The Paleolithic or Paleo Diet has gained popularity in recent years because of its radical standpoints on human genetics and nutrition and its purported ability to promote weight loss. The diet is based on comparisons between our eating habits today and those of humans before the dawn of the agricultural revolution. It aims to modify our dietary patterns and make them as close to the diet of our ancestors as possible. This means consuming more natural foods and prohibiting processed foods and food items that early humans did not have much access to (i.e. dairy, potatoes, grains). Proponents of the diet believe that this kind of back-to-nature eating will make us healthier and hopefully help us live longer.
It can also assist in weight loss, because:
It reduces our intake of bad carbs and empty calories.
The bulk of our ancestor’s diet consisted of low-fat meats, vegetables, and fruits.
Although food was nowhere near as readily available as it is today, these foods gave our ancestors enough proteins, vitamins, minerals, and carbohydrates to get them through the general difficulties of food hunting and gathering, which they did for millions of years before they learned about agriculture a few thousand years ago.
In contrast, the typical meal of an average American today is heavily dependent on grains. Breakfast consists of cereal, bread, muffins, and donuts, while lunch and dinner consist of slabs of meat and platefuls of mashed potatoes, pasta, rice, corn, and bread. Even when almost two-thirds of the population is overweight and more than a third is obese, the government still suggests consuming 6-10 servings of carbohydrates a day. As a result of this dependency on nutritionally-empty grains, we are getting fatter and sicker and putting enormous stresses on the planet.
The Paleo Diet allows us to work with our genetic potential and eat foods that our bodies are evolutionary used to. Back when food was scarce and our ancestors subsisted through hunting and gathering, their main source of energy was protein, not carbohydrates. Our bodies and metabolic processes have not changed much in the last million years, our bodies do not know what to do with all the excess carbs we consume. This is why the carbohydrates we ingest that are not immediately used up are stored in our bodies as fat.
It is ketogenic.
A lot of people wonder, “If I’m not eating carbs, where will I get the energy to get through the day?” Unbeknownst to most of us, we can actually survive and function on lower amounts of carbs than we normally consume. When there is a lack of carbs to turn into glucose, our body burns our stored fat instead, in a process called ketogenesis. Our bodies are pretty efficient and this is actually what they are used to. Even if you don’t consume bread, pasta, potatoes, and rice, you can still get carbohydrates from vegetables and fruit, which are chockfull of health benefits as well.
It is filling.
This is probably the simplest explanation as to how the Paleo Diet promotes weight loss. Because it forces you to eat more protein, vegetables, and foods such as sweet potatoes, you don’t feel inclined to gorge on carb-loaded foods such as pastries and pizza. Unlike, for example, a bowl of pasta that will fill you up for about an hour and then have you searching for food again, sufficient servings of meats and vegetables keep you feeling full for hours.