Part-Time Paleo: How to Go Paleo Without Going Crazy - Softcover

Ely, Leanne

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0142180661 ISBN 13: 9780142180662

Publisher: Plume, 2014

Synopsis

This refreshing diet and nutrition book proves that going Paleo does not have to be a full-time job!

Paleo is today’s fastest-growing food trend, and while it has many benefits, getting started can be intimidating and confusing. In Part-Time Paleo, nutritionist and New York Times bestselling author Leanne Ely helps remove those obstacles as she teaches you how to:
   ·  Equip your kitchen for success
   ·  Stock your pantry, fridge, and freezer for quick and easy meals
   ·  Simplify your life with menu plans, grocery lists, and serving suggestions
   ·  Harness the magic of your slow cooker
   ·  Make dozens of delicious gluten-and dairy-free recipes
Part-Time Paleo makes going Paleo fun, easy, and delicious.

About this title

About the Author

Leanne Ely, CNC, is a nutritionist and author of six published books, most notably the New York Times bestselling Body Clutter and the Saving Dinner series. She writes “The Dinner Diva” column which is syndicated in 250 newspapers and runs the savingdinner.com site. She also contributes to Marla Cilley’s Flylady.net.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

There are many thank-yous to be given here, and I know I will invariably forget someone (please forgive me!).

First off, thank you to my amazing staff—Daniel, Sally, Angela, Cara, and the entire menu-writing team.

And of course, thank you to Jaime, whose editing and writing keeps the machine rolling!

Thank you to Jenae, my fabulous assistant, for always being on top of everything!

A special thank-you to my coach, Cameron Herold, who pushes me hard to be my best.

And to my friends and family who lived with my squirreliness throughout yet another book—thanks for putting up with me!

And lastly to my children, Caroline and Peter, and my new son-in-law, Samuel. You inspire me daily and I love you with all my heart.

INTRODUCTION

WHAT IS THE PALEO DIET?

What the heck is this Paleo diet about, anyway? Do you eat nothing but mastodon steaks grilled over an open flame?

I’m a part-time Paleoista myself, so I get asked questions like this all the time. (For the record, there are no mastodon steaks involved in the Paleo diet. But if you find a good source of local, free-range mastodon, let me know. I’ll try anything once!)

The first thing you must understand is that the word Paleo is an abbreviated term referring to the Paleolithic age (but I bet you already knew that). This is the period in history when our ancestors ate what they could hunt, fish, or gather. That is the basis for this diet: meat, fish, eggs, and lots of veggies, berries, and nuts.

MY PERSONAL PALEO JOURNEY

Ten years ago I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, an autoimmune disease that makes you feel depressed, exhausted, and generally miserable. And on top of those less-than-pleasant symptoms, Hashimoto’s causes weight gain. I also have a skin condition called rosacea, which only added to my anguish, making me a cranky, overweight, depressed monster with a red face and pimples. Delightful, no?

I was stuck. I was in a vortex that was sucking me down. Everything was a struggle, and I just couldn’t snap out of my sad, sorry state of mind.

As I researched autoimmune diseases, I kept reading over and over again about the Paleo diet and how it was reducing inflammation and healing people who were suffering from all sorts of autoimmune disorders, all the while helping people to lose weight and feel amazing.

When I first heard about the premise of the Paleo diet, to say I was skeptical is an understatement.

I kept thinking, “Oh, come on! I don’t want to give up bread and beans and potatoes! I’ve already done the low-carb thing—how is this any different?”

But after reading so many success stories, I couldn’t help but think that there was a chance that changing my diet would help me, just like it was helping so many other people. I shifted my thinking, and I gave myself a pep talk: “Leanne, stop thinking about what you have to give up, and start thinking about what you have to gain.”

I threw myself into the Paleo diet. At first it was difficult. I missed bread, rice, and the occasional baked potato. But guess what? Things were starting to change. I started feeling better. I was feeling so good that I wanted to exercise more, which, of course, made me feel even better. I added green juicing to the mix, and I began to feel like a brand-new person.

The inflammation in my body was starting to subside and all of my symptoms were disappearing one by one. After just ten days, my skin was clearing up, I was losing weight, and my blood work was coming back with no areas of concern—and let me tell you, blood work doesn’t lie.

It’s been about eight years since I last wrote a book. Before that, I was writing all the time, keeping my publisher very happy. Nothing has really inspired me to write again like the Paleo diet has. And that’s why you’re reading this very passage. I was so inspired by my own journey that I wanted to share it with you. This is a lifestyle that really, really works.

Now, if you’ve been doing any amount of digging into this way of eating and living, no doubt you’ve come across some pretty hard-core Paleo folks (more on them in Chapter Two). If the idea of eating like this seems too stringent, just relax. There’s a reason I called this book Part-Time Paleo!

I knew this book had to be about incorporating the best parts of the Paleo diet into your lifestyle so that it could be effective and manageable. Because let’s be realistic—we can only do what we can do.

Now that you know that you don’t have to live and die by a strict set of caveman rules, let’s look a little deeper into the science of Paleo.

THE RESEARCH

Research has shown that our hunter-gatherer ancestors were lean, strong, and athletic and that they were afflicted with none of our modern-day maladies, such as diabetes and cancer. Interesting, yes?

Here we are in modern-day North America with our fancy medicine and billions of dollars spent on health care and research, and we are sick. Everyone knows someone with diabetes, cancer, high blood pressure, or heart disease because the Standard American Diet (SAD) is actually substandard. We are not eating enough of the right things (organic produce and grass-fed meats), and we’re eating too much of the wrong things (refined sugar and processed foods).

The physiological signs that we were meant to eat Paleo are right under our noses, literally. Let’s start by looking at our teeth. Our teeth tell us what we should eat. We have a combination of sharp teeth like those of carnivores and flat teeth like those of herbivores. With teeth suitable for both meat and vegetables, it’s clear that we’re omnivores. Lucky us! Omnivores have endless options in the food chain—we can eat meat, fish, veggies, eggs, nuts, and plants because we are naturally equipped to handle these foods. And this omnivorous diet is the wisest and best eating option for humans.

Doctors and nutritionists have been researching how eating Paleo can give us lean, healthy bodies and even reverse disease. There is evidence that a lifestyle based on a Paleo diet is beneficial on a variety of levels.

In my own research, I have found that things like legumes, grains, and processed foods, which were brought to us with the advent of agriculture, aren’t as natural as we’ve been led to believe. These types of foods are actually hard on our bodies and can lead to chronic illness.

Since the agricultural revolution, we have drastically changed our diet to one that is very different from what is natural to our bodies. In his national best seller, Why We Get Fat, Gary Taubes explains, “The modern foods that today constitute more than 60 percent of all calories in the typical Western diet—including cereal grains, dairy products, beverages, vegetable oils and dressings, and sugar and candy—would have contributed virtually none of the energy in the typical hunter-gatherer diet.” This change in diet, Taubes theorizes, may have made us more susceptible to a variety of diseases and dangerous health conditions. Taubes goes on to state that “colon cancer is 10 times more common in rural Connecticut than in Nigeria. Alzheimer’s disease is far more common among Japanese Americans than among Japanese living in Japan.”

The implication is that there is a strong connection between particular diseases and the Western diet—a diet that is very different from the one of our ancient ancestors.

Our Western way of eating is harming us. Our physiology has hardly changed in the past ten thousand years. We digest food the same way our ancestors did. But the “foods” we’re putting into our bodies don’t resemble the foods eaten in Paleolithic times. And it’s this introduction of unrecognizable foods into our bodies that is causing harm. Our cells don’t know what to do with all of the chemicals in foods like margarine and microwave popcorn.

The Paleolithic era is where we first find evidence of stone tools being used—not tools that made things more convenient, but tools they needed so they could eat, period. These tools made it easier to hunt bigger game. Eventually, we became hunter-gatherers who ate mostly meat. Researchers hypothesize that the Paleolithic age is when our genes were shaped. If our most natural state of being comes from this time period, then why don’t we live accordingly?

One of the more interesting things I came across during my research is a study that was done in the 1980s called the Kitava Study. Created by Staffan Lindeberg, MD, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Medicine at Lund University, in Sweden, this study closely monitored the dietary habits of a particular Papua New Guinea tribe (the Kitava tribe). The diet of the Kitava people matched that of our Paleolithic ancestors. What the researchers found over a series of years is remarkable: “Despite a fair number of older residents, none of whom showed signs of dementia or poor memory, the only cases of sudden death the residents could recall were accidents such as drowning or falling from a coconut tree.”* They did not find any accounts of heart disease, nor were there any signs of diabetes, dementia, acne, high blood pressure, strokes, or weight problems!

WHAT DO I ACTUALLY EAT?

So, are you ready to go Paleo and start reaping the benefits? Good. Now, let’s get down to basics.

The basis of the diet is the consumption of anything our hunter-gatherer ancestors might have eaten: meat, fish, eggs, veggies, some fruits, and nuts and seeds. Paleoistas live without dairy, grains, and most legumes. So, you can have steak, but skip the dinner roll. You might be surprised that foods you thought were healthy, like peanuts, chickpeas, and whole grains, are forbidden by Paleoistas, but foods like beef, butter, and wine are A-OK!

When you get to the meals and recipes in this book, you’ll see that we Paleoistas use delicious methods of cooking and add herbs and spices to our food. We enjoy liberal use of olive and coconut oils, balsamic vinegar, and some assorted condiments when appropriate (like Dijon mustard or salsa, for example). Paleo eating is naturally gluten-free and low glycemic. Eggs appear frequently in the diet, as does nitrate/nitrite-free bacon. Did I just hear an amen?

Before you start to panic about what you can and cannot eat, relax! As you adjust to this new way of living (yes, this is a lifestyle and not a diet), I’m going to help you as much as I can. Remember, once upon a time I was in the exact mental place as you are now.

PART-TIME PALEO RULES

Here are the basic rules you will follow as a Part-Time Paleo eater:

   · Skip the dairy. For the most part, anyway. If you have it, have just a little, and make sure it’s quality cheese, aged more than 120 days (to break down the lactose).
   · No. Gluten. Ever. Yes, gluten is evil and will take down your health, pronto. But if you just have to have some pasta, then go with quinoa pasta—just watch your portions (the carb count on quinoa is ridiculous). Carbs break down into sugar, so excessive carbs lead to a sugar overload in your body.
   · Legumes. Legumes aren’t allowed on the Paleo diet because they are full of lectins (read more about lectins on page 6). But if you’re craving split pea soup, go on and sprout those split peas and have ’em. I’ve done this. Just allow those little guys to sprout a couple of days, then make some fantabulous split pea soup. Sprouting grains and legumes destroys their lectins, making them Paleo-friendly. You’re welcome.
   · Potato patrol. Skip the white ones and go for the purple ones, which have much more nutrition. Even so, see No. 2 regarding the quinoa pasta. Same goes for purple potatoes—go easy.
   · Eat veggies! Go crazy and bulk up on as many green veggies as you can, since you won’t be filling up on bread and grains. Watch the starchy veggies and go with lower-glycemic stuff like broccoli, cauliflower, and, of course, dark leafy greens.

PART-TIME PALEO PRINCIPLES

As I mentioned, becoming Part-Time Paleo is about more than just what you eat. It’s a lifestyle based on the following principles:

   · We need to fuel our bodies with nutrients. The best source of nutrients is plants, especially organic local produce that’s in season.
   · Free-range eggs are packed with protein, amino acids, and minerals.
   · Organic, grass-fed, pastured meat is an important protein source. Avoid consuming factory-raised animals.
   · Stress-reducing activities (massage, yoga; use your imagination) are essential to good health and should be done daily.
   · Exercise is important, but it should involve doing activities you enjoy.
   · Rest is an often overlooked key to good health. We need to give our bodies adequate sleep so our hormones function properly.
   · Fruit isn’t as beneficial to the body as vegetables are. Because of its high sugar content, it should be enjoyed in small amounts.
   · Nuts, berries, and seeds contain vital nutrients and should be eaten daily in moderation.
   · Refined sugar, grains, legumes, gluten, and packaged, processed foods are anti-nutrient and should be avoided.
   · Healthy fats like olive oil, coconut oil, grass-fed butter, and avocado do the body good.
   · Vegetable oils are dangerous, man-made fats that should not be consumed by humans or any other living creature.
   · Greek yogurt, kefir, and cheese aged more than 120 days are acceptable forms of dairy, if you can tolerate them. Go easy, if at all.
   · Wine, especially red wine, has prebiotic properties and a great nutritional profile. It should be enjoyed in moderation.
   · Counting calories is meaningless.
   · Probiotics and fermented veggies are beneficial to digestion.
   · Bone broth is chock-full of gut-healing properties and should become a staple in your diet.
   · Be aware of your digestion and elimination.

PALEO VS. PRIMAL

You may hear the words Paleo and Primal used interchangeably, but there are some slight differences between these two diets.

Both Paleo and Primal lifestyles are based on evolutionary science that states that the diet we Westerners are eating nowadays is nothing like what our ancestors ate a hundred thousand years ago. Both the Paleo and Primal lifestyles say that if we eat what our ancestors ate, we’ll be healthier.

Similarities between Paleo and Primal lifestyles include:

   · Eating tons of veggies
   · Eating lots of protein
   · Avoiding grains
   · Eliminating gluten
   · Doing away with corn
   · Avoiding high-fructose corn syrup
   · Avoiding sugar
   ·&nbs...

About this edition

• Publisher: Plume
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0142180661
• ISBN 13: 9780142180662
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 272