Dan, thanks for the .02.  It helps me get my own thoughts sorted out.

I'm not concerned with weight training/body building supplements or equipment, since that type of physical enhancement is **not** why I want to "go paleo."  I want to lose forty pounds, gain flexibility, deal with insomnia.  If I gain more strength, fine.  But that's not my focus.

What I get from paleo information is that a lot of modern ills come from the overuse of certain types of carbohydrates--beans, grains, and refined sugars.  The paleo answer is to cut  these items from the diet and focus on the types of foods our hunter-gatherer ancestors ate.  These foods enable beneficial bacteria to flourish in the gut and push out the organisms (especially yeast), which have helped to make ours a tired, achy, cranky, allergy-prone, diarrhea-prone world.  (It's this stuff about the gut that resonates with me the most.)

Unfortunately, what I also get from paleo information is the suggestion that I buy expensive spring water, expensive organic meat, and expensive acidophilus supplements.  If the apparently very high initial investment in such things eventually spread out some how so that it didn't disrupt a budget of forty to fifty dollars a week for food, that would be fine.

I guess I'm a just bit annoyed that the paleolithic lifestyle has its business aspects just like any other health program.  The bottom line is money.  Without money, who can really get into the heart of it and feel that he or she is living that "authentic" lifestyle?  (Of course, our ancestors didn't have the luxury of having their organically raised buffalo shipped on dry ice by FedEx.)

The guy who wrote NeanderThin isn't giving his book away out of the goodness of his heart.  The people who sell Jarro-Dophilus aren't giving their stuff away because they want to transform the planet.  There is no paleo web site where people can click so that third-world cultures that rely heavily on grains and beans (because that's all they've got) can experience the transforming power of meat.  Click here and send a pound of elk to the Sudan.

The point I'm trying to make, I guess, is that the paleolithic diet has an elitist element to it.  Or it can.  I don't want to get sucked into that.  I simply want to be healthy.  I want to treat my body with respect.  I want to have the energy I need to live my daily life in as useful a way as possible.  And I want to do it within the limits of my income.

I will say that, using what is now available to me, food-wise, I have begun to feel some definite improvements in only three days.  I do feel more energetic and focused, and I've noticed, if you will, positive changes in, um, output.

So on we go.

Edith


>>> [log in to unmask] 07/15/01 07:00AM >>>

Hi Edith,
I beg to differ.

First of all, you don't need traditional weight training / bodybuilding supplements. A good, natural (mostly) will give you all you need.  Supplements are just that, supplements, to compensate a poor diet and a
tired food chain (no minerals). The only thing I consider insurance in this domain is Vitamin C and Trace Minerals. Not expensive and worth it. You will notice that most bodybuilding supplements are fads. After a while of reading you will notice the "supplement of the month of two", until something new ($ale$) comes up.

Second, same thing for the gym concept. Get yourself a good book of military or gymnastic calisthenics or (pre) training. Your body weight will be a struggle for quite a while. Chin ups were (and still are) a struggle. Can't do sets of 20 of them. Keeps people humble too =0)

Third, real food is not at all that expensive. Consider the alternatives of eating "cheap, commercial, industrial" foods (pasta, chemical loaded "instant" stuff, fast food), you will have a short term monetary gain but you will lose this edge when you get sick. Go see a candida albicans treatment page. Look at the prices and process to kill it. Very expensive, all this courtesy of simplified sugars and commercial junk.

More to come,

Just my 2 cents,

Dan C.

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