The Paleo Diet in Translation

Essentially it means, eat only useful calories.

I always look at a food and think, 'what will this give me?' What purpose does this food have? Will it make me feel better? Will it make me feel worse? Will an extra helping make me feel sick?

With the paleo diet, you look at every food and ask this question: is it something useful? Something my body can recognise and digest? Something that can be put to good use inside my body? Even sauces can contain proteins.

Paleo and calories

Back in the day, you ate what you could scavenge or hunt. You would eat after trekking at pace, concentrating on your prey, and then killing it. Today, we typically pick set hours in which to 'exercise' and we eat while sitting at a desk, having sat there all day. Calorie use is therefore different, and we might think that eating calorific meats when we haven't sprinted through the forest and wrestled with a wild animal, might add a little too much pudge to our fat-fighting selves. But, and here's the catch:  

is it possible that the foods we eat influence how much we do?

Okay, this may sound a little strange. I mean, why not eat a lion and then have its strength, right? That's the old wives tale which directs peer pressure in camping groups, isn't it? 'Go on, eat the big fat boar. Then you'll be just as strong as it,' say the inticing group around the campfire. But this adage has a simple truth to it: the best predators or the cleverest animals may actually be so nutrient and vitamin-dense that, by eating them, we will (gradually) gain strength, energy, and better brain function.
Note: in cases of illness and deficiency which is not food-related, changing diet may not solve the problem and is unlikely to increase strength, energy, and brain function...or anything else for that matter. Thyroid Disease is a particular example here.

In what I have read so far, I have discovered that first-hand accounts of experiences on the paleo diet all follow a similar theme: an individual changes their diet, and starts running. 

In a way, this makes sense. If you have indigestion, or you feel sick, or you jump on the treadmill but you are distracted by the food which keeps pushing its way up your trachea, running becomes difficult. You may also feel bloated, heavy, off-balance, tired, or just uncomfortable. But if your body is working brilliantly you are likely to feel light, quick on your feet, and in the mood for a run. 


What is curious about the above, though, is that it was running which all these people took up. Why not cycling, or swimming, or weight-lifting for that matter? It appears that the paleo diet works very well with increased cardio output. But are they running foods? It's not something that I've heard before.


I don't like the idea that we are genetically able to eat in a certain way, and that if we eat those foods we will find ourselves functioning to the true calling of human beings. But we always think of the diet-exercise connection in the following ways:


Increase your exercise + decrease your calorie intake, particularly of any unhealthy foos which may be in your diet.

Exercise --> reduced weight/increased energy + supports a good diet

The paleo diet, however, if I am interpreting it correctly, appears to be suggesting the following:

Increase the 'good' calories  only

A good diet --> increased [cardio] exercise

This is not to say that you should simply change your diet and then wait for the 'magic bullet' which makes you suddenly able to run miles, but the theory is that you will feel like you want to do more and are able to do more once your diet is sorted. 

The challenge, of course, is finding the right diet.  

Paleo, money, and my shopping list

In the past, as with tribes across the world, your food would be whatever you could scavenge or hunt. It would take a lot of energy and concentration (and luck, to some extent), but it would also be free.

So buying all of these ingredients in small packets makes my shopping list very long...and expensive. It is another reason for tweaking the paleo diet to your own needs. I will try to find a way to be on the paleo diet for relatively cheap. 

Why Photographing your Food is such a Good Idea

1. It's a record of the times you've eaten, so that if you have forgotten to take note, you don't need to worry.
2. You'll start paying attention to what's on your plate, not how much you can fit on the plate. A bowl of leftovers won't look so good for the camera, so you'll shy away from it. And the result? An easier task of digestion on your stomach. 
3. If you can't be bothered for food diaries or are bored of them, this is a much more interesting and much more creative way to record what you are eating.

Understanding My Condition

If I ate badly then I would most probably not be able to digest anything. And then I would probably be diagnosed with something different, perhaps something more serious, or perhaps the more serious version of my condition. Perhaps I would need a pacemaker because I would have ruined my stomach entirely. I'm not saying that people with these more serious conditions have ruined their stomachs, but I am suggesting that motility disorders and preprandrial bradygastrias, particularly when combined with the symptom of regurgitation or acid reflux, have the potential to be much more worse. If my stomach is in a bad state, I might, say, bring up a bit of water in the car on the way home, or bring up the water I take first thing in the morning. Might I, one day, bring up the pill I take at around the same time?

If I let my stomach get worse and worse, I will bring up it all.

I need to acknowledge that this condition can become pretty bad. Just like if I stop taking my thyroid meds in the morning, I will get worse and worse, if I lose control of what I eat, I will also be worse and worse. Food hurts me, but I also need it. Food is my medicine, and like any medicine with rules surrounding how, when, and with what should you take it, so too does food require as much attention.

The Smoothie Test

This is my first proper smoothie. By proper, I mean I actually spent time on it. It's genius. I mean, it's so genius that it had me sqeaking in excitement. It made two whole glasses worth! What a reward for all that hard work chopping one apple, a few strawberries, shoving lots of frozen fruit in a jug, and hitting the stir button on the food chopper. It's not my recipe: it's from 'Superjuice: Juicing for Health and Happiness,' by Michael van Straten. I added two mint leaves, because I thought it looked cool. But does Rusty like it?

Here it is: the yummy looking smoothie in a glass.

Here he comes. I think that's a sniff. I think that's a definite like!

And why wouldn't he?

It's just yum. And it passed the test!

Recipe:

• The recipe called for one cooking apple, but there just happened to be a Pink Lady apple sitting in the fridge, so I stole that.
• I couldn't find a scale (I know, I know: how do I live my kitchen days?) so I just took some leftover strawberries, some frozen mixed fruit, removing the blackberries, and some frozen mango (the recipe called for one whole mango, but I was all out), and some pineapple from a tin. The amount fit into a 1 litre measuring jug (right)
• I tipped half into a plastic bowl and used the food mixer. Then I poured this amount back in and mixed it all at once. This way it all fit. The final amount made just under 1 litre, or 2 tall glasses.

Experimental Mania

Some John West Salmon strips for dinner?

 I've been experimenting over the past month or so, scrapping my old diet and trying a lot of different foods. Here is a collection of simple meal ideas, all of which avoid wheat and were made in minimum time and with little effort. More detailed posts are coming soon, along with focused posts on specific foods/meals.

I'm not usually a prawn eater

Stir-fried beef with onions, plus some salad. Relatively simple

Not simple enough: I think this was cottage cheese, seeds, and a sprinkle of herbs

Fairly simple: two gluten free Mrs Crimble's corn cakes, a couple of brazil nuts (these are high in selenium. While this is good, apparently you shouldn't have more than one at a time. Okay).

Cottage cheese, seeds, a few nuts, and there's a couple of coconut chips there. Not simple enough.

Yoghurt and Tesco's Free From Pure Oat Fruit Muesli: yum. And highly addictive.

Yoghurt, banana pieces (max half a banana, and Tesco's Free From Pure Oat Fruit Muesli

My standard mid-morning snack on my old and new routine: freshly chopped strawberries and blueberries along with a handful of dried berries if available (cranberries, blueberries, or goji berries). This is a high Vitamin-C, high antitoxant, nicely packed tub of sugar, and easy to digest snack. Frozen fruit works okay too, but the liquid in it leaks through tuppaware, and fresh fruit is nicer and less sweet. The problem is keeping stocked-up on fresh fruit, and ensuring it doesn't go out of date.

As above

Quite crackers: The Food Doctor wholegrain Spelt crackers with a mixture of fresh and frozen veg and kidney beans. There's also one Mrs Crimble corn cake there. This was okay, but as you can tell from the sheer number of crackers, I was more interested in the carbohydrate factor. Those crackers are also quite addictive.

Tuna and kidney beans. Meh.

Munchy Seeds Omega Sprinkle and salad. As you can see, I had a preference for the seeds.

Stir fry: chicken with a mixture of fresh and frozen veg. Flavourings mostly came from lemon and sprinkles of herbs, but there may have been a few drops of sweet and sour sauce. Fried in olive oil. It was yum, but a bowl full on this routine is far too much food.

Leftovers in a pot. Too complex for my stomach.

Leftovers with almonds, and half a Mrs Crimble corn cake.

Salad with sunflower seeds.

Tinned tuna, chopped tomatoes, sweetcorn, and almonds. I had a thing for the almonds and scavenged for more later. Not the best snack/meal here.

Another salad with seeds and almonds.

A warm tuna salad with tuna, veg, chopped tomato, probably a few almonds, herbs, a squeezed lemon (or the juice from tinned lemon), and one Mrs Crimble corn cake, in little bits. Fairly good, though not 100% on the digestion factor.

Mid-morning snack alternative, after a morning cycle and trip to the gym: fresh fruit, crushed, and water. Give it a shake. You don't need a shaker. The seeds from the fruit simply collects on the sides of the bottle. But it's all the better if you eat them too.

More of Tesco's Free From Pure Oat Fruit Muesli, with some yoghurt. Just couldn't stop buying the muesli.

Frozen fruit mix from Tesco's, waiting to defrost.

Tesco Summer Fruits with an orange.

A big breakfast: yoghurt, strawberries, blueberries, and corn flakes. Making a breakfast of this size is unlike me. It was very nice, but too much.

An even bigger breakfast with less yoghurt, but a few dates. Yum, but sickening.

Plain times: corn flakes, freshly chopped stawberries, blueberries, and a couple of blackberries from frozen.

Yum. Two John West salmon fillets, and two Ryvita pumkin seeds and oats crisbread. These crispbreads are made from rye, not wheat, but many other products in the Ryvita range do have wheat flour in them. I can't find a link to the salmon, but I brought the product from the Co-Operative store.

Corn flakes, yoghurt, and half a Nature Valley Granola Bars Oat and Honey. This is what I call a "crash" snack...or what I have when I'm short of other ingredients, or time.

Another stir fry, with chicken and frozen veg as before, but also garlic and onions, as well as one Ryvita pumpkin seed and oats crispbread

Breakfast. I know, it's amazing. Salmon fillets and frozen veg. Simple, nice, and it didn't feel weird to eat this for breakfast once it was on my plate. The only question is how long it takes to digest.

Fish for breakfast, day two: one salmon fillet, warmed in the microwave, with veg from frozen, and one Ryvita pumkin seed and oat crispbread. Lovely, and I may be converted to fish for breakfast, but again the only question is how quickly I can get up and exercise after eating this. Does this food settle quickly enough?

Fozen veg and freshly chopped strawberries.

Evening snack: spinach from frozen, and one Ryvita pumpkin seed and oat crispbread.

Breakfast: one pot of Yeo Valley Natural yoghurt (their fat free version has extra sugar instead of the fat) with a raisin mix (correct product link to be confirmed; this one has vegetable oil listed in the ingredients), a few natural apricots (these brown apricots are high in iron and taste a lot better to the orange-coloured ones), and some freshly chopped strawberries.

On last year's diet I never ate more than half a pot of yoghurt at once. Hmm.