Can You Eat Paleo and Lose Weight Like a Caveman?

Put down the sandwich and step away from the whole-wheat bread, low-fat mayo and no-fat cheese that is slowly killing you. Pick off the turkey (set it aside for later) and toss those no-fat, diarrhea-causing "healthy" potato chips right into the garbage can. That can of diet soda? It's poison. Shake it up and throw it at your doctor. Rinse, lather, and repeat until you stop feeling like crap and start feeling alive. Paleo living is actually pretty easy to understand and implement. Eat meat. Eat vegetables and fruit. Drink water. Ignore processed foods, including dairy and (especially) grains. Watch in amazement as the weight melts off, your cravings go away, and you fairly rapidly become healthy. Yes, it really is that easy. Before you scoff at the thought of cutting out grains and dairy forever, consider some statistics about Americans and food-related diseases. Obesity in America

• Nearly two out of every three Americans are overweight or obese.
• One out of every eight deaths in America is caused by an illness directly related to overweight and obesity.
• Obesity and extra weight leads directly to diabetes, and the underlying complications that come with diabetes: heart disease, high blood pressure, blindness, kidney failure, nerve/brain damage.
• 25.8 million children and adults in the United States—8.3% of the population—have diabetes.
• 79 million Americans have pre-diabetes, all of whom face the same health complications as diabetics.
• How much does diabetes cost America? $174 billion, and that's just for the diagnosed cases.

Want more information on diabetes, including type-2 diabetes? Click here for the CDC fact sheet. OK, so clearly there is a problem. You don't have to be a scientist to see that people in America are fat. Really, really fat. And while sexy comes in many shapes and sizes, death does not. Obesity leads to death. It's not rocket surgery. So there really isn't a debate as to the problem. Obesity is the problem. While that has societal implications (lack of access to nutritious foods for poor people, government intervention in markets favors unhealthy eating, etc) it still runs down to a series of decisions at the personal and family levels. So Why Paleo? The standard advice from the government involves reducing calories, exercising regularly, and eating a balanced plate of carbs and proteins with minimal fats. Grocery store shelves back up this lifestyle, selling all sorts of "no-fat" or "low-fat" frankenfoods. The message to consumers? Fat is evil, because dietary fat leads to body fat. But what if they're wrong? What if body fat has little to do with consumption of dietary fat? What if the health complications come from the very foods the food industry is pushing on Americans as the solution? First, consider the basic science. Here is a primer from Mark Sisson of Mark's Daily Apple, a premier information source for healthy, primal living. Bear in mind that every type of carbohydrate you eat is eventually converted to a simple form of sugar known as glucose, either directly in the gut or after a brief visit to the liver. The truth is, all the bread, pasta, cereal, potatoes, rice (stop me when you've had enough), fruit, dessert, candy, and sodas you eat and drink eventually wind up as glucose. While glucose is a fuel, it is actually quite toxic in excess amounts unless it is being burned inside your cells, so the body has evolved an elegant way of getting it out of the bloodstream quickly and storing it in those cells.

It does this by having the liver and the muscles store some of the excess glucose as glycogen. That's the muscle fuel that hard anaerobic exercise requires. Specialized beta cells in your pancreas sense the abundance of glucose in the bloodstream after a meal and secrete insulin, a peptide hormone whose job it is to allow glucose (and fats and amino acids) to gain access to the interior of muscle and liver cells.

But here's the catch: once those cells are full, as they are almost all the time with inactive people, the rest of the glucose is converted to fat. Saturated fat. In other words, the reason people store so much fat in their body is because they eat too many carbohydrates. We eat as if we were marathon runners when we eat carbohydrates, and our bodies have no choice but to store the excess as fat. So...cut out the carbs and your body will work itself back into a healthy place. What, then, can you eat while following a paleo diet? Natural foods! Actual, real, no-kidding food. Foods Paleo People Eat

• Meat: especially grass-fed, organic meats
• Vegetables: in a variety of flavors and colors, particularly ones without starch
• Nuts: healthy fats and proteins
• Fruits: although not too many if you're trying to lose weight (fruits convert to glucose)

Foods Paleo People Avoid

• Grains: because you can get the limited carbs you need from vegetables, which have much higher levels of nutrients
• Dairy: because you were not built to drink cow milk or milk-derived products. (Would you let a cow suckle on a human's breast? Then why is the reverse encouraged?) Besides, your body cannot handle it, and it can trigger allergic, inflammatory responses in your stomach.
• Diet Soda: because that crap will kill you
• Processed Foods: because if you were meant to eat chemicals, Zeus would have invented humans with better livers

Doesn't that sound good? A nice egg and veggie omelette for breakfast; a giant salad with a chicken breast for lunch; a handful of almonds for a snack; and a steak with asparagus for dinner? Rinse, lather, repeat, until you're thinner, healthier, and able to walk up a flight of stairs without wheezing.