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The paleo diet of Dr. Lorena Cordaina has its roots in prehistory. But right now it is a hit with weight loss diets! Instead of "hunting" for carbohydrates, he tells you to increase the amount of protein in your diet. And supplement them with vegetables and fruits. Check out the rules of the paleo diet.

Paleo dietdescribed in detail by Dr. Lorena Cordain in the book "The Paleo Diet. Lose weight and live he althy thanks to the diet for which we were created ”(Wydawnictwo Literackie 2011) refers directly to the results of research conducted by his team, but also by other scientists. Thanks to this, according to Cordain, he managed to reconstruct the diet of primitive people quite accurately, i.e. the one that - in his opinion - is optimal for our body, allows us to stay he althy and slim.

Paleo diet: slimming like prehistoric hunters

First of allThe paleo dietinvolves a balance between the consumption of plant and animal products. Secondly, it determines the right proportions of protein, fat and carbohydrates: there should be more protein and less carbohydrates than in typicalweight loss diets . The basic products of this diet are lean meat (venison, seafood is ideal), fruit and vegetables that do not contain starch (i.e. potatoes are crossed out).

From the very beginning, man was a hunter-gatherer. He ate what he hunted and found on the ground, in water, in trees. It lasted for nearly 2.5 million years, during this time our body has perfectly adapted and learned to use the necessary energy and strength from the products obtained in this way. However, approx. 12 thousand. years ago, the so-called the great neolithic revolution that changed man's way of life and stopped being an ever-moving hunter-gatherer to become a settled breeder-farmer. This fact had far-reaching consequences: food surpluses appeared and it began to be processed, more and more over time. And the man - began to gain weight.

Dr. Loren Cordain: “Our cars run on the correct fuel for them. When water is poured into the tank, the effect is catastrophic for the engine. A similar principle can be seen with humans - we are programmed to perform optimally on propulsion from wild plants and animal products.

Why? Becausethe genetic development and evolution of the human body, and hence the ability to digest and assimilate individual foods, is progressing thousands, even millions of times slower than the progress of civilization. And this means that we did not have a chance to adapt to the digestion of products that are mass-produced, sold and… consumed today.

The basics of today's diet - grains, dairy products, refined sugar, fatty meats, and s alted, processed foods - are like water to the engine's metabolic machinery. These foods clog our engine, cause us to gain weight, and cause illness and malaise.

Paleo diet: rules

Learning from this, Dr. S. Boyd Eaton of Amory University in Atlanta, in 1985, theorized that based on knowledge of what our Stone Age ancestors ate, an ideal diet could be developed to match your genetic makeup. conditions and needs of the modern human body.

His thought was developed by Dr. Loren Cordain, developing at the turn of the century the so-called paleo diet. On the one hand, it is focused on a high protein content, on the other - it strongly reduces carbohydrates.

The basis of the paleo diet is lean meat. The best, because the closest to the original patterns, is game. Like seafood, it contains approx. 80 percent. proteins and 20 percent. fat. However, the relatively high price and limited supply make lean farmed meat the basis. But - and this is very important - unprocessed meat.

Processed meat products (sausages, luncheon meat) must be completely eliminated from the menu - their fat content reaches up to 75 percent, and only 25 percent. it's protein! However, the paleo diet does not completely do away with the saturated fat contained in unprocessed farmed meat. Although, of course, it focuses primarily on good fats, i.e. mainly monounsaturated (e.g. olive, nuts, avocado) and polyunsaturated omega-3 (e.g. fish) and omega-6 (e.g. vegetable oils).

Fruit and vegetables are an equally important part of the paleo diet, the primary source of carbohydrate in the human diet. Containing natural antioxidants, phytohormones and fiber, they support the body in the fight against heart disease, cancer and osteoporosis. Their wild varieties, harvested and eaten raw, constituted an important supplement to the food of primitive humans. At the same time, they are starch-poor and normalize blood glucose and insulin levels.

Don't do that

In the paleo diet, avoid:

  • processed meat products (sausages, luncheon meat)
  • processed cereal products (bread, rolls, cakes, pizza, pasta)
  • of all grains
  • potatoes
  • dairy
  • refined sugar and its derivatives.

Not everything in the paleo diet is logical

Some theses of Dr. Cordain, however, raise doubts. For example, he writes: “Most people do not realize how he althy the Paleolithic people were. Slim, physically fit, they did not know heart diseases and other ailments of the inhabitants of Western countries ”. It is worth remembering, however, that the average life expectancy of people in the Stone Age was about 30 years, and the above-mentioned description concerns mainly young hunters. And what is important, their slim, athletic figure was shaped primarily by a very large amount of movement associated with distant hunting expeditions, often with many hours of chases after game.

But when it comes to women who, after all, stayed in camps to look after children and fire, it is worth remembering the statues of Paleolithic Venus (from Willendorf, Hohle Fels or Tan-Tan), depicting their idealized image: wide hips, prominent breasts, bellies and thighs. This means that when using the paleo diet (but also all the others), one of the most important factors for good appearance and well-being - physical activity. Even when hunting for he althy food in a supermarket.

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