• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Paleo Leap
  • Recipes
    • Beef and Red Meat
    • Chicken and Poultry
    • Pork
    • Fish and Seafood
    • Eggs
    • Soups
    • Salads
    • Sides, Veggies and Appetizers
    • Sauces, Dips & Vinaigrettes
    • Drinks
    • Sweets and Snacks
    • Cooking Tips
  • Learn
  • Your Starting Point
    • Topic Index
    • Paleo 101
    • Paleo Meal Plan
    • Paleo Food List
    • Transitioning to Paleo
    • Am I Doing it Right? - Checklist
    • Mini-Course for Beginners
  • Popular Topics
    • Recipes for Beginners
    • Breakfast Ideas
    • Homemade Condiments
    • Legumes
    • Wheat & Gluten
    • Dairy
    • Nightshades
  • More
    • Compilations
    • Foods
menu icon
go to homepage
  • Recipes
  • Chicken
  • Pork
  • Snacks
  • Salads
  • Learn Paleo
  • Paleo Cooking Tips
  • Paleo Diet Foods
  • Paleo Recipe Compilations
  • Keto Diet Recipes
  • Paleo Beef and Red Meat Recipes
  • Paleo Drink Recipes
  • Paleo Egg Recipes
  • Paleo Fish and Seafood Recipes
  • Paleo Sauces and Dips
  • Paleo Sides, Veggies and Appetizers
  • Paleo Soup Recipes
  • Paleo Tips & Tricks
  • Paleo Topic Index
    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Pinterest
    • Twitter
    • YouTube
  • search icon
    Homepage link
    • Recipes
    • Chicken
    • Pork
    • Snacks
    • Salads
    • Learn Paleo
    • Paleo Cooking Tips
    • Paleo Diet Foods
    • Paleo Recipe Compilations
    • Keto Diet Recipes
    • Paleo Beef and Red Meat Recipes
    • Paleo Drink Recipes
    • Paleo Egg Recipes
    • Paleo Fish and Seafood Recipes
    • Paleo Sauces and Dips
    • Paleo Sides, Veggies and Appetizers
    • Paleo Soup Recipes
    • Paleo Tips & Tricks
    • Paleo Topic Index
    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Pinterest
    • Twitter
    • YouTube
  • ร—
    Home ยป Learn About Paleo & Keto Diets

    5 Vicious Cycles and How to Avoid Them

    Last Modified: Feb 9, 2023 by Paleo Leaper ยท This post may contain affiliate links ยท Leave a Comment

    Sharing is caring!

    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Reddit

    One of the big principles of Paleo is that everything is connected: โ€œhealthโ€ is about your body as a whole, and whatever you do to one part affects all the others. Thatโ€™s why Paleo takes such a whole-life approach: itโ€™s about sleep, stress management, and exercise, not just food. Looking only at food misses the big picture.

    Part of that picture is understanding self-reinforcing feedback loops, where A causes B and B turns right around to cause A. Thatโ€™s great if youโ€™re in a good pattern: your diet makes you feel good, so you have energy to exercise, so you feel inspired to keep eating well, and so on. But what if you end up stuck in the opposite: a vicious cycle of problems feeding into each other?

    Here are 5 vicious cycles to avoid if you can, and how to get out if youโ€™re already in them.

    1. Blood Sugar Crashes <-> Eating Sugar

    Sugar
    Sugar: it's not actually the solution to feeling lousy.

    for Energy

    How it works: You start your day with sugar (for example purposes, letโ€™s take a โ€œhealthyโ€ LARABAR, with 18 grams of sugar for the apple pie flavor and almost no protein). But it doesnโ€™t give you sustained energy without enough fat and protein, so you crash midmorning. You grab a handful โ€œhealthyโ€ raisins (25 grams of sugar for one of those little boxes, again with no fat and almost no protein) for a pick-me-up, which works fine until your blood sugar crashes again around noon. Rinse and repeat.

    This is also known as the blood sugar rollercoaster. Itโ€™s not fun. Blood sugar crashes can make you exhausted, irritable, depressed, fuzzy-headed, and just plain miserable.

    How to escape: Start your day with protein, fat, and vegetables to head off the cycle completely. (For example, three eggs fried in coconut oil with a pile of wilted spinach and some sweet potato โ€“ which unlike a LARABAR also has enough calories for an adult). Itโ€™s fine to eat carbs as long as theyโ€™re not the only thing you eat.

    If youโ€™re already stuck in the blood sugar low, resist the urge to self-medicate with more sugar. Eat a real meal with protein, fat, and vegetables. You may have to tough it out through some residual sugar cravings. Eat protein, fat, and vegetables whenever youโ€™re actually physically hungry, and find something else to occupy your mind when youโ€™re just craving.

    2. Stress <-> Insomnia

    How it works: youโ€™re stressed out, so you canโ€™t sleep. The next day, everything that was stressing you out is a thousand times worse and more stressful because you havenโ€™t slept. So youโ€™re even more stressed, and your sleep is worseโ€ฆ

    Variation on a theme: youโ€™re stressed out, so you canโ€™t sleep. The next day, you drink way too much coffee, which makes your sleep bad even if the stress is gone. Then youโ€™re tired, so you drink too much coffee again, so you canโ€™t sleepโ€ฆ

    (Note that if you choose to self-medicate for exhaustion with sugar instead of caffeine, this can also be combined with #1 for a double whammy of awfulness).

    How to escape: Before you go to sleep, take 10 minutes (at minimum; you could definitely do more) to do some kind of stress management/reduction that works for you. Knit, read, take a bath, meditate, stretch, do yoga, go out to the backyard and shoot a potato gun at a picture of your bossโ€™s faceโ€ฆwhatever helps. Before you say you don't have time to do that, consider whether it would be more useful spending that time + the next 6 hours lying in bed worrying, or whether it would be better to spend it setting yourself to get good sleep for the rest of the night.

    If this happens regularly, practice handling stress so that you can be in stressful situations without feeling stressed out. Here's some good advice on that.

    3. Extreme Calorie Restriction <-> Overeating

    How it works: you dutifully embark on a 1200-calorie diet. Youโ€™re starving and miserable. At some point, you snap and gorge yourself on everything youโ€™ve been missing. Obviously, this calls for even stricter calorie restriction to โ€œmake up for it,โ€ so you crank it down to 1100. Youโ€™re even more starving and miserable, and you snap again, so obviously itโ€™s time to go down to 1000 in penanceโ€ฆ

    This is not helpful for weight loss or anything else. If your diet is making you so hungry that youโ€™re driven to uncontrollable overeating, the problem is the diet, not you.

    How to escape: muster up your courage (it does take courage!) and stop trying to punish yourself for your โ€œfailures.โ€ Let them all go. Start fresh. At your next meal and every meal after that, eat a moderate amount of animal protein (3-4 eggs, 1 chicken breast, 1 pork chop, or equivalent amount), a huge pile of vegetables, some healthy fats, and some starchy vegetables if you do well with them. Eat whenever youโ€™re hungry, and eat until your physical hunger is gone. Donโ€™t eat for entertainment, stress relief, or other reasons.

    If after several weeks, youโ€™re not losing weight on that diet, you may be at your bodyโ€™s ideal healthy weight already (this is probably higher than your ideal weight according to Cosmo). If thatโ€™s obviously not true, hereโ€™s where to start looking for answers.

    4. Eating junk food <-> Gut flora changes

    How it works: your gut flora respond to what you eat. Studies have actually found that eating junk food conditions the gut flora to want more of it (you can read more about this here). So you eat junk food, which makes you want junk food, so you eat more of it, which makes you want it even moreโ€ฆ

    How to escape: get your gut flora used to real food instead. This may take a little bit of white-knuckling at first, but if youโ€™re eating enough food to meet your actual calorie needs and getting all the important nutrients, the white-knuckle part shouldnโ€™t last very long.

    5. Not cooking <-> No proper kitchen tools

    PaleoCooking Paleo
    You can get secondhand pots and pans for MUCH less than a week of takeout dinners.

    How it works: you arenโ€™t in the habit of cooking your meals at home, so you canโ€™t justify the expense of proper kitchen tools, so you never cook, so you canโ€™t justify the equipment, because you never cook, because you donโ€™t have the right stuffโ€ฆ

    Variation on a theme: replace โ€œpots and pansโ€ with โ€œpantry staples.โ€

    How to escape: make a chart. On one side, write down all the money you spend in one week on not-cooking (restaurant meals, takeout, buying pre-packaged microwave dinnersโ€ฆ). Multiply that number by 52, to get the amount you spend per year on not-cooking. On the other, write down $30, which is enough for a starter set of pots and pans from a secondhand store.

    It's easy to pay $8 or $10 at a time for takeout dinners, but seeing it all at once like that really brings home how much you'd be saving by buying the cooking equipment. Don't know how to cook, either? Here are 10 super-simple recipes to start you off.

    Whatโ€™s the worst vicious cycle youโ€™ve ever gotten yourself into? How did you get out! What advice would you give to someone whoโ€™s there right now? Share your wisdom on Facebook or Google+.

    More Learn About Paleo & Keto Diets

    • closeup of a white bowl filled with Garlic & Roasted Onion Salsa
      Garlic & Roasted Onion Salsa
    • plate filled with blackened tilapia and sliced lemon
      Blackened Tilapia
    • Crab Stuffed Salmon served on a cutting board
      Crab Stuffed Salmon
    • 17 paleo bars & bites to snack on featured
      17 Paleo Bars & Bites To Snack On

    Sharing is caring!

    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Reddit

    Filed Under: Learn About Paleo & Keto Diets

    Reader Interactions

    Leave a Reply Cancel reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

    Recipe Rating




    Primary Sidebar

    paleo leap square logo

    Hi, I'm Rick! Paleo Leap is the oldest and biggest resource online, covering everything about the paleo diet. We have over 1500 recipes categorized and plenty of meal plans for you to try.

    More about me โ†’

    Popular

    • Bacon-Wrapped Salmon Featured
      Bacon-Wrapped Salmon Recipe
    • Almond Milk Custard
      Almond Milk Custard Recipe
    • Flourless Banana Pancakes Featured
      Flourless Banana Pancakes Recipe
    • Turban Squash Soup Featured
      Turban Squash Soup Recipe

    Recent Recipes:

    • closeup of a glass of Almond banana cinnamon smoothie on a wood table
      Almond Banana Cinnamon Smoothie
    • glass of Peach and chocolate green smoothie on a wood table with peaches in the background
      Peach and Chocolate Green Smoothie
    • closeup of two glasses of cinnamon and Coconut vanilla milkshake
      Coconut Vanilla Milkshake
    • Pumpkin smoothie in a glass on a wood table with cinnamon sticks in the background
      Pumpkin Smoothie

    Footer

    โ†‘ back to top

    About

    • Privacy Policy
    • Disclaimer
    • Cookie Policy

    Newsletter

    • Sign Up! for emails and updates

    Contact

    • Contact

    As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

    For your information only. The statements on this website are merely opinions. Paleo Leap does not provide medical or nutritional advice, treatment, or diagnosis. Read the full disclaimer.

    Copyright ยฉ 2023 Paleo Leap