The paleo journey can be arduous, especially during the initial adjustment period. Piggy backing on some points Kelly Suzanne discussed in her blog last week, the article sited below discusses common reasons people fail on a paleo diet. Sited here are the technical falterings, but the complete article also discusses commitment, paleo orthorexia, cravings, the cost of paleo, and convenience. For the committed paleo experimenter, the technicalities are the quickest to throw people off track, and important to address first.
You may have just embarked on your Paleo journey and find it a never ending challenge to transition from your old lifestyle to your new. You could also be a veteran to the diet, but still find yourself picking away at a fresh loaf of bread, or nibbling on some sweats. Or, even worse, you’re feeling like you’re doing everything right, yet you fail to see the results in weight loss, increased energy or improved general health. These are stories I hear often; thus, I write this article in hopes of making your life just a little easier, or in the very least help you kick those bad habits to the curb. ...
So why do so many individuals fail to stick to the diet or stick to it but fail to see the great results? It can be different for everyone, but when we consider the Paleo community, there are certainly some common reasons for failure.
The technical reasons
These “technical reasons” are usually reasons why some people fail to achieve the proper health results on the diet even though they stick to it and feel like they do it correctly. There’s a lot of conflicting information out there when it comes to the Paleo Diet and some people are led to make changes based on some wrong information that aren’t good for them in the long term.
Too much nuts or nut butter
As I explained on my article on nuts and seeds, while they are natural and were most probably eaten by most of our ancestors to some extend, nuts and seeds can still be irritating to the gut and most of them have a bad fatty-acid profile. If you are struggling with your health or weight, I recommend limiting your consumption of most nuts and seeds and maybe even avoid them entirely until your health is under control and your digestion is perfect. If you remove them from your diet and add them back a little later on, you should be able to see if they affect you in a negative way or not.
Not enough salt
There’s no denying that excess salt can be a problem, but removing salt completely can certainly lead to issues as well. I’ve seen accounts of people who started having issues with low blood pressure on a Paleo diet that have be resolved easily by adding a little natural sea salt here and there in their food. Some people try to imitate our ancestors too much and forget that our ancestors probably went out of their way to get a little extra sodium in their diet. There’s a reason, after all, why salty is one of the main tastes we can discern.
Not enough carbs
A whole lot of people who embark on a Paleo diet become very carb-phobic and associate carbohydrates with instant fat gain. We have to keep in mind that fat gain is much more complicated than that and that we are well adapted to function on carbs or fat for energy. For this reason a lot of people limit their carbohydrate intake to very low amounts. Even when adequate amounts of fat are consumed to make up for the lesser amount of carbohydrates, limiting the amounts of carbs consumed by too much can lead to intense cravings and binging on unhealthy foods.
Sources of starchy carbohydrates are especially feared because they are concentrated sources of carbs. If we start with the belief that carbohydrates are not bad per se we can then see why it doesn’t make sense to fear concentrated sources like starchy vegetables. Read up on Paleo 2.0 for the complete demystification of starchy vegetables.
Also, while this is getting into an entire other discussion, being in ketogenic a state from time to time is a healthy thing, but being there all the time can lead to problems in the long run. I talk about that issue in more details on my article on the perfect macro-nutrient ratio.
Carbohydrates in general shouldn’t be feared, carbohydrates from toxic sources like grains, legumes and refined sugar should.
Not enough fat
Again in trying to imitate our Palaeolithic ancestors, some people still believe that fat in general should be consumed in limited quantity. Those people suggest that wild animals are very lean and that our ancestors were not used to consume much fat. What’s often overlooked though is that even very lean animals have plenty of fat tissues around their organs or between their skin and their muscles. Modern science also shows us that saturated fat is a great source of clean and non-toxic energy while too much lean protein can certainly be a problem.
Some people limit both fat and carbohydrate consumption, our two primary fuel sources, and either consume much more lean protein or consume less calories overall. For those who end up consuming too few calories, constant hunger is often felt and the energy levels usually plummet.
Eat away at that healthy natural saturated fat and those sources of non-toxic carbohydrates.
Not enough nutritious foods (nutrient deficiencies)
This problem is not seen very often, but it can still happen. In our modern world eating a non-toxic diet is not enough and many vitamins and minerals are needed to deal with all the stress and bad environmental factors that surround us. This simply means that chicken and vegetables day in and day out is not going to cut it. You should strive to frequently eat foods such as meat from grass-fed ruminants, fresh wild-caught fish, homemade stock, fermented vegetables, seafood, organs like liver and bone marrow and a good variety of fresh vegetables.
Too much fruits
Fruits are certainly natural, but most of them are loaded with fructose, which becomes toxic when consumed in high amounts. Just because many fruits are loaded with vitamin C, potassium, fiber and many natural anti-oxidant doesn’t mean that the fructose in them is less toxic. A few pieces of fruit per day shouldn’t be a problem at all, but over-doing it could be the reason why so many fail to lose the desired weight even on a Paleo diet.
Here is also yet another reason why starchy vegetables should be the carbohydrate source of choice. Starchy vegetables are converted to glucose only when digested so they are the healthier choice for most.
Forgetting about the other aspects of the lifestyle
While diet is the main focus of this website and is certain the central point of the Paleo diet lifestyle, other lifestyle factors play a very important role on health and shouldn’t be forgotten. The three main other lifestyle factors to keep in mind other than diet are exercise, stress and sleep.
Failure to have healthy habits in one or more of those other lifestyle factors can greatly limit or hinder your results. Bad sleep quality or lack of sleep can be especially harmful and no amount of healthy food is going to make up for it.
