How to Keep Feces Out of Your Bloodstream (or Lose 10 Pounds in 14 Days)

>why did the obesity crisis only come about in the last part of 20th century

I can guess at two factors. Firstly, food started to get really cheap in the 1960s.

Secondly, and not entirely unrelatedly, since that time we haven't suffered a major war or plague. (Up till this point, European history had more or less consisted of wars and plagues.)

Instead people have enjoyed prosperity with more and more attendant consumption, not just of food, but of entertainment and culture.

Here's the potentially controversial bit: in my experience, cultural consumption is enhanced by 'lower level' consumption such as eating rich food and drinking coffee and alcohol. The reason these help is (paradoxically) because they distress the body, causing the brain to compensate by secreting natural sedatives.

These in turn allow the mind to race, temporarily free from the constraints of fear and worry. Gluten, being a lectin, is a stressor of animal intestines. Hence bread, cakes and pasta serve admirably in this regard.

> DINNER: Grilled salmon, roasted green beans, side salad

Aren't green beans legumes?

The paleo diet is, I think, 99% bullshit combined with 1% right-for-the-wrong-reasons. That 1% does make it worth a look, though, and I personally have lost about 15 lb in the last twelve weeks by (more or less) following it. My BMI is down from 27.4 to 25.7, and I fully expect to get back into ideal weight range within another month or so.

I went into it extremely skeptical of almost all the claims, but what I did buy was the claim that you feel a lot more full after eating a meal of meat and vegetables than you do after a meal rich in grains and potatoes. So I tried it, and lo and behold I find it quite easy to eat as much as I feel like of all the allowed foods and still consume only ~2000 calories a day.

I also find that I no longer have any craving for anything sweeter than fruit, whereas I used to be able to talk myself into milkshakes and brownies with excessive frequency. I think it's a blood sugar effect -- all the food I eat is low in GI so I'm not getting the blood sugar spikes I used to. This effect might be specific to me personally, though.

The fact that the diet supposedly replicates what our distant ancestors ate is important only in that it at least guarantees that you're eating a subset of foods that are nutritionally sufficient.

Other side effects? None that I've noticed, neither good nor bad. It's possible I've felt a little bit more tired, but I can't be sure... and in any case that's not unexpected if you're maintaining a 500-calorie-a-day deficit.

I should also mention that I'm not quite strict paleo because I eat moderate amounts of dairy -- I'll be damned if I'm giving up milk in my coffee. Speaking of which, I'll be damned if I'm gonna give up coffee, which is also non-paleo. And I'm not one to panic if a salad happens to have croutons, or my fish happens to be crumbed. But breads, potatoes, sugar and beans/legumes are out (I don't buy the logic behind exclusion of beans, but I never really liked beans anyway).

In conclusion, it's not a miracle and it's not nearly as amazing as its most far-out proponents claim, but if you need to lose some weight it's worth trying out for a couple of weeks to see what happens (maybe your body chemistry is different to mine, so it might not work for you). If you don't need to lose weight I wouldn't recommend it, because frankly it's hard to eat enough paleo food to maintain weight while physically active. When I've lost enough I think I'll reintroduce grains at breakfast and maybe lunch but keep the paleo dinners.

I discovered about 20 years ago that wheat products, and independently, yeast products (and especially bread which contains both) make me feel bad. Not throw-up bad or fever bad -- just bad, tired, puffed up.

I've tried to get a diagnosis to no avail. Celiac was ruled out by lab testing, and as a result doctors started suggesting it might be a psychological problem.

Me, I listen to my body.

And re "nonsensical faddish bullshit", that describes practically all accepted nutritional science these days. The "calories in - calories out" lacks any scientific basis, and is disproved in just about every experiment -- yet it is somehow considered true.

Personally, I consider this anecdotal theory just as valid as what your average nutritionist would tell you.

(References: Taubes "Good Calories, Bad Calories"; Roberts "What makes food fattening"; Cabanac)

I started the paleo diet about 6 months ago. In that time I lost about 18kg of fat easier than any other diet I have ever been on. My blood lipids (I was about to start statins for cholesterol) have all improved dramatically in this time, to the point where my doctor is now incredibly interested in the topic. My psoriasis and eczema have all cleaned up dramatically. The crossfit gym I go to has seen massive improvements in lifting etc once people went paleo. And I am finally off the Prozac for anxiety. Needless to say, for the population of n=1, this experiment worked wonders. I know a lot of people won’t take this anecdotal evidence, but if you jump into any of the many paleo forums, you will hear stories like this all the time. If you want a serious easy to follow, health improvement, I highly suggest this diet.

For more resources on the topic I suggest a few books.

http://www.primalbody-primalmind.com/ - Primal Body Primal Mind by Nora Gedgaudas – Lots of science.

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/ - Primal Blueprint by Mark Sisson – Lot more accessible. Give it to your parents etc.

http://www.amazon.com/Good-Calories-Bad-Gary-Taubes/dp/14000... - Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes – Very long, but explains where the American Dietary guidelines came from and why they are wrong. (Cliffs notes: http://higher-thought.net/complete-notes-to-good-calories-ba... )

Some excellent blogs/websites:

http://www.paleonu.com/

http://freetheanimal.com/

http://www.westonaprice.org/

http://www.paleoz.com/