My week as Fred Flintstone

I’m four days into my Paleo experiment and haven’t killed anyone yet. I am taking this as a good sign.

While I’m planning to stick it out until Sunday as planned, I’m not 100% sold on this Paleo diet. I thought I’d take a few minutes today to figure out some of my thoughts surrounding this diet.

I haven’t had too much trouble sticking to it this week. We are eating lots of veggies, fruit and lean proteins. I have not cut out grains for the children, nor will I, partly because they wouldn’t hear of it. I need to have substantial food in their lunches, and since we cannot send anything with nuts to school, it’s tricky to give them homemade items. YES, I know I can make bread myself that does not have nuts, but I do use nuts in much of my cooking and I fear that some of my equipment (i.e. food processor, etc.) may still have traces of nuts in it. Perhaps I’m being paranoid, but I would guess that parents of children with severe nut allergies would thank me for my caution.

Anyway, back to the diet. I think there are a lot of positives to this diet. Here’s what I like about it:

• I’m eating less. No doubt about it, when I don’t eat breads/pastas/rice/sugar, I eat less. (As an aside, I honestly believe this is why so many gluten-free diets work for many people. It’s why Atkins and South Beach and all these low-carb diets work, in my opinion. You JUST EAT LESS.) Since I’m someone who needed to eat less, I am finding this very effective.
• I’m not having any cravings. Plenty of studies have been done on the effect of carbohydrates and sugars on blood sugar and appetite. There is proof that sugar has an addicting quality. I know plenty of people preach moderation (I’m one of them), but truthfully, I have a hard time practicing what I preach. Put a box of crackers in front of me, and I’ll plow through them in no time. Ditto a bag of chips. And I crave more. On this, day four, my cravings are down to nil.

Here’s what I don’t like:

• Too much meat. I like meat. I like to eat it regularly. But with the restrictions in this diet on legumes and dairy, I seem to be finding all my protein from meat or nuts, and I feel like I’ve overdosed on meat and eggs. We’re talking chicken breast, pork loin, three eggs for breakfast, turkey, salmon… The meal plan advocates having leftover meat for breakfast. Blech. Today I went back to my smoothie, even though I couldn’t use my regular vegan protein I’ve always used (it is made with brown rice). We added cashew butter instead this morning, but I cannot TAKE anymore meat! (For anyone who thinks Paleo is like Atkins where you can eat all the red meat, bacon and butter you want, think again. The book I have by Robb Wolf does NOT recommend eating much of these types of meat. Lean beef, yes. Chicken, turkey, fish? Of course. A BIT of bacon? Sure, in moderation. But you cannot sit down to a pound of bacon!
• No brown rice. I NEVER thought this would bother me. It does. I don’t even need to eat it a lot, but I do really miss my protein in the morning. I could live without brown rice at dinner. I could even think about a grain-free diet. But I miss the ability to use ingredients with brown rice.
• I’m hungry. Okay, I’m complaining about that, but it’s because I am indeed eating less. And while I don’t like it, it is also necessary. Personally, if I need to lose weight, I have to be hungry throughout the day. All these diets that say, “You shouldn’t be hungry” won’t work for me. For me, to lose weight, I need to take in fewer calories than I burn. That means I need to be hungry. No hunger=no weight loss. (This may not be true for everyone. I just know it is true for ME.)

I can see that I will likely loosen up the rules for myself next week, but for the most part, I am sticking with this. I really do like the emphasis on vegetables, making it easier to stick to my number one food rule of: Eat food. Mostly plants. Not too much.

Yesterday, I did miss my bread, though. I decided to make this recipe from Elana’s Pantry, a fantastic site for grain-free, gluten-free, dairy-free and Paleo recipes. I substituted maple syrup for the honey, but otherwise kept it the same. It was DELICIOUS. Just what I needed to stay on track.

Cashew bread, courtesy Elana’s Pantry. Bread cravings solved!

It was even better when I made a small sandwich with my dinner. I made the Paleo Pot Rost recipe from Robb Wolf’s The Paleo Solution, only with some modifications. I spooned this on to the bread and it was like a cross between a pulled pork sandwich and an Italian sandwich. Here’s my version:

• 1 3-lb. pork loin
• 1 can tomato sauce
• 1 head cauliflower, chopped
• 2 tsp. sea salt, freshly-ground black pepper, garlic power, onion powder & oregano (or to taste – I didn’t really measure it!)

Put all ingredients in a crock-pot and cook for 6-7 hours on low. Shred pork before serving.

Pork loin, cauliflower and tomato sauce. The kids thought it looked weird, but it was delicious.

I even have some leftovers for lunch. It was really good. I’m going to keep experimenting with recipes this week and on the weekend, just to keep going. On Monday, I’ll figure out exactly which parts of this I’m going to stick with and which parts I’ll jettison.

Now I’m off to continue the kitchen cleanup. I haven’t done much. I’m also very embarrassed to admit that I had TWO garbage bags full of old food from the pantry, fridge and freezer to throw out today. NO MORE WASTING FOOD. That is a huge part of this cleaning, leaning and greening process. Today, the cupboards are getting a big wipe-down. It’s about time!