Paleo: a gentle start

My father is turning eighty this year. He has the gammit of the normal maladies that affect old age: heart desease, high blood pressure, weakness in his legs, general tiredness.  Yet, he has an unbeatable sense of life that makes you cherish his presence and want to fight to preserve that life as a value to yourself and all those around.

I watched him deteriorate over the last six months.  Always talking about being tired, giving up major values to avoid extra driving, even his sense of life began to dim. Now, I am a huge fan of Paleo.  Yet, I do not have sufficient knowledge to stand up to all the medical advice he is receiving and ask him to listen to my new theories in the face of serious problems and disease.  One day, though, I had had enough. Hearing my dad simply decline and disintegrate, I remembered a scene in Atlas Shrugged, when Dagny shoots the guard not for resisting her, but for failing to make a decision or pick a side.

"Dad, I said, I have something I'd like to share with you..." And so it began.

The difference in his demeanor was startling after two weeks.  Actually, it was quite funny: "Dad, how are you feeling? Can you tell a difference in your energy?"  "Me? Well, you know me.  I've been full of energy my whole life! I mean, certainly, I might take a nap on occasion, but I am not one to complain."  I laughed with relief... Paleo was working.  He sounded like he was himself again!

Today I would like to share some of the specific advice I gave my dad to help him ease into Paleo without going through some of the difficulties that I first faced. Perhaps, this will be useful to those who would like to win family members over to this side or are contemplating moving forward themselves but can't quite make the leap.  I also found this advice extremely useful during my pregnancy (12 weeks now and feeling like a million bucks!) when things got a bit tougher.


"Dad, Paleo is different. It isn't about what you don't eat as much as it is focused on what you should eat. And what we eat is the whole animal.  Make that the focus. Don't give up your carbs too fast. Your body needs to learn to extract the good long-lasting energy out of fat and protein and it'll take a few weeks. So don't go low-carb. Go high-animal.

"Be sure that each meal is centered about the animal.  Eat that part first - following up with vegetables and other carbs if you do not feel full. Your body might resist this change and will want some short-term energy from carbs to feel like things are going ok.  I still love finishing my meals with yogurt and berries, though it is no longer absolutely necessary.

"Avoid grains. Giving up grains cold turkey is hard. They are known to actually be addictive. So stick to small portions of your favorite bread - with a nice hunk of meat on top, of course! Immediately give up bowls of pasta, rice and other big grainy side dishes with little nutritional value.

"Drop the potatoes.  They are not substantially nutritionally different from candy due to their high glycemic index. I know you love squash and its relatives. Try out sweet potatoes - I grew to love them.  I know my step mom makes yummy califlower that's a nutritional wonder compared to its pale competitors. Continue exploring different vegetables each week. Forage far and wide. Your taste palates will change as you continue Paleo and you will crave nutritious options while things that are bad for you will strike you as yucky.

"Finally, give up sweets to the extent possible. Your body won't miss them. No side-effects there! And enjoy yourself. Paleo is about good yummy food, not sacrifice.  If you sin, no need for a confessional.  Just find a yummy animal to decorate your next meal - and let bygones be bygones."

I love you, dad, and I hope that you decorate this world we live in, putting a smile on the faces of those who meet you for a good long time!

Paleo pregnancy

Or How I almost fell off the wagon

Tired, lightly nauseated, out of breath as a result of movement, a near-constant bad taste in my mouth.  This has been me for the past month. Only I can't really blame the pregnancy too much. Sure at nine weeks I am feeling less than perfect, but I could do a lot better.

Anyway, this was what I decided upon waking up this morning. It's been a ridiculous rollercoaster: I make yummy beefy meatballs and I feel great. The next two meals I find myself simply too lazy to cook and by the end of the day, all I can do is park the kids in front of the TV and lie down. Stupid, right? OK, I won't beat myself up over it too much, but I would like to share my experience and some of the new resolutions.

No, I did not go back to eating pizza. I seriously considered it. About once a week I thought, it's simply too hard to cook meat three meals a day. Our culture is optimized toward quick high-carb grain-based snacks that get us through the day. And when beef jerky lost its appeal a few weeks ago, I am dead in the water.

One factor prevented me from giving up: I feel healthy! Everyone in my house has been deathly sick with a nasty cold the kids brought from school. It's been going for nearly a month. I felt the beginnings of a few symptoms - but I never got all the way to sick. Paleo is supposed to strengthen your immune system by preventing gut flora from penetrating the barriers and entering the blood stream (Mark's Daily Apple has nice light-weight readable article on the subject and googling for leaky gut syndrome will yield much more.) Bottom line, eating *proper* paleo has made me feel ten years younger by giving me energy. I lost that through sloth, but at least I don't go all the way from lazy to sick by going back to grains.

Here is an interesting observation: cravings.  I love fruit. I can live on fruit.  (Well, as it turns out, I can't - it simply does not contain calories and nutrients I need - but in the past I've tried!) And now, with bad taste in my mouth, I crave it. I eat it. It tasted wonderful. Then, it leaves me tasting the remaining bitterness in my mouth and begging for more.  It's a lot like an itch: you know it's there, you can't get away from it - and you know that once you start scratching, it'll get worse. But you do it anyway!

Today, we (you know, the rational me and the pregnant me) have reached a compromise: I can eat fruit as long as it is supplemented with something containing a good dose of fat, to satisfy hunger: cream, (oh boy, peaches and cream!), eggs, avocado. There is a carton full boiled eggs in the fridge and I am ready for the challenge!  It was amazing how much more satisfying a bowl of raspberries with cream was than just straight raspberries, even more so than having them with yogurt!

Second decision: I seriously need to stockpile food and have a wide variety available to choose from. That's how I got started, but then lost track.  Tonight, I am making the family all-time-favorite pork crockpot!  Pork is defrosting as we speak.

I need to figure out how to do better for breakfast.  I cannot start my day with a cup of yogurt. I simply can't last long enough to have the energy to prepare lunch. Some ideas involve looking up breakfast casseroles that can be prepared in advace and heated up with some fresh ingredients. Just thinking about it makes me hungry.  (OK, yes, I am pregnant!)

And finally, make fat an all-important meal ingredient.  Today's lunch: shrimp (kids' favorite), artichoke with melted butter and - bacon. I don't want to cook a big meal - but bacon will get me through to dinner!

Wish me luck.  I think I need some support in the days to come. :-)  One thing that keeps me going: I know that after 2-3 days of three good meals a day, I'll have so much energy, this will all become easy!