10 benefits of a paleo diet for your health and weight loss!

What is a paleo diet, put simply, the paleo diet means eating only what people would have had available to them in the stone age, effectively cutting out processed foods, carbohydrates, and dairy.

‘The Paleo diet is designed to mimic what humans were thought to have been eating around the Paleolithic era, which dates from approximately 2.5 million to 10,000 years ago.’ says Medlin ‘The diet cuts out dairy, beans, pulses and grains and encourages a lot of meat, fish and vegetables.’

What are the health benefits?

The idea behind the paleo diet is that the human body isn’t adapted for the modern diet we have now. After rapid developments in farming and industry established the likes of dairy and processed foods, our bodies, so the theory goes, haven’t had the chance to adapt. Therefore, the diet is said to be a way of being ‘kinder’ to your body. In terms of the tangible benefits, ‘the diet is another way to cut out carbs,’ says Medlin, ‘so if you’re able to stick to it, it will probably help you to lose some weight.’ ‘It is also high in protein,’ Medlin adds. Protein is an excellent food source that benefits your bones, muscles and skin.

10 benefits of a paleo diet

1 Energy

Paleo diet chooses right food for every occasion ensuring maximum energy from every meal. Someone following a strict paleo diet regime doesn’t need to drink energy drinks. The diet itself provides ample energy, much more than the modern diets.

2 Weight loss

Another benefit of switching to paleo diet is the gradual weight loss it offers. Since Paleo diet includes only what is healthy and necessary, the body get everything that is required and only in the right amount leading to change in weight towards optimal.

3 Better immunity

The main focus of paleo diet is to avoid foods that can potentially harm your health. The diet makes it easy to avoid crap foods by giving you a simple blueprint, only eat what a caveman would be able to eat. It improves the immune response and the overall health.

4 Mental health

Paleo diet includes only natural sources of protein and fat like cold water fish; ideally wild-caught salmon. Salmon is a rich source of Omega 3 fatty acids which contains DHA which in turn is considered good for the heart, eyes, and most importantly for brain development and functioning.

5 Healthy gut

Too much of processed food and stress can cause harm to the gut health by causing inflammation within the intestinal tract. Paleo diet not only fulfils all the nutritional requirements of the body, but it also saves the body from a poor gut health.

6 Digestion

The paleo diet suggests eating foods that you’ve adapted the ability to digest over thousands of years.  Since our bodies are already adapted to digesting such foods, there is no risk of a poor digestion after switching to paleo diet.

7 All muscle, less fat

Paleo diet is based on natural sources of protein resulting in more and improved muscles. The mole muscles you have the more energy your body will send to the muscles cell rather than fat cell.

8 Limited fructose

The diet works according to the fact that human body digests fructose in a way different than it digests carbohydrates. It includes easy digesting fruits in the right quantity keeping the fructose content to reasonable amount.

9 Less allergies

Some people are allergic to certain kind of foods like seeds and dairy products. This has been a common problem with the modern diet as it doesn’t go well without such crucial foods. However the diet recommends avoiding such foods for a month or two.

10 Complete diet

A paleo diet constitutes of healthy vegetables and fruits as its main foods depend on the season and the requirement. Regardless of the foods you choose for your paleo diet, it will ensure that you get all the nutrition your body needs. Try these paleo recipes for a healthy diet.

Related content: 10 tips for the best keto diet for a healthier lifestyle!

Conclusion

Since the diet involves cutting down on processed foods it is certainly a good way to ditch the junk. The Caveman diet bans booze, high-fat, calorific processed foods and refined carbs (although diet fizzy drinks are allowed). It encourages you to eat more good-quality protein such as lean meat, chicken and fish, which helps to keep you fuller for longer. Eating more fruit, veg and nuts is a good way to boost fibre and to help fill you up and to increase intake of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants.

However, there are several concerns with the diet. Because dairy products are eliminated, intakes of bone-building calcium are likely to be low, and a lack of recommended exercise will not help tone and strengthen your body. Many people who embark on the diet do feel drained initially because they cut back on carbs and rely on fats and protein as a source of energy. Combined with reports of bad breath, headaches and irritability you really need to be sure that this diet is for you.

Like all drastic changes in diets and lifestyle, if you do decide to go ahead with the paleo diet, ease yourself into it slowly.  As with similar eating plans, no extreme is the right way to go, so your approach should be to modify and change depending upon your needs and lifestyle.