ExRx.net

Hi all,

I recently came across a website explaining the benefits of eating more like our ancient ancestors - fruit, meat, vegetables, no bread or potatoes. No processed food and pleny of water.

I get this part its kind of common sense and pretty easy to follow and not much of a lifestyle change.

The part i have doubts about were the amount and times of eating. The article suggests that when tking up this type of diet that for the first 4-6 weeks you should eat little and often through the day. listening to your body and eating when you feel hungry. then at night eating one large meal regardless of the time of night. again i can see the logic behind this and due to the type of work i do is something i do anyway.

But after the 4-6 weeks the article said that you should stop eating through the day all together and just eating at night. It claimed that you would feel all sorts of benefits. Greater benefits from training, more energy, weightloss etc.

I find this hard to beleive. I train at least 4 times a week and although i'm not hugely built surrely taking on this type of diet would have an adverse affect on any training and make you feel terrible.

does anybody do this? does it work? is it a sustainable lifestyle?

There are a number of links here to good sites about paleo style eating. What is the one you've been looking at?

You seem to be focusing on the intermittent fasting part. That's really more advanced and is more useful once you've adapted to this style of eating.

To start with, Rule 1: starting eating real food that you prepare for yourself.

I'm off to work now. More to follow.

Stu

listen to Stu, he knows so much about Paleo/low carb diets I wonder sometimes whether or not he might actually be a caveman...

(anyone remember that TERRIBLE film California Man?)

to get you started, try going to:

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/

it's a decent site about Paleo/low carb diets, loads of good info on there

All be ba-aak.

Weeze the juice!

Nope. Never seen it. Ever. Don't know what you're talking about, actually.




KPj

I've always been curious - this paleo diets, how well do they work when trying to add muscle mass?

I could see it being an issue keeping glycogen stores full taking in mostly fruits/root vegetables (Fructose not going in to muscle glycogen efficiently, root vegetables being heavy in fiber).

I know it's definitely a good setup for cutting weight, was just curious how it worked if you were trying to add and/or maintain mass.

Right now I'm doing Lyle McDonald's UD2.0 diet and tonight/tomorrow are my carb ups, so we'll see how that goes - but I'd like some alternatives that would help maintain muscle and/or build a little while cutting.

I know there are plenty of sites with info, but I'm wondering from your guys who have done it's personal experience.

NightFall, There is conversation on the "Anabolic Diet" in these forums. It's essentially Paleo with the goal of building muscle. You should start there. Most paleo eaters are more interested in health than mass but they are not mutually exclusive.

Robert, thanks for the plug.

Grifftan,

Writers and bloggers you should pay attention to are:

Dr. Mike Eades,
Mark Sisson
Dr. Kurt Harris
Don Matesz
Keith Norris
Dr Jeff Volek
Stephan Guyenet
Robb Wolf
Brad Pillon
Dr. Steve Parker

This list is not all the ones worth reading but will give you a good start. I've sprinkled links to their blogs around here somewhere.

man I'm sorry I slagged off what is clearly one of your favourite films of all time!

Nightfall I would recommend the Anabolic diet, Di Pasquale clearly knows his stuff with his credentials. I'm using it to cut at the moment but after my holiday I'm gonna try a bulk on it which I've never done. I usually just eat anything and everything but I think I'll find it quite hard getting the calories in during the week because you don't feel as hungry. That said, there's plenty of fatty foods I can think of eating so I'm just gonna have to go even crazier with cheese and using fattier cuts of meat.

The thing I'm looking forward to is still retaining a 'leaner' look whiule bulking. With a high carb bulk I accumulate too much fat.

Some paleo eaters don't eat that much fat, as compared to primal eaters. Event though its basically the same... Most of us are Primal.

Also about the times of eating, it doesnt really matter. Depending on your goals, intermittent fasting is good for fat-loss. Though I really don't see how anyone can get all thier nutrients in one meal late at night...

When eating primal, since your eating more fat, you'll feel more nourished and can go longer withought food.

Also when you switch to a high-fat/ low carb diet you will feel kinda sluggish and dizzy sometimes, thats just your metabolic pathways switching to more fat for energy. It lasts about a month or less, but its not that terrible and the benefits are well worth it. After the switch you'll feel great.

A lot of us do this, yes it works and it's very sustainable. ;)

Leslie Cordain wrote the book "The Paleo Diet". He had a fear of fat, especially saturated fats. He's mellowed on that point lately but that's why I speak of a "paleo style" rather than "Paleo". Mark Sisson uses the "Primal" label and although I have utmost respect and admiration for him and his theories, he's not the only one out there with something worthwhile to say. Whatever you call it, it comes down to "Eat real food."

I know most people here know to eat fat, and what paleo actually is. I just thought the OPer could be reading off some random site that encourages to eat paleo but with less fat.

That's why I didn't list Cordain as a person worth listening to.

Hey Stu, thanks for the list.

heres the link for the website i was checking out

http://www.cavemanpower.com/food/cavema ... _diet.html

As long as it doesnt have a detremental effect on training it looks like at awsome way to look at your diet.

Most find that eating one big meal a day to be a bit extreme, simply because it's hard to get everything you need to eat in a day in one meal. 3 smaller meals is easier to manage for some. A good compromise is to eat during a window of 6-9 hours or so and fast the rest of the time. You get the same benefits and it's less weird.

Overall, my impression is that the site is prescriptive without explaining much. The list I gave you will explain the theory better. The caveman site basically says that if it's old, it's good, if it's new, it's bad. That's not entirely true. You need to use judgement. For example, dairy is not evil for most people. Most paleo style eaters consume cream, butter and cheese. It's hard to get enough calories without them.

If you have specific questions please ask. It is an awesome way to eat.