A relatively new breed of dieters out there are looking to lose weight and get in shape by sticking to a simple diet, similar to the kind embraced (by necessity) by the people living in the Paleolithic era.

It involves meat, fish, fruit, and vegetables — without the more modern creations of the kitchen, such as pastries and coffee.

It’s a regimen that restricts followers to a basic diet of meat, fish, fruits and vegetables while eliminating all grains, beans, salt, sugar and dairy.

Much as I did when I first found out about the so-called Atkins diet about ten or so years ago, my immediate reaction to reading about the Caveman diet was extreme skepticism. Let us not forget the sage words of David W. Boles, who only recently wrote that it is just a matter of time before pretty much everyone will be keeping a Vegan diet — it only makes sense.

If you have high cholesterol, changing to a Vegan diet is an easy way to lower your lipids into an acceptable range. I’m disappointed that so many people prefer to pop a pill like Lipitor instead of just eating more fruits and grains and vegetables — but I know the day will come with the high-fat American diet will lose favor as people finally realize, not too late we hope, that there is a better way to achieve better health, and the solution is as simple as the food in front of your face.

There’s also the issue that people during the Paleolithic era did not spend hours in front of the computer and were, in fact, burning hundreds of calories every hour from being constantly on the move during the day. Why would you eat like a swimmer, for example, if you were only going to be fiddling around on the computer all day long?

There are many diets out there and pretty much every single one of them is guaranteed to be a long term failure in the long run because the moment you step off of the guidelines of the diet for too long, you will go back to putting on weight and that means that you have failed. The only long term way to keep off excess weight is to not go on diets but rather to change the way you eat and are active during the day, and therefore not have to think about how many days are left on the diet — because it is not something that simply ends.

4 Comments

  1. I think people will use any rationale available to help them “know” they’re supposed to “eat meat” even though they already know meat is terrible for their bodies. We only need to look to our teeth to know we aren’t supposed to be meat eaters. We don’t have the incisors for it.

  2. A rather ill informed article and an ill informed response, glad you brought up the teeth thing though because the historic and skeletal evidence both clearly show we ate meat and still need meat. This is because animal matter provides the ‘only’ 2 essential macronutrients…those being protein and fat. Animal Fat being absolutely critical for brain stability and development. Yes protein can be created within the body from carbohydrate sources though this is second rate compared to the animal form. Carbohydrate is optional and ought indeed to be limited as a diet high in carbohydrate such as grains, and in particular refined carbohydrates disrupts the the biochemistry leading to weight gain, sickness and brain disorders. Was extremely disappointed to read your promotion of a vegan diet as this kind of diet is nothing short of catastrophic for optimal health and longevity, you may or may not survive on a carbohydrate diet, though what is certain is you will not thrive!. In contrast for optimal health and increased longevity including yes of course sustainable weight loss there is no better choice than a diet of foods free of mans intervention for profit, I refer of course to a paleo, stoneage, caveman (call it what you like) style diet.
    Point of clarification: Dairy is fine of course it is, do you not think female mammals with young were not quarry, of course they were and as such occasional dairy is absolutely fine so long as it’s raw and not pasteurised (processed).

    You ought also to know no culture in our history has adopted vegetarianism through choice…it’s merely a fashionable trend and an unhealthy one at that.

    1. Sorry to say but I must disagree. There are many extremely healthy vegans and vegetarians. It is true that a diet high in refined carbohydrates is bad but a diet high in whole grain carbohydrates, quite the opposite.

      I posit that the cow’s milk is perfectly suitable — for calves. I suppose we will have to agree to disagree.

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