Posted By AwenMan on April 30, 2010
For a long time now I have been plateauing at above my ideal weight and not been able to successfully do much about it. That is why I very recently read with interest about a Paleo diet that has also been called the Paleolithic Diet, Paleodiet. Caveman Diet, Neaderthin, Pre-agricultural Diet, Stone Age Diet, and Hunter-Gatherer Diet. (Yes, a lot of people find it successful enough to promote it under their own title.) The concept is simple and has an intellectual satisfaction to it. Genetically we were last evolved in prehistoric times and not enough time has passed to change that genetic makeup. This means that if we eat like our caveman ancestors we will be healthiest as this diet is the one that we are genetically adapted and programmed for. The Internet has rebuttals to this argument but the interesting fact of life, proved many times over, is that when people eat this way they naturally lose weight. In fact in at least one study when participants were encouraged to overeat, to in effect eat like a caveman, they still lost weight. A diet where you can eat as much as you want and not count calories, pounds, carbs or anything else is something that is my style. What I take from all this research is that for weight loss you cannot overeat on this diet and that current clueless science does not grok the rightness of the why and wherefore of the effectiveness of this diet.
I will first highlight this diet and then try to humanize it with the 80% Rule into something that fits in more easily and realistically with what is manageable in a real world; with at least fitting my lifestyle in a practical way.
THE DIET
There are, as already pointed out, many authors who are “experts” on what troglodytes ate but without anyone being able to time travel to the past it means that there are variations on what constitutes the diet. The diet typically requires you to eat meats, eggs, seafood, vegetables, fruits, and nuts and seeds. These hunter-gatherer foods are also found to be super healthy in terms of concentrated nutrients and antioxidants. Primarily water but also coffee, tea, and limited alcoholic beverages and juices are the drinks allowed.
As an added benefit this caveman diet appears to be a natural diet solution for the victims of the shocking rampant rising epidemic of diabetes in our western culture as it is difficult to find anything that is High Glycemic Index as part of it. Something unusual like an intermediate range glycemic fruit like pineapple, GI=66, (where the low GI range is 0-55 and intermediate is 56-69) can be judiciously consumed if you first eat a small handful of slow digesting unsalted mixed nuts as this lowers the overall index value of what has been consumed. Some feel that the ubiquitous banana at GI=52 is too high glycemically so the same small handful of nuts can be used.
Forget about eating anything that comes from the agricultural revolution like grains (wheat, rice, corn, etc.), legumes (peanuts are a legume as are green and other beans and peas), soybean or dairy products and starchy tubers such as potatoes that require cooking. (A rule of thumb that some authors propose is that if it cannot be eaten raw, don’t eat it. But it is OK to cook what you do eat.) Some authors do allow for very small amounts of whole grains so a bowl of steel cut large flake oatmeal would seem to be permissible if you top it with a trail mix of nuts and seeds. The industrial revolution added to this verboten list any processed or refined food, any food with added salt, sugars and food additives such as artificial sweeteners, preservatives and other chemicals: “natural” or otherwise.
Unfortunately all this means that close to three quarters of the typical North American daily diet is off limits, and hence it can be difficult to follow. Please also realize that this is an elitist diet as the world cannot be fed except through modern agriculture. However you should not try to avoid this diet by in any way, shape or form and consider or rationalize altruistically sacrificing yourself by showing united solidarity with humanity in their diet. (Your mother telling you to eat your plate clean because there are people in this world who are starving wasn’t much better.) Your being the healthiest that you can be is the one of the greatest gifts that you can give so if you are privileged enough to be able to follow this healthy natural diet, DO IT!
THE EIGHTY PERCENT SOLUTION
What is often recommended by the authors (and has been a personal rule of mine forever for all sorts of things) is that if you stay true to your diet 80% of the time it can be effective. At three meals a day it means that you can cheat at four meals a week. This is psychologically important as something too restricting is normally quickly discarded as unworkable. So enjoy the family get together where spaghetti, dinner rolls, or traditional trimmings of peas, corn and potatoes are served and join in the office party and have that pizza. The human capacity to process food is not unlimited and only about 500 calories of any single sitting meal (but not an extended ongoing bacchanalia) can be processed with the rest being eliminated. If you feel a single meal has added substantially to your weight, then it is just water retention that you are experiencing. Diets often show fabulously first week results for this same water loss reason. The body just cannot gain/lose fat that quickly. So when you cheat, pig out and enjoy it to the hilt!
The very ancient Greek Oracle of Delphi advised to take and do everything in moderation so this 80% rule means that it is OK to eat a meal that is eighty percent and more caveman: such as including a small amount of a forbidden legume, very very thin wheat based coating (just a flavor dusting really), condiment, dessert or additive. In our real world it is difficult to be a purist so don’t try by figuratively “throwing out the baby with the bathwater” to eat “pure” while discarding valuable nutrition. Just try to avoid doing this regularly. If you do break this minor variation rule then you have used up one of your four allowable cheat meals.
The rationale for 80% is quite legitimate. Before electronic calculators engineers would use slide rules giving plus or minus 10% variances in constructing actual real world projects. Pareto’s Principle also known as the 80/20 rule finds that 20% or less is a natural limit. So the net outcome is: don’t be afraid to enjoy yourself sometimes!
FAST FOOD JUNKIE
As a single male who doesn’t cook I eat far too much of what is known as fast food. My first experience in a very large fast food court in a shopping mall was a disaster. Try to find something that doesn’t include bread, rice. potatoes or pasta as part of the offering. Settled on a Chinese combo of only a meat dish and mixed veggies with the empty large section of the divided plastic plate not having any of the normal rice or noodles. What I got was so little that I was still hungry afterwards. After that I got smarter and ordered a double meat portion with mixed veggies and that was filling. Chinese take-out I find good as you can order a large entrée plate of something like beef and broccoli.
My latest MacDonald’s combo meal was a bunless quarter pounder with side salad (but no croutons for the Caesar) and coffee as a safe caveman meal. Remember that you don’t need to count calories and you are not supposed to be able to overeat on this diet (so go for the double quarter pounder if you are really hungry!) Most fast food burger joints will serve a hamburger without the bun if you ask. Subway restaurants are also my darling as they let you turn any six inch sub into a salad, which can be good variety, and I usually order double meat.
Fast foods are OK under the “eighty percent and more” rule above (if properly applied by eating the most appropriate options, and eschewing the breaded meat products, the fries, soft drinks, etc.)
DAIRY PRODUCTS
An epiphany of a revelation came to me: cavewoman mothers nursed their babies! And guess what? You started out the same way too! The loss of the ability for adults to metabolize milk protein (and so dairy products) came about in evolution as an efficiency matter since pre-agricultural adults didn’t need to be able to do this and the continued production of unused enzymes was wasteful of resources. But it means milk is historically natural to consume, even if dairy is forbidden in write ups of the caveman diet. This early age nursing suggests that dairy products are OK for people of European extraction (and other select groups) as in very early era history they have through dairy farming relearned to retain milk protein metabolism into adulthood. Since Europeans and North Americans of European extraction make up large populations who might be interested in the caveman diet then knowing that dairy products are beneficial for them is good news. Some authors acknowledge this genetic recidivism but are apparently too afraid to accept dairy as part of the diet (possibly to be politically correct or avoid milk dominating antioxidant absorption – see tea entry below. Try the Kosher practice of dairy dishes, i.e. courses/recipes, separate from others.) But not being allowed dairy in a currently written version doesn’t mean that you need to turn away from a natural food if you are in the right group. Research doesn’t show any actual studies relating to dairy consumption for a caveman diet but research does show milk is a slimming product. (Hurray!!! I can have my ice cream in the summer – if naturally made of course – and my probiotic, antioxidant, omega 3 enriched yogurt as well!) A science trick I picked up is that if you are slowly drinking a cup of coffee while people watching in a Starbucks or other cafe then have it with a milk product. Whitened coffee stays warmer longer.
THE SWEET TOOTH SIDE
No refined table sugar or manufactured substitutes allowed but zero calorie veggie spoonable stevia (a powdered plant leaf 300x sweeter than sugar) from a health food store is an acceptable replacement; as well as being a blessing for diabetics. Even Wal-Mart carries an individual portion tube form. Apparently proven safe through centuries of use, though government food agencies have done little research as of yet. A glass of water with a squirt of bottled real lemon juice and one of those Wal-Mart tubes of stevia powder makes a very acceptable quickly prepared drink.
Dark honey gets its color because it is naturally rich in minerals, natural occurring minerals that are better absorbed then from a supplement pill. I usually have my daily dark honey dose in a mug of tea with some lemon juice. The antioxidants in tea are normally 20% available to you but this jumps to 80% with the addition of lemon. Warning: adding milk interferes with the antioxidant absorption
As a sweet footnote: it may seem strange but some authorities recommend a daily dose of honey even to diabetics for the superior health benefits that honey bestows. Surprisingly honey has a low GI of only 55 and a 55 gm (about 2 3/4 tablespoons) food serving size has a Glycemic Load of 10 which is also the upper scale limit of the low side. For comparison a forbidden caveman diet small 5 oz potato has a GI of 90 and a GL of 14. But then again a daily dose of cider vinegar (regular vinegar is a petroleum product) in a glass of water is also recommended by some health authorities for its alkalinizing effect on the body, but not me who sometimes drinks it this really awful way. (Most of the general population is held to have too high an acidic body pH level. A supply of litmus strips is a cheap home test that can be purchased easily on the Internet and will show you your pH balance.) “Honegar” or “honeygar” is the classic health promoting and body alkalizing honey and vinegar mixture (about one tablespoon each raw unfiltered honey and cider vinegar in 8 oz water) where honey is supposed to enhance the healing power of the vinegar. I bring all this up here because it is not difficult to eat too much meat on a caveman diet and so create an acidic body state, an acidic state that is claimed to be responsible for much bad health and loss of energy. So Eat Your Veggies And Stay Balanced!
Caveat emptor disclaimer: my actual experience with this diet is just started and very limited but the information seems sound.
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