Chapter 1

Grasping the What and Why of Paleo

In This Chapter

Explaining the foundations of the Paleo diet and why it works

Digging into the scientific foundation of the lifestyle

Looking and feeling better by following the Paleo lifestyle

Bringing the exercise component into your Paleo program

Finding out about the Paleo transformation

Being sensible about moving your body

Paleo is the answer. If you've suffered with weight problems or health issues, you're in for a treat. Every aspect of your health improves when you incorporate Paleo principles into your life. Your body starts to transform right before your eyes, and suddenly, your outlook is optimistic.

Your eyes brighten, your skin takes on a completely different sheen, and your wrinkles start to fade. You begin to shed body fat as you watch your stomach get flatter and flatter. Your muscle tone improves, your hair gets silky, your teeth seem stronger. Your mood elevates, and you begin to notice that you feel happier. Your body begins to calm, releasing anxiety and tension. You start to forget what it feels like to have aches and pains, and your entire body seems to lose the bloated feeling it's been carrying around for far too long. You begin to be more than just present in life; you begin to start really living life. For some, it's the first time in a very long time.

You'd be hard-pressed to find a more excited group of people than those who have transformed their lives to living Paleo. What you find in the pages of this book is an easy-to-follow nutritional blueprint and fitness program that actually exists and works - and when you adopt this plan, everything gets easier.

In this chapter, you discover some foundational Paleo principles, including the answers to questions about how the Paleo diet came to be, the foods that make up the Paleo diet, the science behind Paleo success, and how living Paleo will soon have you looking and feeling better than ever.

Living Paleo takes you from a place of hopelessness to hope. So what are you waiting for? Dig in!

It's a Lifestyle, Not a Diet

Living Paleo takes the mystery out of eating. It's simplicity at its finest, which is one of the reasons eating Paleo foods works well for so many. When you eat simply (but deliciously), you get results.

Many eating plans, programs, and products give you lots of rules and may even require special foods, which makes understanding these plans and staying committed to them even harder. The biggest missing element in other plans is the core ingredient for long-term success - health. Most programs don't move you toward health either biologically or behaviorally. If your cells aren't getting healthier and your behavior is expected to change in strict ways only for the short term, the entire purpose is lost. You don't discover how to eat and live for the rest of your life.

Paleo is different; Paleo is based on simple, easy-to-understand nutritional principles. Eating Paleo takes away all the confusion and is natural to implement. It's something you can stick with for a long time.

Paleo is the abbreviation for Paleolithic. The Paleo diet refers to foods consumed during the Paleolithic era, the time from about 2.5 million years ago up to 10,000 BC.

A lot of people start the Paleo diet to get a killer body. And living Paleo is a great way to move toward your ideal body, but what most people experience is even more powerful. Living Paleo literally changes their lives for the better. If you've had aches and pains, fatigue, skin issues, menstrual problems, chronic inflammation, digestive complaints, weight gain, depression, fertility problems, autoimmune struggles, diabetes, or cardiovascular disease, you're going to love living Paleo.

The hormone-modulating, anti-inflammatory, nutrient-dense properties of the Paleo lifestyle help regulate all the systems and functions of the body. Your body resets at a higher functioning level, so you'll not only look better eating Paleo, but you'll also feel better. Living Paleo supports the healing and prevention of many chronic diseases. And thanks to the nutrition-packed foods of the Paleo diet, you start sporting a much stronger cellular system, and with that comes healing and transformation.

Enjoying foods that make up the Paleo diet

When you think Paleo foods, think grassroots - simple, back-to-nature foods filled with nutrients that bring you back to life. Paleo foods are what you are designed to eat. They're the foods that your body digests and absorbs efficiently. Paleo foods have the most positive impact on all the structures and functions of your body.

The foundational Paleo foods include lean meats, seafood, vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, and naturally occurring healthy fats - those that have always been found in animals and plants. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors survived on these foods. In the Paleolithic era, no one planted crops, and no factories churned out industrialized foods. Our ancestors didn't have access to grains, sugars, starches, legumes, dairy, processed foods, or oils - and autopsies show that they were better for it. They may not have had the convenience of a one-minute meal, but our ancestors had far higher levels of health and didn't suffer from the modern-day diseases we do today.

Changes in everyday foods and in food processing have fundamentally altered modern diets. Paleo foods differ nutritionally in several ways, such as their ability to do the following:

• Balance blood sugar and keep your overall sugar load down
• Create a favorable fatty-acid balance (omega-6 to omega-3 balance)
• Balance macronutrients (proteins, fats, and carbohydrates)
• Provide adequate amounts of trace nutrients (minerals)
• Promote and maintain acid-base balance (how acid and alkaline your blood is)
• Add robust amounts of fiber to your daily plate (for intestinal health)

The fact that modern-day foods aren't working is rather obvious. People are sicker and fatter than ever and are more confused about what to eat and how to live than in any other time in history. But living Paleo cuts through the confusion and clarifies what foods move you toward health.

When you begin eating Paleo, your body sheds unhealthy cells. You peel away layers of fat; you become leaner, stronger, and healthier.

Taking a cue from our ancestors

Our bodies haven't changed much since before agricultural society. Our body's needs now are similar to what they were during Paleolithic times, before the dawn of agriculture.

Humans have been shaped and molded over a hundred thousand generations. What our bodies were designed to eat then, they are designed to eat now. In other words, our genes are still stuck in the hunter-gatherer's time, even though we're living in the modern world. Our genes simply haven't caught up to the modern-day divergence.

About 10,000?years ago, the birth of agriculture changed the way people lived. Hunter-gatherers became attracted to a new way of life based on a routine and settled existence that centered around agriculture and the breeding of animals.

The tidal wave of change happened again a few hundred years ago with the Industrial Revolution. The impact that this technological progress has had on human biology is huge. Some of these advancements have provided safety and convenience. But some of these man-made environmental changes have caused a pandemic of human suffering and diseases that were unknown to our ancestors.

Autopsies show that the hunter-gatherers were some of the healthiest people to walk the earth. Using their lifestyle as our template, we can strike a balance between modern-day living and our grassroots beginning.

Living the way we were designed

If you've tried other eating plans and haven't been successful long term or if you've been trying to get well and are making little headway, you're probably carrying the wrong road map. Here's why: The missing link is probably that you're not eating the foods that you're designed to eat or living the lifestyle you're designed to live.

Our genes have changed very little since Paleolithic times. In fact, according to medical anthropologist S. Boyd Eaton, MD, 99.99 percent of our genes were formed before the development of agriculture. This is big. That means that our hunter-gatherer ancestors programmed our genes. How they ate is our nutritional blueprint, how they moved is the blueprint for our physiology, and how they lived is the blueprint for the lifestyle we should strive to lead.

You don't need to live life as a science experiment, trying to reenact everything our ancestors did or see the world through Paleo goggles. You just need to understand how your genes were programmed and try to model that as closely as you can. When you model the Paleo lifestyle, your struggles will be greatly reduced.

As humans, our bodies are the result of an optimal design that has been shaped and molded by nature. To look and feel your absolute best, you have to do what it's designed to do. Paleo All-in-One For Dummies is your reference guide to show you how to live according to your nature.

Living Paleo is about getting you healthy....