I have a hard time saying I’m following the Paleolithic “diet” because while it is, technically, a diet paradigm, it isn’t “a diet” in the way that popular culture conceives of such a thing. It’s a lifestyle, actually, which is why I like Mark Sisson’s attempt at renaming it: Primal Blueprint.
But whatever you want to call it, it involves a drastic shift in perspective from most dietary recommendations: no grains, no refined sugar, few legumes, and fewer potatoes. By default, that makes it “a low-carb diet” but I get annoyed when it is referred to as such. Carbs are not the focus of a paleo/primal lifestyle, at all.
Yet, the paleo/primal paradigm has a lot in common with Atkins (the most well-known “low-carb diet”). In fact they are basically identical, which means that my different experiences with them makes no sense.
Or do they?
The fact is that when I did Atkins for about four months back in 2005, I was hungry all the time. Well, maybe not hungry: I was in a state of constant craving for things I was not allowed to eat. This is something I have not experienced following the paleo/primal paradigm, though. At all. Cravings? Gone. So what changed? How, on food programs that are on the surface nearly identical, did I have such drastically different experiences? There is a reason, it just doesn’t have much to do with the diets themselves. It was ME.
On Atkins, once I was out of the draconian inductive stage, which is the first week or so (or more, depending) where carbs are kept extremely limited, I was always eyeing pizza and sandwiches and pasta and filled with longing. I needed those things; I had to have them. So like everyone else, I started buying “low carb” versions of everything I did not want to live without. I lost about 20 pounds, but by four months in I was over the restrictiveness of it (I hate counting carbs just as much as I hate counting calories) and tired of low carb fake food, so I quit the plan. I never got to that point of amazing energy that so many Atkins people talk about, and I certainly could not imagine living the rest of my life in that state of on-going cravings.
Going paleo/primal was something else entirely. I did not count a damn thing, not carbs or calories or fat grams, nor did I weigh portions or count servings. Nada. I know myself well enough to know that I can do the counting game for a while, but as a lifestyle, it sucks. I also firmly believe that it is not how the human body was designed; oh yes, it can be a precision machine – athletes prove that – but that’s the exceptional choice (and all power to you if it is yours). Mostly, our bodies were designed to just get along as best they can with what is available, and if it isn’t getting along very well, then something is wrong with what we are making available to it (barring medical complications like illness, cancer, genetic conditions etc.).
I firmly believe that the key to living well is to not starve yourself all the time. I simply could not conceive that a continual, ongoing craving for food is natural or healthy, and yet that is exactly how I felt in every diet I’ve ever been on: vegetarian, low-fat, low-calorie, vegan, zone, weight watchers, you name it and I’ve been hungry on it. I’ve never lost the crazy!need to eat or the cravings that come with that.
If I can be grateful to Atkins for one thing, it showed me personally and conclusively that I was totally dependent on grains to the point of addiction. Once I had a small bowl of rice, I would suddenly and desperately need a large bowl of rice. A slice of fresh bread became half a loaf, and don’t get me started on those damn Olive Garden breadsticks.
What I did instead was decide what I can live with, or in this case, without, and that is grains. Not because I don’t love them, because OMG I so do, but because I wanted to be healthy and (most importantly) not hungry.
Once I kicked out the grains, the cravings disappeared. No, I don’t mean I got them “under control” – that is flat out fucking impossible, I’ve been trying to do that for 25 damn years, okay? Not happening. No, what happened is they disappeared.
To me, the difference between Atkins and paleo/primal is that one is “a diet” and the other is a lifestyle.
I know many people do live Atkins lifestyles, and that works for them. That’s fine; I’m grateful for whatever works for the sake of whomever it works for. Just, for me, it didn’t. I hated the carb counting and the fact that grains are allowed – no matter in how minute – was a catastrophic failing for me. (I also know of many paleo/primal adherents who do count carbs and are very, very strict about intake, which just goes to show that it’s really all up to the individual.)
I continue to not count carbs and basically eat whatever I want, whenever I want it. I just don’t want grains, amazingly enough, and while sometimes I do enjoy a beer or sushi, I’m always careful to treat them as the potential health-wreckers they are for me. I can’t leave grains alone, if I allow myself to have them regularly. That is that, as they say.
I feel better now than I ever have in my entire life, and FFS I think it counts for something. It counts for everything.
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[Please note: I’m not a nutritionist nor do I play one on TV. These are my experiences with my own body, and probably don’t reflect yours. If you want to try out the Paleolithic lifestyle, I suggest reading things written by people much smarter and better researched than I:
Wikipedia entry on the paleolithic diet
Big whopping web page ‘o links
Paleo Pepper’s Paleo Archive (links to lots of medical info)
Dr. Cordain’s “The Paleo Diet” website (Dr. Cordain is a very well-known proponent and the author of several books)]
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