for example sprouted sourdough or 100% wheat bread from organic sources, should be in small amount… I think the biggest thing to avoid is sugar. And it is hiding in everything!

I’d recommend a book called Get the Sugar Out by Gittleman.

I DO IT and I LOVE IT! LOVE LOVE!

PALEO – YUM!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqF85BCvA6I&feature=plcp

I know a few people on this diet, two of them being hard-core crossfit gym fans. They look strong and skinny, but they also look so so sooooo unhealthy. Their skin is saggy, they look like they might fall asleep any minute, and they don’t seem very energetic. 

Just like every fad diet, I think this one’s going to be history in a few years.

I’m on it, and didn’t read the rest of the comments too closely because I know there are people saying things like… it’s a fad diet… or… everything in moderation… or… sat fats are bad for you (they aren’t)… or the ever popular rebuttal, “cavemen had a short life expectancy”. 

I feel so much better on it, as does my husband. As do my parents, who are dropping weight without changing any other lifestyle habits. My mom in particular is gaining so much energy that she’s thinking of starting an exercise program soon, but she hasn’t done it yet. ”It’s a fad diet”- not really. Check around the paleo blogosphere. You’ll find two things: One, that these guys check real studies and don’t manipulate the findings to say what they want- unlike individuals with an interest in promoting franken-fats (Crisco, corn oil, COTTONSEED OIL, soybean everything), subsidized agri-business (corn, soy, wheat), or sometimes, ideological concerns (Kellogg, promoting low-fat, high fiber cereals because he knew it had the effect of suppressing libido. He also thought that painful circumcision for males and carbolic acid applied to females’ clitoris was a great idea). The second thing you’ll notice is that they have been on this diet for years. It’s not a fad when you start feeling great. You eat something after a couple of months that’s made of wheat, or has high fructose sugar in it, you feel like shit, and you go back to paleo. Everything in moderation describes the state of my health before I tried this. I had all the pains in moderation. Stomach pain… in moderation, not SO bad that I couldn’t work, but not good either. Joint pain, in moderation. Eczema and acne, constantly, but moderately, not totally debilitating. Fatigue, in moderation. Insomnia, in moderation. Headaches, in moderation. Depression and anxiety, in moderation. Acid reflux, gas, bloating… in moderation. That’s all gone. There’s so much research on saturated fats and the health benefits of them, I will leave any interested parties to find them like I did. As for cavemen having short lifespans, the bones of hunter-gatherers show remarkably better health than agriculture based populations. The short lifespan was due to little things like, oh, sanitation, accidents, and predators. Back then a broken leg could be fatal. But the ones who didn’t die of those things lived long lives. Combining a nutritious paleo diet with the medical advances of today is the idea. I feel so much better since starting this diet, I actually have another xanga dedicated to it: PaleoGangsta4Lyfe. Yes, that’s a joke name.  PS, gluten is not the only factor. I am gluten intolerant (and actually have a skin allergy to wheat in addition to digestive issues) and yet, when I gave up gluten a couple of years ago, it helped me only a little. Gave up ALL the grains…100% better. 

@methodElevated@xanga - Hi, just wanted to clear up a couple of the points you made in your comment that are actually not correct about the paleo community and how most of us eat. 

Namely, salting food, dried fruit, and traditionally processed foods. I’ve actually never heard any paleo person advocating a no-salt diet; salt is in all of the primal cookbooks and blog recipes that I have, and I’ve seen articles discussing the benefits and necessity of salt. My instinct is that perhaps Loren Cordain is where you got this information, but most paleo dieters don’t follow his version of the diet because he’s been proven wrong on a few things, especially fats and which fats are beneficial or harmful. Cordain’s Paleo diet is not what most who describe themselves as “Paleo” follow. Robb Wolf and Mark Sisson have better information.Dried fruit isn’t forbidden unless it’s coated in sugar, however, folks that are trying to break a sugar addiction or lose fat should moderate consumption of dried fruit. Traditionally processed foods (sprouted grains, raw dairy, smoked meat, fermented foods) are accepted by the Weston A. Price foundation, an organization that many primal people use as a resource. “Paleo” or “Primal” is really more of a spectrum- some are completely off grains, sugars, legumes, and dairy, some incorporate all or some of those groups prepared in traditional ways. It’s not the fact that food has to be prepared, it’s the modern methods of bleaching, deodorizing, enriching, stripping, bulking, coloring, etc, that’s done in a lab or factory, that is objectionable. Sorry for the super long reply. Mark’s Daily Apple is a great place to look if you want to see what primal dieters really eat. It’s not nearly so crazy as what is popularly portrayed!

@WaitingToShrug@xanga - Thank you for the information.

One more thing, you (OP) were wondering about stories of people who actually do this. Here are some of my favorite blogs: 

http://paleomg.com/crossfit-paleo-life/ Awesome, strong girl.

http://www.katiekdid.com/ Another awesome, strong girl.http://www.marksdailyapple.com/category/success-story-summaries/#axzz1y9Yst93X -A whole list of success stories.http://primaltoad.com/category/life-transformations/ Another list.http://www.theclothesmakethegirl.com/paleo-101/ The guidelines most of us follow, not so crazy after all. http://paleoparents.com/our-before-after-story/ A whole family’s success story and proof that all paleo people aren’t just naturally lean freaks.http://beta.primal-palate.com/author-stories/ The couple who made one of the best primal cookbooks out there.http://civilizedcavemancooking.com/before-after/ A Marine who went paleo and has one of the most popular recipe blogs in the community.http://cavegirleats.com/what-is-primal/ My favorite “ancestral” blogger, also a nutrition consultant.http://balancedbites.com/testimonials More testimonials.http://theprimalparent.com/2011/09/14/when-everybody-elses-prescription-fails-make-up-your-own/#more-1766 The underlying idea of the whole movement- that you may have to experiment on yourself for specifics, but that processed foods, sugar, and grain are not good for ANYBODY.http://paleogangsta4lyfe.xanga.com/ Mine. A chronicle to prove that paleo is possible. 

@methodElevated@xanga - You’re welcome! I hate for something that’s caused so much good in my life (and my family’s) to be misunderstood. 

Might have something to do with the fact that most people don’t consume enough fiber on a regular basis… and this diet, well… you have to. You’re body can finally clean out it’s insides …so to speak. 

If people started drinking a liter (or two) of water first thing when they woke up they’d be shocked how much weight they lose then too – because it can “wash away” all the crap (literally) that our bodies couldn’t pass. Our intestines weren’t made to eat foods that have been processed to the point that they shouldn’t even be considered food anymore! They need to be kept in motion so they can continue to absorb nutrients, fat, etc. the way they were meant to. Without enough fiber/ with too many high-glycemic foods we get “backed up.” We store more fat. End of story. (Paleo could be a solution for problems addressed in this article, eh? http://www.healthkicker.com/764267451/the-big-fat-lie/) Eat your fruits and veggies. Choose low-glycemic, un/barely processed grains. Drink enough water. Throw out the soda and the candy bars. Take a friggin’ nutrition course if you have to. Just… get off the couch. Problem solved. 

@G1G1626@healthkicker - Awesome. =) 

@ShimmerBodyCream@xanga - You make me happy. =) 

I think our body is able to catalyze nutrients for a reason. According to all I know, some tribes mainly lived mainly of fruit. Others nearly only ate fish. It depends on where they lived. We also evolved…we ARE not cavemen. If many carbs/grains were that bad we would have died out or not cotinued this culture.
My point is we should look at what is really beneficial, rather than what is ‘natural’. Often people think natural= good, but our ancestors just ate what was there.

Of course that is different for everyone.
Some people can’t digest gluten, other can’t digest lactose. We have a genetic defect in our family that causes high choleterol. On the upside I am not allergic on anything and nothing makes me feel ill. I certainly won’t replace cereal with fat meat.

I’ve been following the Paleo or Primal
lifestyle for the past few months and have watched my life change before my
eyes.I’m down over 45 pounds and feel
great.I wrote a review about my
experience here if anyone is interested.http://mikeshonestreviews.com/paleoprimal-diet-review

I’ve been following the Paleo or Primal
lifestyle for the past few months and have watched my life change before my
eyes.I’m down over 45 pounds and feel
great.I wrote a review about my
experience here if anyone is interested.http://mikeshonestreviews.com/paleoprimal-diet-review

I think it’s fine for people that have wheat allergies, wheat intolerance, celiac disease. But the way it vilifies whole grains for everyone is just another way to market it to the masses, when many people can be perfectly healthy without it. For my diet, I follow my doctor’s recommendations, not any fad diets and material that does not have gold standard science behind it.