How to make Paleo work for you: Part One

For the last week I've been reading and hear about the difficulties of staying on the paleo diet - i'm always hungry, i'm craving bread, etc.  Remember in today's world, it is not essential that you follow a diet to the "T", this will only lead to a "yo-yo" effect (lose the weight, put the weight back on).  Instead, make some adjustments to the diet in your favour so that it is more sustainable for your lifestyle, it is okay to include items such as dairy or grain (in small amounts) as long as you feel no negative effects.  By tailoring the diet, you will feel a sense of control again with what you are eating.


Few tips provided by Jordan @ Strength Beyond Strength


1. You can strip the rules down to 'Eliminate Grains'. Having had people plug dairy and legumes back into their diet with no noticeable difference I think that so long as you know you don't have an issue with those two items, you're fine. I know that I do, so they stay out.

2. Observe cultural traditions. Trying to force your clients of Asian or East Indian descent to give up rice most likely will not work. There is a deep rooted cultural epicurean tradition there that will not be denied. Particularly as I haven't seen much negative effect from leaving rice in, no reason to make something already difficult emotionally harder.

3. Watch out for substitutions. This bit a bunch of people in the early days. They would knock down the sugar intake and then start eating a pound of fruit a day, replacing one sugar habit with another. Same with with nuts. Eating a quarter pound of almonds a day will not work out well for most people. Many seem to love throwing out phrases like "The more fat I eat the leaner I get!" Yeah, to a degree. Be reasonable. It's useful to be able to recognize catch phrases for what they are.

4. Don't s**t can something that is working. I've noticed a trend of people coming up with excuses to bag Paleo, not because it is not working, but because their will finally broke and they want some damn bread! This is a big one for me, because starting Paleo actually allowed me to not need to be on 3-5 medications for 'unexplained' allergic reactions that ended up being all wheat, sugar, and dairy based. Now if I slide off it hits me like a hammer.

5. It will hit you harder if you lapse. This is common for people who have GI issues or allergic reactions to grains, dairy, or legumes. After you have cleared our your system via Paleo for a while you will be waaaay less tolerant to those things. I had an incident where I had been pretty strict for a few months and then had two beers one night. This caused an inflammatory reaction in my right foot that basically crippled me for the night. No joke. So if you experience something like this it doesn't mean 'Paleo is bad' (see number 4) it means that you're running a lot cleaner now and have less tolerance for poison. We should all have such a horrible problem.