About the Paleo diet & lifestyle
Living in balance in our modern fast paced world is the key to a happy healthy life.
First and foremost, why follow a paleo diet?
With the onset of industrial revolution came chemically processed wheat, sugar, vegetable and seed oils as well as other “Neolithic” foods. It’s not a coincidence that many modern diseases of civilisation including but not limited to:
-type 2 diabetes (The number of people in New Zealand with Type 2 Diabetes has doubled in the last 10 years)
-autoimmune disorders
-cardiovascular disease and
-obesity (especially the rise in child obesity is alarming)
These horrific health problems have accompanied the worldwide spread of industrialised food.
Agriculture came into our human lives around 10,000 years ago. Before this humans lived off a ‘hunter and gatherer' diet. Early agricultural society shows a shorter life expectancy with the onset of farmed crops, and there simply hasn't been enough time for our gut system to adapt to the neolithic type foods.
Hence why the Paleo approach emphasises returning to a more ancestral approach to eating.
Eat nourishing
There are many nutritionists and health professionals that follow and advocate the paleo diet, and each has their own twist to it.
(everyone is different - through time and listening to your body you will find your own ideal paleo path).
The word paleo means ‘ancient’ and is abbreviated from Palaeolithic which explains a certain era our ancient ancestors lived in. This is not to be confused with the term ‘primal’, which generally refers to Mark Sisson’s book Primal Blueprint. Primal eating is closely aligned with Paleo traditions but includes dairy and more saturated fats.
I found the best approach was to experiment and seeing what best suits you.
Basically, you are mimicking a diet (as close as possible) that your ancestors would have had.
In general, all who follow the paleo lifestyle remove modern day processed foods from their diet, returning to only eating whole nutrient rich foods and avoiding all grains, dairy products, legumes, refined sugars, alcohol and seed oils. Both Primal and Paleo principal are based on being in touch with your food, nature and yourself.
Nourishment through food
Rather then dividing our diet into only DO and DON’T eats, I likes the approach of Chris Kresser, who wrote ‘your personal Paleo Code’.
He divides the diet into three groups EAT LIBERALLY, MODERATELY and AVOID.
Preferably you want to crowd out all the nasty by cramming in lots of nutrient dense pure foods.
EAT LIBERALLY
Meat & Poultry
Organ Meat (especially liver)
Fish
Eggs
Bone broth soup
Traditional fats
Starchy vegetables
non-starchy vegetables
Fermented vegetables
olives, Avocados & coconuts
EAT MODERATELY
Whole fruit
Nuts & Seeds
Processed meats
Green beans, sugar snaps and snap peas
Coffee & Black Tea
Vinegar
AVOID
Dairy products
Grains
Legumes
Sweeteners, real & Artificial
refined foods
industrial seed and vegetable oils
fruit juices, sodas, diet sodas
ready made sauces & seasonings
Alcohol
What are the good fats, and which fats should you avoid
With the industrial revolution came the highly processed (polyunsaturated) vegetable and seed oils.
Most of the nasty oils are found in packaged and processed foods. These oils wreck havoc in our bodies and should be avoided.
THE GOOD traditional saturated Fats Lard, duck fat, beef tallow
Coconut oil
Ghee (clarified butter)
Macadamia oil
Avocado oil
Pure virgin olive oil (not for frying)
Sesame oil (use sparingly)
red palm oil and palm kernel oil
THE NASTY refined seed oils
Canola oil
Soybean oil
corn oil
safflower oil
sunflower oil
rapeseed oil
peanut oil
cotton seed oil
Fermented foods
Our ancestors used the process of fermenting, which was a necessary approach to preserving foods. It has become a bit of a lost art - which is a shame, as it has fabulous side effects that support our gut system.
One of the most used foods in the history of fermentation is cabbage. As early as 2000 BC the Korean pickled a cabbage dish named Kimchi. The ease of turning a little salt and cabbage into a nourishing hardy food made ‘Sauerkraut’ very popular amongst german explorers around the 17th century. The English soon caught on, and Captain James Cook became a hardy fan of sauerkraut. The addition of Sauerkraut to their diet kept Cooks crew healthy at sea and prevented scurvy.
A good start to fermented food is sauerkraut, a recipe can be found here. Try and add a little fermented food to every mean. This will ensure you supply the good gut bacteria with a great living environment, which in return will support your digestive and immune system. Fermented foods will also provide you with vitamin K2, which aids your body to absorb minerals.
I recommend the book Fermented by Jill Ciciarelli. In her books, she gives a four-season approach to paleo probiotic foods.
Where to start?
For me, the best way to start was to eliminate all sugars - especially fructose!
The first two weeks I experienced a few withdrawal symptoms, but after that I felt youthful and vital.
Then I began cutting out Grains, legumes and refined seed oils.
By cutting the sugar first, you re-train your eating habits, preparing to live without processed foods.
The key is to start reading labels. An example is diced tomatoes in a can - some brands have added sugars and some don’t. You will soon find that most foods that are located in the centre of the supermarket have added sugars. They are hidden in all sorts of unpredictable places, like ready-made pasta sauces, marinades, rice crackers, bacon and mustard. They can be disguised under names like:
corn sweetener, corn syrup, dextrose, fructose, fruit juice concentrates, glucose, high-fructose corn syrup, invert sugar, lactose, maltose, malt syrup, raw sugar, sucrose, sugar syrup, cane crystals, cane sugar, crystalline fructose, evaporated cane juice, corn syrup solids, malt syrup.
Take the time to carefully read the label, and take the option with no sugar - if there is non-available avoid this product altogether. You will soon find that you can easily live without convenience products and that the food tastes actual better without all the added crap.
The main key to living the paleo lifestyle is to avoid eating food that has been heavily processed.
This means you may have to plan and prepare in advance, to prevent you from grabbing a quick fast food option when you're hungry.
Wonderful side effects of eating Paleo
Wonderful side effects of eating Paleo by eliminating sugar and wheat from your diet, you overcome its addicting properties and your natural satire feeling returns. The cravings go and the over eating, caused by hormone imbalances, stops. With this, your weight will regulate and in most cases this means you will loose accumulated fat deposits.
Once you have gotten into the routine of living a modern day paleo lifestyle, you will soon find that due to your increase in energy levels and wellbeing you become calmer, happier and more balanced. You feel energised and naturally become more active.
Through eliminating the nasty, your body will stop fighting due to constant inflammation and stress. You will rediscover your bodies signals, and learn to listen to what it needs and what it prefers to avoid. Your pallet will adjust and foods will taste amazing - as you have stopped numbing it with chemical laden processed junk.
You're on your way! The principals are easy - stick to the above food chart, eat organic where possible and use modern day appliances to make your life easier without sacrificing food quality.
Sleep is one of the most undervalued parts of our lives.
Are you getting enough?
“The more sleep-deprived you are, the higher your levels of the stress hormone cortisol, which increases your appetite,” says Michael Breus, Ph.D., a sleep specialist and author (of The Sleep Doctor’s Diet Plan: Lose Weight Through Better Sleep). And it’s not like you’re going to be suddenly ravenous for kale salads, either. “For me, it takes a bit of willpower to choose the salad over the sandwich,” DePaolis says. “When I’m tired, I go for whatever’s going to be easy and make me feel better in the moment.”
Often, that means reaching for bad-for-you foods. “When you’re stressed, your body tries to produce serotonin to calm you down. The easiest way to do that is by eating high-fat, high-carb foods that produce a neurochemical reaction,” Breus says.
A lack of sleep also hinders your body’s ability to process the sweet stuff. “When you’re sleep deprived, the mitochondria in your cells that digest fuel start to shut down. Sugar remains in your blood, and you end up with high blood sugar,” says Breus. Losing out on sleep can make fat cells 30 percent less able to deal with insulin, according to a study in Annals of Internal Medicine.
When you’re wiped out, your hormones go a little nuts, too, boosting levels of the ghrelin, which tells you when you’re hungry, and decreasing leptin, which signals satiety. In fact, sleep-deprived participants in one small study of 30 people ate an average of 300 more calories per day, according to research in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. And a larger study of 225 people found that those who only spent four hours in bed for five consecutive nights gained almost two pounds more than those who were in bed for about 10 hours, over the course of a week.
One reason you might pack on pounds when you’re sleep deprived is because your body goes into survival mode. Sleeplessness can fool your body into thinking you’re in danger. “Your metabolism slows because your body is trying to maintain its resources, and it also wants more fuel,” says Breus. “I would argue that sleep is probably the most important thing a person can do if they’re ready to start a diet and lose weight,” says Breus.
Keep checking back onto my blog to receive up to date nutritional and lifesyle information.
Sleep deep
