Tumbling headfirst into the paleo diet -one tiny baby step at a time

So, as a result of general malaise, chronic sugar addiction/cravings, and slow but steady weight gain, i've decided to try a different approach  (generic 'moderation' and 'resist temptation' dieting not making any headway)

I'm always of the opinion that any diet you adopt should be a lifestyle, not something you take up for a few months merely to lose some pounds.

One of my relatives has been interested (though not precisely following) the paleo/primal diets for some time. I believe that the science behind them are fairly sound, if for no other reason than that high grain and refined carb. intakes can cause significant health problems over time. No, i'm not going to go into ANY science, because frankly, it's been done, by people MUCH more knowledgeable than me.

(one example is in the Paleo Solution, by Robb Wolf )

Thus I made the drastic decision a couple of weeks ago to *gasp* remove grains from my diet entirely!

Okay, not quite entirely, yet. I've removed all the obvious grain foods (bread, pasta, muffins, etc), and replaced them with more vegetables. I'm not yet worrying about trace amounts of grains in foods, or about legumes, or sweet corn.

Or, quite frankly, too much about the rest of the diet. Yet.

My focus right now is to eliminate grain, and drastically reduce refined sugars (not eliminate entirely as, well, i'm a bit of an addict, and cold turkey is a surefire way for me to fail!). Also, I am working on beefing up my intake of various veggies, from all points in the color spectrum.

There are some aspects of the diet i can't quite embrace yet.
no dairy? um... i'm at fairly high risk of osteoporosis. i think i'll stick to having milk products, thanks.


no sweet corn or potatoes? well, i'm gonna keep these for now. i know, they're not ideal foods, but i don't eat corn every day, and potatoes are my 'replacement' for family meals (the rest of my family are not yet on the band wagon)

coconut and palm oil okay, but lard/tallow not? I disagree completely about palm oil, but agree with caveats to both coconut and lard. Coconut oil is a fine choice, IF it's not highly processed or hydrogenated (as the types in candy and the like often are!) Lard is OK though, if (and this is a big one) it's from a grass-fed animal, as it will have much healthier trace vitamins and components than grain-fed, and even that is better than the scary stuff they sell in the stores. Never goes bad? Doesn't need refrigerating?  I think i'll pass.

Frankly, i LOVE using animal fats for cooking. give me some lard, tallow, or bacon grease any day, and i'll pan fry you some thing delicious  ;)

so far? well, i haven't lost any weight. but i wasn't expecting to, in the short term. i'm expecting losses to begin in another week or two, and progress slowly, as i'm only about 30 pounds over my ideal (and the closer to ideal, the slower things generally go!)


Hopefully, i'll keep y'all updated a little more frequently.

oh look. some lovely smooshy roving. that i dyed. yay! then i found out the dyes are not colorfast. boo. completely unrelated to the post, but i wanted to put SOME sort of picture in here  :)