Why Paleo Diet, and why for now?

Timing;
    Christmas Eve 2013 and our son-in-law, at tender age of 46 years old had a heart attack in his home, had to be resuscitated (brought back to the world of the living) by the paramedics.  Giving our family pause to reconsider life-style choices.   I know it sounds crazy that I would choose to go in an opposite direction of the collective wisdom of medical and nutritionists in food choices, but I did decide to go in that direction.  I went paleo with mine and my husband's food diet and lifestyle.  Having seen a documentary earlier that made sense to me, (The Perfect Human Diet), and having been hearing and seeing gluten-free for a while now, I decided to get into some deeper research on both - gluten free and paleo diet.

   Entering into a bit of a purist view about the matter, and being the spouse who has the food responsibilities, my husband was obliged to go along to some degree.  I didn't make demands that he adhere, and knew that I wanted to give this approach an honest trial run.  For myself, I have been struggling with some disorder in my foot and leg, ie, bone spur, plantar fasciitis, neuropathy - something that causes pain daily and interferes with my mobility in being on the foot/leg for more than a short period each day.   I continue to read up on possibilities via internet research, and it seems to be in the nature of one of those medical conditions that medical profession guesses at more than knows.  I don't want to subject my body just yet to medical guesswork (that is another story for another time).  In struggling through the pain since October when it came on strong and unrelenting, I have a keen interest in lifestyle choices that might have contributed.  I and my husband are in our 60s, me at 62 and he at 67, and we embrace that there are aging issues affecting us as well.   Along comes the paleo food regimen that makes sense to me in a way that encourages me to give it the old college try and see where it takes us.

50 lbs lighter - my
handsome skinny husband

    Well - take us it did!   My husband has dropped about 50 lbs in the few short months since January 2014 through today (March 10, 2014) and as he is fond of saying, this is the thinnest he has been, and likely has not been down to this weight in our 20 years of sharing life.  For myself, the change in weight is slower, and I do see my body redistributing itself so that the poking out belly is not poking out and there is a look to myself that is more in line with the way I used to be.  And for now that is most encouraging for me.  We didn't embrace the paleo way as a means of weight loss, no - I was looking for improvement in health issues.  The weight loss and redistribution has been a wonderful bonus and surprise to both of us.



 I have to give kudos to my husband for sharing with me a purist approach to the transformation to paleo eating.  After all the years that I thought I was preparing 'healthy food' for us in what I adopted as my personal philosophy of limiting food intake to fresh and eliminating where I could  preserved, prepared, boxed foods, I saw myself as doing us a healthy favor.  I had our food intake as weekly menu of different dishes of grains, rice, beans, lentils, pasta, and small amounts of chicken.  Sometimes pork, but primarily a reduction of meat, especially red meats in accordance with the medical/nutritional advice.  It is also fair to report that being on a strict financial budget, it worked better to reduce meats with their continuing elevated prices and stick to less expensive grains, beans, legumes, pasta.  We seemed though to be growing in weight despite the 'healthy eating'.   I'm skipping a lot of information, to get to the point of reporting that my husband was not disappointed to not only have meat back in our diet, but a generous amount of meat - daily even.

  I don't have to map out the paleo approach to eating - it has been done at length by so many others and I am so grateful to the many who have been passionate about going paleo.   It will be more suitable to put up some links to the helpful blogs, books, websites that have been a mainstay for me as I ventured into this endeavor.   And I intend to do so on the sidebars of this blog.  Wanting to share the recipes and information that so many others have generously shared  with attributes to their online presence, encouraging readers to other sites that already have jump-started, developed and are still fine-tuning the whole paleo, grain-free experience.

 It seems to me as I have spent time daily with other paleo internet sites, and books from Amazon for my Kindle on the paleo experience, it is a younger group of people who have readily adapted.  I think my husband and I may have a bit to contribute in that we are older in age, and I didn't find in my internet travels or Kindle books much that addressed the needs of people in our age group.  The other element (exercise) seems to be more in the line of cross-fit and running.  That is not a comfortable fit for us just now.  We are looking in different directions for how we can not only add but increase our exposure to exercise in alignment with our body capabilities.   And with that, I'll end this post with this easy to follow picture chart showing what foods are on and what foods are not onthe Paleo Diet.

  Happy paleoing -- Lietta