Human Nature

My wife and I started a pretty amazing diet 6 months ago, mostly because she had high blood pressure. She's 28 and was reluctant to take medication for the next 40-50 years. After talking with her brother, he got her to try the Paleo diet, something he's been doing for a while. Her blood pressure has gone from 150/100 to 125/80 without her significantly changing anything else about her lifestyle. The result can't be from anything other than the new diet (even though none of her doctors will credit the diet, and they've only recently conceded she doesn't need medication).

As for me, I've never eaten more fruits and vegetables in my life. That's sure to pay health dividends in the future. And while I've never been obese, I've still lost 10 pounds. I haven't been this lean since I was 25. I've also suffered from acne for the last 16 years of my life, along with shiny and plasticy skin. But all of that has cleared up, and my complexion has never looked better. (Alas, the receding hairline has remained. This diet is incapable of miracles.)

The Paleo diet has also given me a greater appreciation of foods. I enjoy the natural flavors much more. I no longer consume full bags of chips, or nearly as much tortillas, breads, and pastas; stomach fillers that dilute the nutritious meats and vegetables. Every week my wife makes salmon, steaks, rotisserre chicken, egg scrambles, fruit smoothies with cocunut milk... and writing this now makes my mouth water. It's really hard to communicate how delicious this diet is, and how great it makes you look and feel unless you try it for a month. The first few weeks are hard. The carbs and processed sugars are like a drug you need to cleanse out of your system. But once you've broken free of these substances, it's easy to stay on the diet. Now when I cheat (this diet also allows you to cheat a few meals each week without feeling guilty) and eat too much bread, candy, or drink too much booze, my stomach hurts in unnatural ways. And that's the point of the diet. Our bodies didn't evolve to digest most of the food we put into them.

So I like this diet. I feel like shouting it from the mountain tops. But I can't because most people don't give a shit (and why should they?) and the rest take it as a personal attack on their own eating habits. So I've gone with my blog, since if you've made it this far it's your own fault, and not because I trapped you in a corner at a party. Anyways, the diet is great and maybe you should try it. But if you don't want to, cool. I don't really care.

It's just that there are a small percentage of people who are annoying as shit about me being on this diet. (It's probably about the same percentage of people who are annoying as shit generally.)

The most common phenomemon is when other people tell me I'm cheating at my own diet. It's funny how many people suddenly become experts in the diets of caveman, even when they are saying things directly contrary to what I've read. The literature also makes it clear is there is considerable debate about what caveman actually ate. These people are clearly just making shit up on the spot. Again, a reminder that people find certainty that doesn't exist when they want to prove a point to win an argument. But I can't understand why people become personally invested in an argument about the food I choose to eat.

Probably the most frustrating thing that has happened is the behavior our active friends. Upon learning of my new diet they informed everybody that Paleo was stupid. A lazy man's version of the zone diet, which was also not that great. Essentially it was a waste of time with no health benefits. They're now on the diet. I can only guess this happened after they saw the physical affects the diet had on us both, since my wife also lost 10 pounds without changing her workout routine. Whenever talking about what they eat, it's all Paleo. But they can't bring themselves to say "We're eating Paleo". The other day, the husband finally admitted it's Paleo, but they still refuse to call it that. But he blamed the annoying hyped-up things cross-fit people say online about it, not that they just can't admit to their friends that they followed their idea (which we followed from a whole line of other people). God only knows why they want people to think they made it up. Anyways, so in conclusion this diet is great. And people can suck.