My Experience on the Paleo Diet – Daryl Millard

My Experience on the Paleo Diet so Far… Daryl Millard

The Caveman Diet. What was it?

Its 3pm and you haven’t eaten lunch. You are starving and can’t concentrate on anything but where your next meal is coming from. Sound familiar?

What if I told you that you don’t have to feel like this every time you’re hungry?

For the past 8 months I have been on the “Palaeolithic diet” also known for short as the ”Paleo diet” or the “Caveman diet”. It has been a very uplifting process, where I have learnt what food works best for me.

The reason my energy levels don’t yo-yo all day long, is because my blood sugar levels are consistent throughout the day. My body is now using its own fat as the main energy source and it’s enabling me to be more productive as well as improving my overall health and performance.

If you aren’t familiar with the Paleo diet it mimics the types of foods we ate before the agricultural revolution (the discovery of farming and producing our own food), which was around 5000 generations ago.

For the time before the agricultural revolution (around about 2 million years), humans on earth ate food found in nature. This included such things as: game meat, fish, vegetables, wild fruits, eggs and nuts. So if you take into account how long a span that is in the humans evolution it is a very long time. As humans we ate this kind of diet for a lot longer period than our current diet which is dependent on farming and grains.

In a nutshell I don’t eat grains including such things as bread, pasta, cakes and anything derived from wheat or other grains ( I’m gluten-free), I eat substantially more natural fats (all the fat of my meat and any unprocessed plant fats like coconut oil) and try to eat good sources of protein from grass-fed animals and wild caught fish.

From all the things I have read the human race was thriving on this diet until we introduced unnatural processed foods into our diets. Now I am not an expert on what did and didn’t work in the past but I will share with you my experience, eating a diet derived mainly from whole natural foods.

Just to be clear I hate calling this a diet. This has been a lifestyle change and not something that I am going to come on and off throughout my life.

In March of 2011 when I arrived at the Catalan Dragons, Keegan Smith the head strength and conditioner suggested I adopt the Paleo logic to boost my performance especially my strength in the gym. I must thank him for showing me the way towards a healthier life! (Keegan has seen substantial gains in his health and performance since adopting the Paleo principles; check him out at keegansh.com).

I had been under the impression that I would perform at my best if I had a diet which was high in carbohydrates (things like bread and pasta) with a medium amount of protein and low in fat especially saturated fats. This is what most of us were taught at school and shown in the nutritional pyramid.

A major part of the paleo diet is removing grains from the diet so my carbohydrate intake was drastically reduced as most of my carbohydrate intake was made up of bread, pasta and rice. At first it was quite a large change from my previous diet. Grains are seen to be unhealthy and contributing to a lot of the health problems that we face today such as inflammatory conditions and other preventable diseases (I won’t go into that now).

When I was rushed for time was when I found it the most difficult to stick to my plan. I wasn’t used to preparing all my own food from scratch and I wasn’t quite as well organised as I am now. The plus side to this was I have found myself being a lot more organised in the following months and this had a flow on effect to other areas in my life. I now plan my day in advance and make the time to prepare and purchase the food I want to eat either the day before or in the morning. 8 months in and it all seems normal now. The biggest test was the initial stage when I had to change my eating habits and organise myself a little better.

A couple of good tips I found were:

This diet is not about controlling the amount you food you eat but choosing foods which are dense in nutrients. This is one of the features of the diet that I like most. I’m not counting calories just choosing the right types of food to eat and seeing the reward. It’s not as easy to eat a couple of plates of meat and vegies as it is to eat a bowl of spaghetti!

As a result of changing my diet to the paleo I no longer have large swings in my blood sugar levels as my body is now running on fats. I’m not dependent on getting a hit of sugar somewhere in the day to prep me up. Some of you might get that feeling late in the afternoon at work or straight after you have done some exercise.

As a result of my lifestyle change I have increased my lean muscle mass, strength and been more productive through my days. What was most interesting and encouraging for my own development was that I increased a whole bunch of my strength records in-season. Those athletes out their will know this is often a time where if you hang onto your pre-season gains you have done a good job. I put it down to the better recovery the Paleo enabled me to have along with other factors such as good training design and increased motivation.

A major reason why I wanted to make a change was because I had only signed a 1 year deal. Proving my worth on the football field gave me high motivation to improve my overall athletic ability. The Paleo logic has helped me to do that and I’m confident I’ll improve again on the field in 2012.

There is plenty more to the Paleo diet and you can learn more about it from some great sources out there, especially on the net. My favourite is Rob Wolf’s book “The Paleo Solution”, which was my first point of reference or you can also you can check outwww.robwolf.com.

A great place to start your nutrition education.

Check out my interview with Daryl here