Wednesday, April 6, 2011

The Primal Diet

As requested, here is an explanation of the Paleo PRIMAL Diet. 

Seriously, don't call it Paleo.  It makes you sound like one of those people who uses "whom" at every opportunity to show they know grammar.  Well done, you passed 5th grade English

Or who corrects people when they say "expresso" instead of "espresso".  Maybe they need it to GO, jackass.

Okay, now that that's out of the way:

The Primal Diet

The premise of this diet is pretty simple: we should conform our eating habits as closely as possible to what "Grok", our caveman ancestor, would have eaten.  It's fairly intuitive why: we evolved for hundreds of thousands of years as a cave-dwelling, hunter-gatherer and only a few millenia as a mom's-basement-dwelling, Easy-Mac eater. 

Like Kraft Dinner wasn't easy enough?  Stop it you're helping stupid people escape natural selection.

In a nutshell, this is a low carb diet.  Carbohydrates, especially processed grains like wheat, were simply not available to Grok.  Try as he might, he would never have been able to forage more than a tiny fraction of the carbohydrates we typically eat today.

The science seems to back this up, as the primal diet aligns very closely with the low GI diet.  Basically, by avoiding carbs (especially refined carbs and other starches) we avoid a lot of the blood sugar highs and lows that plague so many people.

Under the primal diet, most of your energy comes from fats (about 50%) with about 25% from protein and 25% from carbs (mostly vegetables).  The good news is, you can eat all the fat you want

You read that correctly.  OM NOM NOM!

While it sounds counter-intuitive, fat does not actually make you fat.

Say it with me: FAT DOES NOT MAKE YOU FAT

Fat, like carbs and protein, is just another form of energy for your body.  What makes you fat is an excess of energy.  This is when there is too much glucose in your bloodstream, which sparks higher insulin production.  Insulin is used to store the excess glucose in your muscles and adipose tissue (also known as your love handles).

So, if you want to avoid becoming fat, you need to do two things: avoid excessive calorie intake, and keep your blood sugar levels (and thereby insulin production) stable.

The primal diet does both of these things marvelously.  For one, eating primal foods (like nuts and meat) promotes powerful satiety.  You feel full much faster, making it difficult to overeat.  Also, stop watching Keeping up with Kardashians while you eat.

Second, because protein and fats metabolize much slower than carbs, they do not cause a spike in blood sugar.  No spike in blood sugar means no spike in insulin, which means no fat storage.  And my favourite part: keeping your blood sugar levels from spiking means you don't feel dizzy after eating, and you don't experience a crash followed by excessive hunger even though you just ate two hours ago!

Take it from me: I used to eat every three hours to fight my ravenous hunger.  If I hadn't eat for 4 or 5 I would feel tired and cranky, and, to quote E3, veritably "stabby".  Now I will notice 6 or 7 hours have gone by and I haven't even thought about food.  I never get ravenously hungry and I have no crashes that aren't bike-related!

Some Primal Diet slogans for your amusement: 
* Grok On! 
* Just call me Optimus Primal
* I'm Grok-Orthodox       <----- my favourite

2 comments:

  1. "I'm Grok-Orthodox" AHAHAHAHAA.

    Do you get to eat dairy or fruit? I miss my yogurt :(

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  2. haha YES! I eat (plain or balkan-style) yogurt and berries with nuts basically every day.*

    Milk, cream, yogurt and fruit are all good to go on this diet. Just remember that sugar is not very primal so you don't want to eat TOO much fruit.

    *I know you're not supposed to eat the same thing all the time it's just so damn good!!

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