The Paleo Diet

OK, so more nutrition! What the heck....As a trainer, I have to say that we are supposed to give you some recommendations, but never give you a diet. One of the reasons is there seem to be so many options out there. I was very intrigued by this new book by Robb Wolf named the PALEO SOLUTION.

Robb Wolf is the former Crossfit Nutrition guru and a student of Loren Cordain, author of THE  PALEO DIET. After reading through it, here were my thoughts. Robb is, without a doubt, one smart guy and an excellent speaker. If you want to believe me, check him out here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HkqBxpPBeI

Robb's book, however, could have used an edit or two. The book is at times funny and I appreciate his attempt to make rather dry material palatable for those of you who aren't nerds like me and spend most of your free time reading science journals and textbooks, but his humor sometimes weighs down on his credibility. He is constantly using terms like "Buttercup" to refer to his audience and has a few too many "beat up the hippy vegan" jokes. Throw some of that unnecessary junk out and you have a book with lots of information that may bore most of you. For those of you that aren't into reading about leptins and lectins, let me summarize for you:

1. Humans ate a certain way for a very LONG time
2. Agriculture came and helped us develop culture, but also food that kills us.
3. Greed was introduced and the already bad food got worse.
4. The best way to fight off your issues with obesity, inflammation, etc is to eat a paleo diet, which consists of meat, veggies, fruit, some nuts and seeds and some tubers. NO grains, NO dairy, NO legumes, NO alcohol.

Ouch. No cheese and crackers....Robb then spends a good deal of time explaining how and why these things damage our bodies. I have read some other information about this and I totally agree with Robb on one point for sure. And I apologize for the conspiracy theory, but our government is subsidizing corn in order to throw it into everything we eat (high fructose corn syrup anyone?) and then watch us as we get fat and beg for help from a booming pharmaceutical business. Go check the supermarket and look for high fructose corn syrup. See how MUCH stuff it is in. When it comes to buying local, organic, grass-fed meat and wild-caught fish, I am ON BOARD.

My reservations about the book are this. It is clear that Robb was a vegetarian, had a severe gluten allergy and that turned him to paleo. Sometimes I wonder if his severe food allergies aren't making him corral everyone into one pen. Just because you explode into a messy ball of guts and goo every time you have a piece of cheese doesn't mean I will.

The book, also, has some moments where you question him. For example, he makes a very convincing argument against wheat in his book, but then when it comes to an item like oatmeal, he says :

 "Yep, I love oatmeal too, but it contains similar proteins to gluten. Cereal grains tend to have proteins that are high in the amino acid proline. The prolamines (proline rich proteins) are tough to digest, and thus remain intact despite the best efforts of the digestive process to break them down. The result is gut irritation, increased systemic inflammation, and the potential for autoimmune disease."

With a little research, I found that oats have 800 mg of proline per 100 g. Pork loin has 910 mg per 100 g. Ummmm....so why can I eat meat, but not oatmeal again? (PS...I'm going to ask Robb about this on his blog...maybe he'll answer!)

In his book, he keeps saying, just TRY it for 30 days. What do you have to lose? I am a test the temperature of the water kind of guy and I won't TRY anything for 30 days unless I see more proof. He does give examples of clients that changed, but I wonder if they lost weight because of paleo or because their caloric intake went down with eating more fruits and veggies and their caloric expenditure went up with more exercise!

He also provides us with a "great resource" and a "fantastic solution" for finding paleo snacks and meals called paleobrands.com When you visit this site, you quickly find out that he is part owner of the company. For someone who in this same book rants about how money and stuff won't make you a happier person and also how he is not trying to SELL you, this seems like selling. I don't mind if he sells his paleobrands cookies and beef jerky, but tell us, "For those of you looking for snacks, try paleobrands, a company I started".....or something like that. I don't have any issue whatsoever about people trying to make money if their intentions are good, which his seem to be.

A much more in depth and scientific book that backs LOW carb (not NO carb) diets is "Good Calories, Bad Calories" by Gary Taubes.  In Robb's defense, he does plug Gary's book in his.

Look, before this book came out, I would say I was mostly "paleo" anyway...I eat lean meat, fruits and veggies. I am anti-refined carbs and flour. I detest the American packaged/fast food system. But until I get some actual geeky scientific studies in front of me that say otherwise, you are going to have to rip oatmeal and cheese out of my cold dead hands.