On the heels of Tim Ferriss’ The 4-Hour Body comes this post from Julien Smith: How to Lose 20+ lbs in January 2011.
Julien Smith has no apparent nutrition or health pedigree. His claim to fame is primarily as a tech guru; in fact, that’s how I came across him. Chris Brogan, a social media guy I read regularly (part of the day job), asked if Smith was the “new Tim Ferriss.” Turns out Smith and Brogan are buds and wrote a book together.
Anyways, I checked out Smith’s post, and could see some familiar suggestions in his recommendations. Here are his “very simple rules” along with my comments:
Cut out sugar and flour — No complaint about this from me! Smith notes that this is really the primary rule and suggests essentially a paleo/primal diet:
[M]ake your primary calories from food (not drink) such as meat, fish, eggs, vegetables, etc. Eat foods your great-grandmother would recognize, and have more protein than you’re used to. Have bigger meals that include these foods and you’ll feel no need to snack since you’ll be very full.
Sleep the same 8 hours every night — Another pretty solid suggestion.
Try intermittent fasting — The concept of periodic fasting is gaining a lot of traction in paleo/primal circles (and elsewhere). There isn’t a strong consensus about IF just yet, but I like the idea, and there is some research that suggests it may be useful for weight loss.
I’ve not gotten hard-core about this, but periodically I have some appointment in the morning where skipping breakfast (shocker!) works out and — voila — an 18-hour fast.
Note: I suspect IF is much easier to do if you are doing low- or moderate-carb.
Educate yourself — What’s not to like? Smith provides several resources, many of which are paleo, primal, or friendly to them (e.g., Taubes new book).
Spread the message — This step won’t really help anyone directly, but again, if what we need is a paradigm shift away from “eat less, move more” and the standard American food pyramid (and I think we do), then we need for this way of eating to be perceived as more than just a fad diet. We need to get to a tipping point, and trying this kind of plan and talking about it can help do that.
All in all, sounds like pretty good start to a healthier way of eating.
Weight Maven is written by Beth Mazur. Beth believes that obesity is more symptom than cause and that the real problem is our Western diet -- especially sugar, refined grains, and industrial oils. Beth writes about nutrition, ancestral health, & food policy. And cats! 
Hi - one note: the paleo cry “do not eat dairy” is highly suspect – while paleo’s generally have a pretty good f-off attitude towards conventional wisdom, they accept conventional anthropological assumptions that our paleo pals were not smart enough or capable enough to husband animals that provided milk/dairy nutritional adjunct… bbbbzzzzzt! – wrong!- a close examination of the evidence leads to the conclusion that we very well could have and did keep at least goats – if not other mammals long into our paleo past enjoying the delectable white gold…
Check out the argument here: http://daiasolgaia.com/?p=1302
Ravi @ DaiaSolgaia.com
Ravi, thanks for the comment and the link. I’ve said elsewhere that i find Kurt Harris’ arguments for including dairy compelling (and I say I tilt primal, which to me is paleo+dairy, a la Mark Sisson, another paleo dairy eater). One comment tho: Cordain and Wolf and that crowd also exclude dairy for other reasons (e.g. IGF-1).