So I promised to do a paleo post so here it is. It may be a little lengthy, so sorry in advance, but I have had a few friends asking about it and its always nice to share recipes!
Ever since I started my job back in Feb. I have been around Paleo. I always thought it was crazy and that I could never do it. I mean I LOVE food! But over the past year, I have talked with my boss and she has given me a lot of tips to help get into it. Also, my sil, Michelle has been doing it for a while now, and loves it.
So over the past 2 months, Mitch and I have slowly started to add it into our diet. The first tip that I was given was to not eliminate the things you love becasue the process will be so much harder. This is not suppose to be a diet, but more of a lifestlye. So it is a long process and to cut the things you love out first will be like any other diet and you will be miserable and give in. It took my bosses over 8 years and they are still working with it. So thats what we have been doing and I have actually found that a lot of the paleo stuff has really stuck in our diet. We have never been very strict, but a lot more paleo foods are still in our diet today than I would of thought.
So last week, we decided to start a challenge and eat only paleo! This will be a little harder ha, but we both are pretty determind. We will start out having cheat days, just so we do not get burned out on it. I think one reason we are so excited and motivated is that we have seen it work in people we know, so it makes it easier to follow. We have stuck firm to it this whole week, but this wekend since we are going to Stillwater for OSU homecoming, we will start out with a cheat wekeend. That way we can reward ourselves for this past week.
This lifestlye could be super hard if you do not know how to eat paleo the right way. You have to have variety and you MUST plan out everything for the week! If you don't you will go to what is convientant and that usually isnt paleo. That is the hardest thing about this, its not the food you can or cannot have, becasue you can make some pretty awesome meals/snacks, but you must plan ahead and prepare, If you do not have a meal planned or snacks for work planned, you will grab whatevers easiest. Paleo is very inconvienant, theres really no other way to put it! Also, some of the ingredients are very unfamilar, so you just have to be open and go find them.
If you are trying to lose weight, or just be healthy, I hightly recommend you try it. Just start out slow like we did and add it into your diet, but don't take anything you love out. You will soon notice a change in what you want to eat. Trust me, it took forever to convience me of this, but I promise if you start slow it changes you.
Meals are a little difficult to find and it does take some research. We planned out everything for the whole week, breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks so we do not have an excuse not to eat it. The weeks have been easy for us so far becasue we do have everything planned, but it is the weekends we travel that will be more difficult, which is why we are starting out with cheat days. And you also have to rememebr not to feel guilty about your cheat days. There are there for you to enjoy and reward yourself.
Another big thing you MUST do it you want to be effective is clean out your panrty. That was the hardest part, so Mitch did it one day while I was at work ha :) Here are some before and after pics of our panrty...
All the non-paleo food to get rid of...
What was left....
Mitch sent me this last picture and said " who knew we had so much paleo stuff already" haha!
Pretty crazy, but it works. I know for a fact that if I was to see something I wasnt suppose to eat in the pantry it would make me want it is much more and I would prob just eat it. So not having it anywhere in your house is the best way! Then go stock up on healthy food! Our fridge is always packed now, becasue we buy everything fresh.. as you can see we are only using one ( not really even one) shelf in our pantry.
We are getting all certified organic, grassfeed meat from a guy in MO. He supplies all the meat at Ozark Natural Foods (for a very high price), but also my bosses get all thier meat from him as well. So every couple of weeks he delivers all the meat here to our office at a very resonable price! Also, in the summers, he is at the Bentonville Famers Market selling it.
This is such a great lifestlye to have and it is not something either Mitch and I always want to be super strict on, but this challenge will be fun and hopefully when its over we will willingly want to keep about a 80% paleo lifestlye. We want to enjoy what we love, but just overall eat whats good for you. If you have never heard of paleo and want to know more about what its all about ... look it up. There is a lot of stuff out there on it and it is basically eating what the hunters and gathers ate. If you really reasearch it, they had no health problems, no obesity and were so healthy. Well all they ate was what they could kill or grow. So thats what paleo is. Its really pretty interesting!
Well now that I have been rambling about paleo and our challenge we are doing, I have some recipes we made this week. The first week is always hard. We had some trial and error recipes, but for the most part we like it all.
These are some of the good ones we tried out this week..
This weekend we are going to make bison chili and garlic crock pot chicken. I got both of these recipes from my boss and if they turn out good I will post the recipes soon! Also, my boss has a blog of all her recipes, so Click Here to check it out! You can find some really good recipes!
We made a smoothie the other night from her blog, and it was okay :) I think we are just so use to the sweet sweet smoothies and this will take some time to get use to. But I was surprised we both liked it.
Orange Peach Smoothie
2 peaches
1 peeled orange
almond milk
ice
handful of spinach
*blend it all together and enjoy!
I was thrown off by the spinach at first, I hate spinach, but you really can't taste it at all.
I guess we didn't mind the taste too much...
I hope you enjoyed this. I know it was probably really boring, but I challenge you to give it a try. Its hard to get going, but once you get into a routine, it gets easier! My sil had been doing it for several months and has done 2 of the paleo challenges and it has changed her eating habits tremendesly. Its always nice to have someone that you know that has been doing it, or is doing it with you for support!
On a complete different note... we are headed to Tulsa today and then Stillwater tomorrow! I love OSU homecoming and it has been a family tradition ever since I can remember. We always spend the weekend down there with my grandparents and it is so much fun! Go Pokes!
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