Category Archives: Diet
Cheat Days – The Debate
So I’ve always known days or meals where you indulge in foods that aren’t necessarily healthy as cheat days or cheat meals.
But recently there has been a lot of talk about whether or not “cheat” is really the proper word to describe the meal or day.
CHEAT implies that you are doing something wrong…something bad…something breaking from what you shouldn’t be doing.
There can be a negative connotation to calling a day or meal a “CHEAT.”
So I’ve heard some people call it a TREAT meal instead.
But personally, TREAT almost bothers me even more. You aren’t a dog…You don’t need a treat for eating well. Eating well is what you should be doing.
Both can really imply, in a way, that eating well isn’t really all that fun, tasty or enjoyable.
Which honestly really isn’t the case.
Healthy food can be delicious. And it not only makes you feel good but helps your body and mind truly run well.
BUT as good as healthy food is and as great as you really do feel when you eat well…there are just times you want to indulge even if that means your belly is going to grumble a bit the next day.
Like for me, a vacation isn’t a vacation if I’m worried about finding something healthy on the menu – If I’m more worried about eating well than on trying new things.
Like for me…I would feel like I’m missing out if I didn’t get to try cookie dough fudge at a cute local candy shop. Grocery store candy I could pass on because it really isn’t worth the indulgence…but homemade fudge!?!
Cheat days, treat days, whatever you call them, are about more than eating bad food. They aren’t even about indulging in things you are “deprived off” otherwise.
They are more about a mental release and enjoying something in life that you don’t necessarily get to do every day.
Maybe a more apt description of cheat days is VACATION.
I mean think about it…Why do you take vacation?
Because you need a break. You need a break from routine. A break from exercising self-control day in and day out. Because you need both a mental and physical rest.
A VACATION is a chance to recharge!
For me…a “cheat day” is exactly that…a chance to re-charge.
It is a mini vacation from self-control and it can mean a ton of different things.
It isn’t always about eating food that is bad for me. I mean sometimes it is…Sometimes it is indulging in those nachos because they just take so good and I really really love food. Sometimes it is getting to try new foods when I’m on vacation and really let go.
But most importantly it is about relaxing and enjoying be it nachos or simply a glass of wine. It is about enjoying something and taking a mini vacation from the normal routine.
It is about “cheating” for the sake of cheating. It isn’t about eating something bad just because it is there or because I’ve had a bad day or because someone else pressures me.
It is about doing something, eating something, that I enjoy because I WANT it.
A big part of making a healthy diet into a lifestyle is about also realizing that you don’t have to be perfect all the time.
You need vacations from work…from family…from daily life…
So why wouldn’t you need a vacation from eating well or working out every once in a while?
We need chances to recharge and indulge be it a glass of wine and dark chocolate, a piece of bread with butter or a whole pizza and pint of ice cream. Shoot maybe it isn’t even eating something unhealthy…Sometimes it is just about telling yourself that you can do WHATEVER that day IF you end up really craving something.
Sometimes you just need a break from your daily habits because those daily habits do wear down your self-control no matter how ingrained they seemed to be.
So whatever your cheat/treat/indulgence/splurge/break/vacation/(whatever you call the snack, meal or day) is, make sure it is something you are going to enjoy to the fullest without guilt.
Do you include a “cheat” something into your daily, weekly or monthly diet plan? What do you prefer to call that “treat?”
Feed the Beast – Roasted Chicken and Broccoli Slaw
While I’m sure “Roasted Chicken and Broccoli Slaw” doesn’t sound utterly delicious, it really really was.
But while I meant today to be a simple recipe post, I feel the need to comment on a lot of what I’ve read this morning..and well…this week in general actually.
A lot of you have probably seen, or heard about by now, Bob Harper’s new dieting tips…Jumpstart to Skinny and the recommendation that women eat 800 calories a day.
Can I just pause to comment and say, “And people call me crazy because I do intermittent fasting and skip breakfast sometimes!?!”
At least I’m not starving myself! I’m just eating when I’m hungry. Whereas 800 calories a day is simply NOT eating! It is LITERALLY starving yourself!
I’m sorry but if you have to eat 800 calories a day to make his diet work on time, it isn’t a diet you should be doing!
Why?
Because it isn’t realistic! That isn’t something you can maintain for longer than the three weeks if even that long!
Yes…yes…I get that it is a JUMPSTART…And yes I do see the benefit sometimes of going stricter or working harder to break a plateau or get the momentum going, but honestly 800 calories a day is just ridiculous.
And so many of his 13 rules just sound like the same old bull crap. I mean come on don’t eat carbs after lunch?
I mean I even promote going low carb but believe that statement is utterly ridiculous! If your body needs the carbs, protein, fat…WHATEVER…it is going to use it no matter what time you eat them.
And really go to bed hungry!?! COME ON! No wonder everyone thinks that a healthy lifestyle is impossible. Who the heck wants to go to bed hungry!?!
AH!
Also, did anyone notice that his list says “Eat protein with every meal” and then also says “Make one day a week meatless”?
Yes I do realize that you don’t need to eat meat to get protein, but do you know how much harder it is to get all the essential amino acids if you don’t? Do you also know what most people turn to when they try to get protein without eating meat and aren’t supposed to drink their calories so protein shakes are out!?!
PROCESSED CRAP!
Most people don’t go eat beans and rice and do all the research to find out what foods pair together to give you a complete protein. Instead they eat some processed veggie burger….or a whole jar of Jiffy Peanut Butter…that has some protein right!?!
AH!
Anyway, I was utterly annoyed by his list, but really not surprised. It is the same old conventional wisdom crap spewed out over and over again.
Shoot if people really sold the truth, they wouldn’t get to keep churning out book after book!
And you want to know what the truth is!?! I can sum it up in four basic, and slightly redundant, rules….
1. Eat WHOLE NATURAL FOODS!
2. Cut out PROCESSED CRAP!
3. Eat when you are HUNGRY! (Not bored, or stressed or tired, but when you are hungry…be that one meal a day or 20).
4. Don’t starve yourself. (Not eating enough can stall fat loss and hinder performance and make you feel like CRAP)
But those rules wouldn’t sell. There is no secret there. No super specific directions to make you drop weight instantly.
But guess what?
Those are the truth!
Anyway, I’m done rambling about this. If you want a blog post that tears apart these rules much better than my rant above just did, check out Nia Shanks’ post.
Back to my original posting topic…FEEDING THE BEAST…aka feeding myself!
Recently, Ryan and I have become very into “Asian inspired” dishes. I use the term “Asian-inspired” rather loosely…basically meaning we used some sesame seed oil, rice vinegar and Tamari in our dish.
Anyway, Ryan made a great roasted chicken dish the other night and I wanted to share it!
Ingredients:
1.5lbs chicken legs
2 cups Broccoli Slaw
1 tsp sesame oil
2 tbsp Tamari
1 tbsp Jalapeno-Kiwi relish
1 tsp Siracha
1 tsp garlic
3 green onions
1 tbsp Rice vinegar
Preheat oven to 375.
Combine oil, tamari, relish, siracha, garlic and onions. Remove a few tablespoons and combine with rice vinegar to mix into the broccoli slaw.
Brush a bit of sauce onto the chicken and bake for 20 minutes before applying more sauce. Total baking time will be about 45 minutes.
In the last five minutes dump on the rest of the sauce. Mix broccoli slaw with the sauce/vinegar mixture.
Then enjoy the roasted chicken legs and broccoli slaw!
Is eating well really difficult? Or are you just lazy?
So yesterday I got a text from a friend asking me if a certain pre-made smoothie was healthy.
And my response was…”Well…not really.”
She then replied with, “Ugh. Nothing that tastes good is healthy.”
Is that really truly? Or is it the excuse we use to stop our diet?
And when I told her to make her own delicious smoothie, she said, “Okay fine. I’m lazy.”
I hear all the time that “nothing healthy tastes that good,” but is that really true? (And actually few ever really admit that they are just being lazy!)
Yes, there are bad foods that I love because of the way they taste and I do indulge in them on cheat days but they don’t really taste BETTER than all the delicious whole foods I eat on a daily basis. And they also make me feel WAY WORSE than all of the whole foods do!
I actually believe that most people would agree with me that meals cooked with whole natural foods can be extremely delicious and that TASTE isn’t really the reason why they don’t eat healthily.
It is laziness.
And yes…maybe that laziness is brought on by the fact that we are emotionally drained or stressed or dealing with lots of other things in life, but it is still laziness.
And our LAZINESS is what makes eating healthily seem super difficult.
Laziness makes us pick fad diets and stray away from cooking.
Everyday we make choices about how we are going to spend our time. And many people decide that cooking whole natural foods isn’t worth the effort.
So they start some diet where they don’t have to cook. They try a short cut. Pre-made foods. Juice diets. Special K cereal (Sorry Special K but you bother me).
And then they wonder why they aren’t losing weight or feeling healthier.
Why aren’t they getting results?!?
So they end up giving up on the diet…”It is just too hard eating well and I’m not getting results,” they say.
HA!
If you are TRULY eating well, you WILL get results.
Yes, you WILL have to be patient. Yes, you will have to spend time cooking. But YES, you will get results.
Sorry…there are no IFs, ANDs or BUTs about it…If you eat well, you WILL get results.
If you are lazy and take short cuts, yea you won’t get results and “eating well” WILL seem impossible because who can stick to a juice diet!?!
I mean when you really break it all down, is cooking whole natural foods really that much more difficult or truly time-consuming?
Is it really more difficult or time-consuming than bouncing around from fad diet to fad diet never getting results?
In the end, you waste way more time doing all the failed fad diets than you do spending a little time each week prepping and cooking meals.
Shoot with the Crock-pot you can basically throw everything in at once and just go about your day and come home and have a week of meals cooked for you!
I mean on a Sunday morning while you are eating breakfast, you can easily throw a whole chicken into the oven and cook it for the next few hours while you go about your chores or spend all that time you supposedly don’t have watching TV.
Is that really more difficult than going out and buying prepackaged foods that you throw in the microwave and that leave you always feeling hungry and never get you results?
Is eating crap really less difficult and truly more tasty if you aren’t happy with how you feel?
What matters more?
When it comes right down to it and you dig through all the crap excuses, is eating well really that difficult or are you really just being lazy?
Bad workout? Maybe it’s your fuel!
So on Sunday, I had an EPIC cheat day.
And Monday morning, I was paying for it.
I felt like crap. Congested. Bloated. Upset stomach. And that wasn’t even when I was working out.
But I decided to do a hard metabolic workout any way, hoping it would get my system somewhat back on track – knowing that this workout had brought many a strong woman and man to their knees…and their heads into the bushes.
I’d never had that issue before. The workout was always hard, but it had never made me want to puke before. Honestly, I didn’t fully understand how it made anyone puke…until yesterday.
While I didn’t literally throw up, my cheat day was up in my throat after one round. And it did take about 20 minutes laying on the mats after my workout to begin to feel somewhat human again.
Apparently this isn’t the first time I’ve rolled out and looked completely dead…although I’m pretty sure this one was from an overdose of cardio not food haha
To my credit at least I did more weight than usual and the two-inch rope instead of the inch and a half one, but still….my whole body felt way more ill than it should have.
And really, I don’t think it was the workout. Yea it was a bit harder, but nothing completely ridiculous. And my body was technically fresh and ready to go.
What I think…actually what I KNOW…was the HUGE difference, was the way I FUELED!
We think about our eating habits when it comes to weight loss, weight gain or health but I think all too often we forget to think about how eating affects how we feel during our workouts and even in day-to-day life.
The reason most people either want to puke or not puke for that matter during the workout I did yesterday, has a lot more to do with how they fuel than anything else.
Yes how hard they push themselves is a factor, but fueling can’t be ignored.
Notice….I’ve called it FUELING….
Our body is a machine that needs fuel and if you don’t fuel a machine properly, IT WON’T RUN…
Therefore, how do you expect your body to run properly if you aren’t fueling it properly!?!
HA! YOU CAN’T!
Yet so many people do!
So if you aren’t feeling so great during your workouts…and if you even feel like you’ve plateaued or gone backwards, you may want to take a look at what you are eating.
The wrong type of fuel, or too much or not enough fuel, may be hindering progress during your workouts (not to mention you may not feel near as great as you could, or have near as much energy as you should, during day-to-day life!).
P.S. Note that I also mentioned UNDER FUELING. It isn’t only over fueling or incorrect fuel that is the problem. If you don’t eat enough, YOU ARE GOING TO HINDER YOUR PROGRESS AND FEEL LIKE CRAP!
Why do people love cleanse diets?
So recently I’ve had a few of my female clients ask me about cleanse diets.
I personally would NEVER ever do one…or for that matter recommend that any of my clients do one.
This is what I think of when I think of cleanse diets (although many of them aren’t low carb).
I know they are the popular thing, but honestly, they are stupid.
Really? Drink juice for a week and your body will be cleansed?!?
Sounds like a week of feeling crappy and overloaded with sugar!
And when I tell most people that I think cleanses are stupid, they say to me, “Well then how do you rid your body of all the toxins that accumulate?”
UHM…I DON’T EAT CRAP FOOD MOST OF THE TIME!
You shouldn’t need to do a cleanse if you are eating a healthy diet 80% of the time. That healthy eating will, itself, make your body healthier and remove all of the “toxins.”
And really you think that one week on a “cleanse” is going to remove all the toxins from your body that you’ve been consuming for months and months and months eating a poor diet!?!
HA!
If you want to make your body healthy, you need to eat healthily most of the time…not for one week!
And the funniest thing is, when I say they should eat healthy 80% of the time if they really want a clean, healthy body, they tell me that only cleanses TRULY remove all of the gunk. That eating healthy doesn’t get it all out.
REALLY!?!
Some cleanse diet is going to remove some hidden gunk that eating only whole natural foods won’t remove!?!
UHM…NOT GOING TO HAPPEN!
Sometimes I want to ask people obsessed with cleanse diets what this supposed hidden gunk is? I mean really what is so supposedly stuck in us that only a cleanse diet can rid of us?
Also, I would just like to point out that most of these cleanse diets really AREN’T THAT HEALTHY OR GOOD FOR YOU!
You really thinking drinking juice for a week is that great for you? All you are consuming is a ton of carbs in the form of SUGAR!
That isn’t healthy!
But when I tell people that cleanse diets AREN’T healthy, I usually get a response like, “Well I saw a cleanse diet by Dr. Oz!”
Dr. Oz….Usually I would have a rant against him, but in this case…Well I actually kind of like him.
When they say that to me, I usually say, “Have you looked at the difference between your FAD cleanse and Dr. Oz’s?”
The Dr. Oz cleanse is basically like eating just a super clean all natural diet!
It isn’t juice with cayenne pepper! It is chicken and veggies. It is just SUPER CLEAN NATURAL FOODS!
If you want a TRUE cleanse, you don’t need to do some crazy diet that cuts out all but one food group! Just eat whole natural foods that aren’t processed at all!
Or you know what…maybe even add in some intermittent fasting…Now fasting a bit…that IS truly good for your body!
Oh but wait….you aren’t doing a cleanse to be healthy? No…you are doing the cleanse because your friend supposedly lost 10lbs in one week?!?
Oh well then of course do the cleanse! It must be the magic pill for weight loss!
NOT!
Cleanse diets might help you lose a bit of weight, but the second you stop the cleanse, do you really think you are going to maintain the weight loss?
You haven’t changed your normal daily eating habits so how do you think you are going to keep that lost weight off?
YOU AREN’T GOING TO!
So why waste a week of your life on a completely miserable diet only to lose weight that you will probably gain back in less than two days when you return to your old eating habits?
DON’T!
There is no quick weight loss solution. If you want to lose weight, eat clean whole, natural foods. Eat a well-balanced diet of fruits, vegetables and meat. (Shoot I would even say a well-balanced diet of vegetables and meat, which is completely the opposite of some of those fruit and sugar-laden cleanses!)
If you want to truly lose weight, you need to start a diet you can maintain for more than a week.
And if you are completely and utterly set on doing some sort of “cleanse” go super strict the first couple of weeks on your diet. Eat only vegetables and meat.
Then maybe after those two weeks of super clean eating, add back in a few healthy treats…like fruits or maybe a glass of wine or some dark chocolate or a little full-fat dairy here and there.
The point is that these fad cleanses aren’t healthy AND they don’t truly help you lose weight. If you want to be “clean” and lose weight, your only solution is to eat whole natural foods.
Even Dr. Oz says so!
Vitamin D – Is a Supplement Enough?
Vitamin D has gotten a lot more publicity in recent years as a MUST TAKE supplement.
It is key for mineral absorption, especially the absorption of Calcium, which means strong bones!
Research has also shown that Vitamin D may help protect us against osteoporosis, high blood pressure, cancer and a few autoimmune diseases.
The vitamin plays a huge role in cell growth, neuromuscular and immune function and the reduction of inflammation (which means less risk for disease and better overall health!).
So because we’ve discovered how incredibly important Vitamin D is to our health (and the fact that most of the population is DEFICIENT in it), everyone and their mother’s uncle recommends that you take a supplement to get enough.
But is that supplement really as good as natural sources?
Even the bottle boosts its health benefits.
Yes and no….boy I bet you love that answer!
Yes because it is Vitamin D that our body can use. It is the vitamin that we need and we can get it in the doses that we need. And the supplement does work as well as the natural source.
But a slightly bigger NO not because of the supplement itself, but because of what it means if you actually NEED the supplement.
We should get Vitamin D from foods, such as fish and eggs, and from sunlight.
We should be eating enough whole natural foods and getting in enough outdoors time that we get plenty of sun (it really only takes 20-30 minutes).
For many of us though this isn’t as easy as it would seem. So we turn to a supplement.
Which if we are trying to eat well and be active, isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I know in Boston it was SUPER HARD to get in a proper allotment of sun each day. BUT I still ate super clean and did what I could do get outside when I could.
So to make sure I got enough Vitamin D, I took a supplement.
BUT I didn’t use a supplement to excuse a bad diet and inactivity.
Let’s face it…If you eat crap, don’t go outside and have fun and be active, then you aren’t going to be healthy no matter how many supplements you take.
So yes…a supplement can be great if you have a healthy base and really try to get as much natural Vitamin D as you can, BUT no it isn’t good if you supplement while still living the same crappy lifestyle.
Because honestly….there is so much more than Vitamin D that you are missing out on if you eat crap, are inactive and never go outside and play!
I mean think about it…If you are eating crap food, not only are you not getting enough Vitamin D, as well as other essential vitamins and minerals, but you are also getting a TON of bad for you, inflammation causing crap like vegetable oils and added sugars.
And if you aren’t going out in the sun every day not only aren’t you getting Vitamin D, but you aren’t getting a lot of the benefits that usually go along with an active outdoor lifestyle.
Let’s face it…people who usually get out in the sun every day are the same people who are more active and an active lifestyle has health benefits like improving your cardiovascular health and bone density.
On top of that, being out in the sun can really really improve your mood.
Stressed? In a bad mood?
Maybe getting a bit more outdoor time is the answer.
So to sum all of this up…YES a supplement can be a very good way to help you get adequate amounts of Vitamin D, but NO it is not a magic pill.
If you want to be truly healthy, you need to do all that you can to get Vitamin D from natural sources – healthy food and sunlight.
Vitamin D supplementation is something that you turn to only when you can’t hit the required amount while doing your best to live a healthy lifestyle.
Would you rather….
So yesterday at work one of the other trainers asked me a few “would you rather…” questions.
One was about which piece of equipment I would choose from the gym as a weapon if a zombie apocalypse happened…
And the other was about which I would rather give up, nuts or dairy.
Which got me to thinking, isn’t a healthy lifestyle really all about “would you rather?”
I mean think about it…If you could eat whatever your favorite food is every day and look and feel great and be healthy, wouldn’t you? Would you really eat vegetables or cut out gluten and processed foods if you didn’t have to?
Probably not.
BUT that isn’t reality.
The reality of it is you are always playing a sort of “would you rather” game. Would you rather eat that pint of ice cream and feel crappy later or eat a natural, whole foods meal and feel energized and good later?
Would you rather eat pizza and chips and not perform well or eat a burger without a bun and a salad and get in a great workout?
I personally would rather eat well and feel great, be healthy and perform well. That is why I eat well most of the time. Plus I do find that I enjoy all of the whole natural foods that I eat. I love grass-fed beef and fish and fruits and veggies (especially cauliflower for some reason haha).
BUT there are those cheat days when I WOULD RATHER indulge and even risk feeling super crappy the next day than eat healthy.
Eating well is a choice and sometimes it isn’t always an easy choice. When you are stressed or pressed for time or put into situations where the EASIEST thing to do is cheat, you are more tempted to just give in without really thinking about the consequences of your choices (and how you will feel tomorrow about them).
Eating well and working out isn’t easy (yes it is easier for some people than for others), but it is a choice.
So think about it…What would you rather do?
Are you healthy?
So what does “being healthy” really mean?
Is being healthy NOT being sick?
I mean cause really just because you aren’t sick doesn’t mean you are healthy.
So then what is HEALTHY?
Is it having all of your vital stats fall within that “healthy” range set out by the medical community?
I mean is that really healthy if the person eats crap all day yet has supposedly falls within the healthy ranges for cholesterol and blood pressure and such!?!
Ehhhhh…doesn’t sound healthy to me.
They might look healthy on paper, but frankly I don’t think that is any guarantee that they won’t be plagued by illness or die at an early age.
Eating crap is eating crap. And frankly, I think it will come back to bite most people.
So then…what is “being healthy?”
Honestly, I don’t have an answer for you. And neither does anyone else.
That is why people are so confused about what diet or exercise program to follow – there are studies used to say that almost a bazillion different things are healthy!
So how do I judge when I’m being healthy?
Well I took a look at all of the evidence and picked a side.
I choose to pick the side of eating whole natural foods – real foods. I choose this diet because it seems most logical to me.
People have called it a “fad diet,” but as someone said in “The Perfect Human Diet” documentary that I watched last night, “It then is a 2 million year old fad.”
We evolved the way we did because we ate meat. Our systems are adapted to eat whole natural foods.
So processed foods? Foods that we only started eating with industrialization?
Those are not whole natural foods. Those are NOT foods we were meant to eat.
Those to me aren’t healthy.
And there are people who will site studies saying I’m wrong and that my diet is a fad.
Really!?!
You are going to call my diet a fad when there haven’t been any early vegetarian human fossils found? You are going to tell me that I should eat grains when humans didn’t eat grains until recently!?!
HA!
I have the whole of human evolution behind my beliefs…How many years are behind yours!?!
And yea…now some of you will say…”Well we didn’t have science then”….or “We didn’t know any better”….or “We lived way shorter lives back then.”
Yea we didn’t have science…we ate what didn’t kill us. Just like all animals seem to eat what is right.
I mean if a study came out today saying we should feed lions grains are you really going to believe it?
And yea…we did live shorter lives. We didn’t have medicine back then to keep people alive. We also now don’t have to contend with a lot of the dangers that they did!
And don’t get me wrong, I think science helps us learn a lot and even better ourselves.
But please don’t use it to tell me that grains are healthy and natural animal products aren’t.
We use grains to fatten animals…Maybe…Just maybe then grains really are at the heart of the problem.
Anyway, one last little factoid before I get back on topic, which was mentioned in The Perfect Human Diet….
Look at cattle feed nutritional info….the feed used to FATTEN cattle. It recommends low-fat, moderate protein and high carb.
Think about who else recommends a diet set up this way….
OH! The food pyramid! That is where I’ve seen this diet before! And guess who came up with the food pyramid orginially?
POLITICIANS!
So yea…I chose my side.
And once I picked that side, I tested it and realize just how much freaking better I felt day in and day out while eating, living and working out that way. So because I felt better than I’d ever felt before, I decided that I was being healthy.
Feeling energized and strong day in and day out to me is feeling healthy.
Not having to down 50 cups of coffee to make it through the day to me seems healthy.
Not feeling bloated. Or sluggish. Or winded at the slightest exertion….
That to me is healthy.
Being able to constantly achieve greater and greater fitness goals because I’m fueling proper, sleeping enough and not overtraining.
That to me is healthy.
Feeling GOOD.
That to me is healthy.
I honestly sort of believe that we can FEEL when our body is in order especially when we’ve cut out all the crap.
Trust me, anyone who has gone to a clean whole foods diet can now recognize how crappy they actually felt when they ate all of the processed junk.
So I challenge you to ask yourself, “Are you really healthy?”
Do you actually feel good day in and day out?
One Simple Change
I frankly think that developing a healthy diet is simple.
People make it seem like it is super complex. Heck companies want people to think it is complex so they can sell supplements and weight loss products and processed foods that supposedly have all these health benefits.
But honestly, you really only need to remember one thing when it comes to eating healthily - eat whole, natural food!
Cut out all the crap!
Don’t worry about freaking supplements even if they were on Dr. Oz. Don’t worry about your micronutrient intakes. Don’t worry about exactly how many fruits or vegetables you eat or how many omega-3s you are getting.
Don’t worry about doing a diet with 20 bazillion different rules! Make one change first!
Just cut out all of the processed crap!
If you started focusing on just eating natural foods, so things that spring out of the ground and aren’t processed…aka usually have a short shelf life unless frozen, your healthy and the way you feel will improve exponentially.
Just by starting to even cut out one processed thing a day, like the crackers you eat for a snack (even if they are supposedly “healthy” crackers), you will be cutting out a ton of crap from your diet.
Processed foods are loaded down with vegetable oils and sugars. I mean take a look at any nutritional label on any pre-packaged food at the grocery store. I bet there are a ton of things listed in the ingredients that you’ve never heard of.
AND I bet all of them have way more sugar than you expected…but then again you were probably more worried about the fact that they were supposedly advertised as low-fat or “all-natural,” right!?!
But seriously, those pre-packaged foods can do some damage.
Here we are worried about the amount of saturated fat in an animal product and yet people are consuming a TON of simple sugars and vegetable oil (which is SUPER bad because it causes inflammation because it contains a horrible ratio of omega-6s to omega-3s) in all of the processed crap out there!
Anyway, the point is if you cut out processed, pre-packaged foods and focus on eating whole, natural foods, you will instantly cut out a TON of bad things.
Once you do that and have a good diet baseline, then start looking at ratios and exactly what natural foods are best and how you react to gluten, dairy and carbs, in general.
Don’t make it complicated to start!
At work we constantly talk about getting back to basics. And that is exactly what you’ve got to do here. Don’t make a ton of changes and complicate your diet.
Make one simple change and get back to the basics – eat whole, natural foods!
Paleo is a joke
I LOVE talking about diet and exercise.
I LOVE when people find out I’m a trainer and then ask me a ton of questions.
I LOVE when people ask me about my diet or exercise program.
I HATE when people tell me they’ve started doing Paleo and then tell me about the latest Paleo baked good they made.
Are you a sucker for Paleo products? HELLO! People are making money off of you…they don’t care about your health!!!
To me Paleo and baked good (aka sweets) can’t legitimately be used in the same sentence unless you are saying you’ve switched to Paleo and only eat baked goods on cheat days now.
Paleo baked goods…those three words combined like that make me want to scream.
Paleo has become a joke.
The whole point of Paleo or Primal is to eat WHOLE, NATURAL FOODS. To eat meat, fruits and vegetables and cut out all of the processed crap and sugar.
The whole point of Paleo is to make you healthier and reduce the inflammation in your body.
The whole point of Paleo is NOT to make a less bad for you version of traditional baked goods.
If you are TRULY doing Paleo you aren’t eating freaking Paleo muffins or Paleo pie or pizza.
You aren’t baking with almond flour or using a ton of honey or maple syrup to sweeten things. You aren’t buying “gluten-free” processed products.
Why AREN’T those things truly Paleo!?!
Because they totally miss the point!
It’s true…nothing is ACTUALLY paleolithic, but the point of the diet is to cut out all of the crap and eat naturally raised products!
For example, the reason the Paleo/Primal diet tells you to cut out grains is because of the inflammation grains cause which is what causes cholesterol to build up in the arteries and cause heart problems.
Grains also contain phytic acid, which hinders your body from absorbing many vitamins and minerals.
Guess what also contains phytic acid?
ALMONDS!
So when you eat your normal serving of 1/4 cup of almonds you are fine…BUT a pizza made from almond flour!?!
That is a ton more than the 1/4 of a cup you should be eating.
And that means a TON OF PHYTIC ACID!!
You cut out grains because someone doing the Paleo diet told you to, BUT you didn’t understand WHY you were supposed to cut out grains. So you end up making your freaking Paleo almond crust pizza and get the exact crap that the Paleo diet is supposed to help you eliminate from your diet.
AH!
So because most people don’t really UNDERSTAND the point of the Paleo diet…because people don’t really understand why the diet has them cut out certain foods…because people just do it because their friend lost weight doing it…People end up destroying the diet and eating crap that is disguised as being “Paleo.”
Basically, don’t tell me you are doing Paleo or Primal if you are going to tell me about the latest cookie, pie, pizza, muffin or WHATEVER that you just made.
Don’t tell me you won’t eat cheese or rice because it isn’t Paleo and then freaking go eat gummy worms because they are gluten-free.
Don’t tell me you don’t eat beans (which you probably don’t even realize you don’t eat because they contain phytic acid) and then go eat farm-raised salmon or coconut milk with a ton of extra additives.
Come on!
Understand why the heck you are doing something! Farm-raised salmon is just about the WORST thing you could possibly eat!!!! It is like Paleo 101 that you eat NATURALLY RAISED animal products!
And if you are going to buy something like coconut milk, READ THE FREAKING LABEL.
Ok…deep breath…I’m done.
Now all of you recent Paleo bandwagoners…go ahead and tell me why I’m wrong…I dare you.
