Paleo Diet: How you can effectively lose weight with the Stone Age diet

Stone Age people used to eat everything they could fish, hunt, pluck or collect. Can you imagine that for yourself too? The so-called Paleo Diet, which is based on this type of diet, is intended to help people effectively lose weight, among other things. You can find out how the Paleo Diet works here.

The Paleo diet is the eating of foods that hunters and gatherers ate in the Stone Age. The background to this is that our body has been adapted to this diet for 2,5 million years and can be easily digested and used.

Some of the beginners of the Paleo diet even speak of one detoxification for the body. You can now read what you can put on your nutrition plan according to this principle if you want to try the Stone Age diet.

 

 

What's the Paleo diet?

The Paleo Diet is also known as the Stone Age Diet, Stone Age Nutrition or Paleo Diet. Paleo comes from the Paleolithic and is the Paleolithic - the longest and oldest epoch in human prehistory. It lasted in Central Europe from about 600.000 to 10.000 years BC. Chr.

The Paleo Diet is a form of nutrition that is all about eating meals that our hunter-gatherer ancestors ate thousands of years ago. Strictly speaking, it is more a matter of a change in diet and less of what most people imagine a diet to be. Researchers assume that the Paleo diet is a wholesome diet.

So did the stone age people ate everything that could be fished, hunted, picked and collected. So that means for you that you are from natural foods nourish, including fruits or nuts. What exactly our ancestors ate in different parts of the world is impossible to find out in detail.

With whole foods and a physically active life, our ancestors probably had much lower rates of developing diseases of modern civilization such as obesity, diabetes or heart disease.

Health Benefits Of The Paleo Diet

The Paleo Diet can bring with them many health benefits that come with eating natural foods and avoiding processed foods. Since you are consuming very little carbohydrates with this type of diet, one of the greatest benefits is losing weight.

 

The Paleo Diet has these advantages:

• Increased insulin sensitivity
• lose weight
• more energy
• Improved heart health
• Less inflammation

 

Increased insulin sensitivity

Most nutritional form foods have relative little carbohydrates, which is why the pancreas often needs less insulin production. Research has shown that the Paleo nutrition can decrease insulin secretion and thus improve the effectiveness of insulin.¹ This will reduce insulin resistance and may help people with type 2 diabetes reduce the amount of medication they need.

 

lose weight

The core aspect of a paleo diet is the consumption of unprocessed foods and also excludes grain products. In combination with avoiding these foods and avoiding foods rich in carbohydrates, which have a detrimental effect on blood sugar levels, the Paleo diet can help you reduce body fat and thus help you lose weight.

A 2016 study found that healthy women who were randomly selected and followed a Paleo diet experienced greater weight loss than those who followed a typical low-fat diet.²

 

More energy

By consuming foods with a low glycemic index as part of a paleo diet, you can avoid dropping your energy levels. Many people experience energy dips after lunch when they eat foods with a high glycemic index and sugary foods. This is unlikely to happen to you with Paleo meals.

 

Improved heart health

Several studies have concluded that the Paleo Diet may have heart health benefits. Can do this also an improvement in total cholesterol levels belong. In 2015, scientists discovered that when compared to a standard diet, the Stone Age diet significantly lowered total cholesterol, LDL, and triglycerides, and increased HDL.³

 

Less inflammation

Inflammation can increase the risk of health problems, such as type 2 diabetes. Those who eat low-carbohydrate foods with a low glycemic index can protect themselves from excessive inflammation, here mainly play Omega fatty acids 3 a role.

A 2016 report by the American Physiological Society found that switching from a high-calorie Western diet to a paleo diet resulted in changes in the biological characteristics of inflammation. However, more research is needed herewhether the diet can actually protect against stone build-up.⁴

 

Stone Age nutrition: which foods are allowed at Paleo?

The Stone Age people lived on various diets during their lifetime. After all, they couldn't just go to the supermarket and do whatever they wanted as they pleased. People back then had to be content with what was available at the time and what they could find. Furthermore, the diet depended on where in the world people from the Stone Age lived.

For example, some ate a low-carbohydrate diet that was rather rich in animal-based foods, while others ate a high-carbohydrate diet with lots of plants. So you can leave out everything that comes from agriculture - denn Food such as legumes or cereals such as bread, pasta or muesli did not exist in the Paleolithic. Neither are dairy products, like quark and the like.

 

 

Basically, you can eat the following foods with the Paleo Diet:

• eggs
• Fish
• Meat
• Vegetables
• healthy fats
• Herbs & Spices
• Herbs
• Seafood
• Nuts
• Together
• Fruits

 

Meat is one of the most important sources of protein on the Paleo diet. Here, however, you should pay attention to the quality. So take a look at where your meat comes from and whether the animal was fed without artificial additional feeding.

 

You should avoid these foods on the Paleo Diet:

• Ice Cream
• Soft drinks
• low fat dairy products
• vegetable oils
• biscuits
• Grain crop
• Legumes
• artificial sweeteners
• margarine
• Sweets
• Trans fats
• processed foods
• Sugar

 

What can I drink on the Paleo Diet?

The best thing to drink for hydration while on the Paleo Diet is water. But it is also okay if you drink tea, for example green tea. There are many there Antioxidants contain. It also scores with other health benefits and can help you lose weight by boosting fat burning.^[5] Those who cannot do without the caffeine booster in the morning and prefer to make a cup of coffee as part of their morning routine can keep that too. The milk should be left out. Coffee is also rich in antioxidants and can promote energy and concentration. 

 

What do I have to look out for in the Paleo Diet?

With vegetable oils, for example, you should omit these:

• Cotton oil
• safflower oil
• May oil
• Soybean oil
• Sunflower oil
• Grapeseed oil

Margarine and other processed foods contain trans fats, which are unsaturated fatty acids. These are linked to cardiovascular disease because they increase the level of cholesterol in the blood. If you can't do without the sweetness, you should use natural sweeteners here. Acesulfame potassium, aspartame, cyclamates, saccharin and sucralose are taboo.

Many people who want to lose body weight tend to buy products in the supermarket that are called "light" or "low-fat". Also on this highly processed foods is on the Paleo Diet too because these products contain many additives and often sugar.

If you are unsure which foods are allowed, this simple question in the supermarket can help you as a tip: Was the product made in a factory? Yes? Then stay away from it!

It does not have to be exclusively expensive organic products that can quickly relieve the wallet. You can also buy fruit, vegetables and eggs directly from the farmers or at regional weekly markets.

As a beginner, this type of diet may differ in some ways from your current way of life. You don't have to be too strict with yourself. Because the paleo diet has evolved over time and in some variants it adapts more to today's lifestyle. For example, some gluten-free grains such as rice are allowed. You can also drink a glass of red wine that is rich in antioxidants, as well as dark chocolate with a cocoa content of 70% or more.

 

Summary

The Paleo Diet is based on a diet that Hunters and gatherers in the ancient stone age probably followed. The basic idea of ​​the Low-carb diet is to avoid processed foods and instead focus on healthy whole foods and natural foods.

Food that is also part of the so-called Stone Age diet allowed are meat, fish, eggs, healthy fats and vegetables. You can also access nuts and fruit, which are also perfect as healthy snacks . With the increased consumption of fruits and vegetables, you absorb so many important nutrients in your body.

Aim on cereals, legumes, dairy products and sugar waived become. Deviations are also okay and can be adapted to the modern diet, so that grass-fed butter and gluten-free grains such as rice can also be added.

If you want to learn more about the Paleo Diet, you can talk to the researcher Loren Cordain. He devoted his whole life as a researcher to the question of what kind of food man is evolutionarily programmed for.

If you have already had experience with the Paleo Diet, we are very curious to see how you are doing with this form of nutrition. Is it easy or difficult for you to eat this way? Feel free to share your opinion and experience with us on our Instagram channel @ahead_nutrition.

 

[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19209185/

[2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27223304/

[3] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26003334/

[4] https://www.physiology.org/mm/hp/Audiences/Public-Press/2016/38

[5] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16840650/