00:00I'm Lucy Fink and this week is 5 Days of Paleo.
00:06The Paleolithic diet, sometimes called the caveman diet, the stone age diet, the primal diet,
00:12is based around eating foods that were presumably available during the Paleolithic era.
00:17Things like fruits, vegetables, meats, roots, some nuts.
00:21The diet excludes all processed foods as well as anything that came about
00:25after the agricultural revolution when we started farming and harvesting.
00:28Things like dairy, grains, legumes, processed oils, deep dish pizza, you name it.
00:35There are a ton of different variations, different levels of strictness that you can follow.
00:39Over the weekend, I reached out to Christy Harrison, who's a registered nutritionist.
00:43I've featured her on this series before. Here's what she said to me.
00:46It's a fad diet with no sound scientific evidence supporting it.
00:50And like all diets, it is likely to trigger disordered eating and eating disorders in people who are vulnerable.
00:57Okay, so Christy basically told me that it's a scam.
01:01But I know people who love it, and I had already committed to trying it.
01:05So...
01:06Paleo supporters say that early humans didn't have many of the same health issues that we have today.
01:11And they also say that the human body is only meant to digest food that would have been available to
01:16us in the wild.
01:17Skeptics, on the other hand, say that modern humans have different digestive abilities than our ancestors did.
01:23And they also say that there's no real evidence that our early ancestors didn't eat things like grains or legumes.
01:29Nobody knows. There is no record of this.
01:31For this episode, I teamed up with my coworker from Refinery29, Alyssa Starkman, who has been paleo-ish for about
01:37two years now.
01:38She is not a licensed dietitian. She's just a friend.
01:40But she made a personalized shopping list as well as a menu to cover five days of breakfast, lunch, and
01:45dinner for me.
01:46Day one, Monday's menu, starts with breakfast, blueberry paleo bar, lunch, salmon and avocado salad,
01:53and for dinner, cauliflower, fried rice.
01:56Hold the rice.
01:57Just like any other food experiments I've done in this series, my goal is not to lose any weight.
02:02I'm naturally petite, I have a fast metabolism, so I actually need to make sure that I'm eating a ton
02:07of food this week,
02:08getting a ton of fiber, protein, fats, and complex carbs.
02:11But above all, I'm going to be measuring how this diet affects my energy levels this week throughout the course
02:16of each day.
02:17Time to become paleo. Let's go back in time.
02:20Over the weekend, I went to the American Museum of Natural History to the Hall of Human Origins
02:24because I really wanted to kick off this week feeling a little bit closer to my paleolithic ancestors.
02:29As I've understood it, the paleo diet is basically an attempt to revert to the kind of diet that our
02:38ancestors would have eaten
02:39in the ice ages 20,000, 30,000, 40,000 years ago.
02:48So I've only been a cavewoman for one day now, but here's how I feel.
02:52I ate some very wholesome and filling meals yesterday, but truthfully, without any snacks in between
02:57or any dessert before bed, I was really hungry.
03:01I did sleep very well last night.
03:03Normally, when I eat a lot of processed sugar, I find that it's hard to fall asleep and hard to
03:07wake up the next day.
03:08That problem went away.
03:11Today's menu, pumpkin spice paleo bar for breakfast.
03:15For lunch, leftover cauliflower fried rice.
03:17And for dinner, spaghetti squash with kale.
03:20Today I spent some time with Alyssa because I wanted to learn firsthand all of the juicy details about this
03:25diet
03:26from someone who's lived this lifestyle for years.
03:28One thing that I really need from her was a list of paleo-approved snacks.
03:32Paleo.
03:33Paleo, my favorite topic.
03:35I need you to kind of just talk me through this.
03:38The best and the fastest way to think about it is to always eat something whole, natural,
03:45that also has that same type of mix of macronutrients.
03:48So just snacking on, say, an apple is going to let you crash really easily.
03:53But adding in some fat will help to stretch that sea cheese.
03:55So like sea cheese.
03:56Exactly.
03:57Okay.
03:58Celery dipped in guacamole.
04:01We should go get that now.
04:02Done.
04:03I have more energy overall, which I assume is because I've cut out all simple carbs and sugars.
04:10The only negative, big negative, is that today I was feeling a major sweet tooth.
04:16So I made, you guessed it, homemade paleo chocolate chip cookies.
04:21A very strict paleo diet wouldn't allow any cocoa, but most paleo diets allow very dark chocolates.
04:28And I used very dark, no dairy chocolate chips.
04:31The cookies were incredible, if I do say so myself.
04:35Today's menu, breakfast, chocolate sea salt paleo bar, lunch, leftover spaghetti squash
04:40and kale.
04:41And for dinner, I wanted to go to a normal New York City restaurant and try to order paleo
04:47and see how difficult it could be.
04:48Here is my exchange with the waitress.
04:50Roll the tape.
04:51Hi, how are you?
04:52Hi, what can I get for you today?
04:54Um, okay, I'm going to start with the farmhouse salad.
04:57But instead of the buttermilk ranch dressing, can I have just olive oil?
05:00Yeah, sure.
05:01And then from the main course, I'm going to have the roasted chicken.
05:05Of course, yeah, great choice.
05:07What side would you like with that?
05:08We have quinoa and beet salad, lentils, corn.
05:14Do you have anything else?
05:15Sorry, I'm avoiding all grains and legumes.
05:18I'm doing the paleo diet for a work project.
05:21Uh, yeah, we have vegetables.
05:23We have green beans, peas, uh, spinach.
05:28Spinach, that's perfect.
05:29How is it prepared?
05:30It's sauteed with garlic and butter.
05:33Can you saute that with just garlic and olive oil, no butter?
05:36Sorry, it's paleos.
05:38No dairy, too.
05:40Yeah, okay, um, yeah, I'll ask the chef.
05:43Major takeaways here.
05:45One, people think that legumes are vegetables.
05:48Two, by cutting out things like lentils and quinoa, I was really restricting healthy foods
05:53from my diet.
05:54And three, I'd say I make a pretty classy waitress.
05:56What do you think?
05:59Today's menu for breakfast, a coconut chocolate paleo bar.
06:03Lunch, leftovers from dinner last night.
06:06And for dinner, zoodles with mini meatballs and tomato sauce.
06:09I was feeling especially energetic today, so I really wanted to capitalize on that.
06:14Some call CrossFit and the paleo diet a match made in heaven.
06:19CrossFit's about trying to do things better, to have a more holistic approach towards fitness.
06:23And that includes how we train and also how we eat.
06:25We work hard.
06:26We lift heavy.
06:26We move fast.
06:29Come on, Lucy.
06:31David had me try everything from push-ups to deadlifts to pull-ups.
06:35Nope.
06:36And then he set me up on this extremely intense course where I pushed a ton of weight forward
06:42and backwards and then ran and did eight burpees.
06:45Three times.
06:47After meeting with David, I truly now understand why people that are doing this paleo diet and
06:52who are living this lifestyle of wholesome, natural foods need to eat that way if they're
06:57going to get the most out of a workout like CrossFit.
07:01Today's Friday menu, breakfast, mint chocolate paleo bar.
07:05Lunch, deconstructed burrito bowl.
07:07And dinner, leftover zoodles and meatballs.
07:11I'm feeling a bit conflicted about this week because on the one hand, I feel like I ate
07:15tons of wholesome, natural, non-processed foods this week.
07:18And that's great.
07:19I gave my body a rest.
07:21I'm totally a sugar monster.
07:22So I put that stuff to the side this week and that made me feel good.
07:26But on the flip side, I recognize that our bodies are not exactly the same as our ancestors'
07:31bodies were.
07:32And while this might be the spectrum of food that's healthy and good for you, a paleo diet
07:37restricts us to eating just this portion.
07:40But there's a lot of other good stuff too.
07:42Things like corn and legumes.
07:44What are your thoughts on going paleo?
07:46Comment below letting us know.
07:48And as always, let me know what you want to see next time on Try Living With Lucy.
07:51Hey YouTube, thanks for watching.
07:53Click here to watch 5 days of being a freegan and here to subscribe to Refinery29 on YouTube
07:59and watch me try more 5 day challenges.
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