A Mission of Health: the Paleo Diet and Professional Athletes

Paleo diets have often been proven to improve your health, but it turns out that they're good for your athletic ability as well. With a focus on health, this diet allows you to eat plenty of fats to gain energy, proteins to build muscle and some (but limited) carbohydrates for their mineral and vitamin content.

Eating a Paleo diet helps the average athlete (and professional one) in many ways:

• Reducing inflammation, allowing you to recover faster
• Improving joint and muscle condition, allowing for less soreness
• Providing all the protein and amino acids for healthy muscle growth
• Triggering fat-burning hormones, so you use your own fat stores for energy

Professional athletes are turning to the Paleo diet to advance their game-play all over the world.

Kobe Bryant, the NBA All Star and Olympic Gold medalist is one such athlete to go Paleo. His diet is consisting of a lot of beef and butter these days, large staples of the Paleo diet. He's eliminated sugars from his intake, and even minimizes his carbohydrates. Bryant is still able to play full games in his late thirties, and even attributes his resurgence in 2012 to this change in diet.

LeBron James, a fellow NBA star, has recently gotten a lot of attention for his weight loss and increase in energy. He's also joined the Paleodiet, taking on a modified version of it created by his physician. He enjoys a diet of 50/30/20 proportions, with 50% healthy fat, 30% protein and 20% carbohydrates. Since taking up this diet James has lost a good amount of weight while still retaining his muscle. He gains most of his energy through his own body fat and not the excessive amount of carbohydrates most athletes use.

David Zabriske, a professional cyclist, is one who's taken on a high-fat Paleo diet. He eats only four thousand calories a day, which is less than most cyclists, but while others have a high-carb diet, Zabriske has doubled his fat intake and cut his carbs down to one-fourth of what he used to eat. His foods include a lot of avacados, coconut oil, nuts and protein. Since switching to Paleo, Zabriske has increased his biking power by 15% and also managed to double his dead-lift max, now being able to lift 245 pounds.

Other names you may recognize that have taken up a Paleo diet are: Bethanie Mattek-Sands, Brendan Steele, Eva Twardokens, Grant Hill, Hunter Pence, John Welbourn, and Apollo Ohno among many, many others.