The Paleo Diet
without commentsI’ve recently started this diet and so it features heavily on my mind at the moment, which has led me to gush about it a bit. And I apologise. Fear not though! It’ll calm down soon enough. But at least I managed to get several of you intrigued, and so some folk asked me to maybe share my experiences as I make the switch.
There I was consuming the vast knowledge chasm of Merlin Mann and Dan Benjamin’s Back to Work podcast, when the conversation turns to Dan’s diet: Paleo Nutrition. Dan has already written a brief primer on the subject with some very good links for us noobs to get started. From there I was on track to begin digesting the vast quantities of information necessary to begin on my path to extreme healthification.
A quick read on some Paleo blogs informed me that various health benefits of this diet were:
- increased energy
- weight loss
- better sleep
- lower cholesterol and blood pressure
- decreased chance of obtaining heart disease
- decreased chance of becoming diabetic.
- stronger immune system
These were the sorts of benefits I wanted out of a diet, and the types of foods one has to consume for it are organic, free range meats for maximum omega-3 content, and organic, well, everything else. High quality and ethical.
I’d recently been trying to make some major lifestyle changes (not those kinds) – increase my work efficiency, be more focused, and hopefully gain more spare time to indulge in various side projects. I’d found that I was lacking energy a lot, and I’d begun to detect that wheat and/or dairy were playing a part in that. I wanted change.
The Story So Far
I started the diet roughly last Tuesday (). In the beginning I had intended on a slow transition. I started picking up vegetables, meat and nuts. I knew I’d already planned a few meals with friends that week that weren’t part of the diet, so attempting one Paleo meal a day, at least, seemed best. But I made the first step by cutting out processed sugar entirely, and I threw out all my bread. Yesterday, however, I decided to dive right in to the full Paleo plan I’m sticking to it.
Even with the the odd ‘cheat meal’ during the initial transition, I’m already starting to feel a little more energetic, and I could swear I’ve already started to lose weight. I don’t own scales though. Mirrors are my guide (Ladies). Unfortunately, my body has a few tricks to play yet, which are inevitable for a diet change of this kind, namely: Ketosis.
What is Ketosis? Here’s a description taken from Wikipedia:
If the diet is changed from a highly glycemic diet to a diet that does not provide sufficient carbohydrate to replenish glycogen stores, the body goes through a set of stages to enter ketosis. During the initial stages of this process, blood glucose levels are maintained through gluconeogenesis, and the adult brain does not burn ketones; however, the brain makes immediate use of this important substrate for lipid synthesis in the brain. After about 48 hours of this process, the brain starts burning ketones in order to more directly use the energy from the fat stores that are being depended upon, and to reserve the glucose only for its absolute needs, thus avoiding the depletion of the body’s protein store in the muscles.
The consequences of which are a period of low energy as my body adapts back to using fat directly from its fat stores. Once that switch occurs, energy levels will rise, metabolism increases, and I’ll shed weight like a wife giving birth until I’m ready to re-introduce more carbs into my diet to offset it. More can be read about that here.
So far so good. The main issue I’m dealing with right now is actually thinking ahead for my meals. Especially lunches, as I’ll not be able to depend on running out to Boots, or even a pub lunch (the horror!) if I find my cupboards empty.
The Small Print
Nutrition is a deep, dark hole, with a lot of information, much of it conflicting and contradictory. It could be easily confused with a belief system. Diets are what you want out of them and they are about self control. I’m certainly not saying this is the best, and I’m also not trying to preach. I don’t want to be that guy. I would rather be the test subject from which some of you learn, and hopefully, I can inspire a few of you towards a healthier life.
**Disclaimer. I am most definitely not a nutritionist. If you have any kinds of medical conditions, then it’s wise to consult one before starting this diet. However, in my limited research so far, it appears there’s a good chance a lot of nutritionists are idiots.