Eating Paleo, otherwise known as the hunter-gather diet, is one of the top food trends
and its popularity continues to rise among men and women. Paleo diets are based on a simple premise—if the cavemen didn’t eat it, you shouldn’t either. Therefore no refined foods grains, sugars or oils, dairy and legumes. Instead the diet focuses on grass fed meats, wild fish, vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds and healthy fats, such as olive and coconut oil. Jennifer Fugo, founder of the Gluten Free School and Philadelphia Magazine's “Gluten Free Guru”, shares with us ten tips for going Paleo.
The Paleo Diet often feels like a huge mountain to climb... "It's so hard! I don't think I can do it," people will often lament. Truthfully, anything is life is hard once you've decided that it is. Though there are some diets that do take more energy and preparation to be successful at (like the Specific Carbohydrate Diet), I've personally found eating Paleo isn't all that difficult.
I'd spent the last 6 years eating gluten-free because I was diagnosed with a sensitivity to it and other food proteins like casein and eggs in early 2008. The first year of eating gluten-free was a lesson in how not to eat because I ended up with Adrenal Fatigue and Candida from the uber-processed, packaged gluten-free foods (that didn't taste all that good anyway).
As a result of choosing to handle my health from a more holistic approach, I used food, lifestyle changes and supplements to get my body back on track. Since then, I've been working to refine my diet year after year to become more whole. It's also been a mission of mine to kick my lifelong addition to carbs and sugar that was a byproduct of growing up in a traditional Italian home. Though my family made everything from scratch, my meals were always heavy on bread and pasta since as early as I can remember.
In March 2013, I went to Paleo FX and through a series of events had the pleasure of meeting Robb Wolf's right-hand, Chris Williams (aka. Squatchy). As he and I shared our rather similar stories and health issues, he encouraged me to give Paleo a try since it worked wonders for his health. After reading up on how to make the transition feel less overwhelming and restrictive, I took a slow and mindful approach to phasing out the final Paleo offenders from my diet - legumes and grains.
To my surprise, I react strongly to legumes and feel much better when I don't eat grains. The really neat side effect came after 3 weeks of eating Paleo -- I had ZERO sugar cravings anymore. I felt much more focused and even-keeled with energy that would wake me up at 5:45 am ready to start my day. It wasn't a struggle to keep myself from eating old "gluten-free" treats and the occasional GF junk because I literally felt no desire at all to eat it. It's the first time I can honestly say that I felt fully content with what I was eating in general as well as directly after eating a meal.
What further amazed me is that I wasn't really doing any extra cooking. If chili called for beans, I'd add more veggies instead (frozen veggies work wonders for this). If rice or quinoa seemed like a natural fit for dinner, I'd swap them out for a sweet potato or cauliflower rice (which cooks in less than 10 minutes). I kept romaine lettuce on hand so I could always make wraps filled with roasted meat, fish, avocado and other veggies. And I made sure that my fruit bowl was loaded with pears, apples and berries so that I didn't have to scrounge around to find something that would work. A snack or treat was only moments from my fingertips.
Here are 10 tips that I found made the transition much easier:
1. Plan out your meals for the week with the intention to cook a ton on one day a week (Sunday was my day). Create a grid with what will be eaten and when. Then write out all the steps you'll need to remember (like "Take the meat out on Tuesday AM to defrost.") so you eliminate the possibility of forgetting to do them.
2. Freeze additional servings for when you're short on time to cook. With the exception of fish, pretend there are 2 or 3 extra people in your house you've got to cook for. Freeze those servings in single serving containers.
3. Focus on protein and veggies. I know eating paleo is so much more than that, but when you're eating out, it makes picking a meal so much easier. I look for the salads and then get a piece of fish or meat.
4. Eat a bigger lunch. You'll be less likely to get hungry at 3 or 4 pm and start looking for something you shouldn't eat.
5. Keep your freezer stocked with frozen veggies, cauliflower rice (see recipe below) ready to go, meat and fish.
6. Breakfast can be leftovers. You don't necessarily have to eat sweet foods or traditional breakfast foods for breakfast. It's just a time slot for eating. In challenging my own clients to lose the sweets for breakfast, many felt better and more energized during the day, had few cravings for sugar and even lost some weight.
7. Keep recipes and the components of your meals simple. For a starch, have baked sweet potatoes on hand which are delicious with ghee and sea salt.
8. Stock up on herbs and spices. Boring food can't happen when you flavor it.
9. Add more fat to meals. Get creative and give avocado, coconut oil, nuts and seeds a try! Avocado is great added to a soup or salad. Coconut is wonderful to cook with while nuts and seeds are highly versatile.
10. Don't be afraid of left overs. A person who hates leftover is bound to cook a lot. By portioning out your food for a few meals, you can have healthy, Paleo "fast food" without all the effort.
Simple Cauliflower Rice
1 head cauliflower, rinsed & florets removed
1 medium onion, diced
2 Tbs extra virgin olive oil
½-1 tsp garlic powder
Sea salt
Black pepper
Add cauliflower in batches to a food processor and process until the cauliflower becomes a rice-like consistency.
Once that step is done, heat olive oil in a pan over medium and add onion. Cook onion for 3-4 minutes, until translucent.
Add in cauliflower rice, toss and then cover the pan for 8-10 minutes until cauliflower softens. Remove from pan and season to taste.
NOTE: To prep this recipe ahead of time, dice up onions and keep them in a freezer bag. Process the cauliflower to a rice-like consistency and then store it as well is a separate freezer bag. Store both in the freezer. When you are ready to make this recipe, simply add the frozen component to a pan and cook. There's no need to defrost them.
Short Bio:
Jennifer Fugo is the founder of Gluten Free School, a website dedicated to teaching gluten-sensitive individuals commonsense, simple and powerful steps to get healthy. She’s a certified Health Coach named a “Gluten Free Guru” by Philadelphia Magazine who created the popular “Gluten-Free Sugar Cleanse” to teach gluten-free folks how to experience positive physical changes through commonsense sugar reduction.
Jennifer is sought after expert for news contributions about healthy, gluten-free living as well as a speaker and avid blogger who has been featured on Doctor Oz, Yahoo! News, eHow, CNN, Huffington Post and Philadelphia Magazine. In early 2014, Jennifer will release her first book called “The Savvy Gluten-Free Shopper: How to Eat Healthy without Breaking the Bank” to be available in both hardcopy and electronic formats.