A major part of the paleo diet (that is often overlooked) is eating to satiety. When the various paleo gurus say "eat all they want," they are advising someone with a healthy relationship with food who is aware of when they have sufficiently fueled their body.

Eliminating harmful foods can improve health, but calories are still calories, and if you are consuming a great deal more than you're burning, you're going to store the rest of it. I've heard people get very upset when told they won't magically lose weight eating the same number of calories that got them to where they were, just by eating less carbs and more something else.

"Eat all you want" isn't intrinsically wrong, it's just not complete.

To me, "eat as much as you want" means not counting calories or macros or blocks or whatever.

Many come to paleo unhealthy and needing to lose weight. So there are two scenarios to consider (and I believe Robb Wolf talks about this too):

1) Do I need to lose weight? Yes - then I can't really eat as much as I want, but it still probably is not as strict as a "normal" diet.
No - refer to scenario 2.

-OR-

2) Am I at my ideal weight?
Yes - then I can eat as much as I want until satisfied.
No - then refer back to scenario 1.

Choose your own adventure!

Yeah, and I can't count the number of posts I have read here from people new to eating this way and frustrated that they are eating 3000 cal from healthy fats and proteins and gaining weight- feeling like they were tricked, and they sort of were.

Maybe what they mean is that you can eat as much Paleo food as you want without doing damage to your health- but that doesn't mean you won't gain weight?

Obviously the idea is that Paleo foods tend to be much more satiating, but we all know that in reality you can over eat on any diet, and it will always lead to storing weight.

Maybe a person with zero poor eating habits, no history of ED, eating out of boredom, food addiction or emotional eating, and a perfect metabolism may be able to stay so tuned to their body that they can eat all they want because their body only asks for the right foods at only the right times... I can only theorize, since I have never met anyone like that.

If you can eat as much pasta, cake or bread as you would like. How much pasta or cake would that be?

Now compare that with eggs, steak or broccoli. How much would you eat of that? Big difference, huh?

After once slice of bread, I want a second and third. After one serving of steak, I am not going for seconds and thirds.

This diet naturally gives you natural speed bumps. But of course you can binge on any diet.

Because Paleo is not calorie restrictive. It is certain food restrictive. Total calories are not what is important. Sensitizing your body to insulin and leptin is. This is what makes Paleo different from any other "Diet." It is more of a lifestyle that works based on evolutionary biology.

If you cut out grains, processed carbs (inc simple sugars) and foods with a high omega-6 to omega-3 ratio, you end up with a limited range of foods that - in addition to their excellent nutritional profile - have two defining effects on the hypothalamus:

1. High satiety

2. Low reward/addictiveness

Whilst both of these effects are known, (2) is rarely mentioned in terms of the "you can eat as much as you want and still [insert goal]" paradigm.

To understand how (2) works, its important to view food not only in terms of its macro/micronutrient content but also in terms of its neurotransmitter effect, particularly neurotransmission associated with reward.

Sugar, for example, is associated with elevation of dopamine and serotonin. However, dopamine and serotonin are also released during goal achievement, exercise, sex, novel experiences, etc.

Paleo type foods don't have the same dopamine and serotonin releasing effect as processed foods rich in carbs and being on a Paleo type diet starves the brain of the serotonin and dopamine that it has become accustomed to obtaining from a Westernized/processed foods.

Consequently, one must revert back to activity-type dopamine and serotonin release, which has additional beneficial effects that are synergistic with appetite control and metabolic rate.

Take home messages:

1. reward effect is equally powerful to satiety effect of food.

2. reward may be mediated by ingestion (food/drugs) or activity

This advice is obviously based on the tacit assumption that how-much-you-want-to-eat when eating healthy whole foods will become an appropriate amount. I don't think they should be interpreted as saying you can eat any amount of food that one could conceivably want to eat and that will be fine. I don't think the ""Hey you're full? But you still wanna keep eating? Well alllllrighty then!" scenario applies to their recommendation. Eating even when you're full sounds distinctly like eating more than you "want" in the sense meant. I think it's pretty obvious that they don't mean "eat as much as you want, even if you want to eat solely to fill some psychological urge unrelated to hunger."

I do eat all I want, it's just that I am very full on about 1500 calories a day. I only know that that is my usual calorie intake after the fact, when I occasionally log my foods, so I'm not aiming for that. I eat as I want, and I just end up there.

All those guys know how filling the food is, and that as we lose cravings for bad food, we will enjoy and consume more of the good food in a way that has us paying more attention to signs that we are hungry or full. Well, that's how it is for me. I don't think people should consume 5000 a day, but I have no idea how anyone could eating paleo.

I pretty much eat all I want. I count nothing. I have no idea how many calories, carbs, etc I get per day and don't care. I'm in the best shape of my life.

What's wrong with the idea that you can eat as much as you want if it's good food?

Edit: Some of us eat paleo for health, not weight loss. I'm not trying to lose pounds, I'm just trying to thrive. I thrive by eating when hungry and playing when sedentary. For me - the advice you say is wrong, isn't.

A major part of cutting the crap out of your diet is that "eating as much as you want" really becomes "eating what you need." Your body has great hunger/satiated signals as long as they're not getting screwed up with the wrong inputs. For the last 4 years I have never counted a calorie or stopped eating while I still felt hungry, and I have no trouble maintaining weight. If I have a really active day, I'll get really hungry; especially for fat and I can easily have a 6,000 calorie day if I think about it and add it up. If I have a lazy day on the couch, I won't get hungry and I may skip lunch (because I forget about it), and have a small dinner (because I'm still not hungry).

I totally buy the "eat as much as you want" mantra, but it has to be real food, not paleoized copies of bad food. You can't do the "technically paleo" trick. You can't feed your sugar demons with fruit.

The problem with this reasoning (the "you can eat all you want on Paleo" meme) is that "Paleo" is supposed to bear some sort of resemblance (somewhere between "reenactment" and "reasonable analogs") to the evolutionary environment of adaptation (EEA).

In the EEA, food choices, food quality, and food quantity would have been determined by population specific food gathering/processing technology and whatever flora and fauna was suitable and abundant enough to support a standing population of humans.

While modern Hunter Gatherers (HGs) are typically able to procure enough calories to survive relatively well (above the "starvation" level), this is still in the context of regular periods of scarcity and larger cycles of drought, disease, etc. that can completely obliterate the productivity of an area as well as human populations.

It is hard to imagine that there is any EEA equivalent to supermarkets, places that allow highly engineered (through genetic modification or traditional agricultural practices) pre digested animals and plants to be had for a minimum of energetic expenditure.

Note: I was the one who actually conducted the Sisson interview cited in the original question so I have to take some personal responsibility in letting that assertion go unchallenged.

It also doesn't sit well with me when the Paleo gurus tell us that we can eat all we want. While I've certainly not gained weight on Paleo I've not lost any either. To lose weight on Paleo beyond a certain amount (varies for each of us) will take a calorie deficit. I recognize that there are plenty of benefits to Paleo beyond whether I can lose those last 10 pounds or not but I do think the "eat all you want" thing is only a half truth.

"You can eat as much as you want. But you'll find you don't have to eat so much since this diet is so satiating"

I think there’s a difference between feeling SAD full and then feeling Paleo full…when a SAD eater eats Paleo for the first or second time, it’s as though their body is rewired and they know for probably the first time in their lives what it’s like to be full AND satiated…so at least to ME, the above excert is almost a dare of sorts…”Just try to eat the way you use to using these foods, and see what happens” which I did try and FAILED miserably. I so rarely eat more than twice a day and the idea of doing so makes me feel quite ill. So maybe instead of “eat as much as you want” it should read something like “eat as much as you THINK you need, but you’ll find you don’t have to eat so much…”

There are of course those people that are food addicts who will consume food for no other reason than consumption for consumptions sake, and yes, this can seem like permission to do so and in that regard, I can see why it might bother you.

Truth.

I eat until I am satiated. I can't handle the feeling of fullness. I think "eat all you want" is, to not be stressed about how much you eat or to measure anything. To listen your body and do whatever makes you feel good.

Too many people on diets ask, how much can I eat? What's the measurement? And then they go on the weight scale, measure their calories, measure how much water hey drink, measure everything... too much stress.

because you can

The caveat is that until you're completely "healed" metabolically, this isn't true. There are millions of N=1 testimonies that will prove it. In theory though, it should all be regulated by hormones as long as you're providing the body what it demands. This will be naturally compensated/adjusted, without conscious thought when activity changes.

The problem is, when these messages hit the mainstream, they are usually appealing to people who are nowhere close to metabolically healthy. That's actually part of the attraction of it as people naturally want something where they have the freedom to not restrict.

...I do eat as much as I want. Often I have to eat MORE than I want, because I'm strength training and trying to build muscle. I think a better phrase might be "eat as much as you're hungry for," thus excluding things like emotional eating.

My version of paleo is like the Med diet with lots of meat and exercise. If I ate all I wanted of this 50% carb diet and went back to being sedentary I'd gain a lot of weight. Carbs support a high activity lifestyle. I don't believe that our ancestors avoided them like the Paleo pundits do. There's something wrong with their idea that paleo is like a Las Vegas buffet.

Neither Mark Sisson or Jack Kruse are "paleo" in the original, strictest sense of the "diet." Mark Sisson advocates "primal" with LIMITED dairy and now "SAFE" grains.

Kruse advocates "BIG LEPTIN RESET BREAKFAST" and ice baths, and super-special-secret-stuff-of-the-week.

Sisson posts that CALORIES DO COUNT for weight-loss, as well as carb intake.

"Paleo" diet/eating, in the original Whole 9 sense, means, NO GRAINS, NO DAIRY, NO SUGAR, LIMITED SUGAR AND SALT.

It is supposedly hard to overeat whole foods, like meat and veg.

CALORIES DO COUNT.

We have plenty of evidence from dietary trials that people can eat "as much as they want" of protein and fat and lose weight as long as they restrict carbohydrate. In those cases, as much as they want turns out to be considerably less than they wanted before, which suggests that carbohydrate restriction normalizes appetite. It may be that the appropriate Paleolithic foods can have the same effect without regard to macronutrient ratios, but there isn't yet much evidence for it.

You can eat as much as you want, but when your leptin signals reset and your body actually KNOWS when it's full then you won't want as much as you think. And yes in the begining it's ok to eat two stakes and three helpings of veg. And yes you might not lose right away or you might even gasp gain. But it's not all about weight loss, it's about health. It's the right way to eat, and when you know that and have faith in it just let it be and you will balance out your body to where it's supposed to be. Like Bob says on the biggest loser, trust the process. hahaha

you can eat as much as you want, you just will not want as much. you are no longer chasing the (sugar) dragon.

You CAN eat as much fat, protein, veges and fruit as you want.

You'll just get fat, that's all.

Everybody is different.

Regardless of all the anecdotal evidence from one person's experience with their own diet , with their own unique body and their own specific training regimen everybody is different and everything is relative to what you want to accomplish.

Before you figure out your diet, or training program figure out what your goals are.

I would choose one performance goal and one aesthetic goal (preferably non-cardio or endurance sport related, because with an eating disorder you're going to walk around hungry and imbalanced all the time if your "performance goals" is running 60 miles a week).

e.g., Having a goal of 125 lbs and balancing that with 10 straight pull-ups is a great mix of aesthetic goals and performance goals because you won't kill youself trying to get to 125 lbs if you're also trying to maintain enough strength and muscle mass to hit 10 straight pull-ups.

"Comparison is the killer of all joy."

"Comparison is the killer of all joy."> "Comparison is the killer of all joy.""Comparison is the killer of all joy."

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I'll try to put a slightly different spin. "Eat as much as you want" does not mean to eat until you are stuffed to the gills. The main idea is that when you change to a paleo diet (for some a low-carb paleo diet), your hormones start to work properly.

Once that happens, you can better mobilize and use your fat stores for fuel. When that happens you feel less hunger and tend to feel more satiated.

Many people still need to use techniques to limit their intake, even of great foods. Do things like limiting the portions, and not having too many snack foods around the house. I am not saying to starve yourself, but it's important to find ways to not eat more than you need.

Because they are dudes...writing from a dude's perspective. Protein and fat eaten to satiety or past, plus weight lifting is likely going to yield much more visible results for men than women.

I think for women it works a little differently, and going beyond what is needed can cause weight gain on any diet, especially after years or decades of chronic starvation dieting. I have lost weight at times eating very, very well, until stuffed to the gills, but when I crunched the numbers they kept coming in well below what I was consuming on SAD.

I think it is a smoke and mirrors sort of thing, you think you are eating more because you are so full, but you're not. It certainly gets people excited, especially after being told ad nauseum to eat less.

When I started doing Paleo, the very first change I noticed was that I actually felt full after a normal-sized meal. Before Paleo, if I ate a sandwich/Wheat Thins/Diet Coke for lunch, I was hungry again an hour later. Now, I eat a grilled seasoned steak/brocolli/small hunk of ultra-dark chocolate/ice water for lunch and I'm satisfied for hours. Point being, like many others have said, when you're eating the right foods you won't NEED or WANT to eat way more than you need to. Thus, statements like 'you can eat as much as you want' have some validity, because when you're eating the right foods and not Cheetoes or frozen pizzas you wont WANT to eat until you explode. The chemicals and sugars in processed foods are what gives us that urge to go buckwild. Take those factors away, and you won't feel that necessity to eat until you can't move.

For me, the key has been healthy fats. Eat plenty of those and you'll be sustained for hours. That's why the traditional 'Low-Fat' diet that most health-concious Americans subscribe to inevitably fails; you never get a sense of being full eating foods that have no fat, so you're constantly hungry and overwhelmed by cravings, and most people eventually give in to temptation and go eat a box of Twinkies.

If someone is trying to motivate you to go on their diet, they want to say something that shocks you; that draws your attention. "eat as much as you want" will work better in advertising than "if you're trying to lose weight, paleo foods will be more satisfying and you'll naturally eat less therefore this is not a calorie counting diet". Basically they say one thing to get your attention, then explain it if you buy their book kinda deal.

Also, it's very foolish to assume everyone's goal is weight loss.

ive been eating as much as i want for many years. i guess i just dont want as much as others.