Foundation - What goes in your mouth
From what I have found, there seem to be more similarities than differences between these two schools of thought with respect to diet. Both the Primal Blueprint and the Paleo Diet are based on the underlying philosophy that if you eat what your body evolved to eat (hence the nickname "caveman diet"), you'll feel better and be healthier. So staples of both consist of lots of meats and vegetables and healthy omega-3 rich oils. Both emphasize limiting your carbohydrate intake, especially anything containing sugar, grains and grain-based products like bread, pasta, rice, etc. What I have found, however, is that Primal places greater (although not exclusive) emphasis on natural and organic foods - stuff you'd find in nature. So, for example, Primal sugar substitutes might include raw honey or adding foods like dates to recipes to give them a touch of sweetness. While many recipes I've seen from both Primal and Paleo sources seem to allow sugar alcohols, the Primal school seems to place greater emphasis on organic and naturally-occurring sweeteners.
Primal is a Lifestyle - it doesn't end with diet
In my research and experience, the Primal lifestyle is much more all encompassing than Paleo. Primal really is a lifestyle of which diet is merely the foundation. Mark Sisson provides a framework consisting of 10 areas you should consider to ensure overall health and optimum physical and mental performance. I won't go into all of them since Sisson's website covers them all in depth. But I want to highlight a few key areas that I have found most important for myself as well as most surprising when I learned about them. Aside from diet, these are: 1) move frequently at a slow pace, 2) lift heavy things and 3) get lots of sleep.
We all know that it's good for you to take a walk to relax and get a little exercise. When I started taking a 30 minute walk once a day a few years back, I discovered just how good I felt afterwards, and throughout the rest of the day. Now, this is not hard-core cardio I'm talking about - but a pace that is just enough to slightly elevate your heart rate. And, for me, the key was to do this on a consistent basis - at least 4-5 days a week, often shortly after dinner. l also found that in addition to helping me feel better immediately, this little bit of low-impact regular exercise also helped rev up my metabolism so that it was more active even when I wasn't exercising.
"Lift heavy things" is the Primal Blueprint's way of emphasizing that your body will react, repair and build itself quicker by pushing very hard on a more infrequent basis, than it will by killing yourself in the gym 3-4 days a week on the treadmill, elliptical machine or stationary bike. When I first started getting into the Primal lifestyle, I was amazed at how quickly I was able to jump from using light dumbbells (e.g, 15-20 lbs) doing 3 sets of 10-15 reps each, to using much heavier weights (e.g., 40-50 lbs) doing lower reps (like 5-7 reps) to gain strength fast. And similar to the "move frequently at a slow pace" theme, this also pumped up my metabolism even when I wasn't exercising.
Finally, sleep. Sweet, sweet slumber. Alas, there never seem to be enough hours in a day to do all I want, plus get those precious 8 hours each night. But as I discovered in the Primal Blueprint, there's more to it than just the time spent between the sheets. The beginning of each night's "downtime" actually starts much earlier than that 10pm bedtime. As your body heads off through dusk into the the darkness of night, your brain's release of the hormone melatonin begins to tell your body that it's time to relax and slow down. Through evolutionary history, during the day when we saw and felt sunlight, our brains and bodies evolved to "know" it was time to be active, to work, to build, to gather, etc. And when the sun began to set, we evolved to understand that as darkness falls, it's safer and healthier to slow down and rest. Today, though, we live a much different lifestyle. We have bright lights on all around us until we switch them off just before - and often after we're already in - bed. We bombard our eyes (and therefore our brains) with this digital / blue light end of the spectrum when our brains and bodies have evolved to function best when our circadian rhythms tell us it's time to slow down. The lesson I learned from all of this, and that I still struggle with, is that I need to start winding down earlier in the evening when it comes to light. Drop the phone off into the charger and shut the TV off a little earlier. Use more candles and shut the lights earlier in the evening. I do struggle with this, but whenever I manage to do it, I can tell you I notice a significantly better night sleep - and arise feeling more energized in the morning.
So there you have it - my take on Primal vs Paleo and a few anecdotes from my experiences with going Primal. Until next time, see you in the wild...
jn