Are you in the weight loss yo-yo. You try a new diet and lose a few pounds, but the moment your willpower slips, you find that the pounds just come back on. Sometimes you even end up heavier than you were before. Many of us find ourselves in the same situation. That’s because dieting is a shock to the system. When we reduce our calorie intake, our bodies go into starvation mode and start trying to conserve as much energy as possible. By the time we come off the diet, our bodies are rapidly accumulating as much fat as they can in preparation for the next cycle of starvation.
Don’t despair. It is possible to break this cycle and keep the weight off. But to break it you have to change your whole mindset and attitude. You can’t think of this as depriving yourself or starving yourself. In fact, it’s best to think of this as not dieting because you’re not trying to conquer hunger. Instead, what you’re trying to do is eat the same way our ancestors did thousands of years ago. By reverting to a more primitive way of eating and living, we are actually retuning our bodies to millions of years of evolution. Many of the foods we find in stores today, like bread and pasta, are relatively recent innovations that have only been with us for a few thousand years, so it’s no wonder our metabolism still has to Learn to handle them properly.
So here are some tips to help you eat a primal diet that can help you shift your weight and keep it off.
1. Eat like your ancestors ate. That means removing all refined and processed products from your meal plans and sticking to the simple stuff. Instead of refined starch eat salad. For a snack, choose a carrot or some nuts on top of a baked muffin. Instead of processed meats like sausage and salami, choose the most natural way. Try a good steak or some homemade meatballs.
2. Avoid grains whenever possible and consume them only in moderation. Grains like wheat, rice, and corn have become staple foods over the last few thousand years. Yet these carb-packed foods may be one of the biggest drivers of our obesity epidemic because our bodies still have a hard time coping with the sugar rush they provide. That causes our insulin levels to skyrocket, soaking up all that blood sugar and turning it into fat. Soon our blood sugar levels will have plummeted again causing hunger and sugar cravings.
3. Continue to stock fires by having lots of small meals instead of just one or two big ones. Think of your body as a fire. Instead of sticking to a large log that causes the flames to flash on and off, you’ll want to keep adding smaller logs at regular intervals. That will keep your metabolism going and burning calories.
4. Choose foods that satisfy. A great deal of research has shown that some foods, especially those that are high in carbohydrates, leave us only temporarily full before leaving us with a huge appetite. Others, like nuts, often leave us satisfied for hours. A large bowl of salad for breakfast will get you through the morning much better than a bowl of high-fiber cereal. And eating a handful of nuts half an hour before a meal will help stave off food cravings and leave you eating less when you actually sit down for lunch or dinner.
5. Don’t cut too much fat from your diet. Many people assume that if they are trying to reduce belly fat, they should also reduce how much they eat. In fact, that’s one of the great weight loss myths. Dietary fat is satisfying, meaning we want to eat less if we have some fat in our food, and it helps encourage the body to burn fat. In contrast, many of the low-fat diet products in stores replace fat with sugar, which can be more harmful in the long run.
Getting rid of the extra padding that we may have around our media is never easy. No matter what people promise you, know that doing it successfully requires some effort and willpower on your part. But by adopting a wild or primitive strategy of eating like our ancestors did, you’ll improve your chances of success and help you keep the pounds off without tears.
