Nutrition

He eats meat and fish and gathers berries and nuts for survival. He lives off of a healthy dose of bright fruits and green vegetables. Though this may sound like a caveman, in reality it is Bob Becker on the Paleo diet.

Becker, chemistry teacher, has been on the Paleo diet for about a year and a half now.  He heard about the Paleo diet from a teacher from Nevada when he was at a teachers’ conference in Brazil.

“It’s essentially what cavemen would have eaten,” Becker said. “That is, no processed foods, nothing in the way of grains either, so that rules out wheat, it rules out rice, but essentially berries, fruits, nuts and meats. I like all those things. And the thing is you really can eat quite a bit of them so you don’t feel hungry like you do on most diets.”

The Paleo diet takes modern humans back to the original eating habits of Paleolithic humans.

“The logic is that humans were not meant to eat grains and processed foods,” Becker said. “We spend most of our evolutionary time eating nuts and berries and meats [as] hunter-gatherer[s], therefore our digestive system is geared toward that.”

Previously, Becker competed in an all-KHS staff biggest loser competition started by Kim Sweesy, counselor. He was determined to beat the other teachers, and he ended up winning first place after losing around 50 pounds, he said. When he found out about the Paleo diet after his weight loss, he thought it would help him stay physically fit.

“I had already lost a bunch of weight so this was more of a matter of keeping the weight off, and keeping up my exercise and not feeling weak at all,” Becker said. “It makes you feel great [and] energetic.”

Becker said it was not hard to be on the Paleo diet because he liked to eat a lot of the foods the Paleo diet allows. However, he admits the difficult part about being on the Paleo diet is the disallowance of pizza.

“There were some things I lost out on. I love pizza,” Becker said. “Put Dewey’s pizza in front of me, and I’m in heaven.”

One of his favorite foods to eat is fruit. Becker often makes smoothies and the Paleo diet helps him stay on track with his healthy lifestyle.

“It was kind of a good excuse for eating healthy is what it came down to,” Becker said.

Becker exercises while he is on the Paleo diet. He frequently plays racquetball and recently ran a half-marathon with his daughter. He said he has introduced some non-Paleo foods to his diet this past summer and he currently eats about 80 percent Paleo.

“Our body is not meant to metabolize [non-paleo foods],” Becker said. “And maybe that even gets in the way of our metabolizing of other things we eat so [I tried] to avoid those and I found myself burning through calories more efficiently. I just know that for my caloric intake, I was surprised I was keeping the weight off.”