The Importance of the 30-Day Commitment

I cannot over-emphasize the importance of making a 30-Day Commitment when you are ready to give Paleo a try.  If you are like I was, you probably say every day “I’m going to eat healthier tomorrow.”  That kind of flaky, maybe-I-will-maybe-I-won’t phrase will not get you anywhere.  Trust me.  I said it for a few years, and all the while I was also complaining about how my jeans were fitting.

Are you aware of the fact that if you just DO IT CONSISTENTLY for 30 days, you can erase most of those problems?  For the life of me, I cannot understand why people won’t just make a little sacrifice for the amazing results!

Yes, starting something new does require a little sacrifice.  Any time you make changes to habits that have formed in your life, you’re going to experience a little stress as you adjust to the change.  Will the adjustment kill you?  Um, no.  Will it be hard?  Maybe for a little while, but not long-term.

There are multiple reasons why a 30-Day Commitment is VITAL to success:

1. It ensures that you have time to break old habits, and build new habits.  Have you ever heard the statement “it takes 21 days to form a habit”?  I believe that whole-heartedly.  And just to be sure, take 30 days just to really cement it.  You can’t just decide one day to eat healthier, and then expect it to happen automatically.  It requires a little discipline, a little sacrifice, and a little effort… all things that most Americans do not enjoy.

2. It makes the goal more do-able.  Think about it… saying “I’m going to eat healthier for 30 days” is a much more attainable goal than saying “I’m going to eat healthier from now on.”  It’s just 30 days!  You can do anything for 30 days!  When you’re having a craving for potato chips, you can just remind yourself that you’re only doing this for 30 days (and we’ll see if you still want them after 30 days… we’re breaking habits, remember?).

If it helps you to keep that 30-day mentality, then do that!  Just try it, and see how you feel.  Don’t go into it thinking “it’s time to change everything about the way I eat forever,” just think “I’m testing this for 30 days.”

3. It forces you to REALLY make a commitment.  If you think you want to give Paleo a try, but your kitchen is still full of grains, dairy, sugar, etc., you are very likely to just slip back into old habits in a moment of weakness.  But if you’ve made a real COMMITMENT, you will make the effort to remove temptation so you can’t slip up.  Cleaning out your kitchen is SO important.  If you come home starving, and you have a bag of nachos in your cabinet, you are just begging for failure.  Hunger is a powerful motivator.  If there are no nachos in the house, you will not have to fight that battle, and you will probably take the time to whip up a healthy alternative.  And then you won’t have the belly-gain OR the guilt.

You may feel a little yucky the first week.  I will explain why this occurs in a later post.  In the meantime, be assured that the feelings will pass, and the results are more than worth it.

4. It allows you time to experience the complete results.  If you are doing a little Paleo eating, but are still having a slice of bread every few days, you are robbing yourself of the amazing results that come from a good 30-day cleanse.  Grain is a gut-irritant, and gut irritation causes numerous problems- from bad digestion and belly-bulge, to inability to absorb nutrients and the health effects that come from vitamin deficiency.  It takes several weeks for the gut lining to heal, and for the inflammation to decrease.  Give your gut the time it needs to heal, and see how you look, feel, and perform!  

You might not even know how the foods you’re eating are contributing to negative health effects.  I can guarantee that you will get some great results!  It’s the same with dairy… go without it for enough time, and you will probably see your acne start to disappear and your digestion start to improve. These results cannot be achieved by just doing a few good meals here and there.  Sorry!

So what do I do now?

The easiest way to go about this is to decide on a date (tomorrow???), throw out ALL, and I mean ALL,the off-limits foods in the house (don’t be stingy and worry about wasting food- it’s trash that no one should be eating anyway!), and make sure you have other alternatives ready.  There are thousands of healthy things to eat, and a ton of them are delicious (have you seen my Food Diary?).  You just have to make up your mind and DO IT.

Check out the results of our Whole30 and what we learned.  I highly recommend that you set a date, and start your own Whole30 ASAP.  Click here to buy the guidebook… it is super-helpful to help you get started!

Why I Love The Paleo Diet

* It’s not a diet.  I always feel so sorry for people on super-strict diets that slash delicious food options, and make you drink their thick, powdery shakes instead!  I mean really… who wants a liquid diet?  I love that the Paleo “diet” is just a way to eat (the BEST way to eat!).  The amazing part is that you can eat to satiety, and still achieve your weight goal.  There are a few tweaks to make according to your goals (for example, I want to maintain my weight- not lose weight- so I consume more calories than a person who may be trying to lose weight while eating Paleo), but overall it is just normal eating!

* It is delicious.  I have never enjoyed my food as much as I have since starting to eat Paleo.  It’s as though I can taste flavors better than ever!  It’s nice to just enjoy the purity of fresh fruits, vegetables, and meats, without overloading my gut with unnecessary preservatives and sugar.  I have never liked beef much (I was even a vegetarian for 12 years), but I have to tell you that grass-fed beef is AMAZING!  It is lean, so I don’t feel “heavy” after eating it, and the flavor is so much better than regular grocery-store-beef.

*  It makes sense.  Why wouldn’t we want to simply eat what God provided for us?  Fruits… vegetables… meat… nuts… seeds.  Sure, He gave us wheat too, but humans have altered wheat so much that it is no longer healthy to eat.  (To hear more about this, listen to this amazing podcast!)  It makes sense to eat the foods that God intended for us, without adding to them or altering them.

* It makes me feel good!  I have to say that I feel better now than I’ve ever felt.  I have more energy, I don’t have excess fat and bloating hanging off my body, I’m sleeping better, and I feel healthier.  What’s not to love?

*  I can eat ALOT.  I don’t know about you, but I just really enjoy the act of eating.  It is nice to sit down with a big plate piled high with steaming, flavorful WHOLE food.  Before changing to a Paleo diet, my plate was normally piled high with some kind of pasta or bread.  Before finishing even half of my meal, I would start to feel full and bloated.  It was always a little sad to know that “I really should stop,” even though it seemed as though I had eaten very little!  Now I can always finish my piled-high plate, and I can usually go back for seconds!

How many ingredients are on this shelf?

* I love that I KNOW what I’m eating.  I cannot even count the times I have looked at the ingredients of some packaged items in the grocery store and gotten lost as I tried to make my way through the unpronounceable list.  I would usually just throw the item in the cart anyway… after all, everyone else was doing it, and what else was there to eat?  It feels so much better to look into my cart of whole, 1-2 ingredient grocery items.

I’m sure there is more to add to my list, but I will stop for now.  If you’re curious about how you would feel, just try it for 30 days and find out!

The Paleo Solution

This book has been the most helpful and informative book I have read so far on the Paleo topic.  It is a must-read for everyone who eats food of any kind.  It is not a bunch of scare tactics or subjective information.  This stuff has been proven scientifically, and personally (in my own life).  Check it out!

And here is the author’s description of the book…

Cheating?

Dark Chocolate is amazing.

It is not allowed on the strict Whole30 program (no sugar, people!), but now that we have finished our 30 days, we splurge on some organic dark chocolate on the weekends.

I know, 85% Dark Chocolate is not a major “cheat.”  But it is SO good!!  And it actually has very little sugar. In fact, check out this fantastic article by Mark Sisson on the health benefits of dark chocolate.

And while we’re on the subject of “cheating,” I’d like to explain why I do not typically like to use that word to describe veering off the Paleo path.  ”Cheating” makes it sound as though you are on a super-strict diet for the purpose of losing weight.  Granted, if you are in your Whole30 then you ARE NOT allowed to veer off the path, or you will not accomplish your goals (resetting your metabolism, breaking bad habits, learning how specific foods affect your own body, etc.).  But if you are using Paleo foods for your regular menu items, then you are allowed to have some occasional extravagant treats!

Delicious Dark Chocolate

Obviously, you would not want to eat a whole Dark Chocolate bar every single day, but it is totally acceptable to have some every now and then, especially if it is 75% to 95% cacao.  It is full of antioxidants, and it is creamy and delicious!

So why don’t I like “cheating” as a word choice here?  Because it makes the Paleo diet sound strict and harsh like a typical weight-loss diet, and that is not what it is.  Paleo is eating the delicious foods that our bodies are wired to digest and absorb for ultimate health.  There are no rules about how much you can eat, either!  (Trust me, you would probably be surprised at my personal portion sizes!) We have been eating Paleo-style since July 21st, and we certainly have not felt as though we’ve been on a diet.  In fact, we have felt better than ever in nearly every way.

Also, as you finish your Whole30, you can gradually add a few things back into your diet to see how your body reacts.  A little sugar every now and then is probably okay, but when I added a little regular dairy back in (some organic heavy cream in my coffee), I got a zit almost immediately.  Now I know that my body does not love dairy, and I’d rather have clear skin than heavy cream!  Dustin and I will also have some corn chips next time we eat Mexican food (normally corn is not considered “paleo”).  The only thing that you definitely, DEFINITELY want to stay away from is gluten.  Why?  Well, that is definitely a topic for another post.  Stay tuned.

In the meantime, grab a Green & Black Organic Dark Chocolate Bar and tell me what you think!

What is Paleo?

A few months ago, I had never even heard of “The Paleo Diet.”  If you’d asked me what it was, I probably would have said “sounds like another fad diet.”

Over the last three months, I have learned alot about Paleo.  I don’t like to call it a diet, because, when you hear that word, you assume that it is just a tool for weight loss (that must be accompanied by shakes, bars, books, and pills).  And while it is effective for weight-loss, I have learned that it is actually a tool for good health.  It’s a way of eating that resembles the way our ancestors would have eaten before the rise of agriculture.

Honestly, I wish it were called something else.  The term “paleo” comes from the word “paleolithic,” which refers to a prehistoric era also known as “the stone age.”  Most Paleo-supporters are evolutionists who believe that our ancestors came from monkeys, and lived millions of years ago.

I am a creationist.  I believe that God created the World in seven days, and that He supplied humankind with plants and animals for food.

Therefore, my motivation for eating this way is not to replicate “our ancestors.”  I would rather look at it as going back to how Adam and Eve probably ate in the Garden of Eden, and to how all humans ate before so many new foods, and new preparation processes, were developed.

The way I see it, things were just fine, and people were healthier, before humans decided to tamper with the foods our bodies were wired to eat in an effort to make everything more convenient for themselves.  In today’s fast-paced world, almost everything is processed, and foods are very far from their original state.  It’s a fact that the health of humans has continued to decrease as we get farther and farther from the original menu.

Beyond the historical aspect of eating Paleo, the health aspect of this diet just makes sense.  Before we get into that, let me give you a picture of what the diet actually looks like.

Paleo foods are meats, fish, eggs, vegetables, fruits, good fats, nuts, and seeds (can you picture the Garden of Eden?).   These foods are full of vitamins, minerals, proteins, and healthy carbohydrates.  There are millions of choices for delicious food combinations here!

Here is a look at which foods are not Paleo foods: grains, sugar, legumes, processed foods, and dairy products are all no-no’s.  It may sound like I’m saying that the standard American diet is an unhealthy diet.  That is exactly what I’m saying (though you can basically just look at the people around you to know that).

It is probably obvious that sugar and processed foods are bad for you.  But why the “no grains or legumes” rule?  Well, aside from the fact that they are very low in vitamins, grains are also known as gut irritants.  When your gut is irritated, you cannot properly digest your food, and you are therefore unable to absorb the vitamins and minerals from fruits, vegetables, etc. This means that grains are basically empty calories, and that they cancel out the healthy calories that you may also be eating.  Gut irritation also leads to inflammation in our bodies.  This inflammation can present itself in various forms, from bloating to autoimmune diseases. Also, both grains and legumes are insulin-spiking, dense carbohydrates.  Constant insulin-spikes are a great way to get on a path toward diabetes.  Need I say more?

Dairy is not always bad, but more often than not it delivers adverse effects rather than healthy benefits.  If you do have any dairy, I recommend trying it after your first 30 days.  Then add it in slowly and see what happens (when I tried this I discovered why I’d always had problems with facial blemishes… no more dairy for me!)  Then make sure you purchase organic (free of hormones and antibiotics), and preferably grass-fed dairy products.

Beyond all the science-speak, the results of eating a Paleo diet speak for themselves.  To have a look at my personal results after my initial 30-Day Challenge, click here.

In future posts, I am planning to go more in-depth on why to avoid grains, legumes, sugar, etc.  I also want to explain how grains got the biggest section of the American Food Pyramid.  But for now, I hope you have a clearer picture of what a Paleo diet actually looks like.

If you need more information right away, check out Robb Wolf’s FAQ page.