[jlehman]

I've followed the Paleo diet for over two years now and the health benefits have been great for me (an incidental part of eating tons of meat is getting a good amount of animal-based saturated fat).

After many discussions with many people about what is or is not healthy and a lot of reading, I've come to believe two things:

1. We (scientific and non-scientific community) have no clue what is or is not healthy, and it probably varies from person to person, and

2. The human body is really good at giving indicators as to whether or not it is healthy. With a bit of experimentation (food/exercise) and attention to physical and mental well-being it's not hard to assess one's health.

The difference for me after going Paleo was noticeable after about two weeks -- improved memory, energy, happiness, sleep, lots of other stuff. I've heard similar stories from others that have become vegan, vegetarian, discovered high-FODMAP insensitivity, etc.

Shameless self-promotion: I built http://www.fitsmeapp.com to help find food (currently just recipes) based on arbitrary user-defined "diets". Feedback is always appreciated.

[newaccountfool]

Can I ask what you have in your Paleo diet? Because I once witnessed some one mention 'Paleo Cookies' which is completely ridiculous which led me to believe it was a fad die that went along with Crossfit.

[jlehman]

Sure -- assuming you mean personally:

Any meat, any vegetables, decent amount of fruit, any kind of potatoes, butter, some nuts. It's a bit of a deviation from the by-the-book version (whatever that actually is -- it varies depending on who you talk to) because of potatoes and butter.

People will make "Paleo Cookies" and other baked goods usually with a combination of nut-flours, potato starch/flour and honey for sweetener (among other things). They tend to look ugly and taste pretty bad. Not to mention contain lots of sugar (which, even if it's honey, ends up defeating the purpose proportional to how cookie-like you want it to taste). I have made things like that though -- cookie cravings happen.

If you mean in Fitsme:

We have something fairly close to what's probably mentioned by Crossfit -- but it's 100% configurable, so it can have whatever you want it to.

[a8da6b0c91d]

Going by how you feel in response to diet changes doesn't necessarily work all that great. Eating loads of meat and under consuming sugar and starch, for example, will send catecholamine levels way up. This will have the short term affect of making you feel better. Inflammation will go down and you'll have more energy. This is the same effect that causes people to say they feel good on a fast. But once you clock up a year or two with elevated catecholamines your health will tank from the stress.

[jlehman]

It's been two years. Health is great, stress is largely non-existent. I guess I'll have to wait and see.