Just eating Good Food: Paleo ish diets

[yumyumpoppycat]

Hi All

New thread for chat and recipes or links to good stuff for those doing whole 30/ Paleo/ Primal/ Clean and Lean or any other diets with a focus on eating good food mainly from scratch or as unprocessed as pos. This basically means fruit, veg, meat, fish eggs and nuts but lots of diets include different grey area foods such as quinoa, rice, dairy and legumes. It is just a case of experimenting to see what works.

Personally I am aiming to ditch the phrase 'fell off the wagon' this year and keep the 80:20 approach in mind, technically this adds up to 73 days or 10 and a half weeks a year of eating the other stuff or grey area foods if we choose too- more than enough to cover birthdays, holidays and lunch with Granny! Mindful eating at these times though.

Some links

whole30.com/
www.marksdailyapple.com/#axzz3TARuKwtI
nomnompaleo.com/
theclothesmakethegirl.com/
www.goingpaleouk.co.uk/
paleomg.com/
robbwolf.com/category/paleo-low-carb/

Hello, I'd like to join in too. Starting paleo ish eating today. Was going to do whole 30 but decided to tackle no grains first. Was wondering how much starchy carbs/fruit you all eat? I need to shift a fair whack of weight but also don't want to eat so low carb that my mood might be affected? I read paleomom and she said sticking to one portion of fruit and one portion of starchy veg (plus other veg) would be about right? Any thoughts on this. Really convinced by paleo but is scary making such a change when nobody in real life around me eats this way! not sure paleo has reached Sciotland yet

Hi chopsaway - how are you finding it so far? Have you tried low carb high fat before? There are pros and cons between starting with low carb high fat or starting slowly by just cutting grains to begin with. I usually cut grains first then reduce other things or go low carb to increase weight loss.

Hi yumyum didn't manage to start today but that is a good question re my "plan" . Having one would be a great idea ??. I think I should start off no grains first then take it from there. I have read a lot on paleo but the one bit I am really unsure of is carbs amount. Don't really know what constitutes low carb nor do I know if I should go for it - it all seems a bit unclear what's best for health. How do you do it? I did try this at the beginning of the year and was astonished by how much less I ate. I was also stunned at how less puffy and bloated my face (and body) was within a day or two. Does this happen to everyone?? . My cheek bones reappeared even though I have about twenty pounds to lose (which I really want to get rid off). I have done sugar free for years as I have a terrible sugar addiction but I think paleo is going to be a great addition for health overall. Hope you are managing ok with your plan x

If you have been sugar free for a while it hopefully shouldn't take long for you to get used to being grain free too! There is some good advice on Marks daily apple about carbs www.marksdailyapple.com/the-primal-carbohydrate-continuum/

My plan changes on a regular basis, I am a diet floozy!According to my graph on my fitness pal I have lost about 24 lbs in the last 6 months and I have pretty much only lost weight when I look at what I eat rather than calories, it has def been up and down and plateaus along the way though! I would like to lose 20lbs more and am aiming for 1.5 lbs a week, I am exercising too which seems to help me keep om track.

I really wouldn't worry about getting 'enough' carbs when eating paleo. It's more likely that you could still have too many if you're trying to lose weight. It's easy to slip into too many tubers, too many dates like me right now.

My experience of mood and low carb is that my mood head very stable during my three months on BIWI's bootcamp. I'm currently maintaining a 27lb weight loss with quite a few carbs but am finding the sugar fairy whispering to me again so must get into LCHF paleo again.

Oh it's T by the way - nc'd as I was sharing before and after photos on another thread.

Photos were to demonstrate the pretty STONKING results on my tum of removing grains and sugar, btw Chopsaway

Thanks for the advice and encouragement paleoish and yum yum. I will have a look at the link and actually might go back to MFP as a way of recording my carbs to try and see what level I am eating. That is reassuring that your mood was ok paleoish. There seems to be a lot written about depression and paleo - it looks like the good fats plus good omega three and six ratios help. My weight also fluctuates depending on how well I manage the sugar addiction. Good to know that if I stick to this my stomach could reduce - it needs to ????. I think lunch and dinner may be ok but breakfast seems tricky. What do you all have?? X

chops you could try without mfp at first and just weigh yourself each morning? Totally up to you though. To be fair I used to enjoy logging when I had an android phone as the app would show bar charts of calories and pie charts of ratios of fat carbs and protein which I found bizarely compelling I tend to categories food into fast weight loss foods - meat and green veg say, moderate foods to be careful with (dates, potato etc) and will cause weight gain foods like cake.

Oh and hi5 paleoish/ T well done on 27lbs!!!

Breakfast this morning was v dairy heavy and I now feel a bit bleugh - coffee with milk, scrambled eggs with grated cheese and butter. I kind of feel like that is a comfort food breakfast, am feeling a bit down in the dumps this morning. Actually I probably just need to have a really big glass of water and get on with some jobs to feel better!

Chops I really need to stock up on things like tinned mackerel, coconut yog, frozen berries, nuts, parma ham and avacado as these make good quick breakfasts too. I would normally have some greenery with my eggs like baby leaf spinach. I might order some liver too as that might give me a boost, I don't like it normally but quite fancy having some with mushrooms for breakfast this week.

yumyum that sounds exactly like the sort of breakfast I need to have. I had forgotten about the coconut yoghurt - i had that earlier this year - as it might be nice blended up with frozen berries? That and parma ham would be great.

I really haven't got my act together yet so I had some sliced turkey this morning with some blueberries/raspberries on the side. It was a start I guess but I need to have more than that. I have just reintroduced coffee again as I felt too flat and depressed without it. I am goign to keep it to a moderate amount as I think I did too much too soon. I don't think dairy agrees with me either though so I need to watch that. I get real cravings for it. I will add the spinach tomorrow too. Also feeling flat and down in the dumps this morning but given that one of the big reasons I am doing paleo is to heal mild depression i should probably get over myself and stop beating myself up about it :-) Thanks for your help, I hope I can support others here too once I get a bit more sorted. It really helps having someone else understanding what you are doing. If I even mention the word paleo i get the 'ooh looks horns on your head' glance....x

Really hope paleo helps chops! Some paleo blogs out there can be a bit too 'perfect', and esp the whole 30 instructions are all or nothing, but surely any healthy changes are a good thing? I am finding exercise really helpful with my mood, I get mildly depressed too , I am on a T25 thread at mo and its helping me stay focused (other than today!)www.mumsnet.com/Talk/exercise/2277900-Anyone-else-starting-a-Beachbody-workout-programme-T25-insanity-etc?

I think AndHarry on the feb whole 30 feb blended frozen berries and coyo and said it was like ice cream! I have been lazy in the past and just let them sit in the yog while I exercised to give it 25 mins to defrost a bit then stirred and mashed the frosty berries in a bit. Your breakfast today sounds like a really good start!

I attempted a whole30 a few months ago but I caught a terrible cold and just curled up in bed for a week, loading up on sugar

I've often looked into paleo, etc but I can't get my head around a non-sweet breakfast. The few days that I managed whole30 was a struggle because I feel queasy eating really savoury food in the morning - all I want is sweetened stodge like porridge or pancakes!

yumyum i decided to get over myself and log my foods on mfp. It is a bit of a pain to do so as feels just like calorie counting again but i realised i won't have to do this bit forever plus i may learn just to guess my amounts.

i have eaten a lot of fruit today and i was astonished to see i am only up to about 76 g of carbs?! I am really hungry right now but yet weirdly ok too. don't have that falling off a blood sugar cliff feeling :-)

You are absolutely right re exercise and I will look at the link. I would really like to try and do some walking the days I dont work to see if that will help. Thanks for your help. It really helped knowing I could log in here today to talk about it. I will come back tomorrow. As soon as I can get some more coyo yoghurt I will try the 'ice cream'.

soontobe how would you feel about berries etc for breakfast. Not sure if it is strictly paleo but you could try a fruit based smoothie?

some of the paleo culture is indeed insanely perfectionistic so I am trying to ignore those voices and focus on the more moderate authors.

see you tomorrow!

chopsaway I like berries and full fat greek yoghurt but it just doesn't fill me up enough. I've been looking at recipes because I can't bear the standard boiled/poached/fried eggs in the morning and I've found a few things including coconut flour pancakes and breakfast burritos using a super thin omelette as a tortilla

the burrito sounds good! i agree that the whole egg thing is a bit off putting. breakfast is definitely going to be the toughest meal to adapt to for me. I will have a look at some more recipes tonight as recently devloped whole new addiction to pinterest

Chops well done

Soontobe the easiest paleo pancakes are a banana, egg, and almond butter mashed together fry small blobs of the mix in butter an sprinkle with cinamon

Totally try coyo www.coyo.co.uk/ way more filling than greek yog (bit expensive though) or mix some coconut oil into greek yog to make it more filling.

I think inanimate posted a recipe for a sort of granola on the old whole 30 feb thread.

Thanks for cheering me on yumyum ?? how did you get on today? Also soontobe I was wondering if some sort of chia seed pudding would work for you? Deliciously Ella has a recipe in her book and possibly online too. Never tried it so for all I know it could taste like an old shoe but might be worth a try ?? I am going to look up some recipes tomorrow for breakfast. I feel a bit better tonight already and weirdly my face looks noticeably less puffy already, how is that possible after day one of no grains??!!

I try to mix up 'traditional' paleo breakfasts (eggs etc) with plain old not-even-pretending-to-be-breakfast leftovers. I had a big piece of salmon this morning with a pot of cherry toms. Sometimes I do a pork mince stir fry (prep veg the night before). Soup is good too.

Chops the puffiness in your face might be worth a thread somewhere where you can ask specifically about it maybe in chat or health as that does sound like a pretty quick reaction? Maybe it is to do with a food sensitivity?

Paleoish that's my plan for tomorrow's breakfast - fried leftover chicken, maybe with an avocado if one is ripe enough.

I know that I am going to need to try non breakfast foods as well. It feels like a leap as I have't done that before but I should hopefully be able to train myself to do so. It is weird that it feels weird if that makes sense as really it shouldn't be. It is just food

I had some slices of ham today and then some blueberries for breakfast but again I got hungry mid morning so I need to eat more. Nearly caved in to sugar cravings but treated myself to some non sugar treat foods so had some really nice pate with carrot sticks and then some nuts and then more fruit. I feel better for having done so.

re puffy face issue, I don't think it is a grain allergy but maybe just carbs cause water retention? I am going to google it to try and find out more

Chops good work not having the sugary stuff - it gets easier as the days go on. I think we might have the same issue of liking grazy foods rather than sitting down to substantial meals? Blueberries and ham sounds quite good to me! Maybe you could follow up with a spoon of coconut oil to make it more filling?

Tomorrow morning is going to be busy for me so I might actually end up skipping breakfast or just eating a bit of chicken or a spoon of almond butter which is a bit crap! Oh well its still better than 4 slices of toast with butter!

You are right - I do love grazy foods. I never really thought of it that way. I love tapas and my favourite lunches is a plate of nibbly things from the fridge so maybe I just need to embrace that for breakfast. I feel better for not caving into cravings so tomorrow is another day of trying to do the same. Let me know how you get on!

Oh god yes I LOVE tapas, esp with some sangria ... there we go though those thick tapas fritata wedges would be perfect make ahead breakfast... that reminds me I keep meaning to try some sort of paleo breakfast muffins but am never organised enough.

Puffiness sounds like classic carb face - I can see in the mirror if I've eaten grains in the last few days!