Stone Age Paleo Diet For Athletes Dr. David Demko, gerontologist and editor AgeVenture News Service What's the latest in healthy dieting? Well, it seems that "everything old is new again". How old? Ten thousand years old to be exact. Read on, and learn how scientists have "gone back" in order to find "the future" of high performance dieting. Primitive hunting-and-gathering societies chased after their food, sometimes traveling more than 10 miles a day. Back then, humans subsisted on diets high in protein from wild game, supplemented with fresh fruits and vegetables. This Paleolithic diet did not resemble that of contemporary athletes who carb-up on breads and pasta before exercise. A new book encourages today's athletes to consider yester-year's Paleo diet. Authors, Loren Cordain, professor of the health and exercise science at Colorado State University, and Joel Friel, a U.S. triathlon and cycling elite coach, offer a new twist on dietary strategies. "The Paleo Diet for Athletes: A Nutritional Formula for Peak Athletic Performance" intends to help athletes: maximize performance, normalize body weight, and reduce risk of heart disease, cancer and osteoporosis. The Paleo diet, say the authors, contained much more vitamin C, B vitamins, fiber, iron, zinc, folate and essential fatty acids and less sugar, salt and saturated fats than our contemporary diet. "The Paleo diet increases your protein and fat consumptions while modestly lowering your carbohydrate intake," Cordain said. "But since the carbs you do eat will come largely from fruits and vegetables, you'll be consuming healthful micronutrients. The protein comes from lean meats with low levels of saturated fats and from fish with high levels of healthful omega-3 fats. You'll get more healthful monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats." "The Paleo Diet for Athletes" takes that a step further and offers athletes specific guidelines on what to eat before, during and after intense workouts. Cordain and Friel don't believe that athletes should completely abandon carbohydrates, so in the book they detail which carbohydrates are the best to consume before, during and after race workouts. The book includes 80 recipes and tips for choosing healthy meals and snacks at home and on the road. "The Paleo Diet for Athletes", 288 pages, Rodale Books, 2005. See related articles in the AgeVenture archives. AgeVenture Headline News AgeVenture Lifestyle Features AgeVenture News Service, www.demko.com BACK TO TOP