Longtime readers of Insight Writer will know that I got excited about the Paleo Diet last October and tried it for awhile.
Normally my body stays in a very tight equilibrium. I’ve weighed the same amount and have looked roughly the same way I looked 10 years ago.
I tried the Paleo Diet as a way to experiment with eating a different variety of foods, and to see if eating a new diet would increase my energy levels. The Paleo Diet basically recommenends removing all gluten from your diet and replacing it with other more beneficial proteins. (Gluten is a protein found in wheat and other related plant species)
While I did experience better energy levels (my original intend), I also experienced an unintended side effect. I lost fat around my mid section and lost weight for the first time in over 10 years.
The results both fascinated and scared me (because I did not want to lose any weight), and I have since adopted wheat products back into my diet, although in much smaller portions.
Here are a few articles I wrote up during that time period…
1. Mark’s Daily Apple – Primal Living in a Modern World This is the primary blog I read about the Paleo or “Primal” diet.
2. Salad For Breakfast I am now thoroughly convinced that if you replace ANY food in your diet with vegetables you will instantly see better results. With that being said, I still don’t recommend vegetarian diets exclusively because even vegetarians don’t eat ALL vegetables. Remember… Grains, Legumes, Fish, Fruit, and all the other things vegetarians eat are not vegetables. Meats are not the enemy. There is certainly more to be said on the subject in the future as I do more research.
3. Eating Healthy On a Budget Many people are concerned that they can not eat healthy on a budget. That organic food costs too much, etc, etc… That is simply not the case if you do some very basic research, some food planning, and are willing to shop around a bit. Remember, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure as well…
4. The Best Snack Food For Weight Loss From my own research and experimentation I have found nuts to be extremely helpful in helping people to lose weight. I think I may be adding seeds such as sunflower and pumpkin seeds to the list in the near future. These little things are amazing, but like all things, should not be taken in excess.
5. How Eating Meat Can Save The Planet I wrote this to show that once again, meat is not the enemy, and that raising meat can be an effective way to use land that can not be used as well for crops. And again, protein from animals that eat grasses can be really healthy for you. Again, more on this subject later.
Random Things…
1. I am still pondering the idea that clean water, wastewater treatment, and antibiotics are the three main things that have contributed to our longer life spans in the past century. Better food, pharmaceutical drugs besides antibiotics, and better surgical technology have not contributed to our long lives as much as we would like to think.
2. The Personal Finance Challenge Series is going strong over at Insight Writer, and I am surprised at how many ideas of am producing for it. I’m also surprised how much I am starting to enjoy writing about personal finance.
3. As I allow Insight Writer to be exclusively about personal finance for the time being, a wealth of ideas are popping up about health, nutrition, exercise, and everything related. I keeping thinking how science can be used to better our lives. I haven’t watched it yet, but this is an hour long movie I plan on watching about The Making Of A Scientist. http://www.thirteen.org/naturally-obsessed/ I found it in a forum thread on ERE called Is Scientific Research Worthwhile? Some places are better than others for doing research and many people are disgruntled with the current system of university research. While I have aspired to a PhD in the past, and still aspire, although less so, to one in the future, I still would like to make the case for the amateur scientist. Which is why I love people like Tim Ferriss.
With all that being said, the subject of “Food Combining” will be my next research project. Until then…