Why is everyone here so obsessed with the paleo diet?

[Horsedog]

Because food doesn't equal calories.. You guys can have this academic discussion with all the personal anecdotes (which = nothing btw) you want but it doesn't change the simple fact that everyone is different and things work differently for everyone. I know people where wheat ect is indeed poison. Telling that person not to worry and that all that matters is CICO is borderline criminal.

Biochemical Individuality by Williams. We knew this stuff as far back as the 50's but by all means. Carry on. Just don't try to apply your success to other people or pass judgement on other approaches based on your individual experience. Say what you want about "paleoists" but they are helping more people in the real world solve big health problems than "just CICO" ever could.

I agree. But the whole issue from what I can see on this thread is that the 2 camps (CI/CO vs. Paleo) aren't even debating to the same endpoint. CI/CO is about weight loss/maintenance/gain - nothing else. Paleo is about macro ratios, food (in)tolerances, and more generally a lifestyle choice. The 2 sides can argue until they're blue in the face and never reach consensus. A paleo-style diet (i.e., food choices, not caloric restriction) can satisfy the CI/CO equation while also eliminating foods that many are intolerant of. There's no debate here

[spezzy]

Quick question: has anyone ever successfully gained weight on Paleo? Though I like the concept of it, it seems like it would really tough to put on a few pounds following this life style. I've finally started counting calories and have enough trouble getting enough without eliminating grain/wheat/dairy from the equation.

me. 40lbs (over 2 years).

same bf% then as I have now, so if I've done the math right about 7lbs of that 40 is fat.

right now I'm focusing on losing that 7lbs of fat

[jdanger]

Or you could eat all of those things you listed, hit 1500 calories and meet your nutrient requirements, and then have a bowl of ice cream or a donut or something. My diet works for me because I can still have the things I enjoy in moderation. That doesn't mean it's all I eat, but if I could never have a crumb cupcake or a junior's cheesecake or hell, sriracha, every now and again, I'd last approximately 13 seconds on my diet.

You know who this doesn't work for? A friend of mine with Hashimoto's. She needs to be gluten free or her TgAB shoots through the fraking roof. Due to other psychological factors if she so much as has a scoop of gluten free ice cream for desert she will stay up all night because she doesn't want to have dreams about cupcakes all night. Seriously. Not everyone has the ability to have that flexibility without real, often severe, issues.

I agree. But the whole issue from what I can see on this thread is that the 2 camps (CI/CO vs. Paleo) aren't even debating to the same endpoint. CI/CO is about weight loss/maintenance/gain - nothing else. Paleo is about macro ratios, food (in)tolerances, and more generally a lifestyle choice. The 2 sides can argue until they're blue in the face and never reach consensus. A paleo-style diet (i.e., food choices, not caloric restriction) can satisfy the CI/CO equation while also eliminating foods that many are intolerant of. There's no debate here

Yep. And as hinted to above the people arguing against paleo (at least here) have no experience helping others deal eating issues, whether they be emotional or physical. Some of us do and if we related all of those experiences the CICO people would quickly realize they don't have a clue about what they're talking about.

[Waldo]

Yep. And as hinted to above the people arguing against paleo (at least here) have no experience helping others deal eating issues, whether they be emotional or physical. Some of us do and if we related all of those experiences the CICO people would quickly realize they don't have a clue about what they're talking about.

But that doesn't mean in the least bit that it should be pushed on everyone. Some of the rhetoric is downright ridiculous, and the vast majority of people don't need the hypoallergenic properties at all, all the rhetoric does is leave them unknowingly confused after being fed loads of bad, spun, and massaged info.

The numbers will always work. The problem is that the vast majority of people retain a 3rd-4th grade level of math, if that. Being bad at it is accepted and encouraged nowadays. CICO is fairly calculation intensive and requires a degree of numerical intuitiveness and troubleshooting ability to not suck at; most people's education is woefully inadequate for the task.

[jdanger]

But that doesn't mean in the least bit that it should be pushed on everyone. Some of the rhetoric is downright ridiculous, and the vast majority of people don't need the hypoallergenic properties at all, all the rhetoric does is leave them unknowingly confused after being fed loads of bad, spun, and massaged info.

The numbers will always work. The problem is that the vast majority of people retain a 3rd-4th grade level of math, if that. Being bad at it is accepted and encouraged nowadays. CICO is fairly calculation intensive and requires a degree of numerical intuitiveness and troubleshooting ability to not suck at; most people's education is woefully inadequate for the task.

I assume "it" is paleo. Who's pushing it on everyone? Anyone worth listening to will tell you the proverbial "it" isn't about "being paleo". "It's" about using food to be as healthy as you can be, physically and emotionally, using whatever tools and foods you require to ferret out whatever that is and put it into practice.

It doesn't matter that the numbers always work. My hockey team always wins when we score more goals than the other team. That doesn't make it a very helpful bit of strategy. Your approach works for you and that's great. It doesn't begin to address the multitude of issues other people have to deal with. And it has little to do with their math skills. That's a pretty arrogant thing to say.

[Waldo]

I assume "it" is paleo. Who's pushing it on everyone?

Go back to the title of this thread. Umm read through the intro forum or really any forum here.

Nonpaleo are very much outcasts at NF.

That's a pretty arrogant thing to say.

So. More often than not its true.

To expand apon yoru example to make it closer to reality, yes your hockey team wins when they score more goals than the other team. Unfortunately the usual situation is that they neither bother to keep score nor try scoring goals. Keeping score, thus showing he players that it would helpful to score goals in order to win the game, does in fact seem to be a helpful strategy, no? The bigger issue to tackle is getting them to care about winning and thus being interested in the score and working to improve said score by scoring goals.

[jdanger]

Go back to the title of this thread. Umm read through the intro forum or really any forum here.

Nonpaleo are very much outcasts at NF.

Boo fraking hoo. Consider the possibility that paleo inspired ideas are helping people in ways you really have no experience to fully appreciate and maybe you'll forgive some of the more passionate supporters. You don't have a food problem so frankly who cares about you? Who's attacked you because you don't eat paleo? Who's said CICO doesn't work the way you say it does? I surely haven't beyond hinting to the fact that it is an incomplete and insufficient method for a lot of people.

So. More often than not its true.

Yeah all those people running around who don't know basic arithmetic. That's the problem.

[Waldo]

Yeah all those people running around who don't know basic arithmetic. That's the problem.

Weight Watchers is a highly successful company and arguably the most successful single "diet" there is, their system is more or less calorie counting dumbed down with much simpler math.

People overall have a very difficult time figuring out how many calories they should be eating, how much is too many, how much is too few. And this is just based of the estimate formulas.

[Jcannon98188]

Hug session over? Ok fine, let me throw my diet in.

I call it the diabetic that doesn't take care of himself diet. I eat all the junk food I want, and still stay at a skinny 150lbs. What now?

Seriously though, I like the paleo diet, it makes sense to me. I think it is pushed so much here because it flat out works. Does CI/CO work? Sure. But if I am not mistaken, we have seen more people succeed on losing weight w/ Paleo than CI/CO here, and that is why it is "pushed"

[jdanger]

Weight Watchers is a highly successful company and arguably the most successful single "diet" there is, their system is more or less calorie counting dumbed down with much simpler math.

People overall have a very difficult time figuring out how many calories they should be eating, how much is too many, how much is too few. And this is just based of the estimate formulas.

Well they surely know how to market themselves. As to making people healthy and helping them develop a healthy relationship with food, well, they aren't really doing too much of that to say the least. And I bet most of the people on WW can count passed ten. Jesus, I thought I was cynical.

---

Edit: didn't catch the edit.

Ok, people are stupid, sure. So if only there was another way for people to do the right thing without needing all your fancy math that's so far above their heads. Oh wait, there are many. Why not emphasize food quality and balance and leave all that decipherin' to the educated folks like yourself.

[krj]

I haven't read every single post on this thread, so apologies if this has been said already, but food is about a lot more than macronutrients. Yeah, you can IIFYM and take a multivitamin and probably be better off than the vast majority of Americans, but I think it is incredibly hubristic of us to think that 1) we know all there is to know about the micronutrients in whole foods and 2) we can replicate their benefits perfectly in pill form. Sorry, but the science on this is still very young and research is showing again and again that micronutrients behave differently in their original (food) form than they do as supplements.

If it's about losing weight, CI/CO obviously works (assuming you aren't metabolically damaged--which I think a lot of people are without necessarily even knowing it). If it's about looking ripped, IIFYM is an improvement on CI/CO, but there is more to health and fitness for many of us than looking ripped.

[Waldo]

Well they surely know how to market themselves. As to making people healthy and helping them develop a healthy relationship with food, well, they aren't really doing too much of that to say the least. And I bet most of the people on WW can count passed ten. Jesus, I thought I was cynical.

So you really believe then that Paleo is the answer that will break the 90% gain it back statistic.

Well the Paleo fad is probably at the peak of its power right now with a significant fraction of people trying to lose doing so using this methodology. If it is making them healthy and helping them develop a healthy relationship with food, in 2-3 years you should see that 90% number start to strongly decline, if paleo is in fact this magic bullet (especially since success begets success, what was once a snowball will turn into an avalanche). But it hasn't dented obesity rates yet, something that not one of the big diet fads has yet been successful at doing.

[Waldo]

I haven't read every single post on this thread, so apologies if this has been said already, but food is about a lot more than macronutrients. Yeah, you can IIFYM and take a multivitamin and probably be better off than the vast majority of Americans, but I think it is incredibly hubristic of us to think that 1) we know all there is to know about the micronutrients in whole foods and 2) we can replicate their benefits perfectly in pill form. Sorry, but the science on this is still very young and research is showing again and again that micronutrients behave differently in their original (food) form than they do as supplements.

If it's about losing weight, CI/CO obviously works (assuming you aren't metabolically damaged--which I think a lot of people are without necessarily even knowing it). If it's about looking ripped, IIFYM is an improvement on CI/CO, but there is more to health and fitness for many of us than looking ripped.

What? Taking your food in pill form? The logic leap here is as extreme as the all Twinkie diet, you are just adding vitamins to the all Twinkie diet.

Newsflash, there are nutrients other than macronutrients in food that is not Paleo Approved™.

[jdanger]

Sorry, but the science on this is still very young and research is showing again and again that micronutrients behave differently in their original (food) form than they do as supplements.

No way man, just get a PhD in applied mathematics so you can understand calorie equations as well as Waldo and calculate your way to immortality.

So you really believe then that Paleo is the answer that will break the 90% gain it back statistic.

Well the Paleo fad is probably at the peak of its power right now with a significant fraction of people trying to lose doing so using this methodology. If it is making them healthy and helping them develop a healthy relationship with food, in 2-3 years you should see that 90% number start to strongly decline, if paleo is in fact this magic bullet. But it hasn't dented obesity rates yet, something that not one of the big diet fads has yet been successful at doing.

When did I say any of that? You still think I'm arguing for paleo? You obviously haven't really been paying attention. Maybe it's all the numbers. Let me break it down for you. I about healthy, whole food and using whatever techniques or narrative you need to in order to do that the best you can the majority of the time without becoming so neurotic you need to text me at 2am because you're so guilty about waking up and slamming a whole package of little Abby's Girl Scout cookies because they were on the counter and you couldn't stop thinking about them. Nor do you need to know how to do differential equations, understand thermodynamics and how they apply (or don't) in bioenergetics. Just fraking eat man. That's the goal.

Obesity rates and all that are a whole other issue and if you think paleo is that big you seriously over estimate its reach. Remember you're hanging out on a fitness site. There's obviously going to be a lot of selection bias.

What? Taking your food in pill form? The logic leap here is as extreme as the all Twinkie diet, you are just adding vitamins to the all Twinkie diet.

That doesn't make it fallacious. Extreme (or, more accurately, incomplete) claims like a calorie is a calorie lead to extreme conclusions. Which help demonstrate that they are illogical or incomplete. A twinkie diet is completely fine within the parameters set out in the statement a calorie is a calorie. As soon as you impose any qualifiers on it you're arguing against the original claim.

[krj]

What? Taking your food in pill form? The logic leap here is as extreme as the all Twinkie diet, you are just adding vitamins to the all Twinkie diet.

Newsflash, there are nutrients other than macronutrients in food that is not Paleo Approved™.

I am in total agreement. I'm not paleo myself. I was mostly trying to get across the idea that people have goals other than weight loss and body composition and "whole foods" are probably going to be your best bet. I think this was the quote that got me to hit reply:

@ Susie: I would agree that it is better to get your calories from things other than chocolate cake. But realistically, if your chocolate cake has the same amount of carbs/fat/calories as some other combination of say.. fruits/veggies/nuts, then solely in terms of body composition it really shouldn't make a tremendous difference.

And, like I said, I agree. There probably wouldn't be huge differences in terms of body comp. But a six pack isn't necessarily the be all and end all of health, either.

And, yeah, I do know quite a number of IIFYM people who eat the same chicken, fish, whey, and chocolate cake and ice cream pretty much every day. Then pop a multi vitamin and some fish oil and call it good. And they might very well be just fine, but I wasn't.

[jdanger]

And, yeah, I do know quite a number of IIFYM people who eat the same chicken, fish, whey, and chocolate cake and ice cream pretty much every day. Then pop a multi vitamin and some fish oil and call it good. And they might very well be just fine

These would be the outliers and it really says nothing about their health as you already noted.

Repeat after me again kids, just because it works for me doesn't mean it works for anyone else.

[D_chelyst]

On nice side benefit I found is I had been a headache sufferer for most of my life. Several times a week. I have had maybe one or two since I switched to paleo. I am sure it was the grains.

I discovered that milk and other dairy products were the reason why I had dizziness/vertigo multiple times a week for 6 years straight. I didn't discover that through Paleo exactly--it was through the Daniel Fast at church, which is like Paleo but waaaaay stricter--but I'm glad I found out when I did. After a long stint without having any dairy, now I can have a few milk products (yogurt, ice cream, cheese) once in a while without having the dizziness attack. But not milk. Milk is evil.

Yay to clean eating!

[bigm141414]

These would be the outliers and it really says nothing about their health as you already noted.

Repeat after me again kids, just because it works for me doesn't mean it works for anyone else.

Exactly.

In summary:

CICO works? Yes.

Paleo works? Yes.

CICO good path for everyone? No.

Paleo good path for everyone? No.

[jdanger]

Ahhhh. It's math! I don't understand! Ruuuun! Well walk. And get some Burger King on the way. Small. So it's only 75 points.

[Waldo]

Edit: didn't catch the edit.

Ok, people are stupid, sure. So if only there was another way for people to do the right thing without needing all your fancy math that's so far above their heads. Oh wait, there are many. Why not emphasize food quality and balance and leave all that decipherin' to the educated folks like yourself.

Because in order to promote and market the other option, people wherther creators or adherants spread bad, uninformed, deceptive, etc... information. Just look at the ongoing ripples that Taubes' alternate theory have (which are strongly interlaced with paleo in places). I mean a bet a solid 75% of people trying to lose weight think that your body will turn the sugar in a cookie into fat, this is not true at all, and is a creation of the low carb rhetoric (a reaction to eating fat will make you fat, what the gov't pushed, and what is actually scientifically factual).

This is not 'Nam Smokey, there are rules. Every system is bound by rules, and those rules are quantifyable. Every system can be controlled. The body is no different. Every "diet" out there markets themselves as breaking the rules, or in some cases, redefining the rules (healthiness as in not measuarable by fitness or appearance for example). CI/CO are simply rules of the system.

When people say that it doesn't work or that there is more to it than that, the problem is not the system nor lacking some voodoo combination of magical ingredients; it is more often than not user error, a failure to control the system. Much the way my mother-in-law is always firmly conviced their computer is broken, the system is fine, the user doesn't know how to use it.

[Waldo]

That doesn't make it fallacious. Extreme (or, more accurately, incomplete) claims like a calorie is a calorie lead to extreme conclusions. Which help demonstrate that they are illogical or incomplete. A twinkie diet is completely fine within the parameters set out in the statement a calorie is a calorie. As soon as you impose any qualifiers on it you're arguing against the original claim.

But it is not an extreme claim at all, only an extreme conclusion made by opponents. The problem with endless variety is there is no ethos to argue against, hence the extreme example.

How is this any different than a healthy whole foods, organic, grass fed, Paleo Approved™ diet consisting soley of 100% bacon.

Within the bounds of the rules of the system it is a perfectly acceptable extreme example.

Obesity rates and all that are a whole other issue and if you think paleo is that big you seriously over estimate its reach. Remember you're hanging out on a fitness site. There's obviously going to be a lot of selection bias.

Paleoish's power right now is every bit as big as Atkins was at the height of its power, if not bigger. I say paleoish since much larger than strict paleo is the idea of "eating clean", a more moderate form of it (Primal for example is a clean eating moderate form).

This has nothing to do with being on a fitness website. A majority of people I interact with between work and elsewhere non-fitness that are trying to lose weight (esp at work A LOT of people talk to me) are trying to do so via some variant of Paleo. I think that you are underestimating its reach, it has grown exponentially in the last year and is every bit as big as any diet fad has been in the last couple decades. Do some people watching at grocery stores if you are unconvinced (this is quite an amusing way to pass the time while there).

[jdanger]

Because in order to promote and market the other option, people wherther creators or adherants spread bad, uninformed, deceptive, etc... information. Just look at the ongoing ripples that Taubes' alternate theory have (which are strongly interlaced with paleo in places). I mean a bet a solid 75% of people trying to lose weight think that your body will turn the sugar in a cookie into fat, this is not true at all, and is a creation of the low carb rhetoric (a reaction to eating fat will make you fat, what the gov't pushed, and what is actually scientifically factual).

This is not 'Nam Smokey, there are rules. Every system is bound by rules, and those rules are quantifyable. Every system can be controlled. The body is no different. Every "diet" out there markets themselves as breaking the rules, or in some cases, redefining the rules (healthiness as in not measuarable by fitness or appearance for example). CI/CO are simply rules of the system.

When people say that it doesn't work or that there is more to it than that, the problem is not the system nor lacking some voodoo combination of magical ingredients; it is more often than not user error, a failure to control the system. Much the way my mother-in-law is always firmly conviced their computer is broken, the system is fine, the user doesn't know how to use it.

Again, so what. Not everyone is a robot, which I think you might be. I mean that in a joking way but seriously, a large majority of people can't look at it that way and benefit.

Rules say if I score more goals I win, it doesn't give me any real action plan to do so. Theory's fine but I'm all about practice. In practice your way works for some people and it causes major issues for others. What do you think happens when I give the person texting me at 2am (a real person and thing that's happened multiple times btw) the tools they needs to follow CICO? I'll give you a hint, it doesn't improve their neuroses and emotional attachment to food. It might change the nature and number of texts I receive at night but that's about it. So again, so what. I know the rules. You know the rules. Sometimes not knowing the rules but using other tricks to follow them is worth more than any rule or calculation you could ever imagine.

So who cares why paleo works. Take comfort in the knowledge that it (or something a lot like it) does and is making many lives better. You know the rules that apply to the weight loss component. Good for you. Here's a 187 calorie cookie and 234 worth of milk. Enjoy, to each their own. But until you're in the trenches with other people who can't enjoy that the same way you can don't for a second assume that knowing some rules qualifies you in any way to help them.

[jdanger]

But it is not an extreme claim at all, only an extreme conclusion made by opponents. The problem with endless variety is there is no ethos to argue against, hence the extreme example.

How is this any different than a healthy whole foods, organic, grass fed, Paleo Approved™ diet consisting soley of 100% bacon.

Within the bounds of the rules of the system it is a perfectly acceptable extreme example.

You're right. It's incomplete. It's a truism. Hence every case applies. A calorie is a calorie. Yep, and a dog is a dog. It's meaningless is what it is.

And to humor you it isn't any different than the bacon diet. But you need to invoke reasoning based on different premises than a calorie is a calorie to begin to explain why it's equally ridiculous.

But it doesn't matter because we know food is more than calories. But we've known that all along right?

[rtalencar]

You know who this doesn't work for? A friend of mine with Hashimoto's. She needs to be gluten free or her TgAB shoots through the fraking roof. Due to other psychological factors if she so much as has a scoop of gluten free ice cream for desert she will stay up all night because she doesn't want to have dreams about cupcakes all night. Seriously. Not everyone has the ability to have that flexibility without real, often severe, issues.

This is a pretty ridiculous straw man argument, particularly when I clarify right after the part you quoted that adherance is extremely important when it comes to selecting a successful diet.

Yep. And as hinted to above the people arguing against paleo (at least here) have no experience helping others deal eating issues, whether they be emotional or physical. Some of us do and if we related all of those experiences the CICO people would quickly realize they don't have a clue about what they're talking about.

First of all you don't know anything about me or my past experiences. Secondly, there's a particular 'eating issue' that I myself suffer from when I let my emotions get the best of me. It's called binge eating (drinking as well). Setting up limits on my intake but still giving myself room for some flexibility does most certainly help me deal with that, and help me take some measure of control over my unhealthy relationship with food. Or I could just make some high handed remark with 0 backing as well and say that you have absolutely no clue what you're talking about when it comes to dealing with that sort of an ailment. Does it work for everyone? No. That's why I qualified that:

'Worse' or 'better' depends a LOT on the individuals ability to stick with it.

[chairohkey]