The Paleo Diet Part 14

Strawberry-Blueberry Horizon1 c fresh strawberries 1 c fresh blueberries tangerine, sectioned 1 T freshly squeezed orange juice 1 tsp natural vanilla extract Ground nutmeg Fresh mint Mix the strawberries, blueberries, and tangerine sections in a bowl. Drip with orange juice and vanilla, and sprinkle with nutmeg. Serve chilled and garnished with mint. Serves three.

11.

Paleo Exercise Eating alone will not keep a man well; he must also take exercise.

-Hippocrates

Regular physical activity is every bit as important as diet in achieving good health and permanent weight loss. Regular exercise can: * Improve your insulin metabolism* Increase HDL cholesterol and reduce blood triglycerides* Lower your blood pressure* Strengthen your heart and blood vessels* Reduce your risk of developing heart disease and type 2 diabetes* Alleviate stress, improve your mental outlook, and help you to sleep better* Possibly increase bone mineral density in people under thirty and slow bone loss in older people Here again, we need to follow the example set by our hunter-gatherer ancestors and use their activity levels as a guide for our own.

I must tell you that when asked to choose between doing long, hard, repet.i.tive work and simply relaxing, or having fun, huntergatherers-just like their modern descendants-invariably would have opted for the latter two choices. In fact, the idea of exercise itself would have baffled these people. After all, no reasonable hunter-gatherers would have lifted heavy stones or run in circles for the mere sake of getting a "workout." Convincing them to continue these boring activities-or to develop a fitness plan-would have been impossible.

The huge difference between Paleolithic people and us is that they had no choice but to do hard manual labor on a regular basis. Their lives depended on it. Most of ours do not.

Exercise Plus Paleo Diet Equals Health: Joe's Story Joe Friel is an internationally known expert on fitness who has coached Olympic triathletes and is the author of a number of best-selling books for triathletes and cyclists. Here are his experiences with Paleo diets: I have known Dr. Cordain for many years, but I didn't become aware of his work until 1995. That year we began to discuss nutrition for sports. As a longtime adherent to a very-high-carbohydrate diet for athletes, I was skeptical of his claim that eating less starch would benefit performance. Nearly every successful endurance athlete I had known ate as I did, with a heavy emphasis on cereals, bread, rice, pasta, pancakes, and potatoes. In fact, I had done quite well on this diet, having been an All-American age-group duathlete (bike and run), finis.h.i.+ng in the top ten at World Champions.h.i.+ps. I had also coached many successful athletes, both professional and amateur, who ate the same way I did.Our discussions eventually led to a challenge. Dr. Cordain suggested I try eating a diet more in line with what he recommended for one month. I took the challenge, determined to show him that eating as I had for years was the way to go. I started by simply cutting back significantly on starches and replacing those lost calories with fruits, vegetables, and very lean meats.For the first two weeks I felt miserable. My recovery following workouts was slow, and my workouts were sluggish. I knew that I was well on my way to proving that he was wrong. But in week three, a curious thing happened. I began to notice that I was not only feeling better, but that my recovery was speeding up significantly. In the fourth week I experimented to see how many hours I could train.Since my early forties (I was fifty-one at the time), I had not been able to train more than about twelve hours per week. Whenever I exceeded this weekly volume, upper-respiratory infections would soon set me back. In week four of the "experiment," I trained sixteen hours without a sign of a cold, a sore throat, or an ear infection. I was amazed. I hadn't done that many hours in nearly ten years. I decided to keep the experiment going.That year I finished third at the U.S. national champions.h.i.+p, with an excellent race, and qualified for the U.S. team for the World Champions.h.i.+ps. I had a stellar season, one of my best in years. This, of course, led to more questions of Dr. Cordain and my continued refining of the diet he recommended.I was soon recommending it to the athletes I coached, including Ryan Bolton, who was on the U.S. Olympic Triathlon team. Since 1995 I have written four books on training for endurance athletes and have described and recommended the Paleo Diet in each of them. Many athletes have told me a story similar to mine: they have tried eating this way, somewhat skeptically at first, and then discovered that they also recovered faster and trained better.

"Exercise": A Funny Idea to Hunter-Gatherers In the late 1980s, the world community became increasingly alarmed at the shrinking tropical rain forest in the Amazon basin (due to clear-cut logging, mining, and industrialization). Politicians and environmentalists launched a host of programs to curb this deforestation and even brought native Amazon Indians to environmental conferences in New York City. At one such conference, a group of Indians came across joggers exercising in Central Park-and found this concept absolutely hilarious. That adults would run for no apparent reason was comically absurd to these practical hunters. In their tropical forest home, every movement had a function and a purpose. What could possibly be gained by running to no destination, with no predators or enemies to escape from, and with nothing to capture?

Physical Fitness: Naturally, and with No Exercise Programs The mind-set of these Amazonian Indians was undoubtedly very similar to that of any of the world's hunter-gatherers. They got plenty of exercise simply by carrying out the day's basic activities-finding food and water, building shelters, making tools, and gathering wood. These activities were more than enough to allow them to develop superb physical fitness. Strength, stamina, and good muscle tone were the natural by-products of their daily routine.

Our Stone Age ancestors worked hard or they didn't eat. Sustained labor wasn't necessary every day; periods of intense exertion generally alternated with days of rest and relaxation. But the work was always there, an inevitable fact of life. There were no retirement plans, no vacations, and definitely no labor-saving devices. Everybody, except for the very young or the very old, helped out. And their daily efforts were astonis.h.i.+ng. The amount of physical activity performed by an average hunter-gatherer would have been about four times greater than that of a sedentary office worker-and about three times greater than anybody needs to get the health benefits of exercise. An office worker who jogged 3 miles a day for a whole week would use less than half the energy of an average hunter-gatherer, such as the !Kung people of Africa. !Kung men on average walk 9.3 miles per day; the women average 5.7 miles per day. As you may expect, all this walking and regular physical activity pays off with high levels of physical fitness for everyone. In fact, my research team has shown that the average aerobic capacity of the world's hunter-gatherers and less Westernized peoples is similar to that of today's top athletes.

Exercise and Obesity There are few physicians or health professionals who would argue that exercise shouldn't accompany dietary programs.

Most of the scientific experiments that have monitored weight loss with and without exercise programs have shown that moderate exercise (20 to to 60 60 minutes of walking or jogging five times a week) doesn't help you lose weight any faster-but it is very effective in helping you keep the extra pounds off over the long term minutes of walking or jogging five times a week) doesn't help you lose weight any faster-but it is very effective in helping you keep the extra pounds off over the long term Why Exercise by Itself Doesn't Promote Weight Loss The idea of exercising the extra pounds away-if this is your only means of weight loss-is not terribly practical. Exercise combined with diet is no more effective than diet alone in causing weight loss. How can this be? The answer is a scientific equation: to lose a pound of fat, you need to achieve a caloric deficit of 3,500 calories.

Imagine that a mildly obese woman, weighing 154 pounds, would like to lose 30 pounds, or 105,000 calories, by walking or jogging for 3 miles (forty-five minutes) a day. On days when she walks or jogs, she expends 215 additional calories (compared to the 80 calories she expends for that same forty-five-minute period on other days). The 3-mile walk/jog causes a net deficit of 135 calories-not a lot, considering the amount of work she's doing. At this rate, it will take her 26 days to lose 1 pound and 780 days (more than 2 years) to lose 30 pounds. Most dieters simply don't have the patience to wait that long. (Frankly, most of us need the encouragement of seeing the scale change more rapidly to help us keep up the good work. Otherwise, it's easy to become discouraged and give up.) Experiments by my colleague Dr. Joe Donnelly and coworkers at the University of Nebraska at Kearney, and by Dr. David Nieman at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina, have demonstrated that diet alone is just as effective as diet plus exercise in causing weight loss. diet alone is just as effective as diet plus exercise in causing weight loss.

The real benefit from exercise for weight loss comes not from the modest caloric deficit that it may create, but from its ability to keep weight off keep weight off once it has been lost. Dr. Rena Wing of Brown University School of Medicine in Providence, Rhode Island, reviewed a large number of exercise trials in which partic.i.p.ants either dieted only or dieted and exercised. Reporting on the partic.i.p.ants a year later, Dr. Wing noted, "In all of the long-term randomized trials reviewed, weight losses at follow-up were greater in once it has been lost. Dr. Rena Wing of Brown University School of Medicine in Providence, Rhode Island, reviewed a large number of exercise trials in which partic.i.p.ants either dieted only or dieted and exercised. Reporting on the partic.i.p.ants a year later, Dr. Wing noted, "In all of the long-term randomized trials reviewed, weight losses at follow-up were greater in diet plus exercise diet plus exercise than in than in diet only. diet only."

Why Should You Exercise?

Regular exercise, though, is great for your body. One major benefit: it improves your insulin metabolism. As I've discussed earlier in this book, many overweight people are insensitive to insulin, a hormone secreted by the pancreas that aids the entry of glucose from the bloodstream into all cells of the body, including the muscle cells. When muscle cells become insensitive to insulin, the pancreas responds by secreting more insulin. This, in turn, raises the normal level of insulin in the bloodstream. The resulting elevation of blood insulin levels, called "hyperinsulinemia," is the underlying cause of the metabolic syndrome diseases. Insulin is a master hormone that influences many other critical cellular functions. An elevated level of insulin in the bloodstream encourages fat deposition and the development of obesity.

Regular exercise has been shown in clinical studies to improve the muscles' sensitivity to insulin and to lower the level of insulin in the bloodstream. In other words, although exercise alone does not cause the large caloric deficits needed for weight loss, it sets the metabolic stage for weight loss to occur by improving your insulin metabolism-as long as you cut back on calories.

Improving your insulin sensitivity may also reduce your appet.i.te by preventing the large swings in blood sugar levels that are a direct consequence of too much insulin secretion. When you eat a carbohydrate-heavy meal, digestive enzymes convert most of the carbohydrate to glucose, which then enters the bloodstream. Normally, the pancreas secretes just the right amount of insulin to help convert glucose into muscle and other cells of the body and to help keep the blood sugar level on an even keel. However, when your muscles are resistant to insulin's action and the pancreas must secrete extra insulin, this drives the blood glucose level even lower. This reduction in blood sugar, called "hypoglycemia," makes you hungry-even if you've just eaten a large meal. Exercise can help break this vicious cycle by making the muscles more sensitive to insulin.

Exercise and Blood Lipids Medical evidence suggests that exercise training alone has little or no effect on the LDL blood cholesterol level. However, it can improve the total/HDL cholesterol ratio and reduce your risk of heart disease by significantly increasing the good HDL blood cholesterol level. Also, exercise has been shown to lower the triglyceride level, which may also be an independent risk factor for atherosclerosis and coronary heart disease.

The best way to improve your levels of total and HDL cholesterol is through a combination of exercise and diet. Do your heart a favor when you adopt the Paleo Diet and start to exercise as well.

Exercise Prevents Heart Disease and High Blood Pressure Exercise can also decrease your risk of dying from heart disease by triggering a variety of other healthful changes in your heart and circulatory system. Regular physical exertion has been shown to widen and increase the elasticity of the coronary arteries that carry blood to the heart. This widening is good: Even if there are plaques, or chunky deposits, in the coronary arteries of people who regularly exercise, their chances of having a heart attack are reduced because these arteries are wider-which makes it less likely that any blockage will completely cut off blood flow to the heart. With regular exercise, the heart gets bigger and stronger and may even develop new blood vessels to supply more blood and oxygen.

Also, exciting new evidence suggests that regular physical exertion may reduce the risk of a blood clot forming in a coronary artery-a key event leading to a heart attack. The net result of all these beneficial changes from physical activity is a significant reduction in your risk of dying from all forms of heart and blood vessel diseases. This has been demonstrated in a medical study of more than 40,000 women from Iowa.

The most pervasive of all chronic Western diseases is hypertension, or high blood pressure. It affects at least 50 million Americans, and by age sixty-five almost 60 percent of all Americans have blood pressure that is too high. Blood pressure is measured when the heart contracts (this is called "systolic pressure") and when it relaxes ("diastolic pressure"). You are considered to have hypertension if your systolic blood pressure readings are 140 or greater and if your diastolic readings are 90 or greater. Many studies have demonstrated that regular exercise alone-without other lifestyle changes-is effective in lowering blood pressure. Because hypertension can accelerate the risk of stroke, exercise programs that lower blood pressure may also reduce the risk of stroke. Exercise, along with the foods you will be eating on the Paleo Diet, will put you on the right track for lowering your blood pressure and reducing your risk of developing the diseases of the heart and the blood vessels.

Exercise, Type 2 Diabetes, and Other Health Benefits of Exercise Type 2 diabetes affects an estimated 17 million Americans and normally arises from insulin resistance-the same dangerous condition that promotes obesity, hypertension, heart disease, and blood lipid abnormalities. Exercise can be of great help: a single round of exercise improves insulin sensitivity within three hours and keeps working all day long-even twenty-four hours after your exertion.

Exercise is one of nature's best cures for whatever ails you. Regular physical exertion can reduce stress and optimize your mental well-being, help you sleep better, improve your digestion and lung function, reduce bone mineral loss, and slow the physical changes a.s.sociated with aging. It may decrease your risk of developing certain types of cancer. So go for it! Embrace the active lifestyle that is part of your ancestral heritage. Activity and movement are built into your genes. Your body absolutely requires it.

Modern Exercises for Your Paleolithic Body Any activity is better than no activity. It doesn't have to be some ambitious plan devised by a personal trainer. Basically, whenever you can exert yourself physically-at work, at home, while traveling, or during leisure time-you should do it. On a typical day, most Americans walk about 30 feet from the house to the car, drive to work, walk 100 feet to the office, and sit virtually motionless in front of a computer for hours at a time. At the end of the day, they walk back to their cars, drive home, and then sit motionless in front of a TV screen until they go to sleep. Even in once highly active professions, such as construction, it is now possible to do almost as little physical activity as somebody performing a desk job. Operating an air-conditioned backhoe with fully hydraulic controls takes barely more effort than operating a personal computer.

Increasing Your Activity Level While at Home or at Work In this highly mechanized, technological world, you can increase your physical exertion level while doing your daily tasks at home or at work, during your leisure activities, and by incorporating a regular exercise routine into your schedule. I encourage you to take full advantage of all three of these situations to get activity back into your life. At every occasion when you have the chance to use your body, you should. Look upon activity not as something you have to do but rather as a fleeting opportunity to give your body a gift. Get it when you can! You'll feel better when you do.

Is it possible for you to sneak in some exercise on the way to or from work? Could you walk to work? Ride your bicycle? How about parking your car a half mile from work-or getting off at a bus or subway stop farther away and walking the rest of the way? How about taking the stairs or walking instead of driving to lunch? Better yet, go for a walk at lunchtime and brown-bag a Paleo lunch afterward. You can even keep a portable stair-stepping device and a few small dumbbells in your office. Maybe you have access to a health club or a gym near work where you can take a quick swim, do some weight lifting, or get in a game of racquetball during your lunch hour. When you go to the restroom, take a roundabout route up and down a couple of flights of stairs. Because almost everybody notices an increase in daily energy levels (there is no mid-afternoon slump) within days of starting the Paleo Diet, you will have the energy and spirit for these extra activities. Look for physical activity-lifting, walking, climbing stairs, digging in the garden-wherever you can. Anything extra you can do is better than doing nothing, and all of these little increments add up.

At home, try not to use some of your laborsaving devices. For example, a s...o...b..ower gets the job done faster, but unless you're going to use the time saved for exercise later in the day, shoveling the snow would be much better for you. Important note: Beware the "weekend warrior" syndrome. If you have been sedentary, don't charge in with major aerobic exercise all at once. Talk to your doctor and figure out the safest, best way for you to get back in shape.

Increasing Your Activity Level during Leisure Time During your leisure time, instead of watching a fis.h.i.+ng show on TV, go fis.h.i.+ng. Instead of watching a football game on TV, go out and throw the football around with your children. Instead of playing games on the computer, go for a walk or a hike or do some gardening. When you go to the beach, don't just sit there; try a bit of swimming, a walk, or maybe even jog in the sand. Leisure-time activities can be enjoyable and still involve exertion. When you go shopping, make sure you do as much walking as possible. Camping trips don't necessarily have to be junk-food feasts involving little or no physical activity. You can enjoy the great outdoors by doing something in it, such as hiking, chopping wood, or swimming. Be creative. Developing a more active life at home and at work will give you a great start in emulating the exercise patterns of our Paleolithic ancestors and will go a long way toward improving your health. Unless you do very strenuous work on the job or at home, however, you will probably need to complement your daily work and leisure activities with a structured exercise program as well.

Structured Exercise Programs The physical activities of hunter-gatherers most closely resembled those of modern cross-training athletes, in that they were required to do both aerobic and strength activities periodically. Men commonly hunted from one to four days a week, with intervening days of rest. Hunting involved long walks and jogging (up to 10 to 15 miles) to find herd animals; dramatic sprints, jumps, and turns; occasionally violent struggles; and lengthy hikes home carrying the kill. Every two or three days, women routinely gathered; they spent many hours walking to sources of food, water, and wood. Foraging often involved strenuous digging, climbing, and then carrying heavy loads back to camp-usually with an infant or a young child on the woman's hip or back. Other common activities, some physically taxing, included taking care of children, making tools, building shelters, butchering animals, preparing food, and visiting. Dances were a major pastime and could take place several nights a week-often lasting for hours. The overall activity pattern of these people was cyclic: days of intense physical exertion (both aerobic and resistive) alternated with days of rest and light activity.

These activity patterns suggest that most of us are best adapted to exercise programs that alternate strength and aerobic activities, accompanied by intervening days of rest or low-level activities. As you develop an exercise program, you should keep these concepts in mind. Hard days should be followed by one or more easy days, and strength training (weight lifting) should accompany aerobic training. Although the bottom line is that any exercise is better than no exercise, you will be less susceptible to injury and will obtain superior overall fitness if you can follow these fundamental principles.

Aerobic Training Programs You may already be fit and exercising regularly. Or you may do sporadic exercise. Or maybe you are overweight, and you hardly ever exercise. What you begin to do now-the amount and intensity of your exercise program-will necessarily depend on your starting point.

In order to gain the minimal health effects of exercise, you will need to acc.u.mulate at least thirty minutes of aerobic activity thirty minutes of aerobic activity (walking, jogging, swimming, cycling, aerobic dance, stair climbing, racquetball, basketball, etc.) of (walking, jogging, swimming, cycling, aerobic dance, stair climbing, racquetball, basketball, etc.) of moderate intensity moderate intensity on most, and on most, and preferably all, days of the week. preferably all, days of the week. Additional health and functional benefits of physical activity can be achieved by devoting more time to the activity, by increasing the vigor of the activity, or by increasing the number of times per week you exercise. Additional health and functional benefits of physical activity can be achieved by devoting more time to the activity, by increasing the vigor of the activity, or by increasing the number of times per week you exercise.

If you're a beginner, you may not be able to walk for thirty minutes a day, every day, right away. Always listen to your body and increase or decrease your exercise accordingly. If you have a family history of heart disease, are very obese, or have other health problems, you should talk to your doctor or even have a checkup before you begin your exercise program. However, don't use this as an excuse to avoid exercising. Not Not exercising is more hazardous to your health than exercising is. If you feel sore or tired from a day's exercise, take the next day off, just as our hunter-gatherer ancestors would have done. Gradually, as you become more and more fit, you will be able to increase the frequency, intensity, and duration of your exercise program. Your fitness level will generally change more rapidly if you heighten the intensity of exercise, rather than increase the frequency or duration. exercising is more hazardous to your health than exercising is. If you feel sore or tired from a day's exercise, take the next day off, just as our hunter-gatherer ancestors would have done. Gradually, as you become more and more fit, you will be able to increase the frequency, intensity, and duration of your exercise program. Your fitness level will generally change more rapidly if you heighten the intensity of exercise, rather than increase the frequency or duration.

The key to any successful aerobic training program is to stick with it. You need to keep it interesting and stimulating. The best way to sabotage an aerobic training program is to walk in boring circles around a track or ride a stationary bicycle in your closet. Personally, I find jogging or walking on hiking trails or little-used dirt roads on the edge of town to be much more stimulating and peaceful than jogging on city streets. I can see birds and wildlife. The terrain and the view are constantly changing, and I don't have to fight traffic. It may take you a little longer to drive to a trailhead or a walking path, but you may find that it's worth it. If you live in a metropolitan area, a large city park may be ideal for walks and jogs. You may prefer swimming or bicycling, or you may be more sociable and prefer the company of others while doing aerobic dance, stair climbing, or stationary bicycling in a health club or a gymnasium. Vary your aerobic activities; take your dog with you; bring a pair of binoculars and look for birds; travel to the park or hiking trails; swim at the ocean or the lake. Don't look at exercise as a form of penance. Make it fun, and make it stimulating.

Strength Training Programs Strength training should be performed at least twice a week, incorporating a minimum of eight to ten specific exercises that use the major muscle groups of the legs, the trunk, the arms, and the shoulders. You should perform at least one or two sets of eight to twelve repet.i.tions in each set. To minimize the risk of muscle injury, it's a good idea to do plenty of stretching and light calisthenics as a warm-up-the same for aerobic exercise. If you do not have a weight machine or a set of free weights at home, visit your local health club or fitness center to get started. Most health clubs and fitness centers employ knowledgeable personnel who can help you get started and can show you how to lift properly and use the weight machines. Once you figure out the basics, you may want to purchase equipment for your home.

Cross-Train-Just Like Your Paleolithic Ancestors I encourage you not just to walk or swim or lift weights. Try to incorporate both strength and aerobic activities in your fitness program. This is the way our Paleolithic ancestors did it, and this is the method that will increase your fitness levels most rapidly, while simultaneously preventing injuries. If your legs are sore or tired from walking, then take the next day off or do some weight lifting that emphasizes the muscles of your upper body. Swimming is a wonderful exercise that temporarily neutralizes the force of gravity and allows free movement of the joints and the muscles. Even if walking or jogging is your main aerobic activity, try to swim a few times a month. It will give your body a needed break from jogging's incessant pounding and will allow you to stretch your muscles and joints fully. Using a cross-training machine, bicycling and stationary bicycling, like swimming, can also work wonders in relieving the stress from too much walking or jogging. When you alternate strength activities with various aerobic activities, you will not only speed up the development of fitness, but you will lessen your chances of injury.

[image]

Think of exercise as a luxury, a wonderful, opulent pursuit that is not available to all. It is a miraculous elixir that will brighten your spirits, improve your well-being, and make you feel so much better! Exercise will help you complete and maintain your wonderful new Paleo way of life.

12.

Living the Paleo Diet I have given you the key to the door, but I cannot open it for you. For the first time in your life, you should realize that by eating the diet nature devised for us, you can achieve permanent weight loss and significantly improve your health. All of this can occur without your experiencing continual feelings of hunger.

Humanity's original diet is not prescribed to you by a diet doctor or by governmental recommendations, but rather by more than 2 million years of evolutionary wisdom. This is the diet that every single person on the planet ate a mere 333 generations ago. Paleolithic people had no choice but to follow the Paleo Diet. Refined grains, sugars, salt, dairy products, fatty meats, and processed food simply didn't exist. Unfortunately, from a health and weight perspective, you have a choice. Burgers, fries, and a c.o.ke are just down the block-but so are healthful fruits, vegetables, and lean meats. The choice is yours.

How can you empower yourself? How can you make the correct choice happen every time? Here are a few simple guidelines that will help.

The Right Reasons to Eat Let's once more follow the course given to us by our hunter-gatherer ancestors. Eat when you are hungry, and stop eating when you are full. Many of us eat for all the wrong reasons.

Food is love. Remember that birthday cake you ate on your special day as a child? It brought you warmth and security-it may have represented your parents' love. Many of us still a.s.sociate sugary, rich desserts with love and fond childhood memories. That's okay; in fact, food should still be a.s.sociated with love. But why not try to love yourself, your family, or your friends with some of nature's original loving food, so that by eating, you are also loving your body and making yourself healthy? How about a few rich lobster tails or fresh crab legs, some creamy avocado slices, or a bowl of fresh blackberries topped with almond slices? These foods taste great and make you feel great. Those childhood love foods (cookies, cakes, candy, ice cream, chocolates-you know the rest) are a temporary fix that all too soon will make you feel tired, drowsy, and bloated. How many times do you need to "love yourself" with these foods to know that they always let you down in the long run?

Food is a reward. Remember going out to dinner after high school graduation, your wedding, or getting that new job? You rewarded yourself by eating a great meal-and rightly so. You deserved it, and you still do. However, many of us seek that reward or gratification from our food almost daily. Reward yourself with food, and do it daily, but do it with the delicious bounty of real foods: fruits, vegetables, and lean meats. You will be rewarding not only your psyche but your body as well.

Food relieves boredom. Have you ever sat around on a Friday evening with nothing to do, knowing there is a half gallon of ice cream in the refrigerator? How about an afternoon home alone with some chocolate chip cookies fresh out of the oven? When you adopt the Paleo Diet, these situations will no longer be a problem. You will have a ton of food at home, but it will be fruits, veggies, lean meats, and seafood. Go ahead-get bored all you want, and please eat all you want, because your appet.i.te will tell you when to stop. You could probably eat the entire half gallon of ice cream and the whole plate of cookies, but you will always stop eating when you've had your fill of lean chicken b.r.e.a.s.t.s, succulent tiger shrimp, or fresh tangerines. Use these foods to relieve your boredom, and you will find yourself losing weight and taking a new path toward terrific health.

One Day at a Time If you are like almost everyone on this planet, you probably have never made it through a single day of your life without eating grains, dairy products, legumes, salt, refined sugars, fatty meats, or processed foods and drinks.

Go ahead, try it-just once!

I challenge you to eat nothing but fresh fruits, veggies, and lean meats for a single day. You will not be hungry. Eat as much and as many of these foods as you want-eat until you are full. I can a.s.sure you that you will not develop vitamin or mineral deficiencies; on the contrary, you will be luxuriously nourished.

See for yourself-see how you feel when you wake up the next morning.

Follow the Paleo Diet principles all day long for a second day. You can do it. If you get hungry or are tempted, treat yourself to a big bowl of fruit or some cold chicken b.r.e.a.s.t.s or any of the wonderful Paleo snacks listed in chapter 9. Monitor your energy level. Do you like waking up feeling positive and energized, looking forward to a bright new day? Do you like the way it feels not not to have that midmorning or midafternoon slump? Well, this is just the beginning. Most people report these healthful benefits within days of adopting the Paleo Diet. to have that midmorning or midafternoon slump? Well, this is just the beginning. Most people report these healthful benefits within days of adopting the Paleo Diet.

But the best is yet to come. Your weight will drop rapidly within the first few days, and then you will continue to lose weight until you reach your optimal weight. For some people, this may take a month or two; for those with severe weight problems, six months or more. But the bottom line is that you will continue to lose weight as long as you follow the Paleo Diet principles. If weight loss is your primary goal, then focus on how you would like to look in a month or two. Your confidence will soar as you begin to shed the pounds. Your clothes will begin to fit a bit looser. Good-you are well on your way! People will notice your new svelteness. Use these markers as your personal triumphs. Know that these little victories may take weeks or months but that the battle is won on a daily basis. Try to remember how good each morning feels when you stick with the diet. This is where it counts-day to day. The days become weeks, and the weeks become months, and you will eventually break through and reach your weight-loss goal-whatever it may be.

You may also notice that many health problems you had lived with or ignored for years begin to improve. Your joints are no longer as stiff in the morning, and your sinuses are now beginning to clear. Your skin and hair are becoming softer and less dry. Your heartburn and indigestion have become a thing of the past. And for the first time in years, your constipation or irritable bowel syndrome is gone.

For those with more serious health problems, such as high blood pressure and elevated cholesterol or type 2 diabetes, symptoms may begin to improve within weeks of adopting the Paleo Diet.

You have the key to unlock the door of good health with humanity's original diet. What better reason to permanently adopt the Paleo Diet than to prevent heart disease, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, or other symptoms of metabolic syndrome. Play it smart. Remove the known or suspected causes of metabolic syndrome from your diet. When you do, you will also lower your risk of developing many types of cancer as well.

The choice is yours. The risks are nil, the benefits are many. Eat your fill to health and the right weight. And don't forget to enjoy!

APPENDIX A.

Acid-Base Values of Common Foods (100-gram portions)

Acid Foods (1 Values) Brown rice + 12.5Rolled oats +10.7Spaghetti +6.5Egg noodles +6.4Cornflakes +6.0White rice +4.6Rye bread +4.1Mixed wheat bread +3.8White bread +3.7Parmesan cheese +34.2Processed cheese +28.7Hard cheeses +19.2Gouda cheese +18.6Camembert cheese +14.6Cottage cheese +8.7Whole milk +0.7Peanuts +8.3Lentils +3.5Peas +1.2Trout +10.8Turkey +9.9Chicken +8.7Eggs +8.1Pork +7.9Beef +7.8Cod +7.1Herring +7.0

Alkaline Foods (2 Values) Raisins -21.0 Black currants -6.5 Bananas -5.5 Apricots -4.8 Kiwi fruit -4.1 Cherries -3.6 Pears -2.9 Pineapple -2.7 Peaches -2.4 Apples -2.2Watermelon -1.9 Spinach -14.0 Celery -5.2 Carrots -4.9 Zucchini -4.6 Cauliflower -4.0 Potatoes -4.0 Radish -3.7 Eggplant -3.4 Tomatoes -3.1 Lettuce -2.5 Chicory -2.0 Leeks -1.8 Onions -1.5 Mushrooms -1.4 Green peppers -1.4 Broccoli -1.2 Cuc.u.mber -0.8

APPENDIX B.

Comparison of the Total Fat in Domestic and Wild Meats

Fatty Domestic Meat % Fat Pork chop 514.80T-bone beefsteak 669.08Lamb chop 759.95Chicken thigh 58average = = 62.5 62.5 Wild meat % Fat Bison roast 160.91Antelope roast 170.97Moose roast 70.29Deer roast 19average = = 14.8 14.8

APPENDIX C.

Practical Implementation of Parts of the Paleo Diet on a Global Scale In this book, I've traced agricultural "progress," and we've seen that the key to restoring our health and losing weight is to replace our modern processed foods with fresh fruits, vegetables, lean meats, and seafood. In the United States and other Western countries, this is very easy to do. We can grow our own vegetables and fruits or buy them year round at the supermarket. Thanks to global air transportation and greenhouses, we can get fresh peaches in February and strawberries in December. We can get shrimp from Tahiti in Minnesota, buy Colorado-raised buffalo meat in Hawaii, and find Alaskan salmon in Nebraska.

The only limiting factor is cost. Fresh fruits and vegetables cost more than beans and white rice. Lean pork tenderloin and turkey b.r.e.a.s.t.s are more expensive than potatoes and bread. The starchy foods of the Agricultural Revolution are the world's cheap foods. Grains, legumes, and tubers are the starchy foods that have let our planet's population balloon to more than 6 billion. They're also the foods that have enabled us to grotesquely fatten our livestock in feedlots to satisfy our craving for fatty meats. They've allowed us to pollute our food supply with billions of tons of sugar and high-fructose corn syrup. They're also the foods responsible for destroying the balance of omega 6 and omega 3 fats in our diet. Without them, the world could probably support one-tenth or less of our present population; without agriculture's cheap starchy staples, it is no exaggeration to say that billions of people worldwide would starve.

It is unfortunate that for most of the world's people the diet to which they are genetically adapted now lies beyond their financial reach. The foods decreed by our genetic heritage and the foods we all ate before the Agricultural Revolution have now become the elite foods of wealthy, privileged countries.

However, there are many immediate practical steps that could be taken to improve the nutritional quality of the world's food supply and make everyday diets more like those of our Paleolithic ancestors.

Healthier Livestock Cereal grains are an inferior food for livestock as well as for humans. Many of our health problems related to overconsumption of saturated fats and omega 6 fats are directly attributable to the practice of feeding grain to livestock. Today, 70 percent of the U.S. grain harvest is fed to cattle, but there is no pressing need to do this. In modern beef production, cattle generally spend the first half of their lives grazing on pastureland or rangeland. They typically receive commercial cereal feeds during the second half of their lives. If we didn't confine cattle to feedlots and essentially force-feed them cereal grains, we could produce a healthier meat product by simply allowing these animals the freedom to graze outdoors all their lives.

Feeding grain to cattle dilutes the healthful omega 3 fats and increases the omega 6 fats. It also produces an obese animal that may have as much as 25 to 30 percent of its body weight as fat. Three- to 4-inch layers of pure fat lie just below the skin. Fat dominates the abdominal cavity and even infiltrates the muscle tissue. This infiltration of fat between the muscles, called "marbling," is one of the major reasons why grain is fed to cattle: cattle producers believe the consumer likes a nicely marbled steak. But a nicely marbled T-bone steak may contain more than 60 percent of its total calories as fat. Even lean, grain-fed beef, trimmed of all of its fat, contains more than twice the fat that is found in pasture-fed cattle or wild game meat. The predominant type of fat in grain-fattened cows is saturated fat. A 100-gram serving of a fatty T-bone steak gives you 9 grams of saturated fat. The same serving of a lean steak from a pasture-fed cow gives you only 1.3 grams of saturated fat.

Feeding grain to cattle has a harmful effect on nutrients as well: cattle fed on pasture alone produce meat that contains five times more conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) than grain-fed cattle do. Conjugated linoleic acid is a good type of fat that may be one of our most powerful allies in the war against cancer; in studies of laboratory animals, tiny amounts of CLA have effectively reduced tumor growth. Gra.s.s-fed livestock also produce meat that contains four times more vitamin E and selenium than grain-fed animals have. Both vitamin E and selenium are powerful antioxidants that protect us from cancer and heart disease.

Basically, feeding grain to cattle takes a good, healthful food-lean meat-and turns it into a less nutritious, fatty food that has a high potential for impairing our health. It's also very wasteful. Most of the excess fat from cows that produce marbled meat is ultimately trimmed away and discarded during the butchering process. Why are we feeding grain to our livestock to make them fat and then throwing away much of the fat just to get an end product-fatty meat-that is less healthful than the original lean meat we started with? It makes little sense. A better approach to raising our cattle, from both health and ecological viewpoints, would be simply to eliminate grain feeding altogether. Many of the beef producers in Australia and Argentina have taken this approach, with a resounding note of approval from the consumer.

Resources Recommended Web Sites Loren Cordain's Paleo Diet Web site www.thepaleodiet.com

Loren Cordain's Dietary Cure for Acne Web site http://www.dietaryacnecure.com/

Robb Wolf's Web site http://robbwolf.com/