“I know we can’t perfectly replicate our ancestors’ hunter-gatherer diet—it varied over the course of the Paleolithic period and there was variation in terms of geography,” says Durant. “But I feel like it’s a really good starting place to cut through the clutter of conflicting diet advice.” What does a professional caveman actually do? While you won’t find him foraging in Central Park or spearing squirrels from rooftops, he does frequent the city’s Russian and Turkish Baths, where he moves from hot saunas to cold pools to try to mimic the temperature fluctuations our ancestors experienced—a practice that supposedly bolsters the immune system. He also, of course, follows the Paleo diet, meaning lots of veggies and meat—and no grains, dairy, or legumes. He keeps a freezer chest in his apartment, so he can buy meat in bulk to save money, and while he’s ripped with muscles, you won’t find this modern-day troglodyte at the gym that often: He mostly does workouts that focus on natural movements, like barefoot trail running and lifting heavy shit, like rocks or barbells. (Cavemen weren’t running on treadmills in Adidas Boosts after all.) MORE: The Real Paleo Diet Was Actually Super Gross Doing all this has gotten Durant plenty of attention, especially when the Paleo movement just began to gain traction five years ago. In 2010, he was featured in a New York Times profile, and in the same year, he appeared on The Colbert Report, where he described his dream woman as a lactose-intolerant celiac. Of course, it didn’t hurt that he totally looked the part, too. “My poor mom,” he says. “Right after I appeared on Colbert and it went well, she was like, ‘You’re never going to cut your hair or shave now, are you?’ She thinks I’m meeting the wrong kinds of girls.” (She might be right. He’s still single.) But despite the hardcore caveman shtick, Durant has grounded advice for anyone looking to start the Paleo diet: Eat strict for 30 days, then add back in the individual foods that are important to you to see how you feel. If you end up with a diet that’s not technically Paleo (Durant confesses to eating grass-fed dairy sometimes), that’s fine. Nowadays, Durant is more focused on eating insects than he is on cutting open wild-grazing hoofed animals. As an advisor to the cricket-based protein bar company EXO (“Crickets Are the New Kale” is its slogan), the caveman wants to make insect protein a more widely accepted source of sustainable protein. “What’s great about it is that crickets are a high quality complete protein, yet require far fewer resources than meat,” he says. “And people in the Paleo community are really leading the charge on this.” MORE: Move Over, Paleo: The Pre-Paleo Diet is Here As far as living the caveman life in the Big Apple, Durant says it’s short lived: He’s planning an escape to cheaper, greener pastures so he can finally get a dog and lead a more authentically Paleo existence that includes less concrete and more mountain biking. But that’s not to say the Paleo dream isn’t alive and well in the city. “I started Paleo nine years ago when nobody had even heard of it, and now I live two blocks from this place Brodo that sells bone broth to-go and 75-cent marrow shots—it’s absolutely crazy!” he says. “This isn’t going anywhere.” Another thing that’s here to stay: his beard. Sorry, Mama Durant.
