[...]Carbon Rims Are the Future « Paleo Vélo[...]…

It seems like if you look hard enough, every food has a potentially problematic compound or two. Mark Sisson did a good post on this a few weeks back showing that even the staples of paleo eating can cause problems for some people out there. I think there is a lot of confirmation bias in the paleo community where people tend to focus on the potentially bad stuff in non-paleo foods, but ignore it for officially approved paleo foods.

Chris Masterjohn says he developed joint pain when he added sweet potatoes back into his diet, and if that were the case for me, I’d definitely skip them. But I haven’t heard of that happening with anyone else. And in the end, I think the JERF principle (just eat real food) is 90% of why the paleo diet works for so many people.

[...]Chicken Provençal on Spinich (Paleo dinner #19) « Paleo Vélo[...]…

The potatoes thing can be a slippery slope–and it gets harder to justify to a non-paleo spouse or family member why you are willing to eat a huge baked potato but not a slice of bread. At the end of the day, I just come back to the fact that I’ve lost 15 lbs since doing this, so I’m going with what works even if it sounds odd to someone who hasn’t experimented quite as much.

But bodies seem to react differently. Could be you are more carb sensitive, even for so-called safe starches?

I tend to drop about 3 lbs if I skip the wine and fruit. But you gotta live a little, and my weight seems to have arrived at a new setpoint of around 168, which isn’t bad for someone who is 6’2″.

I think my problem with the “safe starches” like the potato is that when I let *any* carbs in, it snowballs. First the potato, then I allow myself chocolate less than 85%, then almonds (flour, whole nuts, whatever), then apples or other sweet fruit, then the next thing you know I’m drinking the occasional beer (say 3-4/week). And the weight comes back.

I put on 8lbs between the Christmas season and February this way. To the casual observer, it would seem I’m pretty darn paleo and that my cheats aren’t out of control, but the scale doesn’t lie.

My guess is that the beer (evil grains!) is THE problem and that I need to find a way to allow myself the “safe starches” without letting beer creep in. Which means it’s a self-control thing. Sigh… just when I thought I was showing so much self-control by turning my back on a lifetime of bread, now I need to find a way let some of those carbs back in without turning on the faucet.

PS — that really does look delicious, but I can’t help but think how much better it would be with an IPA on the side!