I didn’t post too much about Paleo Day 5, 6 or 7.. and well, I didn’t work out yesterday or today because I wanted to give my knee a good rest. It’s feeling SO much better, and I know that tomorrow, I’ll totally overwork it again and be like, wtf. Oh well. I need to learn to take it easy, but once I get into my workouts, I don’t want to retract or slow down.
Paleo has been good to me!! I love it. It’s limiting, yes, but I don’t find myself hungry either. I’ve been getting creative with our meals and it’s nice because we both look forward to cooking and eating at home together. I’ve been so strict on what I can and cannot eat, too. It’s motivating to know that I’m still losing weight (I’m BEYOND 7 lbs now!) and I just don’t have any urge to cheat or stray from my diet.
Now, I have always been an Atkins advocate, so moving into Paleo was so simple to me! BUT I’ve gotten lots of questions about Paleo, and I’m not sure why, but I’m always surprised when people don’t know what the Paleo Diet is. I’ve had friends do it, I’ve read and heard about it, that I just assumed more people were familiar with it, but that’s just not the case.
So.. What IS Paleo? First of all, it’s not named after anyone. The word Paleo is derived from the term Paleolithic, as in era, as in caveman. I had someone ask me the other day if Paleo was that guy from France… It blew me away, because even if I didn’t have any idea what the Paleo Diet was, I know enough history to say that the word Paleo sure sounds a lot like a shortened version of Paleolithic, but hey, that’s just me.
Anyway, Paleo in simple terms is this: It’s comprised of our modern day foods that we have available to us, used to emulate (recreate, in a sense) food that was available to our pre-agricultural ancestors. That is, before farmers who grew grains, wheat, corn, etc. It’s foods such as meat, vegetables, fruits, roots, and nuts. Eliminating grains, dairy, beans, starches, sugars, processed foods. (Not even like, deli meat..! You don’t really want to know how that stuff is made anyway..)
But what do you mean, processed foods? Basically, if you look at the ingredients of something, and you don’t recognize any of them, there’s probably a good chance it’s not all that healthy and we shouldn’t be ingesting it.
Does this mean I will never eat a York Peppermint Pattie again? Hell no. BUT if you look at the ingredients, it will read:
York Peppermint Patties are made using sugar, corn syrup, semi- sweet chocolate (chocolate, sugar, cocoa, milk fat, cocoa butter, soy lecithin, PGPR, emulsifier, vanillian, artificial flavor), invert sugar, egg whites, and oil of peppermint.
Okay so wtf is soy lecithin, PGPR, emulsifier, and invert sugar? No idea. I love those things, but they are definitely NOT a part of my Paleo 30 Day Challenge.
Anyway, hopefully you get the idea. That’s Paleo! Earlier, Dave made skirt steaks on the grill and I had chimichurri on mine! It was so good! And then tonight I made a fruit smoothie for my dessert. I usually crave the sweet stuff at night, so I save my fruit intake for then. I made it with a little OJ, some coconut milk, strawberries, blueberries and a banana, and some ice of course! It was pretty awesome. I feel guilty for eating fruit, crazy right?
You must be like me and hate seafood because you left it off the list. =P
Also, Robb Wolf says that if weight loss is your primary goal, try to limit fruit intake to 1 serving a day. Obvsiouly do what’s right for you though!
Hahhaha I count seafood as meat. Its the same thing to me. And yeah I need to watch my fruits. I can easily get carried away with it! 🙂