Beware Sub Paleo

The Paleo Diet is becoming well-known now. It's widespread, the tide is finally turning with mainstream medics now realising that Paleo is the healthy way to eat for most people, and turning against low-fat, high-carb plans. 

Sugar has finally been identified as a major contributor to obesity, diabetes and cardio-vascular disease. Good fats, such as animal fat, coconut oil and olive oil are finally being recognised for the great role they play in maintaining a healthy body. 

This is brilliant. I love the fact that there's now a wealth of resources for people to turn to in order to gain help, advice and different perspectives of the protocol. 

If you decide to engage in Paleo eating, that's amazing, I wish you really well in your quest. To me, there's no better diet (by which I mean a lifestyle plan that you follow as a matter of course rather than something which you observe for six weeks and hate every minute of it). 

One thing I would caution against, however is the plethora of "Paleo" websites and cookbooks which seem to take a basis of "Paleo" ingredients and then add a whole load of sugars and high calorie elements to them in order to re-create "Paleo" versions of foods which we'd normally avoid. 

Take "Paleo" brownies for example, there are recipes galore for these on just about every site: 

• - let's take chocolate (OK in moderation if it's the really dark good quality stuff), 
• - add a whole heap of almond flour (ground almonds, almond meal - also not bad for you in small amounts, especially when left as actual almonds rather than being ground)
• - sweeten it with palm sugar or honey (also OK in small small amounts but if overdone are going to cause an insulin spike)

Hey presto! we have something approaching a brownie, but still full of sugar and high quantities of almonds (which you wouldn't be able to eat in their natural non-crushed state), with a lot of added sugar. Let's call it Paleo. Well, in my view, please don't call it Paleo because it really isn't and it will (as surely as eating a real brownie) derail your sugar levels, insulin levels and at the same time leave you feeling really disappointed and wanting a real brownie.

Now, to be fair, if you're a fit guy in his twenties or thirties, athletic, who finds burning calories easy, living on Paleo brownies won't affect you all that much. You're burning calories, you'll get a lot of trace elements and who cares egh? you'll burn them at your next workout. 

BUT

This isn't the case for women with hormone problems. Special conditions apply. 

Trading a Paleo brownie for a real one might make you feel virtuous, or maybe that you're getting away with something by "beating the system", but it won't help you achieve you goals or reach your long term aim of beating PCOS. 

Here's Why:

• baking (particularly) alters the chemical composition of food and therefore has a significant effect on the way it is processed by the body. 
• It takes an awful lot of almond flour to make a Paleo bun - to stuff those many almonds in one sitting would take a whole lot of commitment, and your body would probably give up long before you you finished the entire bowlful which ground down, would amount to a small bun
• the calorie load on such products can be enormous
• overdosing on any one food does nothing for your natural food intake - it doesn't matter how great a particular food might be. Take Avocado for example. Too much of it every day will not serve you well. Paleo men (or women) may have come across an avocado bush occasionally, but, even in peak season, it would only have served their needs for a few weeks. Almonds would have taken energy to harvest - almond flour is expensive now because of the relatively small yield versus wheat and grain flours and so would have been limited. 
• anything which breaks down the original structure of the food, which makes it easier to absorb enters the bloodstream more quickly and thus has a greater effect on insulin and other levels, meaning that a higher fibre food, such as an almond or some steak, will be easier to digest, and will therefore enter the bloodstream more quickly.

Special Conditions for those with PCOS and Auto-Immune Diseases

For most people, adopting a Paleo plan, without counting calories or worrying about the quantity of the food they're consuming will result in weight loss almost by default. Follow the plan and you're there. For most men, this is the case. 

I've got male friends who've adopted their own approach to Paleo which is to eat Paleo most of the time but not to worry unduly if they didn't follow it every day, or even for a few days in a row. One friend, without knowing any of the science, has been following Paleo in this very loose fashion for a year and is wearing a waist size 2 inches smaller than he has for 20 years, is more toned, is fitter, has better cardiovascular performance and he hasn't really been trying. 

For our group though, unless you're really lucky and don't have very much of a hormone problem, this will not be the case. Weight loss on Paleo is pretty much guaranteed for everyone apart from those with either:

• - thyroid problems
• - insulin resistance
• - autoimmune problems

Any of these conditions can make it extremely difficult to lose weight, and whilst a Paleo eating plan can significantly control insulin levels, it doesn't necessarily translate into weight loss. 

Paleo gives you the best chance of controlling hormone levels, is far better than Low-GI or calorie controlled plans and is a lifestyle which you can stick to long term. 

In fact, long term adoption offers the best results vs short terms 6/8/10 week diets. It may stabilise otherwise uncontrollable weight gain, but it may not lead to consistent loss. 

I fall into this group myself. To give you the best chance of losing weight, there's a few strategies you can employ which will help:

• stick to a Paleo diet as much as you can
• if you really fancy something, carb-based or not, have it, but try to ensure this doesn't happen more than once a day and not every day of the week
• avoid the endless blogs and recipe books making pseudo foods from paleo ingredients. Paleo free brownies, buns desserts and treats are not helpful. They just sabotage your results. 

So, here's the message for today, stick to real foods. Avoid the processed versions, even if it's real food which you over-process yourself.