Paleo Diet: Fad Diet or Life Style Change?

 Part 2 in the “Fad Diet or Lifestyle Change?” series is the Paleo Diet!

The paleo diet is when an individual eats foods that basically a caveman would eat, such as meat, fish, fruit, and veggies. This type of lifestyle has gotten a lot of publicity through popular sites like Pinterest and Facebook with in the past few years, although there are research articles dating back all the way to 1997 for the Paleo diet. There are also many celebrities who swear by it (such as Jack Osborne, Jessica Biel, Megan Fox, Matthew McConaughey, etc.) However, just because a celebrity endorses a product or diet/lifestyle doesn’t always mean you should hop onto the bandwagon.  Be smart and do your research first (which is what you’re about to read!)

The Paleo lifestyle is one that can be altered. Some individuals prefer to go extremely low carb (higher protein and fat diet), while others need those carbs in their diet such as potatoes, rice, or extra fruits and veggies. 

There are two main rules I found while doing my research with the paleo diet. 

First, eat whole and nutrient dense foods at all times. No, you do not have to act like a caveman, that’s just the “mascot”. You want to eat foods that are more healthful than harmful to your health. For example, your diet should consist of grass-fed meat and eggs, fresh veggies and fruit, as well as nuts and seeds in moderation.

Secondly, avoid all the processed and sugar added foods out there. Really try to stay out of the middle isles (however- I always like to get my beans, corn, and some other canned veggies that I just rinse under water).  You also want to avoid gluten, dairy, and other sugar or white carb type of grains while on this diet.

You may be thinking to yourself, this sounds great! Or you may be thinking, “this sounds terrible”… either way, here’s some of the benefits and consequences of going paleo.

Benefits:

•        Adapting an extremely clean lifestyle
•        Rich in nutrient-dense food
•        No calorie/macro counting, no grey area.
•   Paleo-style eating emphasizes whole foods, lean proteins, vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, and other healthy fats, which is a massive improvement over the average Western diet.
•      You may end up losing weight, gaining clearer skin, and overall feeling better. This is simply because you are eating right and getting rid of processed foods. However, you may feel fatigued at first when you switch over to a Paleo Lifestyle. This is why I always recommend to switch SLOWLY! 
•        The paleo diet truly shows you how awful packaged and processed foods are

Consequences:

•       You eliminate entire food groups, making yo more likely to binge eat them or develop intolerance to it, as well as lacking in a certain mineral. For example, you cannot eat dairy. This may work well for some, however this means no yogurt, cottage cheese, or milk! These things that contain protein and calcium are vital to your diet, and you must find these nutrients elsewhere. Another example is that if you give up dairy for an entire year, you could develop intolerance to it.
•        It may be harder to eat out, although most of the time restaurants are more than willing to accommodate your needs.
•        This is not a “one-size-fits-all” diet. Some people need dairy and legumes in their diet more than others. Find what works for YOU! Personally, I need some type of starchy carb (sweet potato, quinoa, or couscous) in my lunch or else I will be a hangry monster looking to feast the rest of the day.

Overall, what do I think? I think this is your choice! Paleo is such a great way to get acclimated in the clean eating world, or it's a great way to spruce up your diet! However, I choose to just eat clean. I believe that there are no good or bad foods when it comes to legumes, quinoa, couscous, dairy, etc. The only “bad” foods I try to stay away from are processed junk food like chips, baked goods, candy, etc. Remember that if you do want to go on a paleo diet, you MUST start phasing out all your processed foods for at least a week! You need to slowly phase these bad foods out so you do not put your body into shock and develop headaches, stomachaches, fatigue, etc. And if you feel the Paleo Lifestyle isn’t right for you, adjust slowly. Start phasing foods back into your diet to avoid bloating, headaches, stomachaches, etc.

Tip: Although I am not following the paleo lifestyle, (I feel that other than eating dairy, I follow it loosely) I love to search paleo recipes. These will typically be the cleanest and easiest recipes! Below is a chart that I feel represents the way I eat vs. Paleo. Tell me what you think! 

Avoid Holiday Weight Gain

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! Lingering Halloween candy, Thanksgiving dinners, Christmas and other holiday Parties, and New Years parties all happen within 1.5 months of each other. This means cookies, festive drinks, party trays, and too many parties to count on one hand! How do you survive and have a great time during holidays without having to loosen a few belt buckles? I've got you covered!

1.) First thing is first- plan ahead!! If you are going to a party in the evening, make sure to keep it healthy all day, just like you would any other day. Eat a filling breakfast, light but protein filled lunch, and a small snack before the get together. When you eat a small healthy snack before a big festive get together, you're less likely to keep skimming the food and more likely to just enjoy yourself! 

2.) Drink half your body weight in OUNCES of water per day. For example, if you weigh 145 pounds, that means you need about 70-75 ounces of water per day to stay hydrated. Staying hydrated will help your body metabolize food faster, make you feel fuller and more awake, and will also help the next day (you know... in-case you had a few drinks the night before). Stray away from sugary and carbonated drinks as much as possible! These will bloat you and will not help hydrate you.

3.) Do not restrict. Enjoy yourself! However, do not go overboard either. We tend to have a bad case of FOMO this time of the year, meaning Fear Of Missing Out. SO many holiday flavors that only come once a year! This is where the 80/20 rule comes into play. You've eaten well all day, so let yourself pick 1-3 treats to eat! One big treat (such as a slice of pie), two medium treats (maybe a decorated holiday cookie), or three smaller treats (smaller pieces pieces of holiday bark, chocolate pretzels, smaller cookies, etc).

4.) Bring a tray of fruit that is cut into fun shapes using a cookie cutter. This will make everyone enjoy eating the fruit just as much as the treats! Or, try to bring a few healthier options, such as the fruit and maybe some steamed veggies for dinner. 

5.) If this is a dinner party, opt for lighter and more healthy options. For example, at thanksgiving choose turkey, salad, sweet potatoes, and other healthy options. Enjoy stuffing, mashed potatoes with gravy, and other heavy foods in smaller amounts. Make your plate 80% healthy and 20% (or less) of the not-so-great foods. If you are still hungry after dinner, wait a few minutes, and then grab seconds of salad! Try filling up on salad before enjoying your main course so that you won’t be temped to fill up on stuffing and pie!

Building Endurance

Whether you are just beginning to workout, or you have been working out for a while, building endurance is something all physically active people need and want to do. Sometimes workouts may seem long and grueling at first, but little by little you will begin to start building up stamina as well as endurance by following the steps below. Soon, the 1 mile run becomes a 4 mile run, and you start trimming down and toning up little by little. 

(This is my all time favorite quote. Print it off, and hang it up somewhere you'll see it everyday. This is the best motto of life- whether you're religious or not!)

1.) HIIT it up with interval training. Short bursts of intense exercise spikes your heart rate making your body use more energy (burn more calories) to repair itself. The more HIIT style workouts you do, the faster you will build up endurance. Want more facts on how effective HIIT is? Not only is this one of my favorite websites, but this article explains everything you need to know about HIIT training. Find it here!

2.) Eat. Sleep. Relax. Remember to eat healthy meals and sleep at least 7-9 hours a night as well as setting aside time to relax and connect with yourself. Nothing will hurt your road to fitness more than stress, malnutrition, and lack of sleep. Cutting your recovery time and pushing yourself during a workout are great steps toward having more stamina, however, don’t forget that your body still deserves some R&R paired with a balanced lifestyle to function at its fullest potential.

3.) Get out of the gym as much as you can. Take up hiking, yoga, biking, or swimming instead of going all out at the gym 24/7. As you do more outdoor activities, you will be training your muscles to climb natural hills and use different amounts of energy vs. just steadily being on a treadmill, stationary bike, or elliptical. For example: you do not eat the same food each day… you typically change it up. You want to do this with your workout schedule as well, and a great way to do this is to take your workout outside, or trying something new that you have never done before.

4.) Strength train. Strength training helps build up our bones, muscles and ligaments. Not only does this help you in the future to keep up your bone and muscle health, but it will also help you gain stamina and endurance over time. Strength training also increases your calorie and fat burn, making you a lean, mean, fighting machine. So get out there and life some weights! However, make sure you are practicing proper form. If you are unsure about this, talk to your nearest personal trainer or look up some videos of proper form to ensure safety and quality.

Busy Schedule, Healthy Life

Living a healthy lifestyle and becoming more fit are two goals that seem to always be put on the back burner. I get it- you have a busy schedule. I mean it’s 2015, who isn’t busy? Your mind is racing every minute of every day and it’s overwhelming. Life can be so stressful that some days you feel like you could simply break at the drop of a hat. So how do you stay fit (and sane) on top of school, work, home life, social lives, kids, errands, etc.?

Let me show you how I do it.

Right now, I am a full time student, part time employee (sometimes full time), on the side nanny, girlfriend, and Dog Mommy. I still make the time to workout 5 days a week and live a healthy life style. It seems crazy some days, but I know that the healthier I am the more likely I am to succeed in this crazy non-stop life of mine. So, what are you? Are you a mom, dad, student, employee, friend, or sibling? If so, people in your life need you to be the best version of you! So let’s take 5 minutes out of our day and figure out how we can live a healthy lifestyle on top of all this madness that we love to call our lives.

What are your goals?

This question seems so generic- trust me I tried to re-word it a million different ways. But honestly, what do you want out of life? Maybe it’s to run a 5k in a few months, fit into your skinny jeans for the holidays, or maybe your goal is to simply have the energy to play with your kids. Now, write down this goal of yours.

When you make a goal, be sure to have a reasonable time period to achieve it by. For example, my goal is to start seeing more definition in my stomach (ahem... ABS!) by the time I go to Florida in early January. Do I want a 6-pack? Not really. But I would love to see some flattening out of the stomach and a little bit of definition. So with that I have my goal, and my time frame.

How can you reach this goal?

What are you doing right now that is either helping or hindering your success toward this goal? Here is my example again.

Goal: Get more definition in the stomach area by January

How can I reach this? I already go to the gym 5x week and I eat pretty healthy yet my stomach is my main issue.

1-    Stop snacking on bad foods. Yes I know, I have a health and fitness blog therefore I must be so healthy. However, Halloween just passed and the kids I nanny for have SO much candy. It can be hard to turn down sometimes.

2-    Target abs more during my workouts. I hit arms, legs, and cardio perfectly. However, I always seem to skip out on core work. Which is not the greatest idea because working your core can improve your overall performance and form in the gym!

There are my two steps for reaching my goal.

Hold Yourself Accountable.

Get some friends to join this healthy lifestyle with you, or schedule it into your daily calendar in order to make sure you have the time to workout! For example, every Monday and Tuesday I workout at 6:00 am, Thursdays I workout at 3pm, my rest days are Sunday and Wednesday. Make a schedule. Hold yourself accountable! Find some great group classes that you can partake in to really get yourself motivated!

Prep Your Food For The Week!

Take one day, like a Sunday, and bake (or grill out) some chicken, veggies, and prep all of your foods in advanced! For example, on Sundays I like to cook up 3 or 4 chicken breast, wash all my fruits and veggies and put them into easy access containers, cut up all my Hearts of Romaine and wash it and store it in a container, wash off all my caned corn and black beans (I love making a chipotle bowl for lunch!) and then I like to pre package all my snacks into baggies to make packing lunch a lot easier. The more prep work you do, the more likely you are to succeed!

Tip: Keep healthy snacks at your works desk or just on hand. Kind bars, almonds, healthy trail mix, apples, etc. A great tip I found online: “Instead of hitting up the vending machine or office candy bowl for an afternoon snack, I bought five pieces of fresh fruit each week and displayed them on my desk on Monday morning. Whenever I wanted a snack, it was the first thing I saw, so I was able to keep my munchies light and nutritious. I also hated to see fresh food go to waste, so I never let a day go by without eating a piece, which helped keep my hunger steady so I didn't overeat later in the day”.

Lastly, Make it fun.

You’re supposed to drink half your body weight in ounces of water per day. Each time you hit this goal, put a dollar in a jar. Once you hit a certain amount, buy yourself a pair of new pants! You can also food prep or workout with friends as well. Make this whole process fun. Living a healthy lifestyle shouldn’t be a chore, make it something you truly love and it’ll become part of your life!

Meatless Monday

If you have eaten in a restaurant or a cafeteria, or even visited the doctor within the past two years you have probably seen many campaigns to stop eating meat on Monday’s. This campaign is called “Meatless Monday”. You may be thinking to yourself… “Okay, so if I don’t eat meat for one day, what good is that really going to do…?” Or, if you’re like me, my first thought was “How the heck do I even get my protein in then?! Guess they want us to carb load that day…”. I finally did some research to see what all the hype is about and the statistics were pretty shocking.

“People who eat fewer animal products have lower rates of obesity, dementia, arthritis, high blood pressure and other serious medical conditions. Nutrition experts worldwide are on board; the American Heart Association, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and Kaiser Permanente are among the leading public health organizations that support reducing meat consumption to improve health and prevent disease.” – The Humane Society

So what can going meatless for one day do for you?

• Start out on a good foot. Typically we start everything on a Monday. We say that our diets start next Monday, or that on Monday we will start to get up at 5am, workout, eat a healthy breakfast, and conquer the world. Well… how many times have you fallen short of your “conquer the world starting Monday” promise? By going meatless on Monday’s you’re actually starting your week out on a positive start! Meatless Mondays are there to say, “Hey, lets have some veggies and a great salad with healthy fats, carbs, etc. and maybe an Iced tea with a lemon instead of our Coca Cola”. This isn’t meant to starve you and have you reaching in your pockets for vending machine money. Meatless Mondays make you think differently. It switches your mindset to having a healthy egg and veggie omelets for breakfast, fruits and veggies as snacks, and some great salads and vegetarian meals (listed at the end of this blog) for lunch and dinner.

• Great for your heart. Okay, so before I did any research on this I kept thinking to myself “I don’t eat red meat so I’m okay. I only like chicken, and that fat free, so it’s heart healthy, right?” Wrong. Although chicken is a great source of lean meats, it is always good to take a day or two off of eating meat. Cutting back on meat decreases your risk of heart disease, can lower cholesterol, and can decrease blood pressure. Studies have found that vegetarians have a 32% lower risk of dying from coronary heart disease than omnivores. Studies have also shown that eating more leafy greens and less red meat can help you live longer.

• It reduces your environmental footprint. Have you ever taken an online quiz to see how large your footprint is? According to EarthDay.org it is a resource that measures how much biologically productive land and sea is used by a given population or activity, and compares this to how much land and sea is available. Basically, how “green” are you. Eating less meat makes you greener! Eating vegetarian, once a week, is using less oxygen and water to produce the meat you love to grill out!

• Lastly, going meatless is fun and easy! Make it something you look forward to. Try out a new recipe once a week! How fun would it be to skip the drive through on Mondays (or any other day of the week if Monday won’t work for you) and stay at home to cook up something really nutritious with a loved one? You don’t have to eat tofu and rice every Monday in order to become vegetarian on Monday’s. Linked below are some really great Meatless Monday recipes!

Try it out, and I know you will not be disappointed. After all, what do you have to loose? Click here for more information and recipes! Give it a go J

http://www.meatlessmonday.com/favorite-recipes/