The 80/20 farce

If I told you it was perfectly acceptable to rape and kill twenty percent of the time as long as you didn't rape and kill the other eighty percent of the time you'd likely think I was insane.

If I told you it was perfectly fine to drink cyanide twenty percent of the time as long as you didn't drink it the other eighty percent of the time you'd know I was insane.

Yet this sort of insanity is considered normal in the paleo crowd. Every guru I listen to or read mentions the 80/20 rule as though it is gospel. It's almost to the point where it's considered mandatory to "enjoy" the twenty percent cheat time.

I don't know the origin of the 80/20 rule. But it's complete bunk. You can't achieve any goal by putting in eighty percent of the effort. Bill Gates didn't become fabulously wealthy by operating at eighty percent of his capacity. Lance Armstrong didn't win seven Tour de France races by doping at eighty percent of the recommended dose. And you won't get fit and healthy by eating right eighty percent of the time.

My wife described it perfectly when she called the 80/20 rule a cop-out designed to make the paleo idea more palatable to the masses. There's no doubt that changing your lifestyle is difficult. And something like the 80/20 rule can make it seem a bit simpler. The problem is that the gurus and most paleo acolytes see the 80/20 rule as the goal rather than as a stepping stone.

The other problem is that the 80/20 rule isn't even properly defined. Does it mean you can eat whatever you want every fifth day? Does it mean it's alright if twenty percent of your calories come from junk food?

For those who find paleo intriguing but are intimidated by the idea of jumping right in and making such a huge change overnight, I have a proposal for a real solution. Create a weaning period. The idea is simple; live just one day per week full paleo for a month. That means just one day per week without grains, processed food, dairy, and all the other evil foods. That gives you an entire month to learn enough recipes for four days and to see what the lifestyle is like.

Then continue the weaning by adding another day or two per week to your paleo period. You can wean yourself as quickly or as slowly as you like. If you need to continue the one-day per week routine for another month, fine. If you want to step up to four or five days per week after the day-a-week period, fine. You decide.

There are two benefits to this plan. First, it removes the intimidating cold-turkey factor of the "try it 100% for thirty days" routine. Second, and more important in my opinion, is that it makes it clear that the goal is to be 100% paleo seven days per week.

So there you have it. If you want people to try the paleo lifestyle give them the chance to ease into it. Give them time to learn it. Don't tell them it has to be 100% for a month but that it's somehow fine to be only 80% after that.

Beyond "paleo"

For me, the paleo lifestyle was a wake-up call. It was what finally caused me to think critically about how I was eating. Unfortunately for the gurus who are busy pushing their paleo cookbooks and how-to manuals I did not stop thinking critically. And that critical thinking caused me to finally move beyond paleo.

Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I became truly paleo whereas the "paleo" lifestyle stops short of its claimed goal. I say this because the "paleo" diet does not duplicate the eating habits of paleolithic humans as closely as the gurus would have you believe. The gurus overlook one crucial detail that kept troubling me.

This detail is the simple fact that agriculture is only 10,000 years old. Yes, I know paleo folks talk about that all the time. But for some reason they only talk about it in the context of grains. They fail to acknowledge the fact that the lack of agriculture in paleolithic times  meant that for most of the year humans would not have had access to very many fruits and vegetables at all. They didn't have greenhouses to grow things in the winter or refrigerators to keep foods fresh for weeks after the harvest. Except for the autumn months when fruits and vegetables commonly come available for harvest humans would have been almost entirely carnivorous. And there is plenty of evidence to support this hypothesis. We know that neanderthals ate vegetables. But the overwhelming majority of their diet was meat.

Now it's been something like two years since I "went paleo". No, I haven't been perfect at it. But I've followed the guidelines well enough that I should have some success to report. Yet I don't. My weight has stayed between 320 and 340 since I first cut bread from my diet. Even after I cut dairy from my diet my weight remained the same. This has been utterly aggravating. I did feel better. It was clear I had taken a step in the right direction. It was equally clear that I had not taken enough steps.

Nearly a month ago I decided to take the only step left. And it was a big step. I decided to emulate my neanderthal kin and go full carnivore with my diet. Now I have the success I never saw with the "paleo" diet. It's been less than a month and I've lost more than twenty-five pounds. On the Third of this month I weighed 307. This is the Fifth and I'm down to 304. Can you name another diet that causes you to drop three pounds in two days?

The funny part is that according to the diet industry I am doing everything wrong. They say to eat plenty of fruits and vegetables, I eat none. They say to eat several small meals throughout the day, I normally eat only one meal per day. They say to watch your fat intake, I eat a lot of fat. The list goes on.

And I am far from starvation. My meal tonight was half a pound of bacon, five eggs fried in bacon grease, and one-and-a-quarter pounds of fried ground beef. I did cheat a little and eat some chicken tenders early in the afternoon. According to some random online meal calculator I've eaten 2,561 calories today. That's 277 grams of protein, 160 grams of fat, and only two grams of carbohydrates. I've been eating like this every day for almost a month now. Every night I have a pound or more of beef along with a couple other protein sources. Typically I grill some chicken and fry some fish. But I occasionally substitute pork or bacon & eggs depending on what I have available.

By the end of next week I'll be under 300 pounds for the first time in a decade. Within three months I'll be back in top shape. Maybe even sooner if I get back into the gym. Which reminds me, did I mention I've lost all this weight without doing any exercise at all? That's right, none. I eat like a lion, don't do any exercise at all, and drop roughly a pound a day.

Seeing the numbers drop on the scale keeps me motivated. Seeing the muscular definition return keeps me motivated. This is probably the easiest thing I've ever done. And I'm motivated enough to keep reporting on it. I may not add much more to this blog. But I think I need to at least post a monthly progress report.

Starting fresh

I erased the few posts in this blog and decided to start fresh. Although I am leaving the original introduction in place. Things have changed. I have new knowledge and new ideas. And the writing in the previous posts was rather poor. It just made sense to discard the old drivel and begin again. Since nobody ever read the old posts I'm sure nobody will mourn their loss.