Read This Before you Try Paleo Diet For Weight Loss (Beginners Guide)
The Paleo diet is one of the healthiest ways to lose weight because you are eating food that your body is designed to eat.
- There are some mistakes that people make when on the Paleo diet that not only prevents them from losing weight but can cause other health problems.
- Learn how to do the Paleo diet the right way for weight loss and optimal health.
One of the healthiest ways to lose weight is by going on the Paleo diet. The Paleo diet is essentially eating what our ancestors did before actual farming took over and our diet became more and more unhealthy as time went on. What we have today is a highly processed diet lacking in nutrition.
According to Robb Wolf, a biochemist who has researched how our ancestors used to eat and today’s diet implications for disease prevention, the Paleo diet is the healthiest way to eat because it is how our bodies were created to eat. This is the type of food our genetics demand.
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He believes, and rightly so, that cutting out refined foods, trans fat, and sugar will keep us lean, strong, and energetic and prevent diseases like cancer, diabetes, heart disease, Parkinson’s, infertility, and a whole host of other diseases that were never experienced by our ancestors.
The Paleo Diet For Weight Loss
Often, our bodies will lose the excess weight that it has accumulated once we start eating healthily. We don’t even need to cut calories, we just need to give our body the right food. You may worry that there is no Paleo diet for Indians, but that is not true at all. Here is what you can eat on a Paleo diet to lose weight fast:
- Meat and Fish: A big part of the paleolithic era was hunting.
- Eggs: Our ancestors also collected eggs.
- Root Vegetables (excluding potatoes): This the main source of carbs on a Paleo diet. Our ancestors dug up root vegetables like sweet potato and carrots.
- Other Vegetables: Be sure to include a wide variety of vegetables. Eat leafy greens every day.
- Seasonal Fruits: Only one serving of fruit should be eaten per day because they are high in sugar. Eat fruits that are in season because they are higher in nutrients.
- Healthy Fats: Healthy saturated fat will come mainly from your meat. For other healthy fats eat nuts, seeds, and you can also eat olive oil. Be sure to soak your nuts and seeds in water for 8-24 hours to kill the anti-nutrients that prevent the absorption of the nutrients.
- Raw Dairy: Though some people believe that we should not consume milk on the Paleo diet, this is not true. Consume raw milk as pasteurized milk has lost most of its benefits.
The Dangers Of The Paleo Diet
The Paleo diet, when done correctly, is great for weight loss and overall health. People often start blaming the Paleo diet when their hormones become imbalanced or they start to pick up weight instead of losing it. But rather it is these common mistakes that impact your health so negatively:
1. Eating Unhealthy Sources Of Meat
Most meat available on the market is not good for our health because:
- The animals are not raised humanely: Some industrial farms very rarely expose the animals to sunlight and in most cases, they are kept packed tightly against each other and the area is not kept as clean as it should because it is almost impossible to do. So they lack vitamin D and can develop sores.
- Antibiotics: Naturally, when an area is not kept clean and the animals are packed so tightly against each other, diseases spread. Farmers then give the animals antibiotics to combat this and you eat it. Antibiotic resistance is becoming a major problem worldwide and eating antibiotics in meat has contributed to this problem. Think twice before you use antibiotics.
- GMO and Pesticides: These industrial farms also feed the animals grains that have been sprayed with pesticides. While there is not so much a problem with all genetically modified crops in and of themselves, they are often sprayed more heavily with pesticides. These pesticides affect children and adults alike causing hormone imbalances and possibly diseases.
- Hormone injections: In order to grow animals quickly to keep up with the demand whether it is for milk or meat, the farmers pump the animals full of hormones that end up in your body causing problems like estrogen dominance and low testosterone levels.
Make sure that your meat, eggs, and milk comes from animals that are grass-fed and free range. This means that the animals were allowed to be outside, exposed to sunlight, and eat what nature intended for them to eat which keeps them healthier, in turn, keeping you healthy.
Did you know that the way you cook your meat can also turn a healthy piece of meat into one of the worst foods for your health? Cooking meat at very high temperatures or over the open flame where the juices drip down and burn oxidizes the fat causing the once healthy fats to turn into trans fat.
Trans fat is one of the biggest causes of high levels of the type of cholesterol that leads to heart disease. All food should be cooked in a way that keeps the nutrition intact and helps our bodies, not harm us.
2. Sedentary Lifestyles
The Paleo diet contains a lot of protein. When you eat more protein than your body can use the excess is stored as sugar leading to weight gain and negatively impacting your liver. Some of the protein is also excreted by your kidneys which creates a burden on them if done regularly.
You need to exercise to stay healthy when eating a large amount of protein. This will help you stay lean and keep your kidneys healthy. The Paleo diet is especially recommended for bodybuilders or anyone who lifts heavy weights. Resistance exercise, in general, will help with your overall health and make sure that you are able to handle the high amount of protein.
If your job is very sedentary, make sure that you schedule time to exercise. HIIT (high-intensity interval training) is an especially good way to work exercise into a busy lifestyle since it only takes 10-30 minutes three times a week.
Make time to go for a walk if you can during your lunch break or use a smaller water bottle or glass so that you can walk to refill it often. Park further away from the entrance to walk more. Our bodies were made to move.
Can't-Lose Weight On A Paleo Diet?
You may have been following the Paleo Diet for a couple of months but still not lost any weight. The two points mentioned above are the biggest cause of this. So if that has been what you were doing wrong, you can make the changes and start losing weight.
But what if you still are not losing weight? There can be many reasons for this. Here are some of the most common reasons:
- Toxins: Toxins are in your home and in the food you eat. Plastic containing BPA and the chemicals in your personal care products and even your furniture are common toxins that you are exposed to daily and affect your hormones. When you buy your fruit and vegetables, buy at least the dirty dozen (the 12 most contaminated fruits and vegetables) organic.
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Poor Quality Sleep: If you do not get between 5-7.5 hours of good quality sleep, by this I mean where you are actually resting and your body is able to make hormones, repair your muscles, and recharge, you will find that your mind isn’t as sharp and that you are more prone to overeating and that your metabolism slows right down.
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Eating Too Little: When your body thinks that you are starving, it will slow down your metabolism. Women eating less than 1200 and men less than 1500 calories generally encounter this problem. As I said before, you do not need to cut your calories. Your body will be able to regulate your weight when you give it what it needs to stay healthy.
What To Eat When On The Paleo Diet For Weight Loss
Here is an example of what you can eat in a day:
Breakfast:
- Scrambled eggs with spinach, mushrooms, and tomato
- A few rashers of free range bacon
Lunch:
- A baked or steamed vegetable salad with soaked seeds, herbs, and olive oil
- Some wild-caught salmon topped with avocado
Dinner:
- An assortment of colorful vegetables and green vegetables drizzled with olive oil
- Sweet potato
- Free range chicken
Snacks:
Choose from the following:
- A green smoothie or juice and a handful of soaked nuts
- One serving of fruit and a handful soaked nuts or some nut butter of your choice
Please feel free to get in touch with me or share your weight loss story with us in the comments.
Summary:
- Our bodies are wired to eat the Paleo diet.
- The biggest mistakes are poor sources of protein and a sedentary lifestyle.
- Protein should be free range and grass-fed meat.
- Fish should be wild-caught.
- There should be no antibiotics or hormones injected into the animals.
- Resistance training, HIIT, and being active is recommended as this will prevent the protein from becoming sugar and creating a burden on the kidneys and liver.
