The question always is “how to start the Paleo diet”. There is a big difference going from eating out, takeaways, too much booze and processed foods to the new Paleo lifestyle.
This can be a serious culture shock and by running all in on the Paleo lifestyle is likely to make you feel ill, rather than better.
However if you start the Paleo lifestyle one step at a time then you will reap the rewards of starting the Paleo diet much sooner.
I always suggest that you start the Paleo diet by asking yourself the following questions:
How strict is your Paleo life going to be? This is a BIG question to ask yourself. Some people consider themselves to follow the Paleo diet just by quitting processed foods, reducing their booze or only having Paleo baked goods.
Others choose to be Paleo 80% of the time. They are not completely strict as they don’t want a big hassle when they eat out, at the same time they don’t want to eat unhealthy either.
Some want to be super strict for the rewards it will offer their health and others may just make a few small changes.
Decide what you are going to quit – Now you have to ask yourself what you are going to quit, what you are going to have in moderation and what you simply don’t want to give up.
If you’re doing it more for health reasons then weight loss then I would suggest you start by ditching processed foods, reducing alcohol and ditching butter. The butter volume that a lot of us have can have a really negative effect on our heart and our overall body. Processed foods have been damaging us for years and who says you need 2 bottles of wine every weekend?
What percentage of your shopping is currently Paleo? To follow a healthy Paleo diet you have to expect that the majority of what goes in your trolley is meat, fish and vegetables. Followed by fruit, nuts and whatever good fats you need.
As we do our meat shop monthly and our fruit and veg weekly we find that the majority of our weekly shop is vegetables. Dominic did the weekly shop today and brought back loads including 4 cauliflowers, a pack of sweet potato, 3 broccoli, kilo of leeks, 5 kilos of tomatoes and loads of salad bits.
What can’t you live without? Some of us simply have a favorite food that they just can’t live without. Life is short and if this is you, look at how bad it is and look to see if moderation is key instead.
For example if carbs is your thing, go for coconut flour in baking, reduce your bread and only have decent quality and only have pasta once a week.
For us I imagine in the long term we will have more dairy. We may buy Greek yogurt and then use it make puddings rather than relying on coconut milk which we are not too keen on. Or we plan to have dark chocolate (60%) in small quantities rather than ice cream and milk chocolate.
At the end of the day it is always about striking a balance. Find out what you can live with and what you can live without and then making some changes.
Further resources:
Paleo for people that don’t do Paleo – I wrote this blog post as I didn’t see myself as the typical Paleo follower and I wanted to share why I am not alone in this.
Gradual Paleo – This is all about how I did Paleo one step at a time. It shows you that you can start with very small changes and then progress at your own speed.
Paleo Diet Banned Foods List – When you start out the first thing you really want to know is what you can’t have, so I have put together the full list for you!
Paleo Diet Allowed Foods List – Now you have read what you can’t have, here is what you can have. A full list that you can easily print off and then use in your Paleo journey.
