Category: Nutrition
Posted by Alison - June 14, 2011 - Nutrition, Paleo
At long last here are the results of the 8 week PALEO CHALLENGE!
First, big congratulations to everyone who completed the challenge. Every single one of you lost body fat %, and most also gained pounds of lean mass at the same time. That’s not easy, especially in such a brief time period.
But anyway, let’s get on with the results……………………..
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wait for it…………………………………………………………..
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Team who LOST the most % body fat:
D-Tran’s Team! Dave, SB, Chase and Andy!
With over 31 lbs lost, totaling 15.2%. Good work!
Now, team who GAINED the most lean mass:
Marvin’s Team! Marvin, Liza, Jen G, Alexis and JCook!
With 6.3 lbs of solid muscle gain between the 5 of you. NICE.
Congratulations to all the winning team members— see Eric to collect your prizes. No one ever said eating Paleo was cheap, so you all get Whole Foods gift cards 
I also want to recognize some standout CrossFitters with amazing numbers:
Guy: lost 4.9% body fat Guy: gained 3.3 lb lean mass
Andy: lost 4.6% body fat J. Cook: gained 2.9 lb lean mass
D-Tran: lost 4.0% body fat Olinda: gained 2.2 lb lean mass
Again, fantastic work to all involved in this challenge. To all those who missed it this time around, don’t worry, this won’t be the last Paleo Challenge. The dunk tank WILL be back….. and soon. Are you ready?
Alison
Posted by Alison - May 24, 2011 - Nutrition
Congratulations to all those participating in the Paleo Challenge! We’re still waiting on some data before crowning the official winners, but I will say that every single person saw results which is AWESOME!
Sharing is caring: jump on the comments section and talk about your experiences: what you learned, new foods you tried, how amazing you feel, what you’re most proud of, what surprised you…. GO!
So now that the challenge is over, what next? My hope is that all of you will be able to take what you’ve learned over the last 8 weeks and continue on the path towards great health, vitality and fitness and keep up with the paleo principles. Does that mean being super strict all the time and never seeing another cookie, taco or (gasp) sushi? Good god no. There is a balance to be found, where you can reap the benefits of good nutrition while still maintaining a sense of normalcy. I think that balance is somewhere around 80-90/ 10-20. If 80-90% of the time you’re eating delicious, real food then 10-20% of the time can be a bit more relaxed. This means you don’t have to be the freak at the birthday party who refuses to eat a cupcake, or “that person” at the restaurant with all the rules and substitutions. We don’t live in a vacuum, and need to be realistic about the food world around us and have an attitude about sustainability and not perfection. It will do you no good to be 100% paleo for a fixed amount of time and then give up on it completely when you deem it too difficult. Eating well is not an “all or nothing” situation and you will see benefits with every inch towards better nutrition.
So, take what you learned during these last months and figure out what works best for you and stick with it most of the time. To keep you motivated, we will have food challenges every now and again, and the dunk tank will make appearances every few months for those who want to track their progress or for newbies to find out their baseline. As always, I’m around for questions and nerdy nutrition discussions and will be continuing with these posts every other Tuesday. Questions encouraged
YAAAAAY Paleo!
Posted by Alison - April 7, 2011 - Nutrition, Paleo
Hey all!
I thought we could do a weekly paleo recipe exchange and/or sharing of paleo-friendly restaurants that we find. If you’re especially proud of something that you made, throw it on the comments section.
Alison
Posted by Alison - March 28, 2011 - Nutrition, Paleo
The Paleolithic Diet is based on foods that humans had access to during the Paleolithic Era, a period dating from 2.5 million years to about 12,000 years ago. These early humans were hunters and gatherers, and it is thought that their diets consisted primarily of meats, seafood, vegetables, fruits, seeds and nuts. The Paleo Era was before the agricultural Neolithic Era, so Paleo peeps did not likely eat any grains or dairy from domesticated animals.
First thing to notice is that the Paleo era lasted an incredibly long time- just about 2 ½ million years. Although the end date of around 12,000 years ago also seems like forever, this is a mere drop in the bucket compared to the length of the Paleo era. For 2 ½ million years humans were hunter-gatherers, and their bodies were thriving on these foods, and for only 1/208 that time, we’ve been using agriculture to obtain new foods. So in taking a step back, the dawn of agriculture doesn’t seem like too long ago and the main principle behind the Paleo diet is that we haven’t had enough time to adapt to these rapid dietary changes.
It is important to note that we don’t have concrete “proof” of the exact diet of this time. Since the cavemen didn’t exactly keep food records, we can only make educated guesses based on ancient tools that have been found and analysis of fossilized human remains. Also helpful are modern age hunter-gatherer societies, who are studied for their current diet and to see what happens when they start eating like the rest of the world.
The exact foods eaten during the Paleo era varied by location, based on plants and animals native to the area. Some inland populations may have had access to more meat, while those lucky coastal tribes subsisted on seafood, and while still others were likely to be periodically vegetarian due to hardships in finding and killing animals. Regardless of this, it is generally accepted that the only possible food available during this lengthy time of human evolution was meat/fish, vegetables, fruit, seeds and nuts. The common denominator here is that these are all foods that you don’t have to cook or process in order to enjoy… unlike, say, grains which you would have to mill and then cook before they become edible. Eggs are a more controversial inclusion to the Paleo diet and will be addressed in a later posting.
So, because this is the food our bodies evolved to eat, this is also the food that will keep us healthy and potentially prevent chronic diseases, right? That’s the idea, which has been corroborated with personal stories and case studies, and research is starting to catch up as well. For me, this just screams out common sense. Paleo is based on real, whole foods as close to nature as possible, and it makes people feel better when they consistently eat this way. More filling and typically lower in calories, Paleo tends to promote leaner bodies while supplying all of the necessary nutrients to sustain health. So why not give it a go?
Stay tuned for more on the benefits of Paleo and how to get started in the next two posts.
Resources:
Food list (http://altmed.creighton.edu/Paleodiet/Foodlist.html) *Note: I don’t particularly agree with the exclusion of fatty meats, or the inclusion of canola oil from this list. More on my big fat opinion later.
Official CrossFit nutrition prescription: (http://www.crossfit.com/cf-info/start-diet.html)
Nerdy Nutrition Blogs I like:
Mark’s Daily Apple (http://www.marksdailyapple.com/)
PaNu (http://www.paleonu.com/)
Whole Health Source (http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/)
The Healthy Skeptic (http://thehealthyskeptic.org/)
Posted by Alison - March 28, 2011 - Nutrition, Paleo
For those of you not satisfied with “because I said so” in response to this question, here’s some science:
Everybody was doing it. Like I mentioned in the previous post, this is how our ancestors were eating up until a short while ago (evolutionarily speaking). It is continually noted that in the 10,000 years since agriculture, we have not had enough time to adapt to these drastic changes. Why haven’t we changed? According to Loren Cordain (author of Paleo Diet and smart guy who authors A LOT of research on hunter/gatherer nutrition), genetic traits that are advantageous for the general population will stick around as long as possible. We still carry the genes of our ancestors, and our ancestors ate differently than we did so we manifest this lack of adaptation in the form of chronic diseases(1). This infers that if we continue to eat diets heavy on foods non-existent during the times of our ancestors whose genes we carry, we will continue to fall victim to things like heart disease, cancer, diabetes, etc. While these diseases are commonplace today, they are considered “diseases of affluence” and tend to only effect industrialized nations at high rates. In the past 50 or so years, our diets have also dramatically changed to rely much more heavily on these new foods so we’re seeing an even bigger increase in these sicknesses.
Transition pains. There is some evidence that suggests there were immediate changes in our skeletal system that coincides with the beginning of grains and agriculture. Apparently we got a little shorter, had more cavities(2), and (get ready ladies) started experiencing pain during childbirth due to a narrowing of pelvic angles, aka pelvic inlet(3). This blog post goes into the details a little further and has some good links to more reading if you are interested. So why did this happen? These particular physiological changes seem to be the most sensitive to malnutrition. A sudden switch from mostly meat and vegetables to nutritionally inferior, but more easily obtained, foods such as maize likely led to a drop in the vitamins and minerals necessary for proper bone formation. Add that together with the addition of phytates and lectins to the diet, which are found in grain products and bind to certain nutrients, preventing us from absorbing them. Hmmmm… More on grains later.
It keeps you lean. Paleo foods are super filling. Fruit and vegetables have bulk that comes from water and fiber, both of these having the ability to fill up your stomach and cause feelings of satiety. Foods like meats, eggs, nuts and seeds all have large amounts of protein and fat which again increases those feelings of fullness, with a longer lasting effect than the fiber and water. Add those all together and you get a diet that is nearly impossible to overeat, leading to achievement of a healthy weight. Anecdotal evidence supports this, and the scientific literature is catching up, albeit accidentally. It goes something like this: Researchers compare 2 diets to see effects on particular health marker, say fasting blood sugar, with a controlled clinical trial. Subjects are told to follow either paleo or another diet such as that prescribed by the American Diabetes Association(4). There is no mention about restricting calories or limiting intake, but the paleo group naturally eats significantly less leading to greater weight loss, in addition to better results on the blood tests.
Total calorie intake is only one side of the weight loss story. Paleo diets are lower in carbohydrates and higher in protein. Protein takes more energy to digest than carbohydrate, thus raising the amount of calories one burns in a day. Studies comparing macronutrient (carbs, fat, protein) ratios consistently conclude that while total calorie intake remains the same, fat loss is higher in the lower carb/higher protein diets(5).
Disease avoidance? Modern day hunter-gatherer societies are typically free of the common ailments that plague Western nations. The Inuit societies are largely carnivorous, sustaining mostly on seafood. They have a very low risk of heart attack. The Kitavans live on a small island in Papua New Guinea and are studied frequently because of their hunter-gatherer lifestyle. They eat a lot of tubers, fruit, fish and coconut and are basically free of stroke and ischemic heart disease(6). Clinical trials involving Westernized cultures are not vast in number, but the research is very promising and continues to grow. Positive changes in blood glucose and insulin sensitivity, weight loss, and blood lipids like cholesterol and triglycerides are seen with the introduction of a Paleo diet. Since these are markers that show a person’s risk of developing diabetes, heart disease, stroke, kidney disease etc, adopting a paleo diet appears to be a promising way of preventing several common diseases(7, 8, 9).
1 Loren Cordain, S. Boyd Eaton, Anthony Sebastian, Neil Mann, Staffan Lindeberg, Bruce A. Watkins, James H. O’Keefe, Janette Brand Miller. Origins and evolution of the western diet: Health implications for the 21st century. Am J Clin Nutr 2005;81:341-54.
2 Larsen CS, BIOLOGICAL CHANGES IN HUMAN-POPULATIONS WITH AGRICULTURE, Annual Review of Anthropology 1995; 24:185-213
3 Cohen, Mark N. and George J, Armelagos. Editors. (1984) Paleopathology at the Origins of Agriculture. Orlando, FL: Academic Press, 1984.
4 Jönsson, et al, Beneficial effects of a Paleolithic diet on cardiovascular risk factors in type 2 diabetes: a randomized cross-over pilot study. Cardiovascular Diabetology 2009, 8:35
5 James W Krieger, et al. Effects of variation in protein and carbohydrate intake on body mass and composition during energy restriction: a meta-regression. Am J Clin Nutr 2006;83:260 –74
6 Lindeberg S, Lundh B. Apparent absence of stroke and ischaemic heart disease in a traditional Melanesian island: a clinical study in Kitava. J Intern Med. 1993 Mar;233(3):269-75.
7 Jönsson, et al, Beneficial effects of a Paleolithic diet on cardiovascular risk factors in type 2 diabetes: a randomized cross-over pilot study. Cardiovascular Diabetology 2009, 8:35
8 S. Lindeberg, et al. A Palaeolithic diet improves glucose tolerance more than a Mediterranean-like diet in individuals with ischaemic heart disease. Diabetologia (2007) 50:1795–1807
9 LA Frassetto, et al. Metabolic and physiologic improvements from consuming a paleolithic, hunter-gatherer type diet. European Journal of Clinical Nutrition (2009), 1 – 9
