If You’re Going to Say Paleo Doesn’t Work, Make Sure You Know What Paleo Really Is

One of my biggest pet peeve is reading articles or hearing commentary from people claiming things like, “I tried Paleo and it just doesn’t work for weight loss (or training, or to help one’s skin clear up and so on)” or “Paleo is just not sustainable for the long term” and then finding out that they never really tried Paleo correctly in the first place.

For example, if  one approaches Paleo with the erroneous mindset that it’s all about eating meat all day long, and as a result, they find their digestion becomes irregular, they might then conclude that “Paleo is too low in fiber, so I’d better start eating my fortified cereal again”.

Or, they might go straight to the idea of being ‘Partly Paleo” and eat mostly a Paleo diet, but throw in some bread a few days each week.  If that person has an unknown allergy to wheat, eating those few servings during the week is absolutely enough to prevent their gut from healing and as a result, prevent them from reaping the full benefits of being completely Paleo.

Finally, one might say that Paleo did not sustain them for their endurance training, however, after a conversation, you’d find out that they simply took out all the non Paleo starches…and didn’t replace them with anything.   If you’re a Paleo endurance athlete, like me, you still need starch; it just needn’t come from grains!  Think yams!

If you think you tried it and feel ‘it didn’t work’, please take a good, hard look at what you ate, when you ate, whether or not your meals were balanced and if you ate enough.  

Not sure?  E me and I’ll help you trouble shoot- that’s what the consultations are for.

At any rate, don’t sell it short by making statements that it doesn’t work.  That’s an unfair disservice to what is a very healthy movement which has potential to make leaps and bounds of positive change to a society in a health crisis.