The Primal Diet

As a firefighter and personal trainer I hear about paleo diet and crossfit almost every day. While I am always listening about the two with respect and interest I don't really agree entirely with either systems. But some of my close friends and people I respect have gone hardcore paleo so I started to look into it. So I read up on Rob Wolff the supposed crossfit paleo guru. Funny enough what I found from his stuff floating around the internet is that he is a pretty smart dude and he doesn't like crossfit at all!? Interesting. Either no one in the crossfit world knows this or they are way more accepting then I thought.

Anyway since this is a food for thought entry I will stay on topic and off crossfit. As I mentioned in my earlier blog I have really noticed since becoming a dad and working considerably more hours then what I did in my early 20's that my body needs a little more supervision and a little less play time. Higher cortisol levels are certainly a suspect.

If you didn't read my first attempt at a 'fad diet', the you should check out my blogs
http://utcsc.blogspot.ca/2012/02/new-thoughts-about-food-that-are-food.html
http://utcsc.blogspot.ca/2012/04/complete-failure-food-for-thought-part.html

When I was poking around the paleo topic online I came across the Primal Diet at Marks Daily Apple.
The idea of eating as close to what our ancestral genetics are evolved around seems very logical to me. Mark describes why we should go Primal by saying "Our ancestors evolved over millions of years under certain environmental conditions. These conditions (the foods they ate, the amount of sun they got, the sort of movement that was required of them to survive, etc.) shaped their genome. While the world has changed in innumerable ways in the last 10,000 years (for better and worse), the human genome has changed very little and thus only thrives under similar conditions. Simply put, if you want a good future you better listen to the past."

Read more: http://www.marksdailyapple.com/welcome-to-marks-daily-apple/#ixzz1yAU2G3fq

So I read all the free information online and downloaded the free ebooks about 3 weeks ago and started on my adventure with the Primal Diet. 

So far I have noticed.....

Some cool things about the Primal Diet are: 

1. Unlike the Paleo diet you eat a lot of full flavored foods as the diet allows for high fat content
2. The meals are very basic as they really are just meat and veggies most of the time
3. I felt less bloated and inflamed right away
4. There is a real whole wellness approach to the Primal System which I liked

Some tough things about the PD are:

1. People seem to be almost offended when you don't eat grains (my wife is still my biggest obstacle)
2. If you have a sweet tooth its a hard transition
3. Expect your grocery bill and the amount of trips to the grocery store to increase

Right now I am starting into my fourth week and I have had some bad weekends between bachelor parties and family get togethers. But I don't feel like when I was doing the calorie counting diet that slip ups make a huge difference. I will continue my experiment and get back to you soon!

Any body else out there doing the Primal Diet thing?