No one trusts a skinny food critic

• For what it's worth, most Paleo diets don't advocate eating legumes, and the meat that is recommended is certainly in smaller quantities than the average American eats.  I agree with you, the foods we eat today are far cries from their original counterparts. Fruits and vegetables are bred to yield big, juicy, delicious results, very different than foods from the past. But I don't think that in anyway contradicts the main points of the different Paleo diets.  Our bodies are not optimized to run on the insanely concentrated forms of sugar that we currently rely on. Nowhere in our progression as a species did we have a constant supply of, and access to, the amounts of various forms of sugar that we consume today. The "historical" basis of the diets is in a very generalized sense, namely focusing on the efficacy of the human body to process specific types of macronutrients better than others. Substituting modern, and ideally as unaffected as possible, vegetables and fruits for their paleo versions we relied on in the past is far healthier than eating the completely processed crap that most people eat. So eating vegetables, fruits, some meats and fish, really doesn't sound all that extreme or unjustifiable to me.  In fact, it's a pretty flexible way of eating, and is by no means a drastic, calorie-reducing diet. It's a way of life and it changes your relationship with the foods you eat, re-sensitizes your palate, and frees you from the withdrawals assume to be from "hunger" that people go through as they crave their next sugar fix.  I don't get the relevance of the diet in terms of feeding 6-7B people. We aren't feeding 6-7B people all the same diet as it is, so until we are a part of some harmonious hegemony, I don't see the point in hypothesizing its potential irresponsibility or impracticality. That is a different discussion completely. 

• While I wish Laura Shunk the best of luck, the answer is likely "yes" on all four counts. The "Paleo" diet has no historical basis - it does not resemble the diet of early humans. Meat and legumes were not available in such great quantity or variety, and most of the vegetables we consume today were simply not available or significantly less nutritious. It's an incredibly impractical diet from a cultural perspective, and terribly irresponsible and unrealistic when you consider the logistics of feeding 6-7B people. Despite the outlandish claims of Paleo bloggers and book-pushers, adherents will find no panacea - vitamin deficiencies are common, as are kidney stones. All drastic calorie-reducing diets provide short-term weight loss, but the majority of dieters return to their old habits and extra pounds in months or years. Regardless of the outcome, Ms. Shunk can take one pleasant lesson away from this project: she has the time and self-control to exercise.

• does that mean you think Laura Shunk's dietary changes are unsustainable and unrealistic, with no medical or historical credibility? 

• 2020 dictionary entry:  Paleo - an unsustainable and unrealistic diet with no medical or historical credibility which achieved fleeting popularity with undereducated and overprivileged white people. Adherents were noted for bad breath and a stunning inability to communicate in complete sentences. See also: "man hands".

• He's got you on the Paleo Diet. A great decision. 

• The five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. Looks like you went through all the other steps with your trainer and have finally come to terms with your (weight) loss.

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