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Magnusmode
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25 Mar 2015, 9:19 am

Has anyone heard of Paleo before? I've tried it for quite some time now and I have seen some crazy differences with my body. If you aren't familiar with it, eating Paleo means no dairy, gluten, heavy carbs and processed sugars. Pretty much eliminates all the aisles at the grocery store (especially the junk food). I don't do strict Paleo, and still eat gluten, dairy and some treats on occasion. But, when I was doing strict Paleo, I felt the best I have in a long time. Suddenly my hyper-activity decreased, I wasn't bloated anymore, I was sleeping better, I did not have anxiety or nervousness, I was happy and full of life and energy, I could better control my emotions and behaviour. Even the people around me noticed a difference in my mood. Is it just me? Or have others experienced similar changes eating like I do?



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25 Mar 2015, 1:04 pm

Having read up on aspie diets, I decided to cut out the gluten and seriously reduced the amount of dairy I eat. I still eat refined sugar though, need all the calories I can get :) .

I must admit, I don't remember ever feeling this good. I'm eating more, sleeping better, I have s**t tons of energy and don't crash out so badly after lunch (still get a little sleepy). I'd recommend the diet to anyone and i usually hate all this faddy diet BS.



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29 Mar 2015, 6:59 pm

I don't agree with it even though that is what kind of diet I unintentionally sort of eat. I can't have wheat, dairy, eggs, a number of veggies, soy, seafood other than fish and peanuts.



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23 Apr 2015, 5:10 pm

I'm a little late to this thread I know, but I thought I'd add my experiences for any late readers.

I am on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD). I have previously been on it for a year and then forgot how great it was and quit. I am now back on the wagon. It's fairly similar to the paleo; I don't eat gluten, grains, potatoes, starchy vegetables, the only sugar is in fruit or honey... and I try to limit my dairy to pure Greek yogurt with my breakfast (I don't make my own SCD yogurt).

I am an aspie, fairly high functioning (very bright, but I struggle with the emotional stuff... and the workplace).

When I am on SCD I make eye contact more, I have more energy. I wake up in the morning without that 'brain fog'. I am more active, stick to a routine, exercise and eat well. I am healthier, happier and more 'engaged'. I can't explain that last part very well! Things seem real and 'in focus' rather than through a fog.

When I came off the SCD once, I hadn't realised how much it had changed me. Gradually I went back to sleeping on the couch rather than with my partner, not eating meals (grabbing sweets or whatever was in the fridge - I ate pastry by itself once!), I stopped walking the dog and basically made a nest on the sofa where I would recover and have alone time - all the time!

I am now back on the SCD and the nest is gone, the dog is happy, my partner is happy and I am feeling calmer and more engaged with life.

I know these diets have little impact on some people, but for me it really has had a huge impact on my day to day life. A few months ago (off the SCD) I almost had some form of stress breakdown due to an interview. I have another interview in a week, ( back on SCD), and feel totally calm and reasonably confident.

If anyone is wondering whether to try this diet, I hate fads, but this isn't a fad. It helped me. And it can't hurt!



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27 Apr 2015, 1:20 am

I think the paleo diet and a few similar options are pretty much the healthiest option for most people. But it really stresses me out to restrict my food choices, and I haaaaaaate pretty much all the food available on the paleo diet.

I'm not familiar with how it affects ASD symptoms.

I do know that certain food ingredients are known to aggravate ADHD symptoms (sometimes even causing them in people who wouldn't otherwise have problems), and a paleo diet cuts out the worst offenders and probably reduces a lot of the remaining ingredients.

Seems weird to call it a "fad" when it's what people ate for thousands of years. (Well, back in the day, people didn't avoid starchy vegetables. I don't think you have to avoid them now either, but if you don't need a lot of calories, it's easy to get too many if you aren't cautious about potatoes.) I can't help but judge people's nutrition opinions based on how they feel about the paleo diet.


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31 May 2015, 11:21 am

I am not on a paleo diet because I don't believe in not eating grains and legumes. I load up on healthy carbs like buckwheat, quinoa, brown rice, and millet. Also, I eat lentils and beans. Being vegan for multiple reasons and vegan because of a sensitivity, grains and legumes are an important source of carbs and protein for me.

I personally think the effectiveness of some diets, like the paleo diet, stems from the fact that they eliminate processed foods. I can't believe how difficult and expensive it is to avoid sugar, refined oils, animal products, processed soy products, and gluten in our society. All I really eat are ALL types of fruits and vegetables (the more nutritious the better), legumes, whole grains I have listed above, as well as some soaked nuts, and I feel great. There are tons of options and I don't feel limited or deprived eating like that at all. However, I wish I didn't have to do quite as much prep work to be able to sustain this diet, though. If only there were more places and people out there who believed in eating wholesome, plant-based foods. :cry:


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31 May 2015, 3:37 pm

MathGirl wrote:
[...]

I personally think the effectiveness of some diets, like the paleo diet, stems from the fact that they eliminate processed foods. I can't believe how difficult and expensive it is to avoid sugar, refined oils, animal products, processed soy products, and gluten in our society. All I really eat are ALL types of fruits and vegetables (the more nutritious the better), legumes, whole grains I have listed above, as well as some soaked nuts, and I feel great. There are tons of options and I don't feel limited or deprived eating like that at all.

[...]
I agree. It seems that the only real benefit to "GMO-Free" and "Organic" foods is to the people who can charge more for these products than ordinary processed foods. There also seems to be abundant evidence that:

(1) Paleolithic humans ate grains and legumes
(2) Humans are a nutritionally flexible species
(3) The hypothesis that Paleolithic humans were genetically adapted to specific local diets remains to be proven
(4) The Paleolithic period was extremely long and saw a variety of forms of human subsistence in a wide variety of changing nutritional landscapes
(5) Very little is otherwise known for certain about what Paleolithic humans ate.

Resource (link): "Plant foods and the dietary ecology of Neanderthals and early modern humans". Journal of Human Evolution 69: 44–54. doi:10.1016/j.jhevol.2013.12.014. PMID 24612646.

It seems to me that the alleged claims regarding the "Paleolithic Diet" have been greatly exaggerated, at the very least. Somewhere, someone is making a lot of money by exploiting the gullibility and desperation of dieters everywhere over this current dieting fad.

This is not to say that the "Paleo Diet" doesn't work at all, but to say that a lot of talk and (expensive) literature is being generated over a diet that has some benefit for some people, and not so much for others.



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31 May 2015, 9:23 pm

Fnord, yes, exactly. I've come across some of the same research as you have. I also see the paleo diet as just another fad diet, really. After doing some research on eating and health, I am really convinced that these strict diet plans don't work for everyone and we all need to find our individualized ways of eating in order to feel our best.

Also, I made an error in my first post and wrote "vegan" twice... I really meant to say that I am gluten-free because of a sensitivity. I wish one could edit posts after someone else posted after, like we were able to with the old version of WP *sighs*


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space-nerd
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04 Jun 2015, 7:09 pm

I've been paleo for over two years now and I'm feeling proud of it. It does not disappoint me to have to avoid a lot of things because after you've been on this diet for long enough, its like riding a bike and you will forget all the foods you used to eat and that they will no longer appeal to you. Occasionally I'll break the rules (within limits) sometimes I'll have dairy with chai or coffee and things with refined sugars (lower g/100g though) like chocolate. Chocolate is still considered paleo if it doesn't have the refined sugars.



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04 Jun 2015, 7:21 pm

My ex-husband was 465 pounds and went on the Paleo diet and lost over 80 pounds without getting hungry or feeling any food cravings. I don't care so much why it works, so long as it worked. He was about ready to give up on diets and have gastric bypass surgery and then he didn't need to resort to such extreme measures.



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05 Jun 2015, 6:41 am

Magnusmode wrote:
...eating Paleo means no dairy, gluten, heavy carbs and processed sugars...


Wow. I'm Paleo and didn't even know it. :lol:

I like milk, cheese, etc., but I have very little of it. Pretty much gluten free due to dietary issues in my household, and fitness-wise, don't need the heavy carbs (hence, low gluten to start with) and have been avoiding processed sugars as much as I can. Chocolate is my worst sin.



space-nerd
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05 Jun 2015, 11:43 pm

zer0netgain wrote:
Magnusmode wrote:
...eating Paleo means no dairy, gluten, heavy carbs and processed sugars...


have been avoiding processed sugars as much as I can. Chocolate is my worst sin.
Why don't you try something like 90% dark with lower sugar content?



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07 Jun 2015, 3:57 pm

People with my metabolism burn anything, fast. So protein is effectively treated like carbs in isolation. No need or point to wait till ketones to kick in, it will get burned anyway.

There is some rationale for eating protein in combination with carbs in that situation. Some people are just adapted differently.

This is the flaw with one size fits all diets.

Although there something in Paleo. The concept of Paleo, as in relating to one arbitrary point in our evolution is overly simplistic.



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18 Jun 2015, 6:32 am

space-nerd wrote:
Why don't you try something like 90% dark with lower sugar content?


Eating a whole box of dark chocolate isn't MUCH of an improvement. :lol:



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19 Jun 2015, 4:33 am

I just started the Paleo lifestyle, and I like it. I don't consider it a fad, and long before it came out as a concept, I had already decided that our genes were geared towards the foods our ancestors had eaten. I just hadn't put my belief into action.

It's not a perfect lifestyle by any means, but it attempts to address the problems with the artificial concentration of calories through mechanization, which we were not designed to eat, and that's another long held belief I've had.

I was having a lot of health issues for the past several years, such as being foggy headed most of the time, feeling elated and then depressed, depending on the food I was eating, getting very sleepy after every meal, and just basically feeling the need to sleep all the time.

I also knew that I was headed towards even greater health problems, associated with the inflammation of being overweight, generally, and I needed a solution that made sense to me. I don't believe in diets, but I do believe in genetic bio hacking, as some of the Paleo folks like to call it.

I had tried low carb diets in the past with great success, lasting for years, but I couldn't stick with them, because I got lazy over time. I also continued to eat dairy, which may have been a problem too, because I feel totally different without the dairy than when I was just on the low carb diet, alone.

The other big problem I had on the low carb diet, as opposed to the paleo lifestyle was that I would allow myself special occasions, such as refined sugar on holidays. That won't work for me, however, because sugar is just too addicting. Now, honey and fruit are it, and that's enough for me. I can handle those.

I really didn't have a choice, I needed to make a change, because the food I was eating was killing me, and would of killed me if I had continued eating it.

I've only been doing the Paleo lifestyle for a week, and I'm already feeling completely different, and better, overall. I've also lost a ton of water weight. Granted, I'm a bit more anxious, but I'd rather be more anxious and have the energy to work, than be sedentary and not get anything done. I'm also hungry a lot, but that's manageable, and makes me eat smaller meals more often, which is good for my metabolism.

Wish me luck, because our modern diet was killing me, and I'll gladly give that up if it means being healthy.


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20 Jun 2015, 4:31 pm

Nay. The foundation of this diet is flawed. It aims to eat as the cave dwellers would have, but there are many problems with this approach. 1) Our bodies are drastically different than those of our ancestors. 2) (most of) Our lifestyles are not nearly as physically demanding as a caveman's, therefore they would have required much more protein, as paleo calls for, however we do not. 3) They're all half-a**ing it. Cave dwellers could not drive to Trader Joes to buy some Coconut flour for their paleo brownies. They wouldn't have had the knowledge of how to obtain/make the other ingredients (like cocoa powder) in the correct forms. Nor would they have had the chemistry knowledge to formulate the correct ingredient ratios or baking temperatures. People that follow this diet should do it justice, by being authentic about it. Hunt and gather your own food/ingredients, formulate your own recipes (they didn't have Google), and cook it over a fire you built yourself with a pot you forged.

It's my opinion that the thing that gives people positive results from the paleo diet, is the fact that it forces them to eliminate processed food. Thus dramatically cutting down on their non-naturally occurring sugar intake, and other problem-causing ingredients.

Disclaimer: I hope no one takes offense from my opinions, if you like this diet then you should continue with it, to heck with what I think. :)