Please forgive the blatant newb questions here. This paleo stuff is new to me. In a few weeks, I'll be posting links and educating newbs with the rest of you. For now, my hunting and gathering is only for knowledge

So...right off the top of my head....I'm here because I want to lose weight. Got about 30# of hideous ick to get rid of, which will bring me to the end of my journey of losing about 70#. I'm here because other forms of low carbing have left me wanting things that I KNOW are good for me but not allowed on other plans. That being said...

What are some good rules to adhere to when losing weight, caveman style?

As I look thru my fridge and cabinets, I see low carb items I've grown to love while losing weight via low carb.

Is coconut milk or almond flour allowed around here?

I've purchased The Paleo Diet (Cordain) and thumbed through my online copy while I'm waiting for the paper version to show up. I realize he's not the only viewpoint on paleo eating. He advises to stay away from things like bacon and honey. I've noticed as I read around on forums that some folks doing paleo eat these items. While I'm not particularly fond of either bacon or honey, I'd like to educate myself on the various viewpoints of eating paleo.

What reading material is available that showcases other viewpoints, such as the inclusion of items such as bacon and honey?


I suppose thats all I have for now Thanks for your help!

~Erica

Honey is sugar (same as HFCS) and I would avoid it.

Bacon is meat (so is good). The salt on the bacon is the harmful bit, so buy bacon with the least amount of salt. Also watch out for other dodgy additives like nitrates.

Coconut milk and almond flour are nice and pure and few would say they are not paleo. Feel free to eat them


For weight loss I would say eat high fat and keep your carbs low. I try to aim for less than 100gm of carbs a day to lose weight. As it sounds like you have less lean mass than me, you may wish to aim a little lower (maybe 80-ish?).

My wife and I found that this works great and you can lose decent weight with no exercise . We also only do strength training type exercise as lots of cardio can be harmful and in some studies actually impeded weight loss...

Much as I'm somewhat anti-salt - I think the most egregious ingredient found in bacon, from a paleo and low-carb POV, is sugar. In Canada, most of the popular supermarket bacon has sugar.

I forgot you North Americans add sugar to EVERYTHING!

(we are almost as bad )

LOL I know all about lots of cardio impeding weight loss. I'm an endurance cyclist, and always have to lose weight in the off season because it just doesnt work when Im cycling a billion miles a week. Unfortunately, the season starts back this saturday, and my lazy butt never got back on the wagon over the winter to shed these last pounds.

Perhaps throwing in some basic strength/resistance training stuff at home a few days a week might help?

Hey guys, first post so hello! I'll leave an introduction for later rather than hijack the thread.

Just a quick note on the bacon. I'm not sure if my being in New Zealand makes a difference, but there seems to be a big difference between Shoulder and Middle bacon. I'm not sure which way around it was, but one had nearly zero carbs and high fat, the other had low fat but alot of sugar. I also found that the figures (atleast where I shop) for honey cured varieties didn't seem to make much of a difference on the figures, except I guess for the substituting of dextrose for honey.

Also on the cardio comments, I'm don't know much about how cardio would impede weight loss on this plan, but for reference weight training can give just as effective weight loss, sometimes more, because it elevates your metabolism quite significantly for the next 24+ hours. I remember reading that alot of bodybuilders use this non-cardio approach for cutting before a contest, because it minimizes protein catabolism (muscle loss).

And +1 for Paleo being good for weight loss without any cardio/weights at all - I'm losing steadily without either

I'm curious - what are those things?

Right now I'm not eating bacon because I'm doing a fructose elimination trial - for me it's definitely the sugar. I've even been experimenting with curing my own meats and fish, using salt, pepper, and green vegetables and herbs.

Hi! I'm so happy to see you here. I am a wannabe long-distance runner (not super long distance right now - 28MPW) but I have to lose weight in the off season, too. I tend to do it in summer, though, otherwise we could have a cardio recovery weight loss challenge. As of May 3rd (after a ten mile race), I will be going hard on the losing. I've gained 15 pounds training for this race . I have about 60 to go (HAD 50 ).

The most kick ass thing I did that seemed to melt away stuff was take this trapeze class once a week last summer. Climbing ropes and doing pullups seemed to turn my metabolism into a furnace.

Zero carb bacon can be found in the states, you just have to know where to look. I work at a food co-op, so I order mine by the case (no nitrates as well!). I eat it every day. Unlike others here, I also eat fruit every day too (though usually only in the first half of the day for some reason). As of today, I've been on paleo 12 weeks and reached a 20 pound loss. Weight loss has been easy for me, even though I started this WOE for health reasons (bad eczema, weird symptoms, etc.). Good luck!

Fruit, mainly. LOL The last plan I was on did not allow fruit at all until you got to the maintenance phase. Until then, it was strictly lean meats and leafy greens/pther super low carb veggies only. Just seems kinda stupid to be on a diet that says 'NO FRUIT'. Its so natural and good for you.

Interested in your meat curing stuff you got going on over there. Care to elaborate?

Well, since I was lazy and stuck in a trance of self loathing over the winter, I never did lose anything these past few months so I've got nothing else to do other than try to lose it through the spring and summer. We should definitely keep in contact.

A trapeze class? Really?? That would be SO cool. The area I live in is not cool enough to offer something like that. I bet your upper body REALLY transformed during that class, huh?

For some people, yeah, but not for me. It's tons better than grains, that's for sure! I eat berries in season, but anything sweeter than that gives me major trouble. The elimination diet I'm on now is very anti-fruit - not only do many fruits have "excess" fructose (I probably have Fructose Malabsorption), but things like apples and peaches have a lot of sorbitol - a sugar alcohol that ferments in the gut. I'm dealing with some serious gas problems. I'm also eliminating coconut milk, onions, and brussels sprouts.


I'm pretty much a beginner. You might want to have a look at "Charcuterie, the thread:" http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthre...ght=charcuterie

I've made gravlax a couple times (Swedish-style cured salmon). The first time I used a reduced-sugar cure, the second time I used a no-sugar cure. Despite warnings that it wouldn't work out, I very much liked the no-sugar cured salmon. I've also done some experiments on pork trimmings, but I haven't gotten it together to do a whole side of bacon yet. I'd really like to try making pancetta, and I'm hoping someday to come up with a recipe for vinegar-free pickled pig's feet. I have dreams of making pepperoni and chorizo, but I don't know if that will happen anytime soon - dry-cured sausage is much harder to do.

After a lot of reading on the subject, I've come to the conclusion that nitrates are harmless. They may have risks in bacon, but those come more from the cooking method than from the nitrates themselves. Here's the secret: Most vegetables are loaded with nitrates. If you ever see bacon with "celery juice" listed in the ingredients, you can be sure that any claims about it being "nitrate-free" are untrue. I'm actually using this information to devise curing recipes: many cures include herbs - gravlax uses dill, for example. I make a point of including some green vegetables or herbs in most cures now - in addition to providing nitrates, which prevent botulism, they also provide potassium, which counteracts the saltiness of the cure.

Junk Food Science article on nitrates:
http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com...bacon-make.html

I'm jschwab's husband. She got me into running, and I got her into trapeze (after she encouraged me to try it). We have a lot of fun! I haven't done it since last summer, and when I try it now, I'm amazed how much stronger I was. There's things I just can't do anymore. I'm looking forward to this summer.

Food journalist vs. science? Uggg!

Yeah, stupid I don't want to have diarrrea multiple times a day and horrible gas for the rest of my life. I'm with Mike.

Modern fruit is way too sweet. Probably not as good for you as you think.