Many of you Might already have paleo pinned down! Yay Success! But others may still be struggling with weight loss, cravings, WOD energy , losing too much weight etc. Heather and I have pushed for these Major Factors: 1) Build your meal beginning protein first, vegetable second, fat, then fruit. 2) vary your meat and vegetables for a variety of nutrients 3) Less stress + More Sleep 4) eat when you are hungry. These points need to be achieved, in my opinion, before fiddling with your diet. What I mean by this is you need to make conscious effort not to sabotage your paleo experience with apple, bananas, and almond butter for breakfast, snack, and after noon snack.
This week, focus on each meal AND snack meals to include Major Factor 1). Your snack should include 1 oz. protein, 1 handful carb, and 1 thumbs-worth of fat. Mind you, 1 handful of carb is not 1 WHOLE banana or 1 WHOLE apple. It’s more like 1/2 apple or 1/2 medium sized banana. 1 thumbs worth of fat is not 1 WHOLE jar of almond butter. It’s more like 1 TBS. Having NO protein with this little snack will leave you craving for more food and, possibly, become bloated.
Need more energy? Keep reading below from Nerd Fitness to learn how fat plays an important role in our bodies. On a side note, They say fat is a large % of our diet, but please follow my MAJOR FACTORS listed above before fiddling with your diet. Not eating enough carb and protein while eating more fat (especially in the form of nuts) will sometimes leave you unsatisfied, bloated, and make it possibly more challenging to lose weight.
Keep it simple: Try to get a really good protein source with each meal (eggs, steak, chicken, fish, pork) with each meal along with some vegetables or fruit. That’s it. If you’re having trouble getting enough calories daily, add some healthy fats to the equation: avocado, a handful of almonds or walnuts, almond butter, olive oil, etc.
Now, fruit does have quite a bit of sugar in it, and nuts have quite a few calories…so if you are following the Paleo Diet but not losing weight, check your fruit and nut consumption and see if you are loading up on those at the expense of vegetables and healthy protein.
What I’m trying to say is this: fat should make up a big percentage of your diet.
Pooooooor fat. It’s gotten a bad rap over the past number of decades, so companies have been doing everything possible to make everything low fat and “healthy!” (while adding all sorts of preservatives, chemicals, and sugar). Yup…cut out the fat, increase the carbs….and look where THAT has gotten us.
Why has fat been vilified? Rather than get into the politics of it myself, I’ll let Gary Taubes, author of the incredibly thorough and well-researched Good Calories, Bad Calories take over. Here’s an article he wrote for the New York Times a decade ago: What if its all Been a Big Fat Lie? Take the 15 minutes to read that article – it could radically redefine your thinking on fat and carbohydrates.
So, feel free to eat healthy fats, and stop buying ‘low fat’ garbage.
Hoosier CrossFit 6-Week Challenge 