What Is the Paleo Diet and How Can It Help Me Lose Weight?

World Wide Web | What Is the Paleo Diet and How Can It Help Me Lose Weight? |  Everybody's talking about eating like cavemen, but what exactly do they mean when they talk about the paleo diet? This diet is centered around the belief that people should return to the diet cavemen supposedly followed: more lean meats and vegetable dishes, without an overabundance of refined, processed foods and starches. The paleo diet claims to offer a healthy alternative to improve health, strengthen the immune system, and help people lose weight.

What is Paleo? 

The paleo diet is based on the simple idea of removing all heavily processed foods from your diet, and concentrating on lean meats, fruits and vegetable. The plan includes consuming foods that would have been common to the caveman. It encourages dieters to consume more proteins and fewer carbohydrates, with the premise based on the idea that our bodies are genetically programmed to metabolize these food choices, and not the heavily processed and refined foods available today.

What Can I Eat? 

With this plan, a dieter can focus their menus to include lean meats (chicken, turkey, and fish), minimal red meats (beef), all vegetables except for the starches (potatoes and the like), eggs and fruits. Paleo recipes are available on the internet and in many paleo specific cookbooks, as well as many traditional recipes can be re-worked to fit in a more paleo way. The idea is to mimic the caveman's diet which was high in animal fats and low in carbohydrates.

What Can I Not Eat? 

The diet eliminates all starches, grains, sugars, dairy products, salts, processed oils, refined foods, and processed foods. Anything that is starchy in nature is not included in the diet, including beans and legumes. The belief is that cavemen would not have had access to these foods and would thus have had difficulty digesting them. Elimination of these processed goods supposedly can help return the body to its genetically determined metabolism and remove the toxicity of the chemically processed foods we ingest, which paleo proponents believe can lead to unwanted weight gain.

Benefits of the Diet 

Eating a diet consisting of lean meats, fruits and vegetable can indeed be a healthier alternative for many people. Avoiding fatty, processed foods and replacing those unhealthy foods with all natural and organic foods is usually advisable. If weight loss is your goal, the paleo diet could be a healthy addition to your weight loss plan.

But just remember: to lose weight, you must have both a healthy diet and a regular exercise plan. By including regular exercise in your weight loss plan, you are more likely to reach your weight loss goals. If diet and exercise alone are not helping you reach your weight loss goals, adding a natural weight loss supplement may help to kick-start your metabolism. Natural weight loss supplements encourage your body to capitalize on your healthy lifestyle to help you shed the pounds. With a natural weight loss supplement, a regular exercise routine, and a healthy diet that works with your lifestyle, you can be on the road to your dream body in no time.

Article Source: EzineArticles