Are you interested in a diet where you can eat as much as you like? How about one with no measuring or weighing of food? Or weighing of yourself for that matter?
Then let me recommend the Paleo Diet. I first got introduced to the Paleo Diet through a book called The Paleo Solution: The Original Human Diet a book by Rob Wolf, which I highly recommend.
The Paleo Diet is based on the foods our ancestors ate where they were still hunter-gatherers, before the advent of farming. The diet itself is simple: eat only meats (the fattier the better, ribeye steaks, bacon, etc.) and vegetables (cooked or fresh). Or put another way, do not eat anything white:
- Sugar
- Wheat
- Rice
- Potatoes
These foods have high glycemic indexes and tend to create insulin spikes. After the insulin spike one tends to crave more of these foods, which are easily stored as fat.
Want to know why Americans are fat? Two words: Dunkin Donuts.
In the Paleo Diet your body learns to burn fat for fuel instead of sugar. The meat provides protein and fat for fuel and the vegetables provide vitamins, minerals and fiber.
Unlike other diets, in the Paleo Diet you tend to maintain your fat-burning muscle mass. Because you maintain your muscle mass you may not lose weight, so weighing yourself can be self defeating. Instead what happens is what I call the “shrink wrap” effect: you tend to get smaller. The better way to measure your progress is how your clothes fit and whether you can tighten your belt a notch tighter.
Other benefits: over time, you tend to eat less because the fats in the meat and the fiber in the vegetables are very satisfying. And my cholesterol numbers improved after I started eating Paleo.
Full disclosure: some people feel lousy when the start the Paleo Diet because they are withdrawing from the powerful sugar addiction. Give it 30 days, these feelings pass.
