Book Review:The Paleo Diet

Lose weight and Get Healthy by Eating the Foods You Were Designed to Eat

By: Loren Cordain, PhD

For several months, now, I’ve been searching for a new meal plan.  Yes, I said meal plan, not a diet.  I’ve been on all the fad diets through my life and wanted something more than a quick fix to lose 10 pounds.  Some of my friends are Vegetarians, others go farther and practice the Vegan lifestyle.  Yet others follow Weight Watchers.  See, I’m a meat and potatoes kid of guy.  So each of those diets left me lacking.  I looked into each of those programs and they just didn’t hit me as something for me.  I wanted my cake and to eat it to.  Unfortunately no one has developed the chocolate, cake, and ice cream diet.  The thought of me doing just that had crossed my mind, but I let it slide.

I sent a message out to the universe and asked for a solution to my dilemma.  “Send me something that I can adopt as a meal plan, and possibly even as a lifestyle, that would allow me to eat most of the foods I enjoy and still develop a more healthy body”  I knew that sending out that message was the first step in attracting the ideal solution.  LOA always works, especially if we manage our moods and keep an open mind – allowing the answer to be realized.

There had to be something that would permit me to eat “Most” of what I enjoyed, lose weight, and lower my borderline high blood pressure.  Then I stumbled on Paleo.  Yeah the Caveman Diet that allows people to eat all the meat they want.  So I started checking out the myriad cookbooks on the subject, but I didn’t really understand how eating all the meat I wanted was going to help me be healthier.  The old myth that eating meat is bad for me, resonated.  I needed more so I continued my research and literally stumbled on Loren Cordain’s book.  I was hooked!

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Loren explains why our food choices are extremely important to our continued good health.  As I said, I’m in pretty good health, exercise regularly, and enjoy food, so reading this book allowed me to further understand why and how food affects my life.  I rarely eat grains and try to stay away from too many sweets, but lets face it, I love chocolate and ice cream, so going paleo seemed a bit off my charts.  But so did all the other diet plans.  I was still confused, so I continued to read with an open mind.  After all, I said to myself, if I can eat all the meat I want, have a cheat meal once in a while, get even healthier, lose weight and build muscle at the same time, I might be able to follow this plan.

Here is the catch, though – I wanted a meal plan, not a diet.  This looked more like a diet than a plan until I finished reading her book.  I then realized that I could follow the Paleo way of life as a plan, no longer needing a diet.

Cordain shows with lots of examples and studies why the caveman attitude is still the right attitude for us.  She walked me through the development of “Modern” food design and development of our bad eating habits.  She further explained that eating meat (or other animal protein) alone was not good for me.  Apparently we become protein sick if we don’t include lots of fruit and vegetables.  Okay, I like fruits and vegetables, so that didn’t seem too harsh.  Then the blow came – no starchy foods, dairy or legumes.  I can live without bread as a general rule, but eliminating all starchy foods did seem a bit harsh.  Eliminating half and half in my coffee really hit hard.  I also love with a capital L – Peanut Butter.  Yeah, add that to my ice cream, chocolate, or on an open faced sandwich with apricot jam – I’m in heaven!!!

I had no idea that all the foods I really enjoyed would be on the list of no-nos.  Could I really adopt this lifestyle? This Paleo thing was like so many other plans that asked me to give up what I enjoyed.  Was it just too much to ask?

After some additional research and some “me talk,” I finally agreed, with myself, that I would do this.  So now I’m moving forward on this new life changing program.  I will, from time to time, blog about my journey and will review some of the Paleo cookbooks I’ve found.  Wish me happiness and a good journey, please!

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