If you’ve made the decision to change your diet and improve your life, you’re on the right track. However, going in the right direction and choosing a method that is clinically proven to work and actually has a scientific basis is difficult. Many products claim to work, but they simply don’t, and those that do work are often buried deep. Same goes for weight loss programs that offer benefits as well. One of the largest and most prescribed weight loss methods today is the Paleo Diet, endorsed by the big names Robb Wolf and Loren Cordain. This personalized approach is designed around enabling users to lose weight quickly by switching to a more natural and “ancestral” diet method. Though it’s a difficult method to choose, once you reach the 21 day mark or so your body will actually switch gears completely and you will begin craving a whole new type of food.
The 30-day Paleo Challenge is a method approach that encourages people to try this diet for a minimum of 30 days and see how it goes. This challenge was created as it was noticed in recent research that the bacteria in our stomachs will actually dictate what kind of foods we crave, whether they’re bad or good foods. After 21 days your body’s entire bacterial culture will shift to those that enjoy and desire the foods you eat. This creates “cravings” for good foods that are part of the paleo diet and removes all of the high carb, processed and bad foods that people often crave instead. Robb Wolf in particular said that with the complete removal of things like grains, legumes, dairy and cane sugars you will feel a huge hunger and craving for natural ingredients instead.
This 30 day challenge has actually gone through a lot of research, and it was found to be highly effective. Users who switched wholesale to a diet rich in good foods lost much more weight than just trying to go on a crash diet or using most “weight loss products”. People are seeking an alternative to dieting, but there just isn’t one even if you find an effective treatment like HCG. You will still have to change your diet. Many people make excuses for failure on this “all or nothing” approach, though it is one of the most effective.
Paleo Diet Alternative Methods
There’s another diet to consider from Loren Cordain called the “Three Levels of Paleo Dieting”. This method offers another alternative approach to following the “make it or break it method” as described so far. Level one of the approach involves 85% strict compliance to the Paleo diet, with 15% or so “cheating” (or freedom to make mistakes). This equates to about 3 meals within a week that are outside of the bounds of the methodology. As you progress onward in the future to level two and three you increase your strict compliance until you reach 95% compliance during Level Three. Many people who struggle to cut out all of these bad foods from day one will do much better with a diet like this, as it’s easier to adapt your body and your stomach bacteria will still adapt as needed to cut down on cravings.
There’s no set progression that you must follow as part of this, but there are a wide variety of things you can choose from and see which works best. You want to switch to level three within about 20-30 days though for maximal effectiveness. That’s the best way to achieve results doing this rather than the “all or nothing” method described previously. When you select your “free” meals you want to keep in mind not to go overboard with the foods you eat. You don’t want to eat an entire chocolate cake. or a box of donuts, but instead maybe a bagel, some cereal, or a piece of chocolate after dinner. You don’t want to cheat and ruin the progress you made by eating something really terrible for you. This can upset your stomach and even reverse the progress you made on changing your digestive bacteria over to something that will enable you to fight your obesity.
Starting this new method called the Paleo Diet offers a lot in way of results, and studies clearly show that it doesn’t have to be a traumatizing event for the user. You can have a more relaxed pace, or try Robb Wolf’s more aggressive 30 day challenge. If you want to see results rapidly and have the self control, this is one of the best methods to go with. Otherwise you can stick to a more leisurely and adaptive approach that is designed to work around your goals, and your motivations.