CT FM 016: The Ultimate Guide To Going Paleo

CT FM 016:

The Ultimate Guide to Going Paleo Brought To You By: RecipeThis.com

Introduction Welcome to our sixteenth Podcast from CT FM. Today I wanted to talk to you about going Paleo. I remember when I first discussed it with my mum (who I may add has spent most of her life attached to processed foods style diets) and she asked if it was the raw foods diet and when I said it wasn’t she assumed it was a modern version of the Atkins diet.

I tried explaining the rules to her of going Paleo and she still didn’t get it and in the end I ended up giving up.

Though the compliments of how much weight I had lost and how healthy I looked helped me get over my frustrations!

But the thing is most people just don’t get it. They don’t get what Paleo means, what it can do to their health and how just because you are following Paleo doesn’t mean that you are looking for weight loss.

A lot of the time it is just about re-conditioning your body and eating the food that we should all eat if we are not kidnapped by the powerful adverts that we often watch on the TV from the brands that want us to eat their processed foods.

For us though we changed one bit at a time. We didn’t go from eating lots of canned and frozen produce to suddenly cooking fresh everyday. It was a gentle progression. Having said that we still have a soft spot for a few non-Paleo foods and for this reason we stick to a 75% Paleo way of life. This means that 75% of our plates are full to bursting with Paleo foods and shows that you can make a huge difference with just small changes.

Health experts have said that just by reducing our processed foods in our diet that we can make a huge impact on our lives.

So listen away (or read away if you are accessing the transcript or the blog post) while I explain to you all about Paleo and why we should all follow the Paleo way of life!

The Ultimate Guide To Going Paleo If you are reading this you will be able to see the infographic to the sides as it is huge. If not you can access it at recipethis.com/gopaleoinfographic.

The starting point of Paleo is that it bans (or asks you to limit) the consumption of certain foods. These include:             

Processed Foods Grains Beans, Peas & Pulses Refined Oils Soy Refined Sugar White Flour Artificial Sweetner Alcohol Dairy Fast Food White Potatoes Soft Drinks

The items on Paleo that it loves us to have are:      

Fruits & Vegetables Meat & Fish & Seafood Nuts & Seeds Eggs Healthy Oils Natural Sugars

 Healthy Cooking Aids It is up to you how seriously you take Paleo. Whether you follow it just a little bit or follow it 100%. There are many people like me out there that follow it the majority of the time. We still love our chocolate or our wine, we like to eat out without freaking out over the ingredients in the food that they order or they want to enjoy a real slice of bread every now and again.

Stage 1 – Quit the processed foods I always say that the first stage is to quit as much processed foods as you can.

Think about all those processed foods that you are currently eating and think about how you can change things and how you can improve your diet.

The next time you go to the supermarket and would normally buy cans of baked beans in tomato sauce to go on top of your jacket potato, imagine making something yourself at home instead. You could have a vegetable ragu over a baked sweet potato. It is so delicious and so much better for you. Or if you want simplicity from a can that is good for you have a can of tinned tuna in a coconut sauce over a butternut squash.

Another really big point is how much better you are going to be financially. Branded foods do end up costing a lot more money than making things yourself. We noticed a 15% drop in our grocery shopping when we swapped the processed foods for extra meat, fish and vegetables.

Stage 2 – Quit the things that are not your favourite foods This should probably actually be stage 1 but with stage 1 having the best effect on your health I thought I would put this here. Well look at the banned food list above and just think about anything on it that you would get over it if it never passed your lips again. Forget the chocolate

and the wine I think we will all miss those but read between the lines of the silly things we have as part of our diet that don’t really matter but still have a bad affect on our bodies.

For us we gave up the beans, sweetcorn, peas and pulses. We also didn’t have any refined oils, soy or artifical sweetners in our diets so that part was easy! Plus we hardly drink anyway so that part wasn’t going to be an issue.

We would have the odd can of peas and beans in our cooking but it wasn’t something that we obsessed about, it was just a way to bulk up a meal. Sweetcorn we probably had whenever we had tuna just because tuna and sweetcorn went so well together!

Dominic and I had a conversation not so long ago about why we don’t bother with these at all. So I mentioned that if was going to have something that wasn’t Paleo that I would rather it be a tub of Ben & Jerry’s than some boring mushy peas.

So look through the list and think about the foods that you have for the sake of it, rather than because you want it and ditch them first!

Stage 3 – Your Problem Areas Now the next thing to do is to target your problem areas.

For us what was left was all problem areas. When you go out shopping and you always have a McDonalds and you can’t get through a day without bread and butter, Diet Coke, fries and love homemade cookies then you have a problem.

But if you work at them a step at a time it is so much easier. I have gone over a year now without any buttery toast whatsoever. This doesn’t mean that I don’t have bread at all because I do. But it is not as often as it used to be and I can often go a month without it and not miss it at all.

I also swapped my favourite cheese sauce with loads of flour and butter in it for making it with cauliflower instead. This I have not missed at all.

Plus I absolutely love sweet potatoes and butternut squash therefore I am not upset if I miss out on the odd white potato then so be it!

I have learnt that I will never fix my chocolate and soft drink obsession.

Its my vice and when you have given everything else up you have to have something good to look forward to. So I have cut down. I have gone from a huge chocolate habit to a small dark chocolate one. Then in the summer I stay away from the supermarket freezers and just have about 3 Ben & Jerry tubs over the summer rather than one per week. My fizzy drinks addiction has also gone down to about 1 a day instead of 3, so I am slowly improving.

But that is what is so great about going Paleo and that is doing it one step at a time and not feeling the pressure to be perfect.

Stage 4 – Bulk Up With The Good Stuff The most important thing is to get as much of the good stuff as you can. Some of it you will hate and it doesn’t mean you have to eat all of it. Dominic for one hates seafood with a passion where as me and my eldest son is allergic to nuts.

But there are a lot of foods that we really, really love.

We love our fresh fruit, have a lot of fresh vegetables, couldn’t imagine life without our meat and have an addiction to coconut milk and coconut oil. We love to have delicious homemade casseroles in our slow cooker

that are full of meat and vegetables and without Paleo we would have never known about cauliflower rice or other similar products.

The next time you make dinner for you and your family just think about how you could increase the vegetables further on your plate and how much nicer you could cook the vegetables so that they don’t feel like this bland and boring thing that your grandparents made you eat when you were growing up!

Stage 5 – New Favourite Foods When you look at what you can have on Paleo it comes back to the list that I mentioned earlier.

You have:       

Fruits & Vegetables Meat & Fish & Seafood Nuts & Seeds Eggs Healthy Oils Natural Sugars Healthy Cooking Aids But really think about those things and how you can have them in your diet more and how they can replace what you had before.

For me it was after going Paleo that I first discovered how amazing honey is. I had never had it before then and when I have a sweet tooth craving it is perfect. I use it a lot in cooking and it gives me the sugar kick

that I was always missing out on before.

I also loved the idea of going onto cocoa powder that was organic and completely natural as a new way for baking. Just like coconut products are perfect for making your cooking interesting.

When you adapt to Paleo you will realise how much healthier you feel but also how you are getting your body needs from an alternative source. For example having avocado in my diet instead of saturated fats not only got rid of my cravings but made me feel amazing.

The Podcast Sponsor For the Podcast sponsor for October 2016 and Podcast number 16 we wanted to introduce you to the giveaway we are running with the Inspiralizer products. It was the best introduction to our Paleo lifestyle having a Spiralizer and this is the industry favourite.

Without a spiralizer you find that you really miss out not having pasta and you need that Plan B in order to enjoy your food and get the most out of it.

In this giveaway you get the chance to win the Inspiralizer machine as well as three different ebooks to get you started with your new bit of kit.

You can find out more by going to recipethis.com/inspiralizergiveaway.

5 Things That Every New Paleo Enthusiast Needs To Know So you have listened or read my Podcast and you have heard other comments about the idea of going Paleo. But you of course still have some unanswered questions. Well I have put together 5 things that I believe we all should know before going Paleo that has maybe been left out in the past: 1) Find food substitutes – If you change your diet you suddenly drop loads of things from it and after a couple of weeks you will get

bored. Instead find really nice replacements and get into enjoying healthy food.

2) Explore some great recipes – We have published quite a few Paleo recipes now on our blog and we are adding more by the day. Have a look through our Paleo recipes category and I am sure you will have some great ideas of what you can cook that is also Paleo approved.

3) Are you into Paleo for weight loss – well this is an important question to ask yourself because if you are then you want to take calories into account. You cant be having 6 cans of coconut milk everyday because it is still a high calorie food. Just like oils and avocados are too. So if weight loss is your plan still have all these but don’t over do it.

4) We are not perfect – If you have gone from takeaways every day to suddenly never having a takeaway again it can be a hard thing to achieve. Look at baby steps first until you feel comfortable with yourself and don’t feel guilty if you have a sly slice of bread and butter.

5) Do it as a family – we for us this was the most important thing.

Our kids have a 60% Paleo way of life and are not as strict as us as we like to give them cows milk, Greek yoghurt and for them to enjoy their chocolate and sweets. But they still have the most vegetables they have ever eaten and they understand that processed foods is bad for them and that they must drink lots of water and never have cordial anymore.

That’s A Wrap Thanks for listening to our Podcast and don’t forget to take part in our giveaway where you can have the opportunity to win a fantastic inspiralizer and lots of ebook goodies.

You can sign up by going to RecipeThis.com and heading to the marketplace where we share the latest giveaway events with you!

Paleo has changed the way that we eat and we hope that you too have a great transformation into a new healthy you!

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