Are you up to a cave man diet? You won't have to start living in a cave, but your eating habits will have to become... shall we say, more old fashioned.
Ray Audette, the author of NeanderThin touts his diet as a way to "Eat like a caveman to achieve a lean, strong, healthy body," hence its more colloquial name, the cave man diet.
He didn't invent the stone age diet - our early ancestors did! Nor was he the first to re-invent it. Several books have been published in the last 20 years singing the praises of the cave man diet.
But Audette's re-invention is certainly the most well known at the moment, so here's a brief outline...
Modern Ills - Stone Age Solutions
At the tender age of 33, Audette suffered from rheumatoid arthritis and diabetes. After hearing from doctors that his condition was treatable but not curable, Audette decided to undertake nutritional research to find a better cure.
His research led him to adopt a "Paleolithic", hunter-gatherer, cave man diet, like that eaten by our human ancestors before they settled in agrarian societies. Within one week, his blood sugar levels were normal and after one month he had lost 25 pounds, his arthritic pain was relieved and he noticed improved muscle tone.
According to Audette, our Paleolithic ancestors lived longer, healthier lives than our agrarian Neolithic ancestors. He states that Neolithic man was shorter, had poorer dental health and was more prone to obesity than Paleolithic man.
Paleolithic women also began to menstruate earlier and have more children closer together causing population increases that further encouraged agrarian lifestyles.
So Where's the Best Place to Buy a Mastadon Steak? Fortunately, the cave man diet is a little easier than that. But not much easier I must warn you...
Audette suggests that modern man should become modern day hunter-gathers, by eliminating foods that need human intervention to become edible.
These foods include milk, grains, beans, potatoes, alcohol and sugar. Grains include all wheat, corn, rice, oats, barley, and rye.
He also subscribes to the theory that these carbs produce cravings and warns that if they are consumed they will cause eventual binging.
Audette's rule of thumb is that if a fruit or vegetable is edible raw without processing, then it is safe in the NeanderThin, cave man diet. He explains that many vegetables, like potatoes, are actually poisonous if not properly stored and treated with fungicide.
He further encourages eating fruits when they are in season and limiting winter intake of fruit to help the body burn stored fat.
Cave Man Commandments
He gives ten cave man diet commandments. Condensed, they are:
Do eat: meats and fish, fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds, berries (Hey, not so bad so far)
Don't eat: grains, beans, potatoes, dairy, and sugar (Ouch!)
So no more pizza, burgers and fries. And definitely no more beer or wine.
It's amazing they didn't invent agriculture a million years earlier!
Alan Cooper is a journalist with 20 year's experience and the publisher of http://www.ObesityCures.com, a site with the ambitious aim of being a "one-stop-shop" for impartial information on obesity and weight loss solutions - including fad diets, prescription weightloss pills and natural weightloss aids.
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