Currently doing a bit of a diet / lifestyle audit I’ve done a lot of reading and have made some changes. It’s been paying off in the form of reduced weight, more energy, asthma symptoms reduced to almost zero and smoother skin (weird).

I keep running into this ‘paleo’ thing and the whole ‘grains are bad’ brigade. Aside from anecdotes I’m not seeing a lot of evidence being offered that grain is actually bad for you.

I’m happy to be proved wrong but I reckon that the people who cut out grain feel better due to a general improvement in dietary variety rather than anything to do with the grain.

Is my innate skepticism causing me to miss out on some massive health benefit or is it all bunkum?

Does anyone have anything other than anecdotes?

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It all depends if you have a book out on your point of view it seems…

The general advice is a good balanced diet.

I think some of the “science” behind Paleo dieting regarding what our ancestors ate has recently been busted. Not sure we really need to be eating what opportunistic stone age omnivores did.

Saying that when stop eating bread for a while and go back on it I baloon up and white bread in particular makes me feel bloaty.

Balanced diet and exercise.

It all depends if you have a book out on your point of view it seems…

The general advice is a good balanced diet.

A fellow skeptic 🙂 . I’m adopting ‘variety’ as my mantra

I think some of the “science” regarding what our ancestors ate has recently been busted.

The breeds and varieties of animals and plants are so far removed from what was around back then it does make you think. Couple that with a highly adaptive microbiome and the theory starts to look a bit ‘iffy’ from where I’m stood.

Yes, the food stuff that has allowed humans to spread across the entire world and live in settled communities freeing people for education and invention and thinking and become utterly dominant are very very bad.
Very very bad that is for everything else 🙂

Not sure we really need to be eating what opportunistic stone age omnivores did.

Which presumably included scavanged bone marrow and brains that other predators had bother extracting -yummy! Where do I sign?

Saying that when stop eating bread for a while and go back on it I baloon up and white bread in particular makes me feel bloaty.

Are we talking fat gain or gas / bloating? White bread must be pretty calorifically dense which may account for becoming more, ahem . . . ‘cuddly’ and who knows what your gut bugs make of / with the bread.

Pawsy_Bear

Balanced diet and exercise.

Yep, IME the world of diet and exorcize is full of people promising magic spells that make a healthy lifestyle (or more likely an unhealthy one that make you overly thin or disproportionally muscular) easier.

They scoff at Calories for not be accurate, or ‘telling the whole story’ and they’re right, but as an easy to follow, ‘rule of thumb’ they’re good enough for anyone who isn’t hoping for a medal in Rio or similar.

I’ve visited a dietician via the NHS a few times to help with a hereditary condition I have, they have a very dim view of Paleo, it’s mate Atkins (which is NOTHING like Paleo, except it is) and the other diets that have come before – they promise witchcraft, but in reality their main benefit is that forbid heavily processed foods and refined sugars, something we can all do without restricting ourselves to a unbalanced diet.

OP, research the nutritional ketogenic diet, it just works and is Proven healthier than anything else.

The Ketogenic Cookbook By Jimmy Moore $57.40 – Booktopia.com.au

Book out?

Sounds lovely

Long-term use of the ketogenic diet in children increases the risk of slowed or stunted growth, bone fractures and kidney stones.[5] The diet reduces levels of insulin-like growth factor 1, which is important for childhood growth. Like many anticonvulsant drugs, the ketogenic diet has an adverse effect on bone health. Many factors may be involved such as acidosis and suppressed growth hormone.[38] About 1 in 20 children on the ketogenic diet will develop kidney stones (compared with one in several thousand for the general population). A class of anticonvulsants known as carbonic anhydrase inhibitors (topiramate, zonisamide) are known to increase the risk of kidney stones, but the combination of these anticonvulsants and the ketogenic diet does not appear to elevate the risk above that of the diet alone.[39] The stones are treatable and do not justify discontinuation of the diet.[39] Johns Hopkins Hospital now gives oral potassium citrate supplements to all ketogenic diet patients, resulting in a sevenfold decrease in the incidence of kidney stones.[40] However, this empiric usage has not been tested in a prospective controlled trial.[9] Kidney stone formation (nephrolithiasis) is associated with the diet for four reasons:[39]

Balanced diet and exercise is without a doubt the best way to fuel your body.

BUT I’ve eaten low carb for a few years and initially lost 12kg and maintained my current weight. I would say I’m fit/athletic now and don’t need to change anything. I find muscle mass can still be built easily, probably due to the high protein in my diet. If I ever binge on carbs (ice cream, pizza, beer) I feel so rough and tiered for a few days- it’s like poisoning your body.

Everyone’s body is different so I wouldn’t necessarily discount the idea of low carb.

try reading ‘why we get fat’ by Gary taubes, lots of scientific evidence on many studies from over the last 100yrs.

Possible problem with highly refined high-GI diet, but I don’t believe that grains are inherently evil. Sugar on the other hand…

I keep running into this ‘paleo’ thing

So Paleolithic people in the Northwest of Europe were probably lactose intolerant… then there was an Ice Age… Mesolithic people in the Northwest of Europe are lactose tolerant.
Guess what happened to the Paleolithic people who didn’t develop the ability to drink to milk 🙂

Grains – do you mean bread ? Most bread isn’t good for us as its too processed, less is better. These days I eat less meat (especially red), many days vegetarian only and try and keep bread to a minimum, less rice, pasta and potatoes. I do eat too much high fat cheese which is definitely not good for me

refined grain are pretty energy dense, and it’s very easy to eat not a significant amount of food, and get a significant amount of energy.

If you’re eating a bowl or porridge before your weekend long ride, you’re going to be OK, if you do no exercise and consume a lot of pasta, and bread, and rice, you might run into some issues.

The is so little physical EVIDENCE about what Palaeolithic, Mesolithic or Neolithic people ate (because most of what’s left to find is just “bones and stones”) that trying to second guess it is pretty pointless.

There are many many ways to eat a good balanaced diet

Yep, IME the world of diet and exorcize is full of people promising magic spells that make a healthy lifestyle (or more likely an unhealthy one that make you overly thin or disproportionally muscular) easier.

The age old issue of people wanting the results but not wanting to put the effort in. The cornerstone of the diet industry

OP, research the nutritional ketogenic diet, it just works and is Proven healthier than anything else.

Bold claim – do we have any research or context? Giving your body the opportunity to use fat as a fuel makes sense from both losing weight and endurance sport perspective, I’ve done 100km rides fasted. I’m not entirely convinced it’s a sustainable way of eating.

So Paleolithic people in the Northwest of Europe were probably lactose intolerant… then there was an Ice Age.

Are you referring to any specific interglacial period? the Last Glacial Maximal? the Younger Dryas? The Wurm Interstadial?

Any which ‘peoples’ are you referring to, Haplogroup H? or the Mdna variant pre-V which seems to have arisen near the Caucasus?

Balanced diet and sexercise. At the same time.

DrP

Try it and see? There is evidence that avoiding grains such as wheat can help people with certain gut issues (google FODMAP) although that is because of the types of sugar they contain rather than the fact that they are grains (i.e. rice & others would still be fine).

I think problems with grains arise because they are quite difficult to digest, especially when not prepared properly (i.e. thoroughly fermented).

The difficultly in digesting them is not such a problem if your digestive system is working fine, but these days a lot of people (maybe even most people?) have a compromised system. Grains will only serve to inflame the problem in a lot of cases, and gradually over time symptoms will develop.

So no, grain is not actually bad for you (unless you’re unfortunate enough to be part of a small subset of the population that has a generically inherited problem) and it’s very nutritious when done properly.

With the Paleo diet you do have to watch you don’t develop any nutrient deficiencies. Magnesium for example can be quite difficult to get into your diet without grain.

I talked to a nutritionist about the paleo diet as I found the idea interesting. The conclusion I came away with is not that the paleo diet is good or bad but that some of the underlying ethos is pretty good. Cutting out refinement, cutting added sugars/refined sugars. I’ve altered my diet to keep away from packages foods that have long sell by dates and this includes bread/grains in the form of things like loaves of sliced bread. Some of the paleo foods work well for this – e.g. Fossil Fuel bars.

I’ve reduced my carb intake quite a bit (but not totally), picked up on the good sugars thing but the general approach is to keep away from packaged food stuffs I’ve lost weight, I haven’t felt bloated and have tons of energy. Works for me.

DrP – Member
Balanced diet and sexercise. At the same time.

DrP

Eat a bit less. Eat very little or no crap. Pedal a bit more.

It works.

Couple of things i used to drop over 3 stone.

You can’t out-train a bad diet.

Cut back sugar, especially refined sugar and carbs to lose weight.

Gym work (compound lifts I used mosty) along with cardio helped massively.

Balanced diet otherwise, try to stick to fresh stuff and things not in a packet/packaging.

Saying that when stop eating bread for a while and go back on it I baloon up and white bread in particular makes me feel bloaty.

Is that ‘real’ bread which is bulk fermented slowly and takes 24 hours to make or factory bread (sliced and wrapped or supermarket unsliced type)? Real stuff costs an arm and a leg per loaf £3 to £5 or more factory stuff is usually under £2.

Op, if you have some interest in Paleo I can recommend looking up Fitter Food. Admittedly there is a book but plenty of info from Facebook, instagram and a very listenable podcast all free. I’ve been loosely using it since August and have lost 10kg, more importantly I feel a load better. It’s more Paleo light I’d say, plenty concessions in it and is aimed more at health than weigh loss.