Clarifying my Diet

When I first started to change my diet I was really unsure on what I was doing as I had started out following the Body Transformation plan that my neice was following (but that was based on also doing a ton of exercise) and then drifted towards Paleo but even within that there seemed like a lof of variation. So being a bit further along now and having read a lot more information I now have a very clear idea of what I am doing.

• Grains – avoiding completely. All bread, pasta, rice, noodles, anything made with flours from these grains. Corn unfortunately falls into the grain category
• Legumes – avoiding completely. This includes peas and peanuts both of which are legumes. This makes me sad – I always thought of beans as being the healthy alternative to ‘bad’ foods like bread
• Sugar – I’m completely avoiding refined sugars but occasionally having small amount of manuka active honey or agave syrup in certain recipes
• Dairy – Avoiding in general with the exception of organic butter. I will however occasionally have some as a treat on some recipes
• Artificial Sweetners – avoiding completely. No diet coke, no squash (still weaning myself off this), no sweetners in tea etc
• Alcohol – avoiding completely
• Fruit – limiting to 1-2 portions a day for the most part due to the high fructose / carb content

Further Clarification on Dairy

Dairy is a neolithic food. It was not available to humans until the advent of agriculture. However the paleo community is quite split in regard to dairy. One camp will avoid it completely and others enjoy it in abundance. Dairy is high in protein in fat and is generally extremely low in carbs. Milk has some carbs but I don’t drink milk anyway so not an issue for me.

The reason for the split appears to be a couple of factors. Firstly there is great variation on the tolerance level to dairy in individuals. It is suggested that as many of 80% of the population is at least somewhat intolerant to dairy (and that does not necessarily mean lactose intolerant). The only way to know for sure is to completely eliminate it for a full 30 days and then to re-introduce it and test the results. I may try this experiment at some point in the future but right now I am still working towards doing everything else and dairy doesn’t seem to have any obvious effect on me.

The second factor is that for those people looking to build muscle, many have found that adding dairy in with other sources of protein & fat alongside heavy lifting produces better results than just meat / fish / eggs alone.

Carb Levels

A pure Paleo diet does not restrict carbohydrates. I could eat a massive bowl of mashed potato followed by 3 bananas and that’s ‘paleo’ but it is not going to help me with my secondary goal of losing body fat. It’s suggested that the leaner and more sensitive you are to insulin, the more carbohydrates you can get away with but if you are overweight (particularly more than 30lbs – I’m just about right on the line there) then you are most likely insulin resistant and a lower carbohydrate diet will be recommended to dump the extra fat.

I found a really cool article on Mark’s Daily Apple that explained just how many carbs should be eaten depending on your body type and your goals. 50-100 grams a day is recommended for effortless weight loss. Note that calories is not mentioned here. Mark recommends simply eating when you are hungry and eating until you are full and focusing on the quality of what you eat rather than the calories. Last week I mentioned that I was going to track the carbs and protein content of what I was eating and I could clearly see just how quickly carbs in potatoes & fruit can add up. This week I have naturally cut back (without feeling deprived) and most days I seem to be sitting it around 80g of carbs which is where I want to be. I’ll check the results on my weigh in and possibly tweak from there.

Protein

I actually only added the protein tracking today with the exception of breakfast. Many people have a protein deficient breakfast of toast, cereal, oatmeal, pancakes etc and these style of breakfast often have no protein at all. Over the last few days I have been experimenting with having a high protein breakfast – over 40g in that one meal. An example is 2 sausages, 2 rashers of bacon, 2 eggs and a few tomatoes – that works out at a whopping 47g of protein and only 5g carbs. This keeps me full for at least 4 hours and I just don’t need to snack all day.

One thing worth mentioning is Whey Protein. Whey is dairy so it’s not Paleo but it’s so widely used in the body building community that I started to use it fairly consistently in a morning smoothie. But this was not working too well. I was often hungry within a couple of hours and then snacking throughout the day. Why? I was getting almost 30g of protein in a single smoothie so why was it not working? Two reasons as I have now discovered – firstly any liquid food is problematic in two ways. The more processed a food is (liquid being the ultimate in processing) the more of an insulin load that it has so liquid food will spike insulin. Secondly, when you chew your food it sends messages to the brain that you are eating so you naturally begin to feel full. Drinking does not have this effect so liquid foods don’t fill you up as much as solid whole food. But to add to that problem, apparently whey protein in general also causes an insulin spike. So, I have nixed the smoothies!

The recommended intake of protein is roughly 1g of protein per day per 1lb of lean body mass. Many people do not know their actual body mass so people often just state to use lbs of body weight. However I do know mine and it’s just under 100. I went back over the last few days food log and tracked what I had eaten and strangely enough it has come out at almost exactly 100g of protein a day so it seems like I’m on track there.

Paleo Foods To Consume in Moderation

Nuts and fruit are both Paleo and many people get a reasonable amount of their dietary fat from nuts but this can easily go a little too far. For example I have now found a ton of rather good looking recipes for cookies, cakes and all sorts of desserts! These are mainly made with nut flours (such as coconut flour), nut butters, dried fruits, cocoa powder etc. Whilst all of these ingredients are Paleo, when smooshed together and made into these kinds of foods it packs an absolute ton of calories into a small amount of food. Not only that but fruit has a high level of fructose (which raises insulin) and excess nuts can cause gut irritation in some people.

So, should these foods be eaten? The conclusion I have come to on this is that for someone who needs to lose fat then these foods should be avoided. Once the fat is gone they could be enjoyed in moderation as a treat. I don’t consider them a cheat because they are paleo. Saying that, I intend to make some sickly sweet cocoa-nut balls in a couple of days time! Why? Because it’s Christmas and if I have to choose between Fererro Rocher (laden with refined sugar and wheat flour) or these high calorie but paleo treats, I’m going to take the Paleo option! I figure it’s the lesser of two evils! If I had willpower of iron (mine if more like cotton wool), I’d just resist entirely. Maybe next year!

So that’s a treat, what about a cheat? There are times, mainly social occasions, where I am going to have to choose between my diet and my friends and family. I could not imagine going to a restaurant and paying good money for just a bit of steak & salad that I could easily eat at home. On these occasions I will blatantly cheat and simply eat what I want and then I’m done. In general I would rather cheat when eating out so that once the meal is done there is no further temptation though if I was to really feel the need to cheat then I might cook something at home. So far though, in around 3 weeks I’ve not had any cravings and have not felt the need to cheat so that’s all good!

So What AM I Eating?

Meat, fish, eggs, vegetables, a little fruit mainly. One of my issues with a restrictive diet like this is that I get bored easily and enjoy variety. Not everybody is like me and men especially can often eat the same thing day in, day out and be quite happy. That would drive me insane! So at the moment I am spending lots of time (too much probably) reading blogs and recipe books trying to come up with more and more varieties of meals to eat.