Around December 2015 we went through a traumatic time with health, as it turned out luckily it wasn’t anything too serious, but it made us think seriously about diet. As an avid follower of Jack Spirco’s podcast I was vaguely familiar with Paleo diet and had heard Jack and Gary Collins (The Survival Podcast expert council member and creator of the primal power method) discuss the benefits of the diet. Not a big fan of the term diet which conjures up fads, quick weight loss and going hungry only to pile the weight back on in a few months once all of the will power is drained!

Paleo however is more of a lifestyle change, a bit like when people say that they are vegetarian or vegan. Having already made contact with Gary Collins, the first stages of becoming paleo was to understand what was involved, starting with Gary’s three books.

I started the change to Paleo in March at a starting weight of 105kg (231lb), It took a few weeks to get used to the change in foods, not so much the eating and digestion but more the method of purchasing / acquiring. Luckily I have a very understanding wife who see’s the benefit of the change and was supportive, after all it was her who would suffer the change the most being the food shopper of the family.

What is Paleo?  I’m a beginner so I’ll refer you to the experts Paleo-Diet-Food-List-Infographic is a concise visual of the do’s and don’ts of the diet.The simple concept is that we eat how our ancestors ate, whilst according to official sources “Limited data exists on the metabolic effects on humans eating the diet, though the available data suggest following this diet may lead to improvements in terms of body composition and metabolic effects as compared to the typical western diet” The fact that we, as humans, have been around in the our current form for 200,000 years is proof enough. Really its only in past 60 to 100 years that the human race health has deteriorated. In my lifetime I have seen allergies and obesity problems increase. This is most likely down to the additives and methods of processing our foods to make them last longer with no real thought or care of the long-term effects on the human race, Monsanto chemicals added to pretty much anything that’s grown commercially ends up in our bodies.

I have held off discussing this topic until i can see the effects of the change, however since March to now (June) I have reduced my weight down to a steady 96kg (211lb) a loss of 20lb (1.5 Stone). Moreover the digestive reactions that I used to have seem to have gone? As a precaution I went and had my cholesterol levels checked at the beginning of the change and at that time they were not good, high bad levels but this remained unchanged from a previous test around 10 years ago, so it will be good to check it again 6 months later to see the change.

If this subject is of interest please follow me on my journey as I discuss my experience in paleo and introduce exercise to the lifestyle change and ask the questions of food storage from a preparedness standpoint on the paleo diet.