Losing weight is challenging, so is eating healthy. There are a number of diet plans for healthy eating that vary from the food pyramid to the paleo diet. Eating what your ancestors ate is the basis for the paleo diet. By ancestors, it doesn’t mean grandma and grandpa, even if there are many greats in front of those two words. It goes back to early man in the paleolithic era that was 2.6 million to about 12,000 years ago. That was just before farming began. The foods in the diet don’t include grains, legumes or milk products, which were introduced later.
You can eat many different foods on the paleo diet, but will probably notice the ones you can’t eat more.
When grains are removed from the diet, it eliminates many of the favorites of American life. There’s no pizza, no yeast breads and no cookies or cakes. These are at the top of the list of American foods and often the ones most missed. They’re often the foods that cause you to pack on the pounds. When you eat paleo, you eat cleaner. There’s no processed oils or processed foods for that matter. Automatically, most people improve their eating patterns.
What you do eat on the paleo diet.
Enough of what you don’t eat, let’s look at what’s allowed. You can eat animal meat, with the diet encouraging “whole animal” approach. That includes bone marrow, organs and cartilage. Don’t worry, you don’t have to crunch that cartilage or suck out the bone marrow. Bone broth allows you to get all the nutrients without munching on the skeleton. Bone broth is made from stewing the bones in water with a bit of vinegar, onion, celery and carrot for a day or two. You then add the liquid to your meals or just drink the broth after all the nutrients are leached out of the bone. You can eat eggs or other animal products on the paleo diet, fruits and veggies, raw nuts and seeds and natural fats, like avocado or coconut oil.
Man didn’t invent fermented drink, but found it occurring naturally.
There’s a lot of debate as to whether early man went on a bender occasionally. If you’ve ever seen the YouTube video of elephants eating fermented fruit from under a tree or monkeys doing the same, you know they didn’t create it, but just happened upon it. Drunken elephants and monkeys aside, even though man probably imbibed occasionally in this era, unknowingly, it’s not allowed on the diet. In fact, many people find that when they give up their nightly wine or beer, the pounds seem to drop off.
- Exercising is an important part of the diet if you want to lose weight. Early man spent most of his time moving around, hunting for food and avoiding danger. They walked everywhere and had no labor saving devices. It doesn’t mean you should sell your car, just get more exercise.
- You can eat a modified form of the paleo diet by just eliminating processed foods.
- Get back to your roots when you go paleo. Spend more time outdoors, enjoying the fresh air.
- Don’t forget to drink adequate amounts of water and get a good night’s sleep. It not only helps you feel fuller and avoid sugary foods, it also helps you be healthier.