This is my first post to the List, and I hope I don't cover any ground that
has been covered elsewhere because there are a lot of topics in the
archives I haven't read...

I had similar thoughts to Robert after reading Paleo Diet For Athletes.Here
are a few of my tentative initial reactions:

1. Like Robert, I do notconsider myself an endurance athlete. My sporting
interests range from beach volleyball to martial arts, to a bit of rowing,
or swimming for cross training. I played basketball and ran sprints and
cross country (weird combination I know) at high school. My main sporting
interests - martial arts, beach volleyball, even rowing to an extent - are
more anaerobic than aerobic. On p. 35 -36 Cordain & Friel talk about eating

during exercise lasting from 2 to 90 minutes. Most sporting events other
than sprints come under this category, and even track sprinters have
training sessions that last at least this long. Some form of endurance is
still involved in training for most sports regardless of the duration of
the actual events. So, maybe us non-enduros can follow all the guidelines
in the Paleo Diet For Athletes, using the guide for eating during exercise
that corresponds best to the length of our training sessions.

2. As regards calorie intake I have two lines of thinking. First, I don't
object to adding highly unrefined carbs as long as my staples are fruits,
veges & meat. Weston A. Price found that (relatively) primitive people were
in good physical and dental health even when their diets include grain
foods. According to Price the key was that the foods were unrefined.
Second, I read an article (which my mum lost so unfort
unately I can't quote
from it) about Roy Walford's experience in the biosphere that led him to
research calorie restriction. The members of the biosphere team had to make
do with a diet with substantially less calories than is usally
reccommended. As the project's doctor, Walford rationed each person,
carefully making sure that they had a high nutrient intake despite the low
calories. They actually became healthier in the ensuing months while still
performing their work, much of it physical, for many hours a week (from
memory it was 80 hours). This leads me to think that it's possible that all
the stuff we hear about calories in modern society is misleading. The
calorie measurement of a food is obtained in a manner very different to the
context of digesting food, and nutrient value doesn't come into the
equation. So, to cut to the chase, I'd say as long as your foods are not
highly refined, and you
have a high nutrient density I think you'd perform
well on a paleo-like diet despite not getting as many calories as is
normally reccommended.