Paleo so far..

How I feel

Admittedly it is only the beginning of my 3rd week but I thought I would note down what I have been doing and how I feel so far.

The truth is I feel really good I really do have new levels of energy and it is strange not feeling sluggish after eating a meal.

Foods removed

• Bread was no big loss to me as I went off of it a long time ago.
• Potato's seemed hard at first but once I discovered swede wedges and how I can use sweet potato's in my cooking then that is no longer an issue.
• Pasta I think will remain very hard for me... Italian food has been a big part of my adult diet and of course that included pasta. In fact looking back over the last 2 weeks I have hardly had any Italian based food.
• Rice I am going to miss wild rice it was also a big part of my weekly diet.
• Milk in my teens I loved the stuff but as an adult I have always found it a horrible drink and it definitely  aggravated my asthma

The change to my diet

In a way being paleo is a bit like being vegetarian but you can eat meat (a life without meat would not be worth living for me...). I can honestly say I have never eaten so many vegetables and such a variety of vegetables in any given day.

Some of the paleo people I have interacted with on social networks have made attempts to replace rice and pasta using all kinds of combinations but I have decided I am not going to do that, if its not pasta its not pasta.

Breakfast

This seems the most limited meal of the day as so far it has been eggs and something (bacon / veg) or fruit and nuts.

Lunch

This has been a really good meal I have made some lovely soups and salads. I have tried to use tuna in this meal as I want the protein for my exercise.

Dinner

I have really enjoyed the challenge of this, it is actually very easy... it has been very exciting coming up with various combinations of foods. As a hobby chef it has been an invigorating experience to try and think of interesting things to do.

Effects and lessons learned

I have not weighed myself this week (my reference scales live at my parents house) but I have lost weight (5 lbs in the first week) and possibly a bit more since. My shape has changed a lot, suddenly all the hard work I do with weights is showing.

Happily friends and family have also noticed and commented so that is really pleasing. I am probably going to be forced to replace my jeans / trousers as my waste line shrinks :)

As I mentioned above my energy levels are really good and I do not feel sluggish after eating. It has had no impact upon my exercise regime either so I am really pleased about that.

When you tell people what you are doing they think you are mad, I prefer to think of it as being more aware of what I am putting into my body.

I will remove sweetcorn (I only had it twice in 2 weeks) I guess in my mind it was a vegetable I just didn't think!

So overall I am eating more vegetables and I have had some really nice meat and fish!

The Future...

I can see that I am going to stick with this, the paleo diet is not a diet it is a lifestyle and I have changed mine. I have been convinced scientifically by the likes of Kurt Harris http://www.archevore.com and Robb Wolf http://robbwolf.com/ This is not a fad it is how I am going to live my life with confidence it is scientifically correct.

I plan to do more of the following:

• Source the best food I can
• Try to become more seasonal
• Gather some of the foods that are freely available growing around us (I already do this with fruits for my wine making (for my purposes cave men ate fermenting fruits and I am not giving up this hobby))
• Cook with fire (Will be gathering wood) although this will only be at weekends due to time constraints
• Add a bit more exercise into my regime.

The bottom line

Going paleo has been a great experience and I will be continuing with it. If anyone reads this and you are thinking about doing it then I would recommend you research it properly but definitely do it.