 Lionesses of Chauvet Cave, from Wiki Commons | |
Hi Everyone and Welcome to my blog! I've tried just about every diet/lifestyle out there since my teenage years. Calorie counting, point counting, vegetarian, vegan, Ayurvedic, Atkins, Food Combining, Intermittent Fasting, Detoxing and so on and so on. The only diet that has ever truly worked is getting rid of starchy carbs. Back in the 1970s, diet plates consisted of a hamburger patty, scoop of cottage cheese and a peach halve. In the 1980s, diet gurus scoffed at this and recommended eating pasta, or rice, or potatoes with vegetables and no added fat. Then it was whole grains and beans, lots of beans (and not much fun for family members). And how about raw foods, juice diets, smoothie diets. Each one of these has some value in terms of healthfulness (after all, anyone will benefit from more vegetables and fruit). However, as I've discovered the two times in my life that I've worked with a low carb diet, really the old 70's gurus were onto something. It has to do with balancing your blood sugar and diets high in carbohydrates--even really good ones--can send that blood sugar spiking. A juice diet can be low in calories, but all that juice can really mess up your sugar balance and leave you quite hungry much of the time. Protein satiates hunger and supports lean muscle mass. Now, the reality is that if you have a lot of weight to lose, it is likely that ANY diet plan, no matter how imperfect, will help you drop some pounds. However most people don't want to drop them only to gain them back. And, for those of us in middle age, or perimenopause, or menopause, or post-pregnancy, our bodies will not respond to just any diet. I know, I've tried!
Exercising like mad doesn't work either. Again, a sensible exercise program is great for anyone, however, it takes a lot of work to burn just a few calories. The really sad thing is that as we exercise more, we also find ourselves hungrier and sometimes more tired. And when we get tired and hungry we tend to make bad choices--to eat too much of the wrong things. Overexercising can also make us vulnerable to injury, or just destined to get really bored or resentful. Most of us would enjoy exercise quite a lot more if it meant more walking, hiking, playing frisbee, or badminton, or tennis, or tossing a ball around, or cross-country skiing, as opposed to grinding away on treadmills, steppers and weight machines. We've turned movement into a chore, not a pleasure, and then seek food as a reward for our pain.
The way to end this cycle of useless dieting (losing the same five pounds over and over again) and exercise tedium is to go back to living the way our bodies were designed to live. Forget cavemen, even my great-grandmother would have to have thought me insane putting time into pedaling a bike being ridden to nowhere!
So let's get started! First, think about the diets/food plans you've tried and how they have/haven't worked. Make a list and enumerate the things you didn't like about them. Then do the same with exercise. What have you tried that has felt foolish, or futile? List that too. Then think about the quality of your sleep. The quality of your sex life. How you spend your spare time. Yep, we're going to talk about all of that. There are many things from the Paleolithic age that we wouldn't want to have to endure. Exposure to the elements. Times of scarcity. Epidemic diseases with no vaccinations or cures. Broken bones without proper care and attention. Large animal threats. But there is also something to be learned from the way we have evolved and the problems that have evolved with that progress. What's exciting about our New Age is that we can pick and choose what developments work and which are better left behind. We don't have to eat Doritos and stay up till 2:00 am on Facebook. Truly! The people of the past were able to survive well enough to create elegant art like that found in the caves at Chauvet (pictured above). I adore the elegant lines of these lionesses. I find it encouraging that early humans felt the need to create and to pay homage to their world despite the difficulties they must have experienced. Our world is fraught with hardships too, but in this New Age we can rise above that and create a better model of human living.
Here's to New Age Paleo and a wonderful journey of rediscovery--
Lisabeth
Exercising like mad doesn't work either. Again, a sensible exercise program is great for anyone, however, it takes a lot of work to burn just a few calories. The really sad thing is that as we exercise more, we also find ourselves hungrier and sometimes more tired. And when we get tired and hungry we tend to make bad choices--to eat too much of the wrong things. Overexercising can also make us vulnerable to injury, or just destined to get really bored or resentful. Most of us would enjoy exercise quite a lot more if it meant more walking, hiking, playing frisbee, or badminton, or tennis, or tossing a ball around, or cross-country skiing, as opposed to grinding away on treadmills, steppers and weight machines. We've turned movement into a chore, not a pleasure, and then seek food as a reward for our pain.
The way to end this cycle of useless dieting (losing the same five pounds over and over again) and exercise tedium is to go back to living the way our bodies were designed to live. Forget cavemen, even my great-grandmother would have to have thought me insane putting time into pedaling a bike being ridden to nowhere!
So let's get started! First, think about the diets/food plans you've tried and how they have/haven't worked. Make a list and enumerate the things you didn't like about them. Then do the same with exercise. What have you tried that has felt foolish, or futile? List that too. Then think about the quality of your sleep. The quality of your sex life. How you spend your spare time. Yep, we're going to talk about all of that. There are many things from the Paleolithic age that we wouldn't want to have to endure. Exposure to the elements. Times of scarcity. Epidemic diseases with no vaccinations or cures. Broken bones without proper care and attention. Large animal threats. But there is also something to be learned from the way we have evolved and the problems that have evolved with that progress. What's exciting about our New Age is that we can pick and choose what developments work and which are better left behind. We don't have to eat Doritos and stay up till 2:00 am on Facebook. Truly! The people of the past were able to survive well enough to create elegant art like that found in the caves at Chauvet (pictured above). I adore the elegant lines of these lionesses. I find it encouraging that early humans felt the need to create and to pay homage to their world despite the difficulties they must have experienced. Our world is fraught with hardships too, but in this New Age we can rise above that and create a better model of human living.
Here's to New Age Paleo and a wonderful journey of rediscovery--
Lisabeth
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