What Is The Paleo Diet?

Regardless of whether your goal is to melt fat off your body or build up higher amounts of muscle mass and gain definition, you've likely done your research and realize that diet is a key element necessary for success.

There's no getting around the fact that the foods you put into your body on an everyday basis are going to be the largest determining factor in what you look like. If poor food choices go in, a poor body image will result. Likewise, if you're only choosing to put in the highest quality of nutrients, you can be sure that it's going to reflect upon your results.

One diet design that you might have come across either in a book or magazine, or have heard someone else raving about is the Paleo Diet. What does this diet consist of and will it really bring good results? By understanding the concepts behind the Paleo Diet approach, you can gain a clear picture of whether this diet is right for you. Let's take a look at what you need to know.

The Paleo Approach

The Paleo Diet, shortened from the true name of the Paleolithic Diet approach, is one that takes us back to the ancient years and essentially tries to create a diet that the cavemen would have eaten.

There's no debating that as time has moved onwards, modern technology and cooking processes have changed significantly from our ancestor's years. While they would have had to go out and hunt for the foods they were going to serve up for dinner, today we just take a simple trip to the grocery store where we're greeted with rows and rows of prepared and processed foods to choose from.

The problem with this is that through all these changes that have occurred, we've degraded the nutrition content of our daily diet and have moved further and further away from eating as Mother Nature intended.

The concept of the Paleolithic Diet then is to get back to ancient times. When adopting this dietary approach, you're going to forgo all the processed foods you find at the supermarket and instead focus on foods that either occur in the wild or come straight from the ground.

Essentially, if it was available thousands of years ago, it's going to have a place in your meal plan. This means that your daily diet will primarily consist of meat and fish, plenty of fresh fruitsand vegetables, as well as nuts and seeds. Oils are typically allowed in moderation and foods to be avoided included dairy products, cereal grains, legumes, starchy vegetables, fatty meats, and foods that are very high in salt content (such as processed meat products and salted nuts).

Pro's Of Paleo

So what are the pros of eating Paleo? Is this a diet you should adopt?

Right off the start you can see how well this diet is going to control blood sugar levels. In a world where many of us experience rollercoaster-like blood sugar fluctuations, this aspect alone proves to be an extremely beneficial aspect of the set-up.

The more stabilized your blood sugar levels are, the less likely you're going to be to experience food cravings, to battle ongoing fatigue, and to be at the potential risk of developing diabetesdown the road.

Since the Paleo Diet is also chalk full of healthy fats from all the seeds and nuts that are being consumed while also being low in saturated fat due to the restriction of dairy and high fat meat sources, this is also going to work to improve your cholesterol profile and help to reduce the risk of heart disease.

When using the Paleo Diet you shouldn't find you have any issue getting enough protein in either, which is something that's critical for both the fat loss and muscle building process as you'll be including lean meat sources with each meal. By choosing to incorporate a wide spectrum of fruits and vegetables in your menu, you're also going to help to keep calorie intake on the lower side, so this will be beneficial from a fat loss point of view.

If you are someone who happens to actively looking to build muscle and thus require that higher calorie surplus, you can simply add larger doses of nuts and seeds into the plan to help boost your calorie and healthy fat intake up higher.

Since the Paleo Diet has you moving away from all forms of processed and refined carbohydrates, most individuals will find this naturally lowers their calorie intake as well as less food choices are available. Without ten different flavors of chips to choose from or eight different types of cereals lining your pantry, you're going to have a much easier time sticking with your meal plan and getting the results you're looking for.