The paleo diet has been trending among health and wellness coaches and weight loss advocates for the last couple of years. In its essence, it’s a diet based on food eaten during the Palaeolithic era, or the stone age. Of course, humans living in Palaeolithic times had very varied diets depending on where in the world they were living, but the modern interpretation of the diet is focussed on only consuming foods that could have been hunted or gathered during the Palaeolithic era.
What is the Paleo Diet?
The paleo diet was founded on one very simple principle: that saturated fats, sugar and processed food are the root cause of modern-day health issues like obesity and heart disease. People following the Paleo diet simply cut these things out and focus on predominantly eating only eating meat, vegetables and fruit, as would have been the primary diet during the stone age.
What to eat
- Meat including fish, lamb, chicken, beef and others
- Free range eggs
- Vegetables and fruit
- Tubers such as potato, sweet potato and turnips
- Nuts and seeds
- Healthy fats and oils
- Unprocessed drinks
What to avoid
- Processed drinks and foods including ice cream, table sugar, candy, pastries, fruit juices, sodas and others
- Grains and legumes such as wheat, rye, barley, beans and lentils
- Artificial sweeteners and highly processed food
- Dairy such as cheese and butter (some diets allow full fat milk)
- Some vegetable oils such as soybean, corn and grapeseed and hydrogenated oils such as margarine
Is the Paleo Diet right for you?
This diet has evolved from being a strict rulebook on what to eat and what to avoid to being more of a baseline for a healthy, wholesome diet from which you can make your own minor adjustments according to your personal needs and preferences.
As with most diets, the paleo diet is what you make it and if making these dietary adjustments is going to cause a dramatic shift in your current diet then try to ease in gently and make small changes that are sustainable over time.
Hey Joyfreshers, have you tried the Paleo diet? What do you enjoy and not enjoy about it?
