Paleo

[jhogan]

Been trying low-carb for several days now. This is nuts. Before I had about 35-50% of my calories from carbs, depending on the day -- usually the higher end of that range. I would easily eat 3000 calories and still want to eat a lot

Comments

[nasu_dengaku]

You want to be leaner? Dude, you already have no body fat.

[nasu_dengaku]

As an aside, the basic philosophy of paleo is close to the "eat food, not too much, mostly plants" credo that I like.

[jhogan]

Yeah. Not so excited about the plants myself, but they are relatively close.

[nasu_dengaku]

You may not be going for the right plants... and I say that as a meat-lover.

First, you have to get them fresh. Farmers markets are best but whole foods is ok. Second, spices are your friend. You can bring out a hell of a lot of flavor.

The world of fruit is decadent, but they do have a lot of carbs.

Vegetables I've found surprisingly tasty:
- Avocados (+ awesome spices)
- Arugula
- Raw broccolini - sweeter than broccoli
- Raw red bell peppers
- Spaghetti squash
- Lentils (filling)

I'm also a fan of low effort prep.

[integreillumine]

30% of your calories from carbs is fine - especially if you're active - but it's actually harder to hit if you're optimally carbing out with veggies, for example.

[tigresa]

I'm skeptical that paleo is so evolutionarily healthy.... at least, the version the Kimdons were doing is really heavy on the meat. Meat is really hard on the old internal organs. Not to say you shouldn't eat it at all, red meat is a great source of B12, but the fats are hard to digest, and the whole vegetarianism-promotes-longevity thing is a highly compelling argument. Also, consuming meat has a heavy impact on the planet. I recently cut the family's consumption of meat to once a week (2-3 meals, really, if you include leftovers), partly to cut grocery costs but also because I'm confident after tracking my calorie intake for awhile that our protein consumption would be adequate, and after a month I haven't even noticed. I certainly don't feel deprived. I haven't been tracking lately though, it would be interesting to see how it's impacted my ratio. I mostly seem to have replaced the meat with green veggies, which can only be a good thing

[jhogan]

So far it's been the easiest diet to adjust to of any of the diets I've tried. I miss my sugars and grains but I am full so often it hasn't been a big deal. I basically eat as much as I want and end up averaging 2500 calories... on a carby diet I end up averaging 4k+ if I eat as much as I want. So the result is that doing this low-carb thing has been much less emotionally draining. I don't have to fight the emotional struggle with myself of whether to eat all the time, only -what- to eat, and given the pretty awesome array of choices I have that's not really all that hard of a struggle.

I could see an argument for meat-heavy paleo being less healthy than non-meat-paleo... I imagine evoluationarily that meat was not as easy to come by as veggies and such.

I'm landing around 16% carbs, 50-55% fat, 30-35% protein.

My leanest ever was 160, which I think was a little unhealthy and less attractive than I'd like, though it was also neat to be that lean. I'm pretty happy with where I'm at now, though :-)