I agree, it is sustainable. However, I think it's more sustainable than the average Western American-European diet and certainly more sustainable then things like Atkins and South Beach. I firmly believe that grains and gluten are producing silent damage and health issues. Of course, this is again largely anecdotal based on my personal experience.
I did not make any other lifestyle changes, at least not on a conscious level. My exercise, stress, job and the usual suspects are all still the same. My body fat is down 2% without any increase in exercise. My sleep cycles have increased (at least according to my Sleeptracker watch) by about 50-60% on average. My energy levels are completely subjective but it "feels" like I have more energy. I haven't done blood work yet to see what my cholesterol and thyroid levels are but should have that done in the next few weeks.
I haven't done blood work yet to see what my cholesterol and thyroid levels are but should have that done in the next few weeks.
I'm sure you're very well aware of that, but just noting that cholesterol levels itself is not a good predictor of anything. It is more important to look at the levels of high and low density lipoproteins (or "good" and "bad" cholesterol).
In fact, it might be a bit late for a blood test if you haven't done one before starting a diet, because you wouldn't know what was the change in cholesterol levels that the diet induced.
For example, if HDL went up a lot, and the LDL went down a little, I would consider it a good thing, even though the total cholesterol might go up.
yeah, I did have a test done before the experiment but did not get a breakdown of the numbers other than good, bad and tris. However, I'm hoping this time to get all that plus some other markers like A1C levels. Mostly, I'd like to check for other signs of inflammation and if there are none, I won't be too worried about my high LDL numbers.
Interesting! How much do you exercise in general? Carbs obviously pack a lot of calories and I have empirically observed that in mostly sedentary people cutting carbs seems generally more effective than dropping fat intake (hence the success of Atkins), whereas moving into the moderate exercise range the situation is reversed.
My main exercise is CrossFit. On average, I do about 2 days on, 1 day off though over the summer, that is cut drastically because doing anything outside in the summer in Dallas is zero fun. My own experience is that dropping bread and soda is huge in losing fat. I lost a couple of pounds when I did my 30 day paleo experiment but the most noticeable change was the fat percentage (measured on a basic Tanita scale). The people I have known that went on Adkins who were definitely overweight lost a significant amount of that weight though one also had kidney failure because he essentially dropped almost all carbs (Atkins, to my basic knowledge, frowns on fruit and veggies to a large degree).
Again, my suggestion to people is to try paleo for 30 days then go back to your typical diet and see how you feel. If you feel fine, you lose 30 days. If you feel terrible, you discover something.
Comments
I agree, it is sustainable. However, I think it's more sustainable than the average Western American-European diet and certainly more sustainable then things like Atkins and South Beach. I firmly believe that grains and gluten are producing silent damage and health issues. Of course, this is again largely anecdotal based on my personal experience.
I did not make any other lifestyle changes, at least not on a conscious level. My exercise, stress, job and the usual suspects are all still the same. My body fat is down 2% without any increase in exercise. My sleep cycles have increased (at least according to my Sleeptracker watch) by about 50-60% on average. My energy levels are completely subjective but it "feels" like I have more energy. I haven't done blood work yet to see what my cholesterol and thyroid levels are but should have that done in the next few weeks.
I haven't done blood work yet to see what my cholesterol and thyroid levels are but should have that done in the next few weeks.
I'm sure you're very well aware of that, but just noting that cholesterol levels itself is not a good predictor of anything. It is more important to look at the levels of high and low density lipoproteins (or "good" and "bad" cholesterol).
In fact, it might be a bit late for a blood test if you haven't done one before starting a diet, because you wouldn't know what was the change in cholesterol levels that the diet induced. For example, if HDL went up a lot, and the LDL went down a little, I would consider it a good thing, even though the total cholesterol might go up.
yeah, I did have a test done before the experiment but did not get a breakdown of the numbers other than good, bad and tris. However, I'm hoping this time to get all that plus some other markers like A1C levels. Mostly, I'd like to check for other signs of inflammation and if there are none, I won't be too worried about my high LDL numbers.
Interesting! How much do you exercise in general? Carbs obviously pack a lot of calories and I have empirically observed that in mostly sedentary people cutting carbs seems generally more effective than dropping fat intake (hence the success of Atkins), whereas moving into the moderate exercise range the situation is reversed.
My main exercise is CrossFit. On average, I do about 2 days on, 1 day off though over the summer, that is cut drastically because doing anything outside in the summer in Dallas is zero fun. My own experience is that dropping bread and soda is huge in losing fat. I lost a couple of pounds when I did my 30 day paleo experiment but the most noticeable change was the fat percentage (measured on a basic Tanita scale). The people I have known that went on Adkins who were definitely overweight lost a significant amount of that weight though one also had kidney failure because he essentially dropped almost all carbs (Atkins, to my basic knowledge, frowns on fruit and veggies to a large degree).
Again, my suggestion to people is to try paleo for 30 days then go back to your typical diet and see how you feel. If you feel fine, you lose 30 days. If you feel terrible, you discover something.