Wednesday, February 02, 2011

how to eat paleo

I find that there are a lot of people that don't understand, or are overwhelmed by the Paleo diet, which sort of gets under my skin, because it's so easy. The only reason that people get confused is the cascade of articles and bad/conflicting information that's out there. So, I'm going to go ahead and write this article, mainly so I can link it to friends who are interested, that sort of breaks down the Paleo diet in normal, everyday language instead of nutritional jargon.


As a disclaimer, I should note that I am not a Paleo expert - in fact, this is only the fourth month that I've eaten on the diet. You are not reading the words of a nutritionist here, just a simple guy who lost 50 lbs. in 4 months by eating right. If you don't feel like you're eating right following my advice, then eat what's right for you. If someone you trust more than me tells you I'm wrong, then do what they say!


Let's get into it then.


Step 1: Clean Out the Kitchen
I know that every diet on the planet says to clean out the kitchen as step one, so it seems stereotypical... Well, simply put, you have to do it. It's essential. Just because Paleo is a lenient diet that makes you feel good doesn't mean that you are immune to temptation from sugary desserts and carb-loaded bullshit. If you follow my direction, you're probably going to end up tossing most of your food. You might feel inclined to feel bad for trashing a bunch of food while people starve in Africa or whatever, but here's what that is, hands-down: an excuse, developed from fear of going on a diet. The chances that you actually care about tossing food are astronomically low, and we have another mechanism for dealing with our guilt about poverty: money. If it bugs you to throw away a bunch of food, donate the money you save on your first Paleo shopping trip to charity.


Alright, so once you psychologically commit to eating better, start by throwing away anything in a box: crackers, chips, dehydrated mashed potatoes (seeing it written out makes it seem stranger that people put it in their bodies), pasta (yes, even wheat pasta), macaroni and cheese, cereal... Get rid of them, they're all bad for you. In fact, let's declare this one of Paleo's staple rules: Anything from a box is bad for you.


Let's move on to the cans... Now, a lot of Paleo dieters will tell you to just toss all the canned goods. I have a different school of thought. Sure, eating food fresh or from a bag doesn't have all of that scary aluminum stuff that the media likes to go in a frenzy over, but honestly? You can't go outside anymore and take a deep breath without inhaling a bunch of carcinogens and radioactive isotopes, so is not eating out of a can really worth it? Personally, I prefer frozen veggies, but cans are cheaper and easier to store. Here's what you should toss: corn (which is a grain), soups, tomato sauces (loaded with sugar), canned fruits (usually stored in corn syrup), beans (legumes, not veggies). You can keep any canned veggies and meats (tuna). You should begin to note at this point that grains are everywhere. In boxes, cans, in the fridge, freezer, fast food... Everywhere. Let me just go ahead and lay down this staple... This one is canon: Grains are bad for you. 


To briefly expand on that statement for a moment, I want to assure you that I am not a hater of grain. There are very good reasons to eat grains, but inherently there are many problems. First of all, any type of grain usually has an extremely disproportional serving size. I have some wheat pasta at home that I eat sometimes on weight-lifting days (part of my 15%, explained later) which has 40g of carbohydrates in a a serving size of 56g. Oh wow, 56g, that's a lot, right? Wrong. That's either 12 strands of spaghetti, or I've got an evil, cruel food scale. The point is, a lot of the restricted foods in Paleo can be good for you, but most people eat them in grossly large portions (mainly because the FDA says it's OK to). For reference, 40g of carbs is about 75% of what I eat in a good, 100% Paleo day... 12 strands of wheat spaghetti... Just sayin'... Another good point to bring up about grain is that most peoples' bodies have a sensitivity to the gluten in grains. You know that sorta fatigued, tired, food coma feeling you get when you eat a giant plate of pasta? That's not the effects of a full stomach, that's an allergic reaction. Your body is saying, "Why did you just subject me to this massive quantity of unnatural crap?" after which it goes into survival mode and starts using insulin to store horrible shit in your fat cells. So yeah, if you can moderate the grains, have fun. But you probably can't, which isn't a bad thing: no one can.


Over to the fridge. The big one here is dairy: toss it. Milk, cheese, ice cream, sour cream, yogurt, etc. Your body is not exactly willing to digest the breast milk of another animal. One way to think of it is like this - if I consumed 10 cups of broccoli, I'd probably be quite tired of broccoli, but I'd be full and energetic. If I consumed 10 cups of milk, I'd expel my insides out of many different holes and probably feel like crap for 2-3 days. Without going into ten thousand details like I did for grains, in moderation dairy can be good, but it's not easy to moderate. So here's another staple: Dairy is bad for you.


One thing I have to say about dairy is this: I do not have the willpower to give up cheese, I simply don't. So if you're thinking, "There is no way I'm not going to eat cheese, screw you." Well, you're preaching to the choir here. Just be sure to look at the serving size, and don't over eat. Aim for eating only half a serving per day by about a month in.


Finally, let's get rid of some cooking stuff. Vegetable oil, toss it. Butter & margarine, toss 'em. Surprisingly, you can actually keep lard if you have that, but you are more courageous than I. Keep canola oil and olive oil.


And there you have it: your kitchen is ready to be stocked with better, usually cheaper, healthier food. Feels good doesn't it? Your environment is now encouraging you to get healthier and stop trying to scrape by every day on a poor diet. Everything is coming together, in balance. Now it's time to go grocery shopping. Since there's a lot of you reading this that are broke like me, and live paycheck to paycheck, you should probably decide to start Paleo on a week where you have about $100.00 to spend on groceries for the next two weeks... Give or take $50.


Step 2: Go Shopping
I'm about to throw two staples at you in the same paragraph... The golden rule of the grocery store is this: Stay on the outside, do not visit the aisles. That's right - most everything you buy is going to be on the outside sections: fresh veggies & fruit, meats, fish, nuts, etc. I can feel the future worry of those reading this already: Does this mean I'm going to have to actually cook? Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Stop being lazy, you will never get healthy eating fast food and microwave meals. Never, ever in your life. Here's another canonical staple: You must cook.


OK, now that those are out of the way, it's shopping list time.




  • Meat
    • Extra Lean Ground Beef (96/4)
    • Steak (London Broil, Sirloin, etc.)
    • Frozen Boneless Skinless Chicken Breast
    • Ground Turkey Breast
    • Turkey Breast (Deli)
    • Beef Jerky
    • Bacon
  • Veggies
    • Cucumbers
    • Bell Peppers
    • Broccoli
    • Onions
    • Romaine Lettuce
    • Iceberg Lettuce
    • JalapeƱo Peppers
    • Carrots
    • Green Onions
  • Fruits (To enjoy in moderation)
    • Star Fruit (OMFG delicious)
    • Grapefruit
    • Berries
    • Banana
    • Kiwi
    • Cantaloupe
    • Honeydew
    • Lemon
    • Lime
    • Coconut
    • Avocado
  • Seafood
    • Tilapia
    • Perch
    • Salmon
    • Tuna
    • Shrimp
    • Scallops
    • Lobster
    • Crab
  • Fats
    • Lard
    • Extra Virgin Olive Oil
    • Canola Oil Spray
    • Coconut Oil
    • Walnuts
    • Almonds
    • Cashews
    • Sunflower Seeds
    • Pine Nuts
  • Liquids
    • Flavored Water (Watch out for sugar!)
    • Mineral Water
    • Herbal Tea
  • Protein
    • Egg White Powder
    • Organic Brown Eggs (Omega-3 enriched)


And there you have it. You don't have to buy everything on the list to eat Paleo, just buy what you like. You might note that there is actually a fairly large portion of the shopping list dedicated to Fats. It's not a typo - fat is a big part of Paleo. Sounds weird for a diet, I know, but fats have been vilified for far too long... Fat is not only good for you, but it is an essential part of a healthy diet. I would much sooner eat something high in animal fat than something loaded down by unhealthy, airy grain carbs. There's a metric fuck-ton of research out there, so go find it. Here's a start, it's Why You Got Fat. And it's time for another cardinal rule! Stop living in the past, fat is good for you!

So there's tons of meals that you can make with this shopping list, feel free to experiment like crazy. My two favorites are Paleo chili and Paleo beef stew. Delicious. And there's nothing like getting home from the gym and cooking up 2 or even 3 whole chicken breasts and chowing down. Whatever you think about Paleo, do not treat it like a restriction-diet. It's damn near impossible to over eat if you are eating Paleo foods, so eat when you're hungry, and eat until you're not anymore. This is one of the coolest things about Paleo, that it gives you that primal attitude... It's science at its best - you get hungry, you hunt good food, you eat it, your body gets into better condition to hunt again.

You might think, "But cavemen didn't have good bodies! And their life span was crap!" Yeah, my lifespan would probably be crap too if every time I got a cut, it got infected and gangrenous because I don't have antibiotics. And as far as cavemen not having good bodies? Well, come on now... I'd like for you to explain to me what a paleolithic era human looked like. Short-lived arguments like that always infuriate me - yes, that makes perfect sense if you don't think about it for more than five seconds. You, me, no one has any idea what a caveman looks like, but if I had to make a guess, I'd bet they looked pretty lean & agile... Because they were hunters and mainly ate protein. Most likely looked better than our modern populace who are shoved into cubicles all day long and are basically force fed grains in exorbitant quantities.

Step 3: Stick To It
When you change your diet dramatically, for better or for worse, there is always going to be an adjustment period. Paleo is no different. For the first week that I ate completely Paleo, I didn't have a lot of energy, and felt almost sad that I could no longer eat crappy food. There was a bit of despair and hopelessness. By week two, I had too much energy, to a point where I had trouble getting any sleep, and the feelings of despair were slowly going away. By week three, my metabolism normalized and I realized what I was eating was absolutely delicious in the best way... I still to this day love the taste of fast food and restaurants, but I also love the taste of good food too and with good food, I get the added benefit of feeling healthy and losing weight.

This is a pretty good segue into the final staple of Paleo. It is good for you to cheat every once in a while. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that it's psychologically necessary. Your willpower needs a break sometimes. You need a reward mechanism. The 85/15 rule is built into Paleo: you follow the diet explicitly 85% of the time, and the other 15%, you do whatever the hell you want. If you assume that you eat about 21 meals per week, then 3 of those should be cheats. Decide early in the week. Look forward to it. Embrace it. The cheat meal alone will make you feel like you're living a balanced, healthy life. And the best part? 85/15 isn't some random number generated for lenience. It's as close as you can get to metabolic insignificance.  In simple terms, if you live by 85/15, then your bad will never, ever outdo your good. The bad foods are powerful, but good foods have endurance.

There was a point where I wanted to stop having a weekly cheat meal, because I felt so worthless afterwards. So I tried for two weeks. I'm here to say do not stop having a cheat meal. Your will gets tired, and if you stop rewarding yourself, your mind wanders into dangerous territory. You start to wonder why the hell you don't just cheat all the time? If you go through a bad period, don't give up. You know that cliche crap about getting back on the horse? Well, it's true... So the holidays messed your diet all up... Now's a better time than ever to start on it again. Sure, it's tough, but the product is much more rewarding than the alternative. Diet and exercise really can improve all different aspects of your life, mainly because committing to them changes how you think. You can get to a certain point where you feel as if you could accomplish anything, and with enough dedication, you can.

But most important of all, Paleo encourages a balanced life. When you submit to the school of thought, that you should treat your body right, and feed it things that it can use efficiently, instead of killing it with poison, you begin to see avenues to treat yourself right. You look at everything as natural vs. toxic. Having this third person view of yourself is an incredible skill and really allows you to have a grip on things going on around you. Balance, maaaaannn...

Step 4: Review
Instead of writing a big long summary, I'm just going to copy the staples. Easier this way, for all of us.

If Paleolithic era man ate it, you can too! (This one wasn't in the article, but kind of... Obvious)
Anything from a box is bad for you.
Grains are bad for you. 
Dairy is bad for you.
Stay on the outside, do not visit the aisles.
You must cook.
Stop living in the past, fat is good for you!
It is good for you to cheat every once in a while.


Hope this helps some people out! I'll be happy to answer any questions in the comments.

4 comments:

Ang said...

I have a question....where the hell did you come from??? Your willpower is amazing!! Maybe a long time ago, I was like that, but not lately. I'm going to try this diet and hopefully, some of that crazy motivation that you have will happen to me too!! I'm going to the store first thing in the AM. I'll let you know how it works out. Love you- Mama.

Patrick White said...

Haha thanks, I hope it works out for you guys. Remember, if Daddy is working to lower cholesterol then skip the eggs! I usually go over my cholesterol by breakfast because of eggs.

Hope you guys enjoy it - you do begin to feel much much healthier.

Love you too!

Patrick

Ang said...

Also, how do you feel about the calcium thing? I'm getting too old now to not have the proper amount of calcium. Are supplements o.k. on this diet? I'm worried about shrinking, like Grandma did!!! Def. don't want that to happen!

Patrick White said...

Yeah, I'd go with supplements, if you plan on cutting dairy totally out. I'm too addicted to cheese, so that's part of my 15%. I just take a men's multivitamin every day, as well as a vitamin C tablet - the multivitamin doesn't have enough mg of C in my opinion.

Calcium supplements don't have any nutritional value, so have at 'em.