Girl Gone Primal- A Review

 I`m always trying to stay on top of the latest health and fitness findings and I found myself subjected to what is called The Primal Lifestyle. To be completely honest, I don`t remember how I got introduced to it but I`m glad I did. It has done well by me for the past ten months. I found myself losing a few pounds (around ten) effortlessly within the first 2 months, whereas before I had been closely monitoring my caloric and fat intakes for months and doing my P90X religiously with not much budging but a pound or two. I still wonder if the lack of weight loss was due to building muscle on the Beach Body program along with the fact that your muscles retain water when you`re exercising, or if it was indeed the foods that I was eating were causing inflammation in my body. At any rate, the fat came off, my muscles that I worked so faithfully to build remain, and I love the freedom I feel from not calorie counting or worrying about fat intake.

Was the transition hard? No, not really, not for me anyways. However, I was a pretty 'clean' eater already and I can see how it may be a little more difficult for an individual who is used to the average S.A.D. (standard american diet). By that I mean a majority of your daily intake from processed, or packaged foods and fast food. What made it easier for me also was the fact that you don`t have to really worry too much about the calories you`re taking in and you don`t have to worry much about fat. You will want to monitor your carbohydrates just for awhile to get a rough estimate of the values of your food. It takes a little bit of time invested at first, but you catch on pretty quickly and then you can drop it if you want. Trust me, it`s not hard at all. Some people don`t bother, they just eat, and they also find themselves losing fat. Some people are spreading the rumor that eating primally is a no carb diet and that`s simply not true. It is lower than what the average American eats, but it is by no means a no carb diet. I recommend the book called "The Primal Blueprint" written by Mark Sisson, it`s written in a way that`s easy to understand. If you`re of a scientific mind I`ll put some other books that go deeper into things at the bottom of my page. Not restricting fat intake takes some getting used to at first. We`re so conditioned to look for everything that`s low fat that it almost feels like we`re doing something wrong, sinning if you will, by not worrying about the fat. Of course you don`t want to go out and eat 5 pounds of bacon in one sitting, but depending on just how much fat your body needs to drop, you can pretty much count on not having to worry about it. The goal is  to re-train our bodies to burn our body fat as fuel instead of carbohydrates. We have trained our temples to be sugar burners, we want them to be fat burners. Sounds too good to be true huh? To actually have your own body burn its fat. Not only is it possible, but it is probable if you adopt this lifestyle.

Basically, primal eating is going back to what our ancestors ate, with adptations for the 21st century. The eating plan basically consists of eating whole, fresh, nutritous foods and omitting what I call fake foods. Fake foods are foods that are packaged and processed; manmade and not nature made. Protein by way of meat, fish, shellfish, poultry, vegetables, fruits, seeds and nuts (excluding peanuts because they aren`t a 'tree nut') are the staples. The lifestyle discourages vegetable oils, grains, beans, sugars, and of course processed foods. The grains and beans shocked me at first but after doing some reading on the premise of their train of thought, I came to understand why. Those foods may have some nutriotional value but the myriad of health problems they bring, autoimmune discorders being a huge player, they`re just not worth it. There are far too many other indulgences that are good for you.

Mark Sisson`s Website
There is oodles of information on this website plus a forum to connect with like minded people.

Why We Get Fat