This post is going to be longer and more wordy than normal, so I am including pictures from a Fun Day with my family at Connors Farm in Danvers, MA. We enjoyed the corn maze, jumping pillow, pedal carts, duck races and the apple donuts which were to die for! There are so many farm activities. If you are in the North Shore Boston area, I highly recommend going. It was a blast!!
Now, on to the good stuff!
I have always had stomach issues. Sometimes it is terrible, sometimes it is totally fine. When my stomach gets upset I try to think about what I ate and evaluate what caused the cramping, bloating and uneasiness, but I have never been able to pin it down. My mom seems to think I may have a gluten intolerance; Vinnie thinks I may be lactose intolerant; I sometimes think it is caused by artificial sugars and an empty stomach. But, who knows! One of my problems is I like food too much to actually cut anything out of my diet. If you put food in front of me, I can not say no. However, I really would like to figure out what causes my stomach pain and try to control it or at least decrease the frequency.
Which leads me to the Paleo Diet.
For months, I have been doing research but have never fully committed to learning or trying the diet. However, the other day Tina posted about a Paleo Challenge her Crossfit box is participating in and after reading about the challenge, I was really intrigued. I am always down for a game especially if it will (hopefully) help me to live a healthier lifestyle.
Paleo is based off the premise that our genes have remained virtually unchanged for a very long time. While there is some disagreement on the numbers, the idea is that we spent about 2.5 million years as a species eating nothing but meat, vegetables and fruit. So, the main point of Paleo is to give our bodies the foods that they evolved to eat and thrive on. The payoff being improved health, performance, longevity and superior digestion.
Since Paleo is mainly a meat, fruits and veggie diet there is a long list of things that you can not eat. When I first looked at the list of things I had a heartache due to the lack of food options.
- Do not consume added sugar of any kind, real or artificial. – makes sense, but sugar is my biggest weakness. Put sugar in front of me and I will eat the entire plate of cookies, no problem. This is a good one for me to eliminate, regardless of following the Paleo Diet or not.
- Do not consume alcohol. EEEKKK… I love me a good glass of wine, or a nice cold beer. I don’t think I could eliminate this from my life style right now. It is such a big part of my social life however, I will reduce it to only 1 or 2 glasses per week.
I always get confused by the difference between a grain and a legume. Here is the difference:
GRAINS: This includes (but is not limited to) wheat, rye, barley, oats, corn, rice, millet, bulgur, sorghum, amaranth, buckwheat, sprouted grains, and all of those gluten-free, pseudo-grains like quiona. –
LEGUMES: This includes beans of all kind (black, red, pinto, navy, white, kidney, lima, fava, etc.) peas, chickpeas, lentils, and peanuts (no peanut butter either). This also includes all forms of soy—soy sauce, miso, tofu, tempeh, edamame.
Do not eat grains. I love bread. This will be hard to eliminate. I might still have to occasionally eat quinoa. I think I would eliminate gluten more so than all grains.
- Do not eat legumes. This won’t be too hard for me. I enjoy peanuts, but I can resist. Everything else I really don’t eat too much anyway.
- Do not eat dairy. Mah, I am indifferent about this one. Greek yogurt will be the most difficult and in moderation I think it is fine.
- Do not eat white potatoes. As long as I can have sweet potatoes!
This list of DO NOTs is long and eliminates a lot of foods. I have no intention of making this an overnight change and I do not intend to strictly follow the ‘diet rules’. I do however want to use the Paleo diet as a guideline for making good choices. The point isn’t to see how well I can do a static diet, the point is to create an effective, individualized and dynamic diet THAT WORKS FOR ME PERSONALLY. I have no interest in making diet into a religion because quite frankly I won’t stick to it. If I find better health, performance and quality of life with a non-Paleo tweak here or there, that’s what I will do. However, I don’t want this flexibility to justify bad food choices. Eating ice cream is not helping me find an effective diet, it’s giving in to my lack of will-power!
