A Paleo "Template"

I just read and loved this post by Chris Kresser at the Healthy Skeptic. In it he talks about having a "paleo template" rather than a strict diet in which you can have some room to find out what works best for your body. There are a lot of variations out there in paleo-land, and a lot of people insist their way is the only right way. While I read a lot of blogs and other people's books on the topic, what I really appreciate about Robb Wolf is that he tends to be in favor of tweaking the diet to see what works best for the individual, and is willing to admit when new research comes out that he may have been wrong in the past about something.

I have always believed that there is no one perfect diet for everyone-- there are definitely elements of what is healthy and some foods are not good for anyone, but particularly in terms of macronutrient breakdowns, some people do really well on a lot of carbs, like my friend L, who is a distance runner, and has been a size 2 since high school-- clearly, what she is doing works for her. Other people I know really only thrive when they cut out most carbs from their diets. I'm somewhere in between-- I don't feel very good on an extremely low carb diet, but too many carbs is also a recipe for disaster. I do best usually around 100 grams of carbs a day, give or take a few-- assuming they are good carbs and not the high processed ones, which don't make me feel good, but yet sometimes I still eat them because they taste good!