Small Update on the Paleo Diet. Again, I admit to being fairly loose as I do have soy or beans once in a while. And on weekends it can be dicey sometimes, but let’s say it’s a 75-80% adherence.
I haven’t noticed the boost in performance or energy levels that a lot of people tout when they’re on this diet. Possibly because of the partial adoption. But let’s caveat that with the fact that I’m not using a standard set of exercises to judge performance. I’m only speaking to the fact that I don’t feel so much more awesome than before. It’s also harder to notice things that DON’T happen anymore on this diet. This only occurred to me last Sunday when I passed out for the 2nd quarter of the Superbowl due to what I assume was an insulin spike after a #1 large bowl of pho I had earlier. Only then did I think, “Man I haven’t had a food coma in a while.”
A breakdown of the Paleo diet will show that it tends to avoid foods that have a high glycemic index thus avoiding insulin spikes. If you then read Wikipedia’s article on the subject of food coma you’ll see the section on insulin spikes and how that can cause sleepiness by way of increased intake of tryptophan. It’s on Wikipedia and thus must be true haha. So after about 1 month on the diet there’s my first observation of an advantage to the Paleo Diet. Note that this is really true about any diet that limits the intake of processed foods and otherwise high glycemic index foods. Also note that I’m not saying carbs cause food coma, but that there seems to be a direct relationship between cutting sugars and carbs and avoiding food coma.