Trying the Paleo Diet? Check Out These 22 Blogs First

For those of you interested in adopting a paleo diet, making that switch represents a big decision, and it’s one about you should inform yourself about as much as possible.

In recent years, paleo diets have become a popular way for people to lose weight, live more healthily and generally feel better. The diet is modeled on what was likely available to our human ancestors before organized agriculture was practice. This means eating very few cultivated grains, very little sugar (except honey), very little salt and nothing that you could think of as “processed food.”

This post will only consider the paleolithic diet itself, though there is also a wider movement to apply paleolithic principles to various aspects of our modern lifestyle, something the New York Times recently covered with an interesting piece.

But before you attempt any big lifestyle changes, you should arm yourself with as much information as you can. That’s why we have put together this post. Below are 22 well-written blogs that cover paleo diets. Included in this list are general-nutrition blogs and even one post that addresses the critiques of paleo eating and paleo living. For the paleo-specific blogs, we have singled out a post we think could be helpful in shaping your research.

Read as much as you can, cross-check the claims the authors make, and perhaps even visit a nutritionist so you can be prepared to make the choice that is right for you.

 

Paleo-Specific Blogs

Mark’s Daily Apple

Mark Sisson has probably introduced more people to the paleo diet than anyone else, and his blog should be a primary resource for anyone who’s thinking of adopting the diet.

 

Cave Girl in the City

Blogger Kenzie serves as a good reminder to everyone that you don’t have to sacrifice civility even when you go full-on caveman/cavewoman.

 

Rubies and Radishes

Blogger Arsy struggled with poor dietary habits for the early part of her adult life and made the switch to a smarter diet (plus an exercise routine) a few years ago. She now lives with her family in Santa Cruz, California, where she says fresh, quality foods are abundantly available.

 

Evolvify

Evolvify filters an understanding of paleo dietary principles through the lens of evolutionary psychology. Blog posts are infrequent, but working through the archives of this one will be good for your body and your mind. Regular links are still currently being posted on the blog’s Facebook page.

 

The Paleo Mom

There are plenty of interesting conversations to be had about trying to raise a family on a paleo diet. Fortunately, we have a scientist, Sarah Ballantyne, Ph.D., who blogs about such topics.

 

paleOMG

Julie Bauer’s paleOMG is easily one of the most popular paleo blogs out there. She coaches CrossFit in addition to authoring cookbooks and maintaining this blog, where she posts recipes and workout updates. Oh, and that French bulldog you see on the home page? His name is Jackson.

 

FreeRange Human

Sean Coonce, blogger at FreeRange Human, actually adopted a paleo lifestyle as a treatment for his epilepsy. At 21, he had his first case of kidney stones, which developed as a side effect of the medicine he was taking. He eventually opted to supplement his medication through healthier lifestyle choices to keep him feeling better while he battled to keep his epilepsy at bay. This led him to discovering CrossFit and paleo living.

“I … have been able to cut my medication in half since starting paleo because my mind is much clearer and I sleep better,” he writes. “I also have much less stress and I’m genuinely happier.”

 

Ultimate Paleo Guide

Joel Runyon’s Ultimate Paleo Guide is a blog and a wiki resource designed to explain the basics of paleo eating as simply as possible. Joel also sells a couple of services to help paleo eaters stick to their eating habits.

 

The Clothes Make The Girl

Melissa Joulwan has inspired thousands of readers with her stories of working out, staying fit and eating well. Paleo eating is a part of her healthy lifestyle, and she has authored a couple of cookbooks since adopting the diet.

 

Cupcakes to Crossfit

Cupcakes to Crossfit really is a story about two people, since married, who had to reach a lifestyle consensus as to how they would continue living healthily together. When one is a cupcake-eater and the other is a CrossFit fan, common ground isn’t the easiest thing to find, but part of that common ground has included paleo eating.

 

Taylor Made It Paleo

Blogger Taylor is studying nutrition, and she experiments with paleo-friendly recipes so people who are strictly on the diet can eat fun things such as muffins. Speaking of which…

 

Paleo Parents

Paleo Parents’ story is inspirational: In their first respective years of eating paleo, married couple Stacy and Matthew lost a collective 180 pounds. More importantly, they began to finally feel good — both physically and about themselves. They are currently raising three children according to some of the things they’ve learned themselves about nutrition.

 

Hunt. Gather. Love.

Go here for some interesting meta-analyses of dieting, evolutionary biology, sustainable agriculture and applications of big ideas in food. The scope of this blog extends beyond paleo eating, but that lifestyle was what inspired this blog in the first place.

 

The Domestic Man

Russ Crandall’s blog features history lessons masked as recipes. Every Tuesday, he posts a traditional dish that is gluten-free and paleo-friendly, and he will go into detail as to how that dish fits into its specific culture, and that culture’s language and history.

 

General Nutrition Blogs

Whole Health Source

Blogger Stephan Guyenet is an obesity researcher and neurobiologist who covers health science and nutrition on this very informative blog. Use this site as a starting point for fact-checking claims made by pro-paleo writers.

US News’ Eat + Run blog

Daily diet and fitness advice from a reliable news site. We particularly like the fact that they have ranked dozens of diets according to how well they fit diabetics, or those who want to lose weight, or how easy the diets are to follow. You can find this list on the right-hand side of the blog.

Nutrition and You!

Joan Salge-Blake is a nutrition writer for the Boston Globe and a clinical associate professor at Boston University. Her insights into nutrition are reliable, informative and backed by hard data.

I Breathe… I’m Hungry…

Melissa Sevigny started this blog mostly as a way to catalog her own recipes. It was mostly a matter of circumstance that she started with low-carb recipes (it was right after New Year’s Eve). Then, people started reading. Then, she started experimenting with low-carb, gluten-free living herself. Two years later and 40 pounds lighter, she is one of the most read bloggers in this space, and she has since created her own cookbook.

The Holistic Nutritionist

Personal trainer and nutritionist Kate specializes in hormone healing through her practice and advice. On paper, her approach to living sounds easy: Eat well, have fun, get enough sleep, get enough exercise. The devil, however, is always in the details of each of these pieces of advice, and that’s why her blog serves as a useful information and motivation resource.

Specific Articles Worth Reading

The Beginner’s Guide to the Paleo Diet [NerdFitness]

NerdFitness is a wonderful site for explaining fitness and nutrition in language that is void of hype, but definitely full of a certain self-aware sense of humor. Check out this post for a comprehensive, hype-free summary of eating paleo, illustrated with Lego men.

As a bonus, this article, from 2010, serves as a fun time capsule: Check out Joel Runyon, mentioned above as the author of Ultimate Paleo Guide, in the comments sections indicating that he might soon start exploring paleo diets.

What Are the Smartest Anti-Paleo Arguments? [PaleoHacks]

This is actually a forum post on the PaleoHacks site, one of the biggest resources on the web for information on paleo eating and living. Spend some extra time on this post because, as the original poster noted, “Intellectual honesty demands that we understand and respond to the smartest & best arguments our critics make.”

images by:
Orin Zebest / Flickr

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