Everyone who wants to lose weight raise their fork! Now, everyone who wants to lose weight, eat everything you want and never feel deprived, raise your other fork! That's what I thought.
Lets see if we can solve this problem by starting with what we know and hopefully progress to understanding what we don't know.
First of all lets make a list of, what I think, we can all agree on:
1. It's not healthy, or fun, to be obese.
2. If you stop eating altogether you will be thin before you starve to death.
3. Starving goes against our natural survival instincts.
All of this is very obvious. Or is it? Lets start with the first premise. "It's not healthy or fun to be obese." Do you truly believe this? Think about it for a minute. Some people deep down inside want to be fat. Other folks believe that you can be fat and still be healthy. If, after some thought, this is your core belief, you can stop reading now. You will figure out a way to sabotage any "diet".
On the second point we should all be in agreement. We know how to meet our objective with the most extreme of measures. We aren't prepared to go to that extreme, but at least we understand the mechanism of weight loss. How much worse would it be if we had absolutely no idea of how to lose weight?
And lastly, our bodies and minds are programmed for survival. This is the biggie. Somehow we need to starve our body without letting it know. It would also be helpful if we could trick our minds as well.
I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Every obese person is hooked on carbohydrates. Carbs trigger the serotonin "feel good" hormone in our brain. They also mess with our insulin and facilitate the storage of fat. If you want to lose weight you don't need to bother counting calories but you do need to be mindful of carbs. I'll give you an example.
During the gold rush days in California a lot of prospectors were suffering from what became to be known as "rabbit starvation". They were panning for gold and living off of the land. The abundance of tasty rabbits fed them well. Rabbits, however, are basically all protein and have almost no fat and zero carbs. It wasn't long before they wasted away to nothing. Hmmm... maybe a way to lose some weight?
This brings me to the Dukan diet. This diet is basically a variation of the rabbit starvation diet with some oat bran tossed in. (The oat bran expands in your stomach and makes you feel full.) You start out with the "attack" phase and work your way through several other phases until you arrive at a maintenance phase which is basically the Paleo diet.
Of course, you could just start out with the Paleo diet to begin with and you will eventually settle in at a normal weight. The Paleo diet has worked perfectly for about 2 1/2 million years.
The Paleo diet will allow you to eat all you want, never count calories, never feel hungry and still lose weight. There is one thing about the Dukan diet I like though. It's the "attack" phase.
There is nothing like a little positive re-enforcement for those of you starting a new way of eating. Quickly losing a few pounds is bound to be a motivator. So here is my Paleo version of the Dukan diet:
Paleo Attack Phase:
Week One: All you can eat of wild rabbit and raw celery, and six glasses of water. (You can substitute lean grass fed beef for the rabbit).
Week Two: Traditional Paleo diet (Water isn't as crucial in this week)
Week Three: Same as week one.
Week Four: Traditional Paleo diet.
Paleo Reduction Phase:
Monday: 6 glasses of water, all you can eat of lean protein, raw salad greens and/or raw vegetables.
Tuesday through Sunday: Traditional Paleo diet.
When you reach a weight that you are happy with just continue on the normal Paleo diet. You can do this!
Kittredge Kymla has a BS in Biology, Chemistry and Physics from Wayne State University. He writes about the Paleo diet and caveperson lifestyle. For a collection of recipes and caveman lifestyle articles, all glued together with a little humor, please visit http://cavemanhomecompanion.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment