How to Lose Weight on a Paleo Diet

 

Paleo diets have been popular for a number of decades now, although if you really want to be pedantic, you could say that paleo diets have been popular for millions of years, but we won’t complicate things. Paleo diets are basically dietary changes which require followers of the diet to consume foods very similar to those that cavemen used to consume back in the Palaeolithic Era, as the idea is to nourish the body with natural foods that human beings have been consuming for millions of years, as opposed to processed foods which we have only had access to for around 10,000 years. While the main benefit of the diet is that it helps to prevent allergies, food intolerance, and other medical conditions commonly brought on by a person’s dietary choices, the good news is that they can also promote fat loss and muscle growth. Here are some helpful tips on how to lose weight while on a paleo diet.

 

Consume enough carbohydrates based upon your activity levels – People often think that paleo diets are low-carb diets, but that isn’t the case at all. Yes, while many non-paleo foods such as: wheat, grain, flour, and cereal products are all common sources of carbohydrates, so too are fresh fruits and vegetables, which are paleo-friendly and are very beneficial for paleo dieters. If you’re a fairly active individual, you will need to ensure that you are getting enough carbohydrates, otherwise your glycogen levels in your muscles could drop too sharply too quickly, which would make you feel ill and lethargic, and it could lead to muscle catabolism, which is basically where the body eats away at muscle tissue due to a lack of energy. The more active you are, the more carbs you will require, so choose your sources wisely, which ideally, should come primarily from vegetables.

 

Choose fats wisely – Paleo diets encourage followers to consume relatively high amounts of healthy fats, as these fats have been proven to nourish the body, to provide energy, and to provide a whole host of other health and fitness benefits in the process. There are many healthy fat sources to choose from, though common paleo-friendly fats include: avocados, grass-fed butter, and natural coconut oil. It may sound bizarre, but by eating fat, you can actually encourage your body to burn more fat, due to the fact that it has been proven to speed up the metabolism, plus many healthy fat molecules can actually communicate with fat burning enzymes within the human body, encouraging them to burn body fat stores for fuel. What’s more, with coconut oil, which is rich in medium chain triglycerides, or MCTs, as the MCTs are different to other fats, once consumed, they are virtually instantly used as energy, as the body doesn’t get the chance to break them down and store them in fat cells.

 

Stay active – Exercise is not just beneficial for losing weight, exercise is crucial for a person’s general health and well-being as well, so you will need to ensure you’re getting enough exercise on a daily basis. Exercise burns calories, it provides mental health benefits, it strengthens the heart, it helps lower LDL cholesterol, and much more besides. You don’t need to go to the gym and workout until you puke each night, but you will need to perform some form of physical activity each day, whether it be a walk, a bike ride, some gardening, some cleaning, a workout, some swimming, or even some extra-curricular activities with your partner in the bedroom (wink wink).

 

Make sure you don’t skip meals – When most people try to lose weight, they will often skip meals and will starve themselves, as they think this is the best way of losing weight. In reality however, it has the opposite effect as without food, the metabolism has no fuel, so it cannot burn off as many calories, and it cannot create as much energy, so we feel tired and lethargic. It may sound odd, but by sinking your teeth into a grass-fed sirloin steak cooked in Sriracha, Shallot & Scallion grass-fed butter, served with a side of buttered spinach, you will actually be fueling your body and encouraging it to metabolize more body fat. This speeds up your metabolic rate so you will actually lose weight much quicker and far easier than by starving yourself. When it comes to paleo, make sure you don’t skip meals, as this will not only hinder your weight loss, it could deprive you of energy and nutrients, leaving you worse off than when you began.