On Sat, 27 Feb 1999, Lynnet Bannion wrote:

> I'm interested in hearing from other list members:  Have you lost weight
> eating
> paleo?  I've been eating totally paleo for six weeks and haven't lost a
> single pound.

Hi, Lynnet:

The answer to your question is a definite "maybe"! My case perhaps is
unique, in that at the same time I adopted the diet, I also dropped a
heavy intake of diet Pepsi (aspartame) too. I lost five pounds the first
week and have been losing 2-3 pounds a week since.

I'm 52 and although I'm not diabetic, I watch my food intake careully
because I'm concerned about the possible affects of hyperinsulinemia --
high blood pressure, high cholesterol and triglyceride readings and of
course the potential for developing adult-onset diabetes as I age. The
high carb/high sugar diet ones body can successfully metabolize when he
is a treenager, is not necessarily the one it will be able to handle after
several decades of a nutritionally-abusive lifestyle.

Most likely atypically, I eat half-a-dozen _small_ meals a day. My
thinking being that a small meal puts a lesser demand upon the body to
produce insulin and the less the better -- at least at my age bracket
and considering my past history.

Although I don't have to, I monitor my blood-sugar with an Advantage,
accu-check glucometer. My early morning reading is typically 85, or so.
Then I have a small breakfast -- yesterday a pork chop, a banana, a half
a small glass of orange juice and some green tea. That's it. This way,
my blood-sugar spikes up and down very quickly. Three hours later ---
when my blood-sugar read 94 -- I ate again, a salad filed with fresh
vegetables and some chicken. So my days continue.

This way, everytime I eat, my blood-sugar is at around 100, rarely
higher. My diet is _filled_ with fresh fruits -- apples, oranges,
tangerines, bananas, nectarines, peaches, grapes, etc; and many salads,
containing a plethora of tomatoes, celery, red and green peppers,
cucumber, lettuce, and you-name-it. When I cook meats -- beef, pork,
chicken, turkey. etc., I do so with large amounts of fresh and flash-
frozen vegetables as an accompaniment. I also like homemade soups --
especially chicken -- and always have extra broth on hand as a drink,
which I heat up in the microwave -- even though original Hunter-Gather-
ers could never find a place to plug theirs in! :)

Although I haven't eliminated them entirely, my intake of nuts and
dried fruits is tempered consideraly. My beverages are limited to
bottled water -- Deer Park (for cooking, too) -- green tea, home-
made soup broth and fresh fruit juices.

Do I recommend this specific diet for everyone? Nope. I'm just tel-
ling you what works for me. I became a Hunter-Gatherer not for the
purpose of losing weight, but because of the many heath benefits medical
reasoning and logic (After NeanderThin, read Protein Power) say can accrue
from such an approach.

This is not theory, or wishful thinking. I am a multiple-stroke victim
who spent more than 2 1/2 years in a wheelchair. An important part of the
NeanderThin approach is exercise, which is why I now walk at least a 1/4
of a mile, sometimes 1/2 a mile, and occasionally even more,  every day.
Am I a Believer? You bet!

Les Smith

PS: Greetings, All. I am a new member to the List. I haven't yet posted
an introduction here, but will do so shortly. In the meantime, the above
should serve quite well. For me, NeanderThin isn't so much a diet -- in
the typical, weight-losing sense -- as it is a food-substitution program,
in which harmful foods are eliminated and healthy ones adopted in their
places. What can I say? It works for me.