Your Guide to Paleo Cooking

The blogosphere is filled with people who are passionate about their health, fitness and food. But in the niche segment of the paleo lifestyle, there are tons of brilliant and knowledgeable people contributing to a flourishing community. Everyone is here to interact, share and learn (with varying degrees of each). And while we may only know each other by our online personas this is the first time I have ever truly felt part of a tribe. Our common interests bond us, and being able to share my experiences and relate to others has peeked my interest in the field of health and nutrition. 

It’s great to talk about the more popular bloggers such as Mark Sisson or Robb Wolf, the latter of which got me turned on to the paleo diet. But the community has much more depth than that. As I dive deeper into this subculture, I am continuously finding everyday people doing spectacular things. Over the past few months I have been fortunate enough to interact some of these great people. 

One such blogger in the paleo community is Sébastien Noël over at Paleo Lifestyle Diet. Sébastien is a gifted writer, but where he really shines are his recipes. A few weeks ago, I was given a copy of his newly released eBook to review, and I must say that I am very impressed. I have a ton of cookbooks, but this was my first electronic cookbook. I was a little intimidated, because the PDF is 395 pages - that's a lot of recipes. I thought about going to staples to print out a copy, but a color copy of his recipe book would have been over $200 (c’mon staples).

Don’t Be Afraid of the eBook
Usually, while reading, I like things printed and in my hands, but having an online version makes the recipe book very searchable. It is easy to reference and browse recipes. I just typed in what food I had and the search showed me all the recipes containing my ingredient. In addition, Sébastien did a great job with the organization; the book is broken down by category and really well layed out. The design of the PDF is clean, easy to read, and aesthetically pleasing.

As far as taste goes, I'm not sure I could speak any higher of Sébastien. I made his Beanless Texas Style Chili that blows away Mark Sisson's Bison Chili. The great thing about his recipes is that they are simple. Most have less than 10 ingredients and he doesn't use anything that you'll have to find at an uber fancy grocery store. The combination of spices just work.

I also tried his Pork Chops with Apple and Onions and his Guacamole recipe both with success. But the one that really won over me over was his Baked Salmon with Asparagus and Roasted Beets. My mom made this the other night, and the salmon was so tasty my dad could not stop taking about it. The fish was so moist it almost melted in your mouth, and the asparagus was perfectly crispy. The beets came out a little undercooked, but the rest of the meal made up for that. I will definitely be cooking that again.

Just Try It
All in all, my family and I have loved cooking with Sébastien's recipes. He makes them very easy and approachable, but that doesn't mean they lack flavor. Check out his website where he has a ton of free recipes to try like Sweet Potato And Sausage Soup, Spicy Pulled Pork, Kale Chips, and a ton more. If you like what you see then take a look at his eBook where he compiles over 350 recipes, as well as cooking tips, a meal plan, and an herbs and spices guide (that is beautifully designed). Sébastien is doing great work over at his blog, so I am happy to recommend his recipes. They are simply delicious.

A Sleep Aid that Works... Too Well

I'll Have What He Had

I don't know about you, but I tend to get giddy when trying new supplements. I suppose it's because I don't know what to expect until I try it. I'm not sure how my body will react. My body is the experiment, but I am also the scientist. I am the guinea pig and the administrator. I'll gladly put my body on the line for the sake of myself. Will it work? Will I feel anything? Any hardcore drug user would laugh at the thought of tinkering with your calcium levels, but that's exciting enough for me.

For this experiment, I decided to try Magnesium Citrate. It was recommended by Robb Wolf (author of The Paleo Solution) as a way to balance out your calcium and magnesium levels, and as an added bonus, it puts you to sleep faster than Diane Rehm reading you a bed time story. I found Natural Calm, by Terry Gillham in the supplement isles of Whole Foods. It was roughly twenty dollars for a container. I opted for the un-flavored variety.

Day 1
After twisting the cap, a burst of white powder fills the air. It smells citrusy. I want to know more. I measure one teaspoon and mix it into a glass of hot water. To my delight, it fizzles and cracks as the white powder diffuses into the water. Here is goes; I take a sip. Not too bad. It tastes like lemon tea. 

I sit back on my bed and continue to read more of "The Hitchhicker's Guide to the Galaxy." As I turn the pages, I begin to feel eerily at ease. A slight numbing sensation envelopes my body. It's similar to the feeling of playing outside in the snow and then going inside to sip hot chocolate by the fire. It is oddly comforting, and initially I am enthralled by it. Success! I think to myself, and moments later I am passed out in my bed.

Day 2-14
I continued to use the product and my sleep was fantastic. I even wrote a post after waking up a 6am, which I never do, wide awake and ready for the day. But that day was an anomaly, and I could not repeat the success of waking up in the morning feeling so refreshed. Not only that, but I was beginning to feel a little more relaxed during the day. All day long. I am normally a low-key person. It takes a lot to get me excited, and this supplement was making me even more relaxed. I suppose I should have seen this coming. It does claim to be an anti-stress drink.

Conclusion
I welcome relaxation, especially when I am prone to anxiety, but this was too much. My mind felt slow. I was lethargic. Words were hard to find, and I just felt generally off. But my sleep was excellent. Was it worth sacrificing my waking life for quality time spent in the sheets? Heck no.

Ultimately I did not want that trade off. Magnesium supplement works - maybe too well - at relaxing your body and your mind. I would rather have marginally worse sleep and still have an active mind then vice versa. But all is fair in experimentation. My goal was to try it out. I wanted to know if it would work for me as it did for others. My results seem uncommon, and through research I was unable to find results like mine (where someone feels mentally dull as a result of Magnesium). But now you have at least one documented case.

This is not meant to scare you from trying it. I offer my findings, so that you may better inform yourself when looking to Magnesium as a sleep aid. I've tried a lot of different things to get better sleep, but the one that works the best: a pitch black room. I'd like to see GNC try to put that in a store.

Why Kashi isn't as "Heart-Healthy" as you Think

1-2 cups Kashi Heart to Heart Cereal
1-2 cups of Milk (usually 1%)
Handful of Walnuts
Mix and Enjoy

This is what my breakfast looked like nine times out of ten for the past decade or more. I grew up eating a lot of cereal as a kid, and I continued into adult hood. I remember having so many boxes of cereal that my brother and I would build cereal fortresses (even though we were sitting besides each other). Then we would spend the next half an hour or more reading the boxes, doing crossword puzzles and finishing mazes. We turned it cereal into an event!

For me, cereal at breakfast was as traditional as a lasagna on Thanksgiving (c'mon - were Italian). I didn't just eat it for breakfast though, because it was equally as good as a snack, post work out meal, or even dinner if I didn't feel like cooking. It's so easy to prepare, and you can feel good about eating it because it's healthy, right?

That's what I thought, until I read Robb Wolf's book "The Paleo Solution." His book is based on what our hunter/gatherer ancestors used to eat BEFORE the advent of agriculture. Numerous studies show the effect of grains, dairy, and legumes as being gut irritants, and that once these foods were adapted into our diet they had a profound effect on the health of our ancestors. I'd like to point you to a great article written by Robb who explains the idea much better than I can.

NorCal Nutrition: Are We Crazy?

All this to say that I haven't had a bowl of cereal for a month and a half (as long as I've been on the paleo diet). I don't really crave it anymore, but sometimes I do wish breakfast was easy again. No more cereal, and no more shakes. Cooking isn't hard; it's just time consuming. But, the positives definitely out way the negatives, and I know that I am putting excellent fuel into my body, so I can look, feel and perform at my best.

Also, here is a great review of Robb's book at the blog Modern Paleo.

Day 21 - Updates

I feel like i'm getting the hang of this. I still have cravings here or there for carbs (just one bowl of cereal please!), but one the whole it's not too bad. I'm used to eating 5 times a day plus snacks. My body doesn't know what to do when it's waiting 5 hours for food. It gets bored, especially at work.

I have started to watch the Cooking Channel on TV. I really do love Giada, she makes wonderfully simple and delicious foods. And being Italian doesn't hurt either. Today, I made a chicken salad with my own vinaigrette (courtesy of Giada). Olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper. So easy and tasty.

The weather outside has been horrible recently, and I've wanted to go out for a run, but it's so un-appealing when it is pouring rain outside. Not to mention, I probably only have an hour left until sundown. Maybe I can get up early and run.

To supplement my Paleo diet I purchased a few things that Robb Wolf recommended: Vitamin D, Magnesium, and Probiotics. I got a quart of Goodbelly Probiotics - it is really yummy (i got the watermelon flavor). But I'm going to try to hold off on using the Vitamin D and Magnesium until I'm done with my 30 days. Then I'll start adding and subtracting things to my diet to see how I feel.

I don't feel sluggish, but I do wish I could go out for a run. This rainy season stinks!

Day 13 - Make it Simple Stupid

Robb Wolf has a great idea of how to get people to buy into his "solution." He says just use a hunk of good meat, use good fats, add lots of vegetables. Simple enough right? It was actually. By not focusing on quantities and just the quality of ingredients people are more likely to buy-in. I believe that. Anything that stands in people's way of change just makes it harder.

However, there can be problems from someone trying to follow an un-weighted unmeasured paleo program. After listening to the first 10 podcasts from his website I found a lot of more helpful advice that wasn't spelled out in his book. For one, his recommendation on protein was 1 gram for lb of body weight. I had heard this before, but I didn't know that it also applied to this "diet." Taking this into consideration my target grams of protein would be as follows.

Me

= 150lbs

= 150g protein per day

= 50g per meal (at 3 meals a day)

= 8oz of meat per meal (at 7g per oz)

Okay, now I can visualize what I need to target, because essentially I was eating half of what I needed on a daily basis. No wonder why I lost weight. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the idea of not having to weigh and measure, but having a target is so much more helpful to make sure I am getting the most out of these 4 weeks.

I am going to have to get pretty thrifty now that I am basically doubling my protein intake, and all of it from meat (things with faces and souls Robb says - HA). I wish I had a big enough freezer to go in on half a cow. Yes, people really do that - and I'm jealous.

Day 11 - Real Quick Updates

So, I fell off for a little bit (of the blogging not the diet). Okay, well let's make this one quick and I'll just bullet my findings and observations thus far after a week and a half of changing my diet.

1. I still feel sluggish in the morning, and a little like I have lower energy through out the day
2. This being said I feel lighter, more agile, and not weighted down. Paleo meals tend to leave me satisfied, but not stuffed like my other diet.
3. I love cooking 3 meals instead of 5 per day. Love it. So, much more convenient. And the guy over at lean gains says it doesn't matter how many you eat. Sure it takes slightly longer to cook, but I do it less.
4. I am starting to like cooking again. Before I was just combining grains in different forms to get 100g per meal and then tossing in a little fat and probably no veggies. Now, I feel like I am actually making meals. And, I've made some tasty ones (like the fiesta lime salmon above).
5. I can taste vegetables now. I realize that before I was just drowning everything out with grains, and condiments. I couldn't taste and of the "real" food. I would use ketchup or BBQ on anything, and it never allowed me to taste the food. I was addicted to the sugar and salt just like other people.
6. I feel like I have less energy, but I consistently have performed better in my training. I played great at my hockey game the other night. I had energy to skate all three periods for once - hard. I didn't feel like my legs were shaking and going to fall off. They were just burning because I was pushing myself. It was a good feeling.

So all in all I've been pretty happy so far. The only thing is the lower level of energy I feel - even though it hasn't really altered my fitness. Robb Wolf says that it could take any where from 3-4 weeks to adapt to this lower carb diet. So, I'm not too surprised I feel like this. Let's keep it up, and see how I after the adaptation period.

Paleo-what, is this Atkins Part 2?

What is this?

Eat all the meat and fats you want? Is this the Atkins diet? Not quite.This new, revolutionary, fad, diet has actually been around for a while. In gist – the paleo diet recommends lean meats, good fats (yes there are good fats), and lots of veggies, while abstaining from grains, dairy, and legumes. In essence, this is the diet that our hunter/gatherer ancestors ate. I came across this “diet” from Robb Wolf’s book “The Paleo-Solution” while browsing Amazon. It was recommended based on other books i looked at, but what surprised me were the rave reviews. Ten minutes looking at reviews, 2 seconds purchasing, and another 30 seconds until I was reading it (thank you kindle). The book is both fascinating and counter intuitive to most of what I have learned about nutrition, but I won’t go into detail about its content yet. The core message from the book is basically “try it”. Try it for 30 days, then re-introduce the foods you took out of your diet and see how you feel. The author is convinced that you will be pleased with the results enough to keep with it (as a LIFESTYLE mind you, not a diet). After reading half the book the night I got it, I decided to take the bait for a 30 day trial (no money-back - guaranteed).

A little about myself

I think of myself as generally healthy. I eat what I thought was healthy (isn’t that what they all say): whole grains, lean meats, good fats, dairy, legumes, and some vegetables. I exercise regularly, and I have also gotten into running recently, so my cardio is going way up. Other then that I play sports when I can find people to play with, and I have gotten back into roller hockey for the past year.

Why a blog?

Who cares what I have to say? Well, first off, I do. I was going to document this offline, but then I thought I might keep up with it more if I have a fun way to express myself. Also, what I have come to realize in my limited research on the paleo-diet, is that there is a nice little (yet growing) community of followers. What better way to keep myself interested then plugging myself in with other people who are trying it out as well. My hope is to find out that;

• A. this diet is a load of crap, and I can begin eating dairy, grain, and beans again, feeling satisfied that I gave what some consider as the holy-grail of diets. Or
• B. That Robb Wolf is actually right, and I just started the first steps to transforming my health for the better.

As I will be looking to others during these 30 days, I offer my experiences to the community, so that people down the line will have a better idea what they are getting into.