The husband and I have been realizing that our eating habits are totally disordered and lazy, and have only gotten worse since our son was born last year. We’ve both had trouble losing weight and gotten too complacent in just eating crap and feeling like crap. Calorie counting has been difficult for both of us, and while I lost 30 pounds before our wedding in 2007 the weight has come back with a vengeance since being pregnant and dealing with PPD. Basically, we eat like shit and totally stopped caring about it.
So in order to not die of heart disease before we’re both 40, we’re making an extreme effort to change the way we think about food. I don’t want to emotionally eat anymore, and he doesn’t want to eat out of boredom and habit. We’ve decided to do the Whole9 blog’s 30 day challenge and we started on May 1st.
Has anyone done this as well? Any dopers out there eat Paleo for life?
If you’re not familar, the Whole30 is eating basically lean meats, vegetables, fruits, and occasional nuts and good fats. It’s not a diet per se, it’s a way of changing what you eat to both make you feel better and improve your health. We didn’t weigh in before we started and we’re not tracking our weight now. We’re simply eating tons of vegetables, cooking every day, planning our meals, and cutting out the shit that we used to rely on to make us feel better at night.
It’s so far both easy and hard. Eating veggies isn’t difficult because we both honestly enjoy a wide variety of foods, we just were too lazy to buy and prep them before. We love to cook and learn new cooking methods, and I consider myself a great cook so it’s not as if we had to learn how to do those things. The hardest thing is craving the snacks at night and wanting the milk in my coffee, but I’m getting used to drinking it black.
I’d love to chat Paleo or Whole30 with you guys, or general nutrition/fitness as I start this journey toward better health!
It sounds interesting, and also damn near impossible. I haven’t succeeded in a ‘‘no junk, ever’’ diet but I’ve definitely established a generally healthier lifestyle full of lean meats, healthy fats, and plenty of vegetables.
Do you know why no whole grains or legumes? Legumes are some of the healthiest things you can eat, I thought.
I do like the idea of not ‘‘Paleo-fying’’ food. I agree a lot of ‘‘healthy’’ recipes seem focused on recreating bad-for-you favorites.
I also like not recreating those favorites. They say don’t try to create “paleo-pancakes” or cake or chips or other foods that you used to rely on as emotional crutches, but re-think your attitudes towards food. I’m 5 days in so far and I have realized I don’t NEED to have sweets every day, or dessert with every dinner, or snacks at work like popcorn and chips. What I need is a balanced breakfast, a great variety of vegetables with each meal, fruits to give me sugars, and a ton more water than I was drinking before. I’m re-teaching myself to eat and forming new habits, such as eating several small meals a day to keep my energy up.
The reasons they suggest avoiding legumes is how hard they are on the gut, and since I have IBS I’m all for trying to cut them out for a month and see how it affects me. Dairy is out for many of the same reasons (along with the IBS I’m lactose intolerant anyway, as many are). I am supplementing with calcium and vitamin D to ensure I don’t get osteoporosis as well as choosing lots of vitamin-rich green veggies.
Once the 30 days are up I can reevaluate and add things back in as “treats” or rarely-eaten items. But honestly, I have eaten more whole vegetables and fruits in the last week than I did last month entirely. That’s definitely a huge change for my health and I’m happy to give it a shot for the rest of the month.
ETA: thanks** twicks**! I wasn’t sure about the appropriate forum.
I also have IBS, so this is very relevant information for me. I’m generally able to keep it under control by avoiding high-sugar and processed foods and making sure my fiber intake is high.
I’m thinking about giving this a shot, too. I don’t see how 30 days wouldn’t at least be worth an experiment. In the very least I’m interested to hear about your experience.
I’ll keep you updated! I have PCOS as well and a lot of others have found that this type of eating helps their symptoms, so I’m curious to see if it alleviates mine as well.
I’ve never done the Whole30 thing but I’ve been eating a modified ‘paleo’ diet for about two years now. Can’t rave about it enough. I got an IBS diagnosis right before I started - I’m totally asymptomatic now, as long as I avoid my triggers.
My daily diet is line with the recommendations of Dr. Kurt Harris. Very high fat, moderate carbs (mostly from starches), moderate protein.
I have not done this but I have switched to low-carb (Atkins induction) and with a heavy emphasis on homecooked foods – not premade low-carb snacks and stuff. Lots of vegetables, eggs, chicken, fish, and the like. I haven’t entirely given up processed foods, but it’s very minimal (mostly things like canned chicken or sugar-free coffee syrup). I do have to say that low carbing seems to work really well for me. My hunger level is much more manageable and predictable, and I do feel better as well. I’ve lost weight, of course, and people have commented that I look better (not just skinnier). I feel energetic but not edgy. No more nagging cravings or compulsive eating, though I still have to watch portion control from mindless eating.
I’d encourage you to try it. I’ve considered Paleo but the lack of flexibility is the biggest concern for me - I like to be able to eat out once in awhile for social reasons, and I’m not sure if I could do that with Paleo. I think it’s a good ideal though and trying it for 30 days would definitely give you some perspective on it. The food tastes really good, too - because you’re not filling up with grains, you get a lot more calories from fats, so it’s okay to add oil (or in my case, butter or cream as well).
I’ve been thinking of going paleo for a while but I hate the idea of giving up legumes. I suppose I could try it for a month, though, and see how it goes, while I’m making all these other life changes (learning how to cook for one again, etc.)
The whole idea of the paleo diet is that because agriculture is a recent innovation, we’ve adapted to the sort of diet that we had as hunter-gatherers, and that diet is ideal for us. So anything that our ancient ancestors couldn’t get is right out.
I don’t necessarily agree with that line of reasoning, but there’s no question that the paleo diet is better than a lot of other things you could do.
I follow a similar diet, although I’m not as strict as the Whole 30–I will occasionally drink wine, for example, and I do use butter and eat some cheese from time to time. But I’ve ditched grains, legumes, and potatoes, and I’ve lost 38 pounds and about 5 inches from my waist so far. My immune system is better, my skin is clearer, and I have more energy. It’s a very clean way of eating.
Could one of you who does this post a sample daily diet? Because I’m reading this and keep coming back to:
But what do you eat?
I’m trying to eat better (less processed food, more cooking, etc.) I’m still eating grains & dairy. And while I’m cutting back on HFCS, I still put sugar in things.
**Breakfast: **Banana, 2 eggs pan-fried, 2 slices of turkey bacon, black coffee Mid-Morning: bag of snap peas and green peppers
**Lunch: **Baby spinach salad topped with smoked chicken breast with cucumbers, grape tomatoes, and carrots. Dressed with oil and balsalmic vinegar Mid-Afternoon: an apple, a handful of almonds Dinner: Moroccan pork chops on the grill, with roasted chili-spiced cauliflower and baked yam fries.
Dinner was to DIE for. I wasn’t hungry at all until very close to my lunch and dinner times and while I did crave sweets a bit, that has lessened day to day. I have a watermelon in the fridge for tonight that I’m excited about.
There’s plenty to eat that’s not a grain or dairy. You just have to be sure to have it on hand when you need it.
I’m not orthodox paleo but I try to eat a biologically appropriate whole-foods diet. Most of my daily calories come from meat, seafood, eggs, butter, cream, coconut oil, beef tallow, pork lard, and varied vegetables including sweet potatoes, potatoes, and other tubers/roots. I also eat white rice, berries, limited other fruits (for the sake of my digestion), limited cheese (makes me break out), limited nuts (digestion issues unless I practice strict moderation), and milk chocolate. Oh and I still eat chickpeas sometimes, can’t give up my falafal entirely. They don’t give me any stomach issues.
You need to cook on this type of diet. I cook most nights and eat leftovers for lunch the next day.
Well, what with cooking by myself again I’m afraid of getting really lazy and eating a bunch of junk, I want to really be aware of what I’m putting in my mouth. I don’t agree with a lot of the paleo stuff (seriously, legumes?) but it’s a good structure to work with and really push myself to cook and eat leftovers and such.
I have been eating a modified paleo diet for a couple of years. It is easy for me because I don’t like high carb foods, sweets, and processed (pre-chewed) foods. The first time I heard of it I thought it was some kind of nut-ball fringe obsession like raw foodism or an ideology like veganism, but I started reading about it and realized it was the sort of diet I preferred anyway. The menus posted above sound delicious and are daily fare for me.
All right, Elysium, I gave it some thought and decided to join you. I’ve fallen off the nutrition wagon in the last month or so and I figure it will be a fun thing to distract myself with while I’m looking for work, a kind of re-invigoration of my motivation for change.
I’m still in the ‘‘preparing to change’’ stage, though. I decided to do this in phases, so today starts the ‘‘no dairy’’ phase. It’s going to take a while for me to figure out what I need to get at the store, because honestly this challenge is going to require a pretty radical alteration of my diet. Brown rice, whole grain bread, low-fat cheese, etc. have become my staples. But if there’s one argument behind ‘‘no more grains’’ that I really connect with, it’s that they aren’t very nutritionally dense, and even the whole grain stuff makes me crave more carbs. I do have issues with sugar and I know it, so it makes sense for me to try a diet that really strives to break that addiction.
For now, though, I’m not entertaining the idea of cutting out beans. I’ve never had a problem with them before and they seem to really give me energy. I also don’t intend to baste anything in whole cream or go crazy on the fats (I have high cholesterol.)
So it’s not that I’m sold on the evolution argument so much that I could see this working for me, personally, and I’m willing to give it a shot.