“It wasn’t until we added those carbs that we got all those other changes, including those changes in body fat,” said Anthony G. Comuzzie, who helped create an obese baboon colony at the Southwest National Primate Research Center in San Antonio.

We just took the kids to see the movie “Chimpanzee”. I love primates because everything they do seems so human… of course Darwin would have something to say about that.

As they were foraging for food I was reminded just how diverse the primate diet can be. Unlike their human counterparts the chimps didn’t think about their food or analyze their calories, they just ate what was readily available.

They ate quite a bit of fruit (if they could find a tree) but they would polish this off fairly quickly. They ate green leafy veggies rarely and it soon became apparent that their foods of choice were nuts and if they could get their hands on it…. meat. This happened only once in the movie when they hunted together as a team (quite amazingly I might add) and were able to catch a monkey. Yes, the chimps hunted and ate a monkey.

The majority of this protein rich diet was consumed by the females who were caring for the infant chimpanzees. It was fun to see the big burly males step aside, but you could tell they were a bit frustrated by this. I felt their pain thinking back to all the times we have been on trips and my wife withheld snacks for her “starving husband” claiming that “they are for the kids”. Maybe next time I will beat my chest.

Fasting was a big part of their lives, but of course it was never intentional. When things got bad they would seek out honey and small invertebrates such as ants. Not yummy but hey what is a hungry chimp to do?

The Primal Diet

The entire Paleo movement seems pretty strait forward to me…. Just pay $7.50 and see the movie “Chimpanzee”. Here you have the original human diet.

What is interesting is that most chimps I have seen in captivity appear lean. I assume it is because their diet is controlled. Thinking about this question more of course led me to do a bit of research.

And yes, not to my surprise, they are researching the standard American diet all over the world on poor unsuspecting Rhesus monkeys.

Despite a diet high in calorically dense and nutritionally vacant carbohydrates, about 40 percent do not put on a lot of weight.

According to this wonderful article in the NY Times:

“Fat Albert, one of her monkeys who she said was at one time the world’s heaviest rhesus, at 70 pounds, ate nothing but an American Heart Association-recommended diet”.

The studies also found something else that could be important for people — that eating a healthy diet during pregnancy reduced troubles in the offspring. That suggests, he said, that the diet of a pregnant woman matters more than whether she is obese.

Check out the article, it really is interesting.

The Primal Being

The best part of the movie Chimpanzee is the fact that the big burley alpha male (Freddy) ends up adopting Oscar: a baby chimp that lost his mother. The other thing I found interesting is just how much time the “CEO” spent attending to his tribe. Doing basic things like picking tics of his fellow tribe-mates and responding to his blog commenters.

In the end this smaller, more united tribe, dramatically wins back a part of its territory not because they were the biggest, but because they knew how to work together.

In my mind this is an important point: To be a great leader you must care for those in your tribe that need it the most and pay attention to the little things.

It really is the little things that matter most…. And the diet? Probably not so much!

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I was lucky enough to catch the the talk by Dr. Cate Shanahan titled “The Paleo Diet vs. Top-Selling Drugs: Who Wins?”

This of course hit home, given I prescribe many of the top selling drugs. I plan on writing a summary of this webisode later tonight. I thought it was quite good!

After watching the video I started thinking more about the differences between The 4 Hour Body diet and the Paleo diet. Brian from the 4HourBody Zone has a great post on this with a simple chart comparing the two.

I realized something though.

With the 4 Hour Body cheat day and the lack of fruit and milk, the 4 Hour Body is definitely more of a DIET.

In other words it doesn’t transition well into a long-term lifestyle solution for healthy living.

Although, I do believe it plants the seeds.

“Paleo” itself is more of a way of life. It is also not set in stone (although it would be written on one). It seems to me that the Paleo movement is actually less about living the way our ancestors did and more about combining the best of the two.

This makes sense. I mean in Paleolithic times people did not have vaccinations or computers or Garmin wrist watches to track their runs during their hunts. That doesn’t mean following a Paleo lifestyle requires throwing these devices in the garbage.

Also, there have been wonderful and valuable innovations in healthcare and science which have the opportunity to make our lives better. This should not be overlooked.

The success of a Paleo lifestyle revolves around a fairly low carb diet. Less than 150 carbs per day is probably a sweet spot. I can say this because I have had the opportunity of seeing 1000’s of patients and lab values and different metabolic types.

People who reduce their carbs trend toward better health… It is just that simple.

No matter what your feelings are on carbs, I can tell you one thing is true: The modern American lifestyle is just to high in simple carbs.

So say you are on the 4 Hour Body diet. You cut, your carbs, you cut your fruit, you stop drinking milk, you start eating more meat, more beans (not allowed on Paleo) and more veggies.

You probably lose some weight and you start feeling better. Over time if you combine this with physical movement and appropriate rest you are likely to find yourself in a much healthier place.

But having weekly binge days probably isn’t a healthy way to live in the long run.

So you give up the cheat day, add back in some milk (depending on who you ask), continue to eat a diet high in meat, fish, eggs and veggies. You decide you don’t love beans so much, but you love nuts and a piece of fresh fruit now and then… Bam… PALEO!

Also, maybe you found yourself researching grass fed beef and organic produce. You learned more about your food and you started going to farmers markets… Bam … Yuppie!

I joke here, because I understand the health benefits of this. I also understand that depending on where you live the idea of organic and grass fed may get you some seriously interesting looks.

I happen to work in one of these areas.

Cost of course is an issue, and although I am a proponent of both of the above, grass fed and organic is not always realistic or readily accessible to everyone. And this needs to be respected with new solutions made by yuppies to help make this more cost effective and readily accessible to everyone.

The 4 Hour Body in this sense is like a Gateway Drug… One that will pave a pathway for healthier living and exploration into a LIFESTYLE.

Is this a PALEO Lifestyle? Or is it something different entirely?