As you may have noticed, I have taken the past month or so off from blogging. It has been a busy time for us, full of important events and good family fellowship. On August 7th, my husband received his pilot’s wings, passed down and pinned on by his father. My husband was also selected to fly Harriers out of Yuma, Arizona (again following in his dad’s footsteps), with about a year of training first in eastern North Carolina.
In the weeks following his ceremony I have been busy packing, traveling to weddings, house-hunting, and working on some graphic design side projects, not to mention working from home! Needless to say, blogging has been relegated to the back burner.
Food is never far from my thoughts, however. Recently I have been toying with the idea of significantly changing my diet, and I finally decided to take the plunge and try out something new. I am taking on a loose version of the Paleo Diet (short for Paleolithic Diet), in which you eat only foods that our stone age ancestors would recognize. Strictly speaking, it means no dairy, nothing in the grain/pasta/rice/flour/potato family, no legumes (meaning beans, peanuts, and soy products), no salty foods or fatty meats, and no refined sugars or sweets. Like I said, I will be aiming for a LOOSE interpretation of this!
In essence, this diet plan is meant to get people to eat food in its most basic form, without subjecting it to any ‘modern’ processing (we’re talking pre-agricultural revolution here) or pasteurizing. The idea is to incorporate more fruits, vegetables, lean protein, eggs, and nuts into your diet, and minimizing everything else; this plan will aid in digestion and will allow your body to absorb more vitamins and nutrients per caloric intake. As a fruit and veggie lover this sounds feasible, but as an oat and yogurt lover it is also a challenge.
Now, I love going out to eat and indulging on cheesy pasta as much as the next gal, and I will still continue to ‘cheat’ along the way. But as a general rule, and especially at home, I am going to try to implement and abide by these guidelines as often as I can. Even my husband is on board!
I stopped by the health food store today and made some initial purchases:
- Raw whole almonds, from the bulk food section
- Unsweetened toasted coconut flakes or ‘chips’, from the bulk food section
- Unsweetened vanilla almond milk (Almond Breeze Brand)
- A stock of fruit and nut bars made by:
- -LaraBars
- -Raw Revolution
- -Pure
- Raw honey
- Raw almond butter
- Unsweetened banana chips, from the bulk food section
- Organic dark chocolate, with 87% cacao (for my sweet tooth)
- Unsweetened apple rings
- Pre-packaged ‘Date nut rolls’, containing dates, unsweetened coconut, and almond pieces
- Dark leafy greens (I got spinach and mustard greens)
- Fresh vegetables (Anything that can be eaten raw. I got baby carrots, broccoli, zucchini, bell peppers, onions, and mushrooms.)
- Fresh fruits (I like apples, strawberries, blueberries, melon, and bananas)
- Dried fruits (I bought cranberries and apricots)
- Lean meats and seafood (I got tilapia, shrimp, chicken, and turkey cutlets.)
I’m still figuring out this food plan (ok, so maybe I went to Chili’s last night for margaritas and appetizers), but I will be posting more recipes and ideas that follow this diet here on the blog. So far I have made the following steps:
-Avoid all store-bought bottled salad dressings and marinades. I still use vinegar (even though the diet recommends eliminating it), but fresh citrus juice and olive oil are a great subsitute.
-Substitute raw, organic snack bars for oat-based, granola bars
-Snack on raw veggies (e.g carrots, cucumber) and fresh fruit
-Incorporate more dried fruits and nuts (up to 2 ounces dried fruit and up to 4 ounces nuts per day, or more to maintain or gain weight)
-Limit fatty meats such as bacon, pork sausage, beef or pork ribs, fatty cuts of beef or high fat ground beef, and lamb (I did this before anyway, due to naturally high cholesterol)
-Add lean protein to each meal when possible, to help me feel full
-Make smart choices when eating out (using salsa as a salad dressing is one choice that I make often)
-Season foods with spices like black pepper, garlic, ginger, and ground cayenne to add flavor without salt
-Remove fruit juices from my diet altogether (I love drinking La Croix sparkling waters instead)
-Plan dinners with one meat and two vegetables, instead of the classic ‘meat-vegetable-starch’ meals
Anyone who knows me (or has read this blog!) knows that I could never be a Paleo Diet purist. Instead I hope to incorporate some of the basic ideas into my everyday meal plans and snacking habits. If you have adopted these rules into your own diet, I’d love to hear from you – and for those who are curious about the plan, I will post my feedback as I go along! Enjoy…