Every few years, a new diet fad comes around, something that millions of people will try to lose weight. Some of these will legitimately help you, while others can be quite harmful. Each diet tries to find some unique way to hook people, aiming to be both easy to follow and provide great health benefits. One of the newer diet crazes to come about is the Paleo Diet.
If you’ve heard of this diet (and you probably have), you might be wondering what it is, and whether it’s any good for you. To help you out, here is what you need to know about the Paleo Diet, including the health benefits you might receive from following it.
What is the Paleo Diet?
The idea behind the Paleo Diet is this – humans have over engineered their food, and we need to get back to basics. This means that you no longer eat things like process sugars or grains. Instead, you only eat what the caveman used to eat – namely a lot of protein and vegetables.
On the Paleo Diet you eat a lot of things like fish, chicken, vegetables, and the occasional fruits and nuts. There’s no dairy, no grains, and no sugar. You’re essentially cutting out some of the major food groups humans primarily eat today. Is this a good idea? Well, here are some of the benefits you might get from such a diet.
Weight Loss
The main reason some people turn to the Paleo Diet is to lose weight. Since most humans gain weight from an abundance of sugars and carbs, cutting those out of your diet entirely will certainly help you to lose weight.
However, this is primarily for people who have weight to lose. If you’re not overweight, you won’t see this benefit of the Paleo Diet.
Easy to Follow
One reason that many diets fail is because they are too hard to follow. You just want to go into your kitchen and get something to eat, not count the number of points each food is worth or take a magnifying glass to the ingredients list.
With the Paleo Diet, there isn’t much guessing. You just stick to the major food groups allowed and cut out all the rest. While it may be hard to adjust to this lifestyle, it at least doesn’t take a lot of math to figure it all out.
Plenty of Options
Lastly, while the Paleo Diet may sound limiting, you’d be surprised at how much you can still eat. Once you get the hang of it, and you adjust your life, you should find that you’re not really depriving yourself.
Sure, you won’t get to have that piece of cake at the next birthday party, but that doesn’t mean good foods are gone from your life entirely. Nowadays you can even do things like get beef jerky online, making your shopping easier. There’s plenty of options on the Paleo Diet, if you’re willing to try new things and explore those options.
Drawbacks of the Paleo Diet
Of course, as with any diet, there are some drawbacks. For starters, the science is still out as to how much benefit one can really get from the Paleo Diet. While it may help you to lose weight, the same can be said for many other diets as well.
In addition, the Paleo Diet can be expensive. The reason so many people eat things like processed grains and sugars is because they are cheaper. If you are cutting out these large sections from your diet, you’ll have to replace them with more expensive options. Not everyone has the budget room sufficient to handle the Paleo Diet.
Finally, grains and dairy provide key nutrients, and if you cut them out of your diet, you run the risk of losing them. For example, dairy is high in calcium, and cutting it out could increase your chance of developing osteoporosis. If you’re going to go on the Paleo Diet, you need to ensure you’re still getting all the nutrients your body needs.
Should You Go on the Paleo Diet?
So, is the Paleo Diet right for you? The answer is, it depends. Everyone is different, and your needs will differ from everyone else’s. Perhaps the best solution is to try a diet that is somewhere in the middle – one that cuts back on processed foods and sugars and substitutes it with more proteins and vegetables, without cutting them out entirely.
Take some time to explore the Paleo Diet more thoroughly, then decide if it’s right for you. You can always try out the diet to see if you like it, then try something else if you find it’s not working.
Via: HealthifyMe | SFGate
