How to Stay Successful on a Paleo Diet
Staying successful on a Paleo Diet takes extra commitment in your day-to-day life. Like anything else you would commit to, starting a Paleo Diet means rethinking everything you know about the food you and your family eat. In this article, we highlight the benefits, challenges, and some frequently asked questions to consider when starting a Paleo Diet for you or your family.
Learning to be Successful With Your Food & Lifestyle Goals
While we write about Paleo Diets and eating natural foods, we want to highlight the struggles we can encounter every day that can lead to unhealthy food choices that can easily lead you back towards unhealthy food choices This leads you into a cycle of wanting to start eating right, but finding it near impossible due to lack of appropriate food options, or to impulses which can stem from the lack of preparation.
What is a Paleo Diet?
The Paleolithic Diet or better known as Paleo Diet is a diet based on this type of eating simpler food choices based on the type of diet that cavemen and cavewomen would have eaten during the Paleolithic Era and consists of eating foods only found during this time.
Back then, there were no supermarkets, drive-throughs or artificial ingredients, or unnatural food preparation processes and hunter-gatherers were always active and on the hunt to secure their next meal and the necessities they needed to survive.
Paleo, Keto, and other diets all have different variations of the food you can eat, but the common theme for them all is that more people are becoming aware of the additives and preservatives that are added to the processed foods they eat and give their families to eat every day.
Why Should You Try a Paleo Diet?
Modern foods have given rise to countless new ailments and conditions that have been seen throughout history. Everyone can benefit from a Paleo Diet because while it takes you to simpler ingredients, it opens up more flavorful food choices that eliminate potentially harmful ingredients that you put into your body.
Food manufacturers have given us products with artificial flavors, colors, and preservatives that have led to an increase in health problems, and while food choices can’t be to blame for them all, taking a hard look and reevaluating the things that can impact your health internally and externally is the most important thing you can do to help you live a long and healthy life.
Starting a Paleo Diet is about eating cleaner, living better, and helping undo unhealthy eating habits while giving you even more energy throughout your day, reducing your stress, and giving you a better overall state of well-being.
Preparing For A Paleo Diet
Starting a Paleo Diet can be started immediately, but what next? You most likely have a fridge and freezer plus a pantry full of food, snacks, and ingredients. Unless you plan on donating your non-Paleo food to a shelter or throwing it out, you need to have a realistic plan on when to start your Paleo Diet.
If you live with family, a spouse, or children, this is another consideration you’ll have. However, if you plan on introducing a Paleo Diet to your family, the best way to introduce a Paleo Diet is to begin saving, experimenting with, and serving your family Paleo-friendly meals.
What Can't You Have on a Paleo Diet?
Paleo Diets are about simpler foods prepared using simple preparation methods that retain the nutritional value of the food, unlike processed food that's prepared using potentially harmful artificial ingredients or preparation methods that strip the food of any nutritional value.
This means that a lot of the processed foods you see have additives that replace the vitamins, nutrients, and minerals you would otherwise get, had it not been for the harsh preparation methods and non-natural ingredients. Many of these artificial additives and genetically modified organisms, (GMOs) remain free for manufacturers to use with little oversight into their long-term health effects.
Eliminating Processed Foods & Artificial Ingredients
Processed foods and artificial ingredients are the real culprits that can lead to acute and long-term health effects.
By eliminating these unnecessary 'extras' your body will begin recovering from the side effects of processed foods. People researching paleo diets are often put off by the food and beverage restrictions but soon realize that there are companies that do care about what they put into their products that you put into your body.
While not all of the foods below are necessarily processed, you undoubtedly have many of these at home, and as you take stock of what you have, what you'll need for a Paleo Diet, and what you can use to transition into a Paleo Diet
The Foods You Can't Eat on a Paleo Diet Include:
- All Pasta (including whole-wheat and gluten-free)
- Bread & Grains including wheat, oats, and barley
- Beans and legumes, lentils, peas, and peanuts including peanut butter.
- Refined sugars including white & brown sugars, agave, corn, syrup, artificial sweeteners
- Sweetened beverages including soda & drink mixes and additives
- Products marketed as low-fat or diet
- Refined vegetable oils, trans fats & hydrogenated oils
- Refined sugars & salt
- Dairy Products
- Beer & Wine
- Soy & Corn
- Salty foods
- Potatoes
- Quinoa
- Rice
You want the foods you eat to be as close to their natural state as possible.
When you read the label on a product and don't know what it is, many people automatically assume it's good for you since it's been allowed to be an ingredient. You can't let this fool you.
Many of these ingredients, additives, and GMOs have rarely been studied for their long-term effects on the body.
Is Paleo Used as a Weight Loss Diet?
A Paleo Diet can certainly help you work towards your weight loss goals.
While the core focus is eating natural, unprocessed foods and unhealthy preservatives and additives, beginning a Paleo Diet alongside more activity levels helps transition your body from fat storage to fat burning. When you begin a full Paleo eating routine, you'll begin to experience weight & fat loss while never feeling like you’re starving.
How Can a Paleo Diet Help Your Health?
By eliminating artificial and unknown ingredients and evaluating everything you put into your body, you stand to see amazing health changes just by eating natural foods.
- Increase control of dietary blood sugar levels, Diabetes, PCOS & Hypoglycemia;
- Balance your hormone levels which leads to better regulation of your overall health;
- Increased & more stable daily energy levels;
- Improvements in Cardiovascular health including lowered Cholesterol and Blood Pressure levels;
- Alleviate & mitigate symptoms of gastrointestinal problems from IBS (irritable bowel syndrome), fructose malabsorption, SIBO (small intestinal bacterial overgrowth), celiac disease, and food intolerances;
- Better regulation of the conditions associated with autoimmune and inflammatory conditions.
Potential Disadvantages of a Paleo Diet
Starting a Paleo diet requires a complete rethinking of your normal routines and as we mentioned, you may have a fridge and cupboards full of food that’s certainly not Paleo-friendly.
Additionally, changing your diet and purchasing fresh foods and snacks to adhere to your diet doesn’t automatically mean you can eat as much as you want.
While there are overall health benefits to starting and maintaining a Paleo lifestyle, it’s important to remember moderation, especially in your meat, snack, and other food choices.
The Obstacles to Starting a Paleo Diet
While anything can be accomplished when you set your mind to it, preparation is one of the key factors to success in anything you do and a Paleo Diet is no different. Having a family, having no time, running errands, and erratic schedules lead to disorganized efforts to your food and health goals.
Preparing meals in advance, purchasing and making yourself snacks you can grab and take anywhere, and always having flavorful food and drink options ready to go is essential to not only living better but WANTING to eat better.
Battling Food Addiction
Maybe you like salty snacks, or perhaps that sweet tea you buy from the vending machine at work, or every night you make yourself s'mores or have a few beers. If you're rhythmically eating the same type of food in a pattern, you've subtly tied your subconscious (and your mood) to food.
What happens when you don't have that bottle of diet soda or that morning smoke? Your body agitates itself because it craves what you've been feeding it in the past and now it expects it.
Should You Quit Processed Foods Cold Turkey?
While that's a question only you can answer, understanding what you consuming is an important first step to better eating habits.
Learning what your patterns and go-to snacks are and what ingredients are in them is a crucial first step in your journey into a Paleo Diet.
When you begin to identify and recognize potentially harmful, unnatural, and harsh ingredients you put into your body, your decisions and what you want to avoid will quickly enter your subconscious which will help you identify and avoid foods that you know have ingredients that could have a detrimental effect on you.
Paying Attention to What Your Body is Telling You
Before and during a Paleo diet, you need to pay attention to your cholesterol, blood pressure, blood sugar changes, and any additional physical changes that occur, and always be sure to discuss any major health changes with your Doctor.
When anyone wants to change something in their life, they need to embrace the change they want to make and actively move to make it their reality. Whether it's to lose weight or to stop the intake of potentially harmful processed artificial and unnatural foods, people turn to Paleo diets for their simpler food choices, a healthier lifestyle, and to feel better.
Eliminating Processed Foods With a Paleo Diet
Paleo diets aren't just about living healthy and weight loss, it's about actively changing the way you live and caring about things you choose not to put into your body as much as the things you choose to put into your body.
The best thing you can do for yourself is to decide to get rid of all processed foods.
Being happy with your food choices will help you stick with your routine while living the Paleo Lifestyle.
If You Live by Yourself and Want to Start a Paleo Diet
Living by yourself doesn’t always mean you have a less busy schedule. Work, school, sports, social events, too many obligations, and not enough food planning can work against you even if you’re not on a Paleo Diet.
But if you’re starting a Paleo Diet, you’re now buying fresh foods and while you can freeze fruits, can and jar other vegetables, food waste is a common concern you can have if you’re not planning your meals.
Starting a Paleo Diet When you Have a Family
If you're ready to make a major change to the foods you eat, but also want your family to benefit from the Paleo Diet, you have to take your family's diet, nutrition, and lifestyle into account before implementing Paleo for your family.
Introducing Paleo meals and snacks over days and weeks can create a literal 'natural' Segway into better eating habits rather than introducing an unplanned shift in the regular meals and recipes you already create which can cause friction with your Paleo family plans.
Staying Active on a Paleo Diet
Lack of activity and sedentary lifestyles are a byproduct of our modern lifestyle and if you have an office, driving or another job where you sit often only to go home and sit for the rest of the evening combined with a diet that includes processed foods and artificial ingredients is a recipe for negative health consequences down the road.
Whether you're on or thinking about starting a Paleo Diet or are simply trying to make small changes in your lifestyle that can add up, becoming active is one of the most important things you do.
In our previous articles on staying active, while we highlight many great activities you can do to lose weight, build muscle and feel better overall, beginning to change your mindset regarding your activity levels will help you throughout your life.
Even if you start in incremental steps like instead of coming home from work and sitting in front of the tv, you take a walk through the neighborhood, take your child or pet to the part or do a little work on that garden you've been meaning to start will begin to compound their effects over time.
Soon, you'll start to realize there's more than watching tv, playing video games, and keeping yourself, and your health caged which leads to even more dramatic improvements to your health.
Why Should You Try a Paleo Diet?
Modern foods have given rise to countless new ailments and conditions that have been seen throughout history. Everyone can benefit from a Paleo Diet because while it takes you to simpler ingredients, it opens up more flavorful food choices that eliminate potentially harmful ingredients that you put into your body.
Food manufacturers have given us products with artificial flavors, colors, and preservatives that have led to an increase in health problems, and while food choices can’t be to blame for them all, taking a hard look and reevaluating the things that can impact your health internally and externally is the most important thing you can do to help you live a long and healthy life.
Processed Foods
Processed foods are everywhere and in nearly everything we eat. While the term processed foods may be a catchall term, if food is changed, it becomes processed. However, there's a difference between heating ingredients for a meal and purchasing food from a store that has artificial flavors, colors, or worse, GMOs in it.
From Hot Pockets to frozen burritos and T.V. dinners, you won't read it on any label, but in reality, the companies that make all of our foods specifically add ingredients that make us want to eat not only their food but more overall.
Changing Your Relationship With Food
Changing Your Relationship With Food Changing your relationship with food doesn’t have to come at the expense of eating bland food or going hungry, but it does mean that you have to train yourself to realize everything you’re putting into your body. From the piece of cake from the office party to your favorite snack from the vending machine, being on a Paleo Diet means that you're
It's not a conspiracy but a known unspoken truth that any of us can be guilty of binging, but combine that with purposeful ingredients designed to do just that, we keep eating them, no matter what this does to your health. These foods and their ingredients inside keep us eating. Not only food, but a lot of people are also addicted to coffee, soda, and "soft" drinks.
In many instances, people can get headaches if they haven't had their 'caffeine fix' and ultimately go away when you satisfy their body's craving for caffeine. Processed foods & drinks behave the same way by triggering an internal, subconscious response when you go without that item, you can experience severe cravings and physical effects.
In a way, processed foods can be on the same addiction level as drugs simply because many are specifically created to keep you coming back for more.
CHECK OUT OUR OTHER PALEO SNACK OPTIONS
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