We all want to lose weight on the paleo diet, but the question is, are we actually willing to stick it through? Many people will use the paleo diet for it’s short term weight loss benefits and not stick it through completely. But more of us will stick on the diet, and make exceptions for certain foods, otherwise known as cheating your diet.
Cheating your diet isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Even bodybuilders will have one cheat day where they consume whatever they can get their hands on! But too much of a bad thing, can obviously be a bad thing!
According to a recent survey we did on fellow paleo dieters, there are three main substances that an astonishing amount of us will cheat our way through and consume: soda, coffee, alcohol. Now, these things aren’t necessarily a terrible thing when consumed-in moderation. But an astonishing amount of us on the paleo diet will consume one of these liquid delights at least every other day!
Before we go into detail on why these things are harmful on our quest for weight loss on the paleo diet. We should first explain WHY we consume them in the first place. There’s not one of us who doesn’t know that any one of these products in excess, can both hinder our diets as well as our overall health, yet we still find these difficult to resist. The need to consume stimulating foods has been an addiction humans and animals have had since the dawn of time. Why? They give us what’s known as an emotional high. The symptoms are rapid heart beat, slight sweating, eye dilation, face flushed, greater sensitivity, and better concentration or perception.
This emotional high will completely dissolve within a few hours, and leaves us craving, or wanting more, to reach that high one more time. These are the traditional signs of an addiction and is not only limited to coffee, soda, and alcohol.
Below are some side effects of taking in stimulating addictive foods:
- Alcohol erodes the stomach and intestinal lining, and can lead to nutritional deficiency.
- Tobacco can lead to many different forms of cancer, causing death.
- Caffeine can lead to an overload in the brain, and has even been thought to cause death in younger users.
- Mixing heart, asthma, or hypertension drugs with stimulating foods can be harmful, even fatal.
So should we give up all addictive foods and stimulants forever? No, that is not what this article is about. Stimulants can be a great thing, when used in moderation. I personally drink coffee about once a week, on Mondays, to help myself get a good head start on the week. Using stimulants in moderation in your diet can help you get more than your usual amount of work done in a shorter period of time, you should just be safe about it and not overdo it. Getting a food addiction is a very easy thing to overlook, and not something that any doctor will recommend!
If you like this article, check out our other post on 10 Small Steps to Lose Weight on The Paleo Diet. And don’t forget to check out our Facebook at Facebook.com/ModernPaleoDiet.
Remember, stimulating and addictive foods are perfectly normal, just make sure they aren’t hindering your process. Have any of you been able to use stimulants (legal ones!) to your advantage to lose weight on the paleo diet?
You can not claim something is taken out of context when you put it in context by placing it in your post. Caffeine over-consumption by “young-persons” has nothing to do with an adult who follows the paleo diet and is “cheating” by having a cup of coffee every other day.
That is not inline with caffeine over-consumption and has nothing to do with your “article”. If it has nothing to do with what you are originally stating – why would you even put it in there? There is no relevence.
There is not correlation between these two pieces of information so it’s only added as a piece of sensation and intrigue.
No wonder paleo bloggers and followers of the movement are getting so much flack these days …
Exactly?? If it’s true, interesting, relevant info to the article; we are going to put it in there. If you don’t like that, don’t read our blog. Simple as that. But don’t slander this page because you don’t like it. You can’t just sling sentences of my post together and say it’s “in context”. Those were at different ends of the article and part of different points of an OVERALL view. Coffee is not Paleo, so it is cheating. You aren’t making any sense. What do you mean there’s no correlation between the two?? My article is on addictive foods, coffee is an addictive food. And if you don’t believe that, then you are a true addict
. Are you saying kids don’t follow the paleo diet? Because both of my kids follow this diet and they are healthy as a couple of young stallions. There is also a growing epidemic with caffeine in younger users. So it very much DOES have to do with the article. Like I said, if you don’t like it, then leave. But don’t slander this page or my intelligence when you obviously have no idea what you are talking about. Just don’t read it.
Give me a break, this is an exact example of over-simplification to get a point across. If someone is having a cup of coffee every other day they aren’t going to DIE of caffeine overdose.
Seriously? That is just ridiculous.
No Jenn, they will not. That was taken out of context. When I referred to “caffeine overdose”, I was clearly stating in younger users this can happen. And was referring to the article that YAHOO did today on younger children’s deaths from caffeine overdose. You can find that article here: http://news.yahoo.com/death-teenager-caffeine-toxicity-prompts-lawsuit-against-monster-190000462.html. I said nothing about drinking coffee every other day killing you. I know people personally that drink 5 cups of coffee every day and are very much alive.