Everywhere you look you see the Paleo diet and the Keto diet in the news. While they have some similarities, there are also some differences. After looking at all the facts, Paleo was a better choice for weight loss. Let’s look at some of the factors that made Paleo shine over Keto.
Long-Term Results and Effects
The Keto diet is newer on the horizon than Paleo. While many people are having success at weight loss on this program, there isn’t much data that shows the long-term effect of taking in that much fat.
Long-term, in this case meaning 20 years or more out, will there be heart disease? Will weight start to creep back up? There are many diet fads that started out with the idea they would improve health that turned out to be very unsafe in the long-term.
While Paleo omits some foods such as grains, processed sugars, and artificial ingredients it still strikes a balance of protein, carbohydrates, and fats that has been proven time and time again to be safe and healthy.
Ketosis
Ketosis is the state that the body goes into where it begins to use fat as fuel. The initial switch to this type of metabolism causes what is called the “keto flu”. This is a time when you generally can expect to feel terrible.
Symptoms include fatigue, muscle aches, headaches, difficulty sleeping, and constipation. Anything that makes you feel that bad initially is cause for concern. A healthy diet from Paleo foods can make you feel better without ever going through this type of poor health condition.
Ketosis also causes you to have bad breath in many cases. Breath can begin to smell like acetone – the ingredient in nail polish remover – due to a breakdown of chemicals in the blood while on the Keto diet.
Brain Function
Your brain must have some carbohydrates to work efficiently. The Keto plan can be so low in carbs that you actually begin to feel brain fog. This can also be harmful for people who have mental illness such as depression and anxiety.
Headaches, slower processing speed, memory loss, and even confusion can be related to a lack of carbohydrates in the diet. Paleo is a lower carbohydrate diet than the typical Western diet, but it still has plenty of carbohydrates for healthy brain function.
The Bottom Line
While both Keto and Paleo plans can help you to lose weight, Paleo is a better-rounded program that has a good balance of macronutrients as well as micronutrients. It doesn’t have extreme rules that could possibly be harmful for your health and at the same time can help you to lose weight, fight disease, and have more energy.
