Nutrition

Getting Started with Paleo

by  • March 11, 2012 • 0 Comments

 

         You have decided you want to start a paleo lifestyle with nutrient dense whole foods, but where to start?  Well you will be happy to know that there are plenty of foods out there that you can eat.  Are there restrictions? Sure but trust me once you get going you will not miss them nearly as much as you think you will. 

            First we are going to focus on what you can have.  Paleo allows for; meat/seafood and eggs, lots of fresh colorful vegetables, fruit, nuts/seeds and healthy fats.  Healthy fats include; avocado, coconut oil, olive oil and some nut oils. It is preferred that you use pastured/naturally raised animal products with no hormones, chemicals or additives and also that your produce is organic and locally raised. However I am going to touch on that some more in a minute. So does this mean you can have bacon? Absolutely it does. Some fresh berries for a snack? Of course, berries are a great source of antioxidants as well as other nutrients. Are you going to get bored eating these foods?  Not if you are creative in the kitchen. If you aren’t then chances are you already find yourself in a rut when it comes to planning meals regardless of your diet. There are several good paleo cookbooks that have currently come onto the market as well as blogs, web sites and a facebook page started just for those of us at CrossFit Acadia that are on a paleo journey. Utilize them!

            Now let’s talk about what you should eliminate from your diet.  I’m going to start with the big one, grains. That’s right no grains.  So wheat, corn, rice, oatmeal, etc. …anything made out of a grain is gone! (Don’t panic there are some really good substitutes that can help your transition or when you really need that cookie or bread.) After grains comes dairy, legumes (this includes peanuts and peanut products) and bad fats like canola oil, vegetable oil, soybean oil and definitely anything hydrogenated.  You will also need to get rid of processed sugars and artificial sweeteners.  Honey, palm sugar and real maple syrup are ok.

            And then there is the grey area.  Yep, not everyone agrees on exactly what is paleo and what isn’t. If you google foods allowed on the paleo diet, you will get several different answers.  Here are a few of the foods in question. Potatoes are a big one.  Sweet potatoes are absolutely fine, especially if you are athletic, active or a kid.  White potatoes are a little more controversial with some adamant that they are absolutely not allowed and others who will say they are ok if you don’t eat the peal…I say this one is your call.  If you can eat white potatoes and they don’t bother you in any way, fine.  If you can’t, well then don’t.  Green Beans are another food that has people in disagreement.  Some say that because they are more pod than bean that they are ok, others will just say no.  So again make your own call.  Finally, processed meats are an area where you need to make smart decisions. If you must eat processed lunch meats, hotdogs or the like try to buy the least processed most natural versions available.  You want to avoid as many additives, colorings and preservatives as possible.  Ideally processed lunch meats should be eaten in limited amounts.

            Finally let’s talk about THE PALEO POLICE!  Yeah, there aren’t any.  So if you are buying meats that aren’t grass fed, your eggs don’t come from the neighbor’s chickens or, gasp, you made paleo friendly cookies…nobody is going to come busting down your door and haul you away. This also does not mean that you are not following a paleo lifestyle. What it does mean is that you are buying the highest quality foods that fall into the paleo guidelines that your budget allows. There is a growing trend of people in the paleo blogosphere condemning others for their choices.  I’m here to tell you that one of the best things about the paleo lifestyle is that it adapts to the needs of you and your family.  Do not let this attitude discourage you! I recently went on one of my favorite websites and looked at their 30 day paleo start-up menu.  It had lamb chops, lamb burgers, bison, crab cakes…sorry, but I don’t know of too many families who can afford these items on a weekly basis.  Talk about making people feel like a healthy lifestyle is out of their reach.  Don’t get me wrong, I like these items and have made them in the past but on occasion if I can find the products on sale. If you can afford them, great! Enjoy…they are very tasty. But many of us with or without families have tight grocery budgets right now so we need to be a little more realistic of what our menus are going to look like.  You will also hear that you shouldn’t try and remake your favorite foods with paleo friendly ingredients. What they are talking about are breads, cookies, brownies or other items deemed junk food. Yet you’ll notice others are recreating their favorite foods, like lasagna, bbq sauce, crab cakes, orange chicken, etc…out of paleo friendly ingredients.  What’s the difference, especially when many of these items contain sweeteners like honey or palm sugar too?  We know that treats aren’t to be eaten every day and that too much sugar, even if it is from a natural source, is not a good thing. But if I want a brownie and I know I can make them and not eat the entire pan, it is really no one’s business but my own.  So, if like us, you like to make paleo treats (cookies, breads and desserts) out of paleo friendly ingredients then go right ahead. Just be aware of how often you are eating them and if by eating them you find yourself craving more sweets or find yourself letting non-paleo foods back into your diet. If you find you are out of control with them then, sorry, but you are going to have to cut them out of your diet.

The bottom line is be smart about your choices and find people out there who are supportive offering ideas of how paleo can work for you and your situation.  The paleo guidelines are within everyone’s reach. Just make sure to set yourself up for success. If you have plenty of paleo friendly foods and snacks on hand, the less likely you will be to go back to old habits.  Plus there are plenty of great recipes out there so get a little adventurous in the kitchen and try something new. Don’t look for excuses on why you can’t do it because what it all comes down to is that YOU are the reason you should do it.

Finding My Way to Better Health and Nutrition

by  • February 20, 2012 • 0 Comments

       Like many people I have been trying to get my body to look a certain way for most of my life. For me it was being super model skinny, for others maybe it was the ever elusive six-pack abs. When I was younger I would binge and purge, exercise ridiculous amounts, just plain not eat or a combination of them all. I smoked cigarettes to increase my metabolism but fortunately wasn’t stupid enough to try other illegal stimulant drugs to lose weight. I say illegal because I did like my ripped fuel/ephedrine and often took 3x as many that were recommended. As I got older I knew this wasn’t the way to get where I wanted to be. First I concentrated on just calories. It didn’t really matter what I was eating as long as I stayed under the magic number of 1200 calories. I knew how many calories were in my favorite candy bar, how many beers and wings I could have and had no problem eating a slice of carrot cake for dinner if I didn’t actually have enough calories left for both a meal and dessert. Later I focused more on exercise. I would spend hours at the gym on the stair climber or treadmill then leave and get a sundae or head out to the local tavern for a burger and beer. I was using the workouts as a way to justify adding high caloric food to my diet. Then after my first child and a pregnancy weight gain of 100 pounds bringing me up to 230-235 pounds, I knew I had to get back on track somehow. I went back to my original way of controlling my weight of severe calorie restriction. It didn’t matter how active I was, I limited my calorie intake to no more than 1200. I got down to 160-165 when I found out I was pregnant with my second child. Not wanting to make the same mistake as with the first, I was extremely careful with what I ate keeping my weight gain to 30ish pounds. I was just thrilled that I didn’t hit the 200 mark again. After my second child was born I decided to combine a low calorie diet with excessive amounts of exercise and started a regimented routine of working out 2 hours a day, 5-6 days a week, weighing all my food and sticking to a max 1200 calorie a day diet. I cut back on the sugary food and concentrated on eating a balanced diet as recommended by the FDA and the food pyramid. This worked great and I lost all the weight from both pregnancies but it wasn’t sustainable. I started working part time and couldn’t get to the gym as often, I was hungry all the time so I would binge and my calorie consumption slowly increased until I found myself putting the weight back on. During this time we moved 3xs and after yet another move, I once again found myself over 200 pounds. I felt horrible, I couldn’t keep up with my kids, I was tired all the time and I found that my body just hurt. My joints would be stiff, my back ached all the time with it going completely out on me every few months, my feet hurt so bad that I couldn’t walk on them correctly for the first hour or two that I was up and I was fat. Not just fat, really fat! I remember seeing a picture of myself and couldn’t believe how round I was. That was my wake-up call.
       In November of 2010 I started cutting out the treats that I was eating all the time and tried to get out and exercise. I did see some weight loss but I wasn’t really feeling any better. Then in March of 2011 I came across a blog talking about Paleo or the Caveman Diet and read it. Then I re-read it. Then I searched for more information and found several other sites including one by Robb Wolf and another by Mark Sisson. I showed my husband who also wanted to lose some weight and get back into shape. We were very intrigued by the claims being made. Loss of weight, more energy, aches and pains disappeared and other medical conditions being “cured”, like diabetes and high blood pressure. We didn’t have the latter two but we knew that they could very well be in our future the way we were going. The thing that really got us started on this new way of eating was the suggestion to try it for 30 days and if you didn’t notice a difference then go back to your old way of eating. Well we both decided 30 days wasn’t so long and really the biggest change we had to make was cutting out grains. So we did our 30 and WOW! I didn’t really lose much weight but all my other symptoms were going away. No more aches and pains, I could stand up straight and walk without pain after getting out of bed and I didn’t need a nap two hours after waking up. My husband, Brian, did lose weight and a lot of it! The first month alone he dropped 20 pounds and he noticed that he felt better also. So we kept going, and going and going. Now almost a year later I am down in weight. Although I’m not at my “goal weight”, I am down 4-5 sizes depending on the designer and style. Truthfully, I feel so much better that I don’t really care about the number on the scale anymore (ok, I care a little but it no longer controls me). Brian has dropped 35 pounds and gone from a (tight) 36 inch waist to a 30, he has tons more energy than before and his chronic heartburn isn’t so chronic anymore. We didn’t really add much exercise the first 5 months but we kept coming across the term crossfit in many of the paleo blogs and once again became curious. At the end of July we found Crossfit Acadia and after one class we were hooked. Adding crossfit to our regime has only increased the benefits that we first began seeing with our change of diet.
       So what has been the biggest difference this time around? We focus on nutrition plain and simple not the scale or a pant size. We stick to a basic paleo diet and follow the guidelines of meats, eggs, seafood, vegetables, fruits, nuts and seeds with healthy fats. We eat no grains-especially wheat, no beans/ legumes and limited dairy. We have not counted calories, fat or carbs since we started. Some foods that we had cut out of our diet because they weren’t “healthy” we could add back in such as bacon and I’m sorry any diet that doesn’t let you eat bacon is just wrong! Of course we don’t consider ourselves to be on a diet. When we use the term diet it simply refers to the foods we eat. There are the arguments that grains are good for you, especially whole grains, and I’m not going to quote scientific information at you because I’m just not good at that. I will, instead, direct you to Dr. Loren Cordain who has several books out including The Paleo Diet (you want the revised edition) and The Paleo Answer as well as a very informative website thepaleodiet.com. You can also check out Robb Wolf’s book, The Paleo Solution, or his web page robbwolf.com. If you are like me and can get overwhelmed with technical jargon, I definitely recommend Robb Wolf’s book first; it is an easy read interjected with a lot of humor. If you aren’t sold on paleo then let me recommend Wheat Belly by Dr. William Davis. This is a great book that targets wheat and the damage it can do to our bodies but still allows for the consumption of other grains.
       I am not a dietician or nutritionist (or an English major as you may have noticed) but like many of you I have struggled with figuring out what truly is good for me from the hype. In these posts I hope to delve deeper into the paleo way of eating as well as the benefits. I am just learning about zone blocking and paleo so I will cover more of that, as well as how paleo can be adapted to your life. I don’t want to leave people out and I am aware not everyone is going to follow paleo so I will address other areas of nutrition such as clean eating, gluten free eating, what the label on your food really means, how to get your entire family on board with healthy choices and hopefully some tasty recipes that everyone can enjoy. The information I post is just that, information. Please do your own research and figure out what works best for you and your family. If you have questions I will do my best to answer them or direct you to a source where the answer can be found. Taking control of your diet and your health is one of the most important things you can do for yourself and for those you love. If you’re ready, it’s time to take the first step.

Practical Paleo Living

by  • October 10, 2011 • 1 Comment

Eat Well Feel Good with Diane Frampton’s guide to living a Paleo Lifestyle!

What is Paleo? 

Paleo is short for Paleolithic, and the premise of a Paleo diet centers around the idea that our bodies have not adapted sufficiently to eating foods that weren’t available to us 10,000 years ago. It is thought that more than 70% of food consumed today was never available in Paleolithic times.  We put so much processed food into our bodies; most which us unhealthy.  The advances in agriculture and mass food production have caused us to move away from eating real food; food meant to work with our bodies for optimal health.

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