Paleo diet

What is Paleo Diet?

A paleo diet, also known as the Caveman Diet is a dietary plan based on foods similar to what might have been eaten during the Paleolithic era, which dates from approximately 2.5 million to 10,000 years ago.

A paleo diet typically includes lean meats, fish, fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds, foods that in the past could be obtained by hunting and gathering.

A paleo diet limits foods that became common when farming emerged about 10,000 years ago.

These foods include dairy products, legumes and grains

Weight loss effects of Paleo Diet

The aim of a paleo diet is to return to a way of eating that's more like what early humans ate.

The diet's reasoning is that the human body is genetically mismatched to the modern diet that emerged with farming practices, an idea known as the discordance hypothesis.

Farming changed what people ate and established dairy, grains and legumes as additional staples in the human diet.

This relatively late and rapid change in diet, according to the hypothesis, outpaced the body's ability to adapt.

This mismatch is believed to be a contributing factor to the prevalence of obesity, diabetes and heart disease today.

A number of clinical trials have compared the paleo diet to other eating plans, such as the Mediterranean Diet or the Diabetes Diet.

Overall, these trials suggest that a paleo diet provides some benefits when compared with diets of fruits, vegetables, lean meats, whole grains, legumes and low-fat dairy products.

These benefits include:

More weight loss
Improved glucose tolerance
Better blood pressure control
Lower triglycerides
Better appetite management

What to eat?

Fruits
Vegetables
Nuts and seeds
Lean meats, especially grass-fed animals or wild game
Fish, especially those rich in omega-3 fatty acids, such as salmon, mackerel and albacore tuna
Oils from fruits and nuts, such as olive oil or walnut oil