The Way I Eat

I'm not a fan of the term "diet" because I feel that "diet" has become a negative word to describe the self inflicted torture that we put ourselves through, eating only two different foods, in an attempt to get rid of those unwanted pounds. I feel that what we eat is a lifestyle rather than a short term fix, but since lifestyle way of eating is much longer, I'm going to use "diet" to describe how I eat.

I would say the way I eat is most like the Paleo way of eating, but I don't follow it exactly. What is the Paleo diet? Wikipedia defines it as:

"The paleolithic diet (abbreviated paleo diet or paleodiet), also popularly referred to as the caveman diet, Stone Age diet and hunter-gatherer diet, is a modern nutritional plan based on the presumed ancient diet of wild plants and animals that various hominid species habitually consumed during the Paleolithic era—a period of about 2.5 million years which ended around 10,000 years ago with the development of agriculture and grain-based diets. In common usage, such terms as the "Paleolithic diet" also refer to the actual ancestral human diet. Centered on commonly available modern foods, the "contemporary" Paleolithic diet consists mainly of fish, grass-fed pasture raised meats, eggs, vegetables, fruit, fungi, roots, and nuts, and excludes wheat, grains, legumes, dairy products, potatoes, refined salt, refined sugar, and processed oils." Click for full article.

On Diet and Health, a podcast by Beverly Meyer, is a great resource for learning about the Paleo way of eating. As I said, I follow the Paleo way of eating to an extent, but what do I do differently? I already don't eat many legumes, so I don't cut them out completely. I don't think having them from time to time is a problem. I love chili, and you can't have chili without beans. Not the kind I make anyhow! I particularly love the Skinny Taste recipe, Turkey Taco Chili, however, I usually make my own taco seasoning mix to make sure I'm not getting any extra "goodies" in those processed packages. I follow recipes like this one from AllRecipes.com and it's great because you can play with a little bit to fit the recipe to your preferred taste exactly.

Another exception to the rule is that I do still drink cow's milk from time to time. The reason you aren't supposed to drink the Wal-Mart or other big company cow's milk is because of the hormones and other lovely chemicals that the cows are exposed to before the milking process, which does then end up in your milk. I don't use it often though and have gotten into alternatives such as coconut milk, but I do use cow's milk from time to time as needed.

Basically, I have given up wheat and anything that comes processed, with the exception of frozen veggies (no sauces or other additives), as those are considered processed as well. I stick to foods that are located in the perimeter of the grocery store and foods that do not have those lovely "added ingredients". I like to tune in to another podcast done by the Nutritional Weight and Wellness team called Dishing Up Nutrition for more wonderful tips on how to eat healthy. This podcast gives you examples of what to eat, but also explains the science behind it so you can understand and know how to move forward on your own. The biggest part of it is to get away from the "fat-free" and "light" versions of food and stick to the whole, real foods. They also say to get in one healthy protein, one healthy fat, and one healthy carbohydrate in each meal and snack. I'll talk about healthy vs. not so healthy foods in a future post.

Eating this way, just clean, wholesome foods, leaves me full of energy, I don't feel like I'm starving myself throughout the day because I stay full, and best of all, I still lose weight. The more I get into posting, I'll break down the lifestyle I've chosen to follow and you all can decide if you'd like to try it or not. I don't think that there is any one particular right way to eat; each body is different and reacts differently to the different foods. So you have to find something that works for you. This is what works for me and I hope you'll enjoy learning about it, as I continue to do, in future posts!

For some great recipe ideas, check out:
The Primal Blueprint Cookbook by Sisson, Mark/ Meier, Jennifer [Hardco (Google Affiliate Ad)