Thursdays Thoughts – Weight Loss on Paleo and The Ketogenic Diet

I’ve had multiple people ask me in the recent weeks about diet. What’s the best way to lose weight and trim up. Well, that’s pretty hard to answer. Each of us has many factors that make up our genetic base, and many more factors in our developed habits that control tolerances to different inputs in our lives. Because of all of these variances, it is impossible to prescribe an exact diet that is “guaranteed” to give uniform results. But, we can give advice and point people in the right direction.

For the most part, the first advice that we give is to swing towards a Paleo diet. The Paleo diet dictates that no grains or added sugars are consumed. The food that is allowed is basically limited to the food choices that a caveman would have had access to. While I understand that we are past the point of caveman style existance, I am yet to have someone produce a compelling argument on why processed foods, and added sugar should be seen as an acceptable in a healthy diet. The two major reasons that I point people towards Paleo eating are: without grains and added sugar there is a pretty drastic decrease in the availability of carbohydrates, and removing processed food means that you actually know what you’re eating, IT’S REAL FOOD!

Moving further into controlling the factors that will drive weight loss, I’d advise people to look into the Ketogenic diet. The Ketogenic diet takes restricted carbohydrate to a new level! It limits you to between 20-60 grams of carbs per day depending on different life factors. Why restrict carbohydrates? In the simplest explanation: carbohydrates can be directly correlated to the storage of body fat. Consuming carbohydrates causes our blood sugar to rise. The rise in blood sugar causes Insulin to be released to control the blood sugar. Insulin works to convert the excess sugar in the blood into stored energy = body fat. When we restrict carbohydrate intake, we enter a state called Ketosis, where we begin to re-train our body to dip into the stored energy (body fat) that we have hanging around. With the Ketogenic diet you are setting yourself up with a much more direct trail of accountability. In order to really follow the program, you have to know what you’re eating and how much of it.

As I said earlier, there are countless factors that change how each of us actually interact with and process what we eat. My suggestions to you guys are just that, suggestions. Seeking more information on these diets just gives you a better starting base to make better decisions for yourself and get more of the results that you want. When your read the links included above, take them with a grain of salt. Each individual dietary format is convinced that it is the only one that will work! I don’t necessarily think that’s the case, but their strong opinions are not the point. The breakdown and usefulness of the concepts in each diet is the point.

This is a long, but good listen on how there has quite possibly been a whole heap of bad science done and displayed to support low fat diets, and is definitely a strong vote in support of a Ketogenic diet.

Gary Taubes on The Joe Rogan Experience

-Coach Phil-