Nutrition is the biggest player in the game of results.  Proper diet can help us make or break our goals and can even influence our future health.  The Paleolithic Diet not only results in fat and weight loss but also can stop or prevent disease and simply give you an overall feeling of wellness.  The best part, it’s so easy!  There is no food weighing or point calculation, only learning to make proper food choices.  By avoiding high glycemic index carbohydrates and eating REAL food (if food can last on your shelf for months on end, you should probably be suspicious) you can avoid the trap of hyperinsulinemia and keep yourself off the path towards heart disease, diabetes, obesity and a myriad of other diseases.

So, what do you eat?  For starters, no grains or refined sugar (those pesky high glycemic index carbohydrates…).  Does that cut out most of your diet choices?   Don’t worry!  You’ll simply replace them with much better choices including lean meats (grass fed beef, free range poultry, and wild caught fish are optimal choices), seasonal fruits and veggies, and healthy fats (nuts, seeds, avocado, and olive and coconut oil).  To put it concisely, eat plants and animals.  See, that was easy!

But, why are you supposed to eat that way?  One word, insulin.  High glycemic index foods (bread, pasta, rice, sugar) cause huge and fast increases in your blood sugar, resulting in a major insulin response.  The more often your body experiences these spikes in blood sugar, the more time you spend with lots of insulin in your system.  This is bad.  You see, we need insulin to live however experiencing chronically elevated insulin levels can lead to hyperinsulinemia (your insulin receptors become desensitized to insulin and your pancreas produces more and more insulin in an effort to maintain normal blood glucose levels, which cannot be done because the insulin is basically ineffective on the desensitized system).  This is the foundation for diabetes, obesity, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, some mood disorders, and a myriad of other diseases.  By eating low glycemic index foods, you slow the rate at which glucose enters your blood stream, resulting in slow rolling waves of glucose and insulin levels rather than sharp peaks and valleys.  You begin to move away from a pre-diabetic state and towards a healthier you!

Alright, so how do you do it? I know, you’re probably thinking that if you can’t eat bread, pasta, or rice you’ll probably starve.  Wrong.  Shop the perimeter of the grocery store where they keep all the good stuff.  Fill your cart with meats and produce!  When you sit down to eat, dish out 4-8 oz of protein and a couple servings of veggies, throw on some fat and voila!  A perfectly delicious meal that won’t take you one step closer to your grave or the cardiologist.

River Market CrossFit will give you all of the tools and support you need to get on track with proper nutrition.  In the mean time, check out these great resources for more information.

robbwolf.com

RMC August 2011 Newsletter

Paleo in a Nutshell: Video

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