You asked, so I guess I should tell you. It started me chasing after this paleo diet thing. It started me thinking about the most natural diet we can possibly get to. What made me think that there could possibly be a philosophy behind eating and health?

Have you ever read a book that seemed unify all of your theories into one grande scheme that makes total sense? Aha, I see how it all fits together now!

I was trying to make sense of all of these studies about cancer and heart disease and auto-immune diseases and nutrition and obesity… One day Marshall told me that I was doing “The Paleo Diet.” I asked what he meant and he described that it was what paleo man ate. I thought about it.

Then, I bought a book. And the clouds parted as the sunshine beamed down on me!

Dr. Loren Cordain’s “The Paleo Diet – Lose Weight and Get Healthy by Eating the Food You Were Designed to Eat” was that book for me. Complete with 100 paleolithic recipes, “The Paleo Diet” brought together years of studying health and 5 years of biochemistry for me. It’s simple after reading the book, but it’s more than just eating lean meats, fruits, vegetables, and nuts.

For example, Dr. Cordain’s research indicates that eating more protein than other macronutrients is just one key to why people lose weight so easily on the paleo diet. He describes dietary-induced thermogenesis and how it impacts your weight. And he shows how the paleo diet combats insulin-resistance and reduces hunger.

But he also answers these questions: Did a paleolithic man eat salt? How did he exercise? Did he eat more of any particular types of foods? How should you start the three levels of the paleo diet? What lists of actual foods can I eat on the paleo diet? How much can I eat and when? How do you cook paleo food?

The Paleo Diet shows how:

• Prehistoric man adapted to or was designed to eat a hunter-gatherer diet for possibly millions of years.
• Our DNA has not changed much even over the last 50,000 years.
• We started eating tons of wheat just a few thousand years ago.
• We haven’t had time to adapt to eating wheat, which is a prime suspect in all sorts of health issues.
• We should almost exclusively be eating lean meats, vegetables, fruits, and nuts for optimal health.

Benefits you’ll get:

• You naturally lose weight, gain energy, and dramatically lower risk of diseases (without starvation).
• You can use his 100 “paleo diet recipes“, included in the book, to eat a variety of tasty home-prepared foods.
• If you eat his version of the paleo diet, you’ll pack in the most nutrients per calorie.
• You’ll energize yourself with paleo-like exercise.

To be honest I wasn’t out to lose weight when I started. What hooked me was that I had researched my way into finally lowering both my cholesterol and blood pressure to levels well below “acceptable” (you can see my “results” on another post). Then, I read his book and I think, “if only I’d known it could be so simple, I could have skipped the stress of a lot of other reading.”

You’re probably doing your own research right now. Good.  You’ll find a lot of junk on the internet. Are their claims backed up with clinical studies? If not, BEWARE. You need to, at the very least, read the abstracts of the underlying studies. “The Paleo Diet” has over 300 references to studies, etc.

Summary: If you want the benefits of the world’s best and most natural diet, you should start with reading “The Paleo Diet” from Loren Cordain.

For the sake of full disclosure, I think it is important that I tell you that if you click on my link and you happen to buy this for $10 or whatever it costs now, I will get a 4% commission, or around $0.40. I loved the book, I believe in the book, and I’m telling you about the book, so why not make a few cents here and there?

Best Paleo Books, Cordain, Paleo Diet Hide