American Paleo Diet

If you’re ready to get fit, enjoy a healthy, natural lifestyle, burn fat, and maybe lose some weight in the process, the American Paleo Diet may just be the lifelong change you’re looking for. You may have heard of the paleo diet on CrossFit forums. Even though we call it a “diet” for the sake of simplicity and convenience, the American Paleo Diet isn’t really a diet. The Paleo diet plan isn’t just some quick and dirty weight loss fad; in some ways it’s the opposite. Instead of confusing your body with drastic, abrupt changes, you’ll be normalizing your eating patterns. Instead of throwing off twenty pounds this month only to gain them all back in the next three, you’ll be burning fat and gradually losing or stabilizing your weight for the long term. The American Paleolithic diet is a real lifestyle, incorporating more than just your eating habits.

Thousands of people have lost weight using the paleo diet for athletes. The great thing about paleo diet weight loss is that unlike when you use some dieting pills, you won’t be losing muscle mass—only fat. Instead, your healthy lifestyle on the American Paleo Diet will help you to maintain or grow lean muscle while you burn fat.

What are the main components of the American Paleo Diet lifestyle?

American Paleo Diet Foods

First of all, there’s what you’ll be eating! Unlike other diets, the paleo diet doesn’t seek to eliminate all of a given nutrient (i.e. no fat, no carbs). On the American Paleo Diet, you’ll enjoy a lot of meat, fruit, and vegetables. Fruit, meat, nuts, eggs, fish and vegetables (insects too) were what people ate in the Paleolithic age. These people had a rough go at life—lacking modern technology, they relied on physical prowess to survive. That means their diet was specialized to keep them fit and healthy, even into old age. Note though that this isn’t a raw food diet; human beings had fires back then!

Since agriculture hadn’t really been invented yet, people didn’t eat a lot of grains. On the paleo diet, you’ll be eating fewer grains, but you’ll still enjoy the occasional brown rice or dark bread. What you won’t be eating is highly processed and refined foods which include chemical additives (such as sugar). These industrial food items are a relatively recent invention in history (the past hundred years or so), and they aren’t really food. Food-like substances is a better word for them, and we’re only beginning to see what the long term effects are on human health and genetics. Did you know that tribal people who don’t eat sugar have no gum disease? Many people who suffer from chronic digestive illnesses find that cutting sugar out of their diets can greatly improve their conditions. Sugar is a killer, and it’s also extremely fattening. Sugar is extremely addictive, and corn syrup is even worse. Coming off of these easy glucose sources can be a challenge for a few weeks, but well worth it.

American Paleo Diet Exercise

As mentioned before, there’s more to the American Paleo Diet than just dietary changes. This is a whole lifestyle, and that means that you’ll be working in other elements which your ancestors considered part of daily life. One of those elements is exercise. But instead of burning all your energy and over-straining yourself by working out to your max for long stretches, you’ll focus on mostly doing low level aerobic exercise (i.e. walking, hiking, swimming). You’ll also do some strength training and some occasional short sprints each week.

Other Aspects of the American Paleo Diet

Proper Sleep Is Important

With the American Paleo Diet, you’ll be taking a more holistic approach to your life. Leisure plays a part in your health too. You’ll take some time to enjoy yourself and relax playing sports or doing some other activity which is healthy or creative. You’ll actually get some sleep. How many of us are used to just 4-6 hours a night between our hectic jobs and other routines? Sleep is essential though, and it’s part of the American Paleo Diet lifestyle. You’ll want to get some sunlight each day, and avoid poisonous influences, whether from self destructive behavior patterns or from toxins in your foods (sugars, additives, etc).

The American Paleo Diet is nothing more or less than simply returning to the healthy lifestyle which our ancestors developed in order to survive—and to thrive. This is a lifelong choice, and The American Paleo Diet takes the paleo diet to the next level by adding supplements to improve the quality of nutrition and help you get more out of your workouts. These supplements include whey protein isolate, fish oil, green superfoods, CLA, creatine monohydrate powder, caffeine, colostrums, garlic, gingko biloba, rhodiola, and more. You’ll also discover paleo diet results, paleo diet criticisms, paleo diet forums, and paleo diet before and after stories. To learn more, please check out our recommended paleo books and our paleo recipes page!