Manic Monday: Low-Fat Faileo

May 16, 2011

This one will be quick because, frankly, it’s been addressed before, and I just want to pass on some key info.

“Faileo” is a pretty popular buzzword in our neck of the woods because it refers to a very common failure of the newly indoctrinated dieters among us; the mistake of eating paleo without the fat. Unfortunately, this particular mistake is bound to happen, considering the lipophobic society many of us have grown up in.

Melissa McEwan of Hunt.Gather.Love had a great post on this last year – another reason this will be short.

A low-fat paleo diet presents two problems:

  1. Low-fat is bad for just about everyone. The body needs fat – your brain is made of it, so are sex hormones (testosterone and estrogen) and serotonin, which could be why low-fat diets can cause depression and suicide.
  2. If you’ve eliminated energy-dense cereal grains and sugary snacks, you’re going to have trouble taking in an adequate caloric load, or you’ll have to take in lots of starchy veggies and fruit.  So you’ll be hungry, or not working to clear up any insulin-driven  metabolic derangement, or both.

It doesn’t sound good, but there’s an easy solution. Stop being scared of fat and eat it!

The stuff tastes amazing, so I’m assuming that if it’s proven there’s nothing to fear, you’ll happily eat it.

I’ll just step aside and let some others do the leg-work:

Hopefully you did some careful watching/listening/reading at the links above, or you could have missed the critical bit of info that not all fat is good. Just like I’ve outlined here, steer clear of man-made fats (olive oil gets a pass), but don’t fear those animal fats!

If you’ve been happily paleoing for a while, don’t let this post make you second guess yourself or your diet. This is simply a reminder to newbies (or any others struggling) that fat shouldn’t be feared. If you are one of those lipophobic newbies, be honest with yourself. It may be worth tracking your intake for a week to make sure your macros are in ranges you deem acceptable.

Entry filed under: Basics, Food Choices, Manic Monday. Tags: .

Isocaloric but Very Different Self-Diagnosis: Recent Headaches


engineered by evolution.

 
 

Recent Posts

What’s Being Said

    Categories

    Archives