Posts from — September 2010

Robb Wolf, who we heart, just released his book The Paleo Solution, which is already a New York Times bestseller. Copies are on our shelf for your perusal.

And apparently he’s revamped his website in preparation for all the new visitors. Even if you’ve been a regular reader of Robb’s blog or listener of the Paleo Solution podcast, go check out his new FAQs page! It has “Basics of the Paleo Diet”, “Sample Meal Plans” and a bunch of other good info. Start there and check the book for more.

From Michael Pollan’s Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual:

Avoid food products with the wordoid “lite” or the terms “low-fat” or “nonfat” in their names.

The forty-year-old campaign to create low- and nonfat versions of traditional foods has been a failure. We’ve gotten fat on low-fat products. Why? Because removing the fat from foods doesn’t necessarily make them nonfattening. Carbohydrates can also make you fat, and many low- and nonfat foods boost the sugars to make up for the loss of flavor. Also, by demonizing one nutrient – fat – we inevitably give a free pass to another, supposedly “good” nutrient – carbohydrates in this case – and then proceed to eat too much of that instead. Since the low-fat campaign began in the late 1970s, Americans actually have been eating more than 500 additional calories per day, most of them in the form of refined carbohydrates like sugar. The result: The average male is seventeen pounds heavier and the average female nineteen pounds heavier than in the late 1970s. You’re better off eating the real thing in moderation than bingeing on “lite” food products packed with sugars and salt.

Check out our Nutrition Links (at the bottom of the column to your right) to read more. Post any questions you have to comments.

for the Muscle Up Club.

Congratulations Anthony! Nice work.

I was encouraged to try Paleo/Primal eating just by being around people in the gym who are doing it.  I began 3 months ago.  The Paleo/Primal approach makes sense to me. I understand the diet as eating in a way that is consistent with what humans have consumed for almost all of our history; vegetables, meat, some fruit, some seeds. I have not dropped dairy out of my diet because it is so easy for me as a person on the go and I like it. Also, I tolerate it well (I think).

I had no specific goals when I let go of grain and most sugars, but was open to see what would result, which was losing 10 pounds with no effort. This was after doing crossfit 3x/week for the past year and a half without weight loss, but huge gains in strength and energy. I had shifted some weight from fat to muscle, but it was the dietary shift two months ago that resulted in weight loss.

It is nice to do pull-ups while lifting 10 less pounds.  Perhaps soon I will be able to try a weighted pull-up! I do look different because my muscle development shows more, and that’s OK by me.  I like looking/being powerful. I probably will take the next step of letting go of dairy when I gear up for a bit more cooking than I do now.

At 51, I have witnessed every health/eating philosophy that has gone by in the past 30 years. I have tried some of them.  In retrospect, I wish I had not tried some of them because I may have harmed myself.  This one is backed by very good science, and has the advantage of not being a ‘philosophy’.  I am not rigid about it.  If I was at an event with a really great cake, I’d probably have a piece.  But letting go of grain is an easy way to do away with most of what is problematic in the western diet as long as the rest of what you eat is clean.

to our latest On Ramp graduates, from left to right: Brian, Julie, Reza, Robert, and Carrie!