After a month and a half hiatus, I finally found the time and motivation
to write once again. Since New Year’s Day, I have been really busy with life,
but at the same time taking time to veg out. I have worked a lot of extra hours
since it was year-end at work and we at Rogers finally released our Annual
results on Friday Feb 15th. During that time, I took a month off of
drinking, exercised six days a week, went to Spanish classes once a week, spent
time with friends and family, baked, cooked, and caught up on some of my favourite
TV shows in the process.
Writing was not really on the top of my list because I found that I didn’t
have much of a focus. I can write to you about foods that I love to eat and why
they are good for you, but I decided I needed to step back and figure out where
I wanted to go with it.
During this process, I took 31 days off of drinking. It was really hard
at first because I love to have a nice glass of wine with dinner, or when
hanging out with friends. But near the end, it wasn’t that big of a deal and
found ways to get around it. I drank virgin Caesars thanks to my workout partner Monica who does not drink at all, as well as soda water with lime.
Once Feb 1st hit, I had two drinks per night over the whole
weekend. It was nice. I enjoyed it. Then my boyfriend/personal trainer came up
with an idea that turned it all around. He asked me and some girlfriends who
already exercise on a regular basis, if we wanted to try the Paleo diet/lifestyle
for 5 weeks which started on February 11th. We all work so hard in
the gym, so we want to see where this lifestyle change in our diet will take us
with all of the work we put in.
What is Paleo?
In a nutshell, the paleo diet is anything that the cave men would have eaten
during the Paleolithic era, anything that they would have been able to hunt and
gather. It consists of eating meat, vegetables, fruit, nuts and seeds, sweet
potatoes, limited oils which are avocado, olive and coconut, and limited sweeteners
which are honey and maple syrup. The items to avoid are all grains (starchy
carbohydrates), dairy, sugars, processed foods, caffeine and alcohol.
My sister has lived this lifestyle with her boyfriend for over a year,
and when she first told me about it I thought it was absurd because it was so
heavy on protein. I was all about eating mostly vegetarian and limiting meat in
my diet, especially after reading The China Study. I had already cut out dairy,
processed foods and extra sugars, so there were parts of the diet that I
thought were excellent. But over this last year, I found that the more I
educated myself on foods to eat and how to eat, the more variety I had in my
choices on what I wanted to include, what I wanted to eat in moderation, and
what I wanted to eliminate permanently.
So today, with the arsenal of knowledge I have obtained over the years of
learning what and how to eat, I agreed to take on the challenge to try out this
lifestyle. Like I said, I eat pretty closely to the diet already, but I had to
take the extra step and cut out grains, caffeine and alcohol on the regular.
However, in this post I will not be talking about eating Paleo. It is just a check-in
on where I am, and a sneak peak on where I will be taking my blog. My next post
will be tips on adopting a healthier lifestyle, and then I will be posting more
recipes based on my current way of eating. Then from there, we will see where I
go. Hopefully you can join the ride!
Shameen
No comments:
Post a Comment