The Truth About Eating Like Your Ancestors

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Embracing Ancestral Eating for Better Health

On today’s episode of Live Lean TV, I want to talk about the truth about eating like your ancestors and why embracing ancestral eating is better than the standard American diet for your health.

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When it comes to the idea of eating like your ancestors, I want to clarify what this actually means.

I’ve used this terminology before, however based on a few comments, it seems like I need to simplify this concept.

One of my most watched videos was called: How To Become A Fat Burning Machine.

In this video I showed a visual example of the “Spill Over Effect”.

What Is The Spill Over Effect?

To put it simply, the spill over effect occurs when you consume more carbohydrates than your body can store as glycogen in the liver and muscle cells for short-term energy.

Once your glycogen levels are full, there is no room to store that extra sugar for energy, so it gets stored in the fat cells as body fat.

This spill over effect tends to be a continuous cycle as people continuously eat too much sugar and don’t move their bodies enough to burn it off as energy, so they just keep getting fatter and fatter.

On top of this increase in obesity, today’s leading causes of death such as diabetes, heart disease, and cancer are often related to lifestyle choices caused by poor diets of refined and processed foods and lack of exercise.

Our Ancestors Did Not Eat This Food

Here’s the point I want to make.

These insulin spiking refined carbohydrate foods were not being consumed by our ancestors.

This matters because our genetic structure is very similar to the genes of our oldest ancestors.

Since your genes control pretty much every function in your body; people need to start focusing on consuming more of the types of foods that your genes and digestive system were programmed for.

Unfortunately, the majority of the processed foods that people eat today were not around, so our digestive systems are not even designed to know how to process these foods.

Why Our Ancestor’s Life Expectancy Was Lower Than Today

One of the comments that I always get is: “Well, why was our ancestor’s life expectancy way lower than it is today?”

Obviously you can’t argue with this.

However, our ancestors also didn’t have the advancement in health care, in medicine, or even the kind of shelter from harsh weather and predators.

I’m pretty sure a lot of our ancestors were dying due to being eaten by a lion or freezing to death, not because of diabetes, heart disease, and cancer.

Without getting the proper nutrients from food, the body can malfunction, which leads to these lifestyle related causes of death that did not affect our ancestors.

How To Eat Like Your Ancestors

If you’ve ever heard me say, “eat like your ancestors”, I’m referring to eating the majority of your calories from a diet of:

• Meat
• Vegetables
• Nuts
• Seeds
• Fruit

Let me clarify that when I say “meat”, I’m not referring to the hot dog “street meat” that you see outside the sports stadium, or the cheeseburgers being sold at the majority of fast food restaurants.

I’m referring to grass fed, hormone free, and humanely raised meat.

And yes, I realize our ancestors probably ate many parts of the animal, like the tongues and spleens, that we don’t eat today, but that’s not what I mean by eating like your ancestors.

I’m referring to focusing on adding a healthy protein source to your meals and reducing the consumption of foods that are created in a factory, using refined carbohydrates and over processed fats that are foreign to your genes.

If you look at most cases of obesity, their diet primarily focuses on refined carbohydrates as the meal’s main food source, with very little, if any, high quality protein.

Once again, if your plate includes a burger patty in between a pair of hamburger buns from a fast food restaurant, that’s not considered a high quality source of protein.

Today’s Standard American Diet Macronutrient Breakdown

Many scientists believe that our ancestors diets consisted of at least 30% of calories from high quality protein sources.

Yet this 2008 research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found the average US macronutrient breakdown was approximately:

• 48% carbohydrates for men and 51% for women
• 34% fat for both men and women
• 16% protein for both men and women

This study was completed in 2008, so who knows where these numbers are today.

I believe our bodies become more susceptible to diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and obesity when our plates are filled with more refined and processed carbohydrates, than if our plates were filled with foods from the earth, that are closer to what our ancestors ate.

Bottom Line

Focus on consuming high quality protein sources and healthy fats, along with a big portion of vegetables as your main source for meals, and reduce the consumption of refined carbohydrates and over processed unhealthy fats.

I’m not saying you need to be 100% “paleo” or never eating a piece of pizza again, because you know I love my pizza.

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I’m just recommending that you become more aware of the foods you’re feeding your body and focusing on making consistent progress towards cutting back on refined carbohydrates.

Simplify Your Diet With Our Live Lean 20 Diet System

If you want help simplifying your diet, check out our Live Lean 20 Diet system where we give you:

• 20 delicious meals and snacks
• Using just a total of 20 healthy ingredients
• Prepared in 20 minutes or less

Follow the quick and simple cooking videos, use the meal plans and grocery lists, and start changing the way you eat.

That’s it.

Keep Living Lean.