Primal diet - Pros and Cons? page 20

[solstice]

maybe it's the longer paid holidays and multi-year paid maternity leave that keeps their stress down---along with keeping the damn GMOs out of their food supply---that allows them more leniency with their foods!?

[Zach]

Longing2befit, if you check out DannyRoddy.com you will find out that hair loss is a pretty commin symptom of low carb and paleo diets.

Knifegill, i find i funny that you come here and tell us to RELAX when from what i gather, you are one of the most orthorexic people on this forum. You eat a extremely low carb diet and have irrational fears of foods like your silly pizza thread. You tried a few pieces of fruit and gave up twice in the last month or so even though you know it takes long then that to repopulate your gut. 5lbs scared you into giving up. 5lbs is nothing, it could be water weight or some initial fat gain while your body adjusts or both.

[KevinM]

I stumbled across this web site in early November. After reading up on the basics, the PB concept made perfect sense to me. I have tried to eat healthy for years. But my "healthy" diet included a lot of grains (gluten). I didn't know grains were bad for me. My experience since early November has been the following:

Pros:

Enjoying my meals more
Feeling full for a longer period of time
Introduction of new foods in my diet
Weight loss
Performing exercises that fit into my schedule and I can continue to perform

Cons:

More expensive
Sometimes difficult finding organic and grass-fed foods
Major digestion problems


My transition was fairly abrupt - and simple. I was already eating my share of fresh or frozen fruits and veggies - carrots, broccoli, baby spinach, romaine lettuce, apples, strawberries, grapes. I continue to eat them. I am allegic to all nuts so I cannot eat any of them. My only real source of fat was canned pacific red salmon. I usually had it daily as a sandwich at work. My plan was to replace the grains (bread, snacks of pretzels, chips and popcorn, morning bowl of shredded wheat or raisen bran) with fats and protein (eggs, chicken, beef, avocadoes, yogurt).

I am a 6'5" 49 year old man. I have a slender build. My body composition was mostly bones and blubber - I don't have much muscle. Since I am tall, I didn't look to be overweight - but I knew the blubber was there. When I started, I weighed about 215 lbs. 7 or 8 weeks into this program, I now weigh about 195 lbs. The weight came off easily - I also added walking about 5 hours per week.

By far, the biggest problem for me has been digestion. Before I started the program, I always felt fine. I never get sick. For the first 4 or 5 weeks, I felt fine. Then, my stomach started to feel a bit queezy. It has since gotten worse - sometimes to the point of feeling nauseous. My bowel movements became very infrequent. I rarely felt hungry even when I hadn't eaten for many, many hours. However, when I did eat, I found I could still eat a big meal when I wanted to. My Christmas dinner was as big as any other year. So, even though my queezy stomach didn't feel hungry, it must have been near empty or I could not have eaten Christmas dinner.

I need to find a solution to this problem soon. Otherwise, I will have to abandon PB. I am assuming one or more of the new foods is not agreeing with me. I am now backing off on the new foods to see if I feel better. Then I will re-introduce each one slowly to gauge the effects on me. It is possible that it is not any specific food that's the problem but rather a diet higher in fat and protein than I am accustomed to. If that is the case, then I hope my body will adjust to this new diet fairly soon. Except for avocadoes, I have eaten all of my "new" foods in the past (as a kid or years ago). I like them all - although avocadoes take some getting used to. Hopefully, this will work out for me. The PB lifestyle makes so much sense to me that I can't believe it cannot work for me. After all, I think I have the same evolutionary history as Grok!!

Has anyone else experienced my symptoms? If so, how did you address them?

Regards,

Kevin

[namelesswonder]

Kevin, what "new foods" are you eating? Any coconut products? Also, it could be that you are eating too much protein. Perhaps you need more veggies. You'll have to tweak things to see what works (more or less protein/carbs/fiber/fat). Different things work for different people.

[Neckhammer]

....I have eaten all of my "new" foods in the past (as a kid or years ago). I like them all - although avocadoes take some getting used to. Hopefully, this will work out for me. The PB lifestyle makes so much sense to me that I can't believe it cannot work for me. After all, I think I have the same evolutionary history as Grok!!

Has anyone else experienced my symptoms? If so, how did you address them?

Regards,

Kevin

Perhaps list a day or two of what you actually consume including what sort of cuts of beef or chicken and portion sizes. Best to be keeping track anyhow so as to find the culprit or add what you may be missing. Magnesium comes to mind if you dont eat nuts or seeds.

[Sabine]

Clearly Italy isn't filled with a bunch of blood sugar crashing psychos.

I don't know...this MIGHT explain Berlusconi!

[Paleobird]

I find it highly insulting that when someone says they ate high fat/low carb and that it didn't work for them, your response is 'no one ever said primal was supposed to be high fat' aftter starting a 1,000 page thread on how if primal isn't working for you, it's because you're not eating a high enough percentage of fat.

Wow. Talk about taking things personally.

So, it is OK for you to talk about your n=1 but not for me? That thread, if you had bothered to read it, is about how trying to do *ketosis* with too low a percentage of fat and too high protein doesn't work well. It was not about The Definitive Way to do Primal.

The fact that the thread grew to 1000 pages is because people were interested. No one is stopping you from starting your own thread.

[Leida]

My understanding is that Primal actually is high-fat by its very definition. Primal is a branch of Paleo that emphasizes fat over carbs, while, for example, Perfect Health Diet is Paleo that emphasizes addition of starches. So, while it is correct imo say that Paleo doesn't have to be high fat, Primal has to be high fat.

On the other hand, I appreciate the importance of the information on protein vs fat ratio in a VLC.

[Neckhammer]

My understanding is that Primal actually is high-fat by its very definition. Primal is a branch of Paleo that emphasizes fat over carbs, while, for example, Perfect Health Diet is Paleo that emphasizes addition of starches. So, while it is correct imo say that Paleo doesn't have to be high fat, Primal has to be high fat.

On the other hand, I appreciate the importance of the information on protein vs fat ratio in a VLC.

Yeah, I tend to agree. By definition it is a sufficient fat diet . Basically you are given hard numbers for protein and carbs and told to fill in the rest with fat. Then if you choose to ignore the advice on what sort and how often to exercise you might also have to recalibrate the carbs. So when he says "add another 100g of carbs for every hour of intense activity" it very well could be skewed to the moderate or lower fat zone. So it moves away from what we might consider the genetic starting point.

And then I'm sure there are the outliers.

[YogaBare]

Eat real food with solid micronutrient density and low toxicity in whatever macronutrient ratios ACTUALLY work for you.

This is a great summation.