paleo for weightloss

[yumyumpoppycat]

Was sorting out some books to take back to the library and found Chris Kresser's your personal paleo Diet. It pretty much fell open on the weight loss page - seemed to be a sign! Soooo enough messing around and procrastination, on the wagon off the wagon, I just need to get my head down and just plow on and lose weight....

Is anyone up for doing paleo or a similar diet with a focus on weightloss?

These are the additional rules, or I guess a good starting point before adding in usual paleo 'rules' :
Eat more protein
Don't snack
Go dairy free
Reduce calorie density by eating more veg
Eat all food within an 8 hour window

and one more for me - in bed by 11.

Will update but be great if others join in!

It does get to be a drag sometimes and tbh some m&S ready meals are prob not that bad once in a while. I do remember once totally finding it impossible to find anything I could buy there for lunch that didn't have sugar added though. I keep meaning to make up some meals for the freezer, it would be lovely to have a well stocked freezer of goodies (my freezer is the opposite of this one - ice cubes stray peas and random ice lollies).

autoimmune-paleo.com/create-your-own-breakfast-skillet/ 'Skillets' are another one pan option. I kind of did this in my frying pan this morning with kale, tomatoes, eggs and grated some cheese on at the end.

Sorry just to say if you use the options she suggests (salmon, leftover meat, cauliflower, squash etc) it would be a reasonably quick dinner instead of breakfast.

Also on getting ahead if you grate a large enough cauliflower for rice you can divide it into portions and bag and freeze it then dry fry a portion at a time in the pan.

I've been looking at 'the clothes make the girl' a lot over the past couple of days, i'm going to follow her whole 30 week 1 plan for next week, do the planning, shopping and cooking at the weekend for the whole week and see how it goes. I'm already embracing the cooking more to create leftovers policy, today had honey mustard chicken and leftover cauliflower rice with some extra salad for lunch, delicious and filling.

Oooh that looks like a really helpful website Charlie, going to check that out some more. Love the idea of nerdy neat stackable tupperware - I got this pyrex with plastic lid Amazon a couple of weeks ago and it is great as you could marinate in the fridge then take the glass dish to the oven then leftovers back in fridge then stick it in the dishwasher afterwards.

Cooking from scratch every night can be daunting at the beginning but I promise it will get easier once you learn your way and your personal 'cheats'. I find the pressure cooker and oven are fab! Frozen veg is marvellous when in a rush, especially roasted -home grown or otherwise; minute/sandwich steaks, braising/stewing beef cut in thin slices, diced chicken cook in minutes. A small range of homemade stockcubes, such as thai green paste, onion/carrot/celery blend, reduced stock...make for instant flavour. Peppers can be roasted whole, wait 'till cooled, peel (if you choose) and chop; add olive oil and lemon juice, store in the fridge for up to a week (great on its own or to add to dishes). Sweede, celeriac and butternut squash can be peeled all at once, chopped and use when needed from the fridge.

It has been so hot recently and children would be children! :)
On top of the staple frozen fruit and cold coconut milk whizz ice-cream, I found a new way to feed my never-ending hungry teenage ds (dh alike ): pistacho ice-cream.

Ingredient
1 ripe largish avocado
100g (when shelled, approx 200g shelled) unsalted pistacho
juice of 1/2 lemon ( to minimise browning)
juice of 1 orange
a splash of vanilla or almond essence

Method
Blitz all together with a miniprimer or food processor. Place in the freezer for up to 1 hour. :) If your children are still getting used to the less sugary taste, a little honey will do the trick!

If you have a chocolate fan, replace pistacho with 100g of melted chocolate (70% +) and add 1 more juiced orange.

Oh my goodess I might have to try making that Favadi, I have recently discovered I love pistachios! I was expecting to see some coconut or almond milk in the recipe though, you haven't missed it off have you? Sorry if not!

I've bought some huge flat mushrooms and beef mince today. I am going to have a go at making paleo burgers with mushroom 'buns'! I tried to buy ready-made fresh burgers but even the posh ones had bread and rusk in them. Grr!

Well I've done the big shop and cook up for week 1 and we just sampled the chocolate chilli - delish. I had mine over roasted squash.

Favadi I love pistachio ice cream, will have to wait a few weeks though I guess.

Charlie it must be kind of a relief to follow a plan like that and be told exactly what to cook and how to do it How has the last day or two gone?

I have had a bit of a run in with dds frozen birthday party cake and cookies this weekend .... on a good note, the homemade stuff was sooo much nicer than shop goodies so I felt quite pleased about that. Think I am back on track now.

I'm not sure it's going to work perfectly for me tbh. I think I'm going to have to put some of it in the freezer, I'm just not a person who likes eating the same food over and over. I took chicken, veg and some of the sunshine sauce for lunch yesterday and last night used some of the browned mince to make a quick coconut curry, leftovers for lunch today, but I still seem to have far too much food left, loads of chilli, a helping of osso bucco from Sunday, slow roast pork, more chicken......I'm going to make pad Thai tonight.

I've been feeling very tired over the past few days, I may not have been eating enough so yesterday I made a determined effort to eat more and it helped. I think getting the balance right when you cut right down on carbs is tricky, for me anyhow.

How is everyone going on the losses?

Charlie that's a shame but at least you have a full freezer.

Do you think maybe you are in ketosis, that can dull the appetite and always makes me more tired? Hope you are feeling better now.

Chris Kresser seems to be an advocate for adding some food back in when you start to feel not so good on paleo, you need to do it slowly and keep a food diary though. Guess you could do that at the end of the whole 30?

I will weigh myself on sat I had lost about another 2lbs on Saturday but i will be happy if I weigh the same this Sat. Hope everyone else is doing well

Oh by the way everybody white potaoes are now officially allowed on whole 30 and a few other paleo plans!

I read that about potatoes yum but I'm still not going to start eating them again! I haven't missed them at all, I think I only ate them out of the habit of putting some carbs on the plate to fill me up. I think they're only nice with butter, gravy, cheese etc anyway whereas I enjoy sweet potatoes on their own!

I think they are probably still out for followers of autoimmune paleo because of being nightshades.

Other news; my DH did the whole 30 for just one day and then watched 'Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead' and immediately ordered a juicer to follow that diet instead. He is incredibly suggestible! He says he will go back to paleo after 30 days juice fasting.

Also, I went to hospital for a routine appointment today and two of the staff remarked that they didn't recognise me at first. Woohoo!

Riffy I'm the opposite, not really a huge sweet potato fan but my family is Irish so I was brought up on spuds .. love em... plain new potatoes with a pinch of salt yum

at your dh jumping over to juice diet, I wanted to do the same thing tbh when I saw that documentary but dh put his foot down ... we have too many gadgets: slow cooker, bread machine, food processor, spiraliser, blender, stick blender, hand held whisker thing

Oh well done on transformation too riffy!

Thanks! I know what you mean about gadgets, there's very little room on our worktops now. I could really do with an all-in-one high speed blender/food processor/juicer! And now you've reminded me that I want a spiraliser, so I'll probably order one and have even less room!

I saw that about white potatoes being ok for whole 30 but I'm not missing them either. Agree about the gadgets, never before has my food processor been in use every day, sometimes being washed up and used more than once during preparing the same meal, I'm a chopping and spiralising machine these days! Fancy a take away?

Well done on your progress all!

How's everybody doing? I am more or less on track but I need to eat more veg.

Am feeling fed up and bad motherish today [blue]

Has anyone got any ideas for something lovely I could make for dinner for dp and I, will do the children their favourite to have as a sep tea so its a no stress dinner!

Well I don't think you can beat a nice juicy steak with mushrooms and onions and green veg (the other day I steamed asparagus and wrapped them in parma ham - yum!)

I started a thread in chat that has involved a bit of paleo discussion if anyone's interested, it's been really interesting www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/2140079-Aargh-the-NHS-are-still-demonising-saturated-fats-and-promoting-low-fat-diets?msgid=48475210 I didn't intend it to turn into a paleo lecture but other people mentioned it first!

Oooh yes steak good idea - not too much cooking. Also love the idea of parma asparagus - could be a meat feast!

Will check out the discssion

Phew! I might need to wait until the dc are in bed to read that thread - and give it full attention.

I've read through it, stay strong Riffy, you're doing a grand job but so far i'm staying out of it, there are vipers out there!

I have a question re coconut milk - do you go out of your way to get stuff which doesn't have any emulsifiers in it, do you believe guar gum is a problem? I hadn't thought about it before, any coconut milk I used just went into a curry and texture wasn't therefore an issue, but now I'm using it for other purposes it seems to matter more and I've discovered that the one I really like for it's smooth silky texture (waitrose organic) contains guar gum. The Biona organic one doesn't, but it's very unpleasant in texture to me, very obviously separated. If I should avoid guar gum, I would have to go back to just using in cooking I think.

some people seem to get more angry when discussing diet than I do. I put that down to the mood improvements I've experienced through paleo

I think you have to pick your battles sometimes when choosing products, Charlie. It's not easy to find coconut milk with nothing else in it. I just turn a blind eye to the guar gum (what the heck is it anyway?). Texture wise I like Reggae Reggae coconut milk from Home Bargains - Aldi's does that horrible separating that you mentioned.

I don't think you need to worry but apparently its really easy to make coconut milk. You soak desiccated coconut in hot kettle water, blend it then strain it. Its on my todolist. Off to get steak now as dp is home!

I'm not making coconut milk, I've given up all forms of ready made food and take away, cooking everything from scratch and work full time and don't have a cleaner. I'm going with the guar gum!