Last Updated on September 17, 2024 by Kaira
So, what is a Paleo diet? Wait, have you ever heard about the Paleo diet? Maybe yes or maybe no. Most of us might be not really familiar with the term of the Paleo diet.
It’s one of the most popular nutrition lifestyles that many people follow nowadays. As we see in the media campaigns that the Paleo diet is believed to be the most effective way to lose weight especially for women.
Nutrition blogs, gym, and even health experts suggest people change their old diet method to the Paleo diet. But before you jump deeply into this type of diet, you should know the basic knowledge of what exactly Paleo means.
1) Paleo definition
Paleo comes up as a guide to health a benefiting lifestyle based on the principle of our Hunter-Gather ancestors added with modern-day knowledge and abilities.
The basic idea of this method lies with its principal where balance is everything. Back in the day, our ancestors only ate foods that they could catch which were a very basic menu without sugar, salt, or fired oil.
But in the modern interpretations, Paleo is primarily contained vegetarian method. Vegetarian comprises process food which becomes the keys including as its principal by consuming leafy green vegetables, fresh from pesticide, fruits, and nuts.
However, eating an animal is banned by vegetarians while Paleo tries to balancing between vegetables and animals. Use iHerb.com coupon to buy healthy fats for your paleo diet.
2) What is a paleo diet?
Paleo diet is the lifestyle using the Paleo method to lose weight with proper nutrition absorption. This type of diet can be done by anyone especially women, but it’s highly advised to discuss with an expert on nutritionists before trying.
The Paleo lifestyle consists of three essential elements including exercise, diet, and mindfulness. These elements need to be done with balance and proper instruction and rules especially for those who commit to a long-term diet.
Eating healthy food with exact nutrition absorption is necessary such as organic, unprocessed foods and pasture-raised free-range poultry, grass-fed meat, and fresh vegetables.
Physical activities also need to be carried in this method, as well as choosing the right exercise. In the Paleo diet, you should consider the proper exercise without forcing your body too much for example walking, jogging or other basic sports.
Being positive is also very important to the Paleo diet. The nutrition can be defined as not only a healthy tummy, but it’s also mean a strong heart and a happy brain.
So, be positive to everyone that you meet with every condition is the part of the Paleo diet.
3) Paleo diet basics
The basic Paleo diet lies with its element and principal by eating proper food, exercise and having a positive mind.
This is not merely that you do not have to eat chocolate or dairy food, but you should know your body and learn what your body needs. Understanding your body’s needs is crucial for maintaining good health and wellbeing. For some people, consuming certain foods can lead to discomfort, bloating, or even allergic reactions.
This is why eating in public feels uncomfortable for them, as they may feel self-conscious about the potential reaction their body may have to the food they are consuming.
It’s important to listen to your body and make choices that support your individual needs, even if it means abstaining from certain foods in social situations.
By prioritizing your health and well-being, you can better understand why certain foods may not be the best choice for you and make informed decisions about what you consume.
Some people are ok with eating chocolate 100 g per week, while the other makes chocolate more addictive and destroys the diet plan.
Trying to understand that the fundamental Paleo is about the principle of balance, it also doesn’t mean that you have a strict balanced lifestyle too.
But as long as you plan and do your diet with proper nutrition and well prepared, the essential Paleo diet becomes more natural.
Paleo essential diet actually requires more understanding of the Paleo itself, if you learn about Paleo, you will more easily do your own diet.
4) Paleo diet rules
Some rules must be followed if you really want to try this unique type of diet. Some of them including:
- Try to avoid processed food especially fried food. Unprocessed foods are believed to block and remove nutrition, and essential content in the food especially added with sugar, salt or MSG. The more you consume processed food, the less necessary nutrition absorbed into your body. Processed food causes several effects to your body such as makes your brain and body tired that lead you to be easy.
- Stop consuming dairy product especially milk cows. Hunter-gatherers don’t eat dairy products such as milk, margarine, butter, cheese, cultured dairy, yogurt, frozen dessert, ice cream, whey, milk powder, etc.
- Grains are not allowed to add to your menu in the Paleo diet. Grains include pasta, cereals, crackers, rice, and bread. Grains contain too much carbohydrate that increases your blood sugar level that harms your diet.
- Do not drink alcohol. Back in the day, the ancestors did not know the alcohol that makes this the vital principle to be added. Beers are made of grains that contain traces of gluten so, it’s not really recommended to drink beer while you are on the Paleo diet. However, you should not be worried too much; red wine is still accepted in the Paleo rules because it contains antioxidants resveratrol. But do not drink wine in moderation.
- Legumes are also not allowed. This category food including tofu, lentils, peas, soya beans, peanuts, and These type of foods contains the high content of phytic acid and lectins that harm your body.
- Do not consume artificial sugar. Artificial sugars are very dangerous in every type of diet, especially in the Paleo diet. If you use sweetener to your food, you can use honey or maple syrup which are healthier than an artificial one. Artificial sugars including acesulfame potassium, aspartame, maltitol, mannitol, neotame, polydextrose, sucrose, isomalt, glycerol, lactitol, xylitol.
- Find your own exercise that suitable for your body. You should start from daily routine basic exercises such as jogging, running and swimming with confidence for example 1 hour a day in the morning. Try to be as consistent as possible, and be disciplined with your own schedule including the Paleo diet plan. Paleo diet doesn’t require you to have a better exercise like gym, yoga, and stuff like that, but as long as you are consistent, it’s okay.
- Be positive to your body and the people with any circumstances and conditions. The basic idea of the Paleo diet is to have a positive mindset and strong motivation without worry about the result. Sometimes, people get stressed when it comes to seeing their weigh losing results. If you are stressed, you can be easy to overthink that harm the balance of your body.
- Cook your own meal rather than eating out in restaurants. Currently, there are so many health restaurants that provide high quality and fresh food. However, it’s bad psychologically and economically that harm the balance of your body. You should be better to cook your own meal because sometimes, you have your own portion that restaurants don’t provide. It’s also easier to control food and ingredients rather than in restaurants. Cooking sometimes gives you creativity to combine some food on a plate with better nutrition. Cooking also gives you positive vibes, especially in the morning when you start your morning. So, it’s that bad to cook by yourself rather than buying food in.
- Do the right activities without stressed out. Sometimes, daily working hours makes people get easily stressed. The deadline and the work environment makes your brain easily tired. So, try to avoid highly stressed activities by taking a breath or closing your eyes for minutes to make you whole again. Relax and free your mind from overthinking is the best way to avoid stress.
- Sleep well. Sleeping is the most efficient way to charge your body to be fit again. If you have a lack of sleep, it would be worst for your condition, and especially that jeopardizes your diet. People with a lack of sleep cannot concentrate appropriately that ruins the brain system and lead to stress. So, try to get a better sleep around 6-7 hours a day.
5) Paleo diet food list
Before you begin your Paleo diet plan, you should try to choose what type of food is suitable for your tummy. Some vegetables are not really good for people with certain green allergic, so do not list that food.
So, considering and learning your body to adjust to a particular food is the best way to do before listing your Paleo diet foods. Here are the recommended Paleo diet foods you should consider :
- Unprocessed food;
- Meats including beef, chicken, lamb, turkey, pork, and others (make sure this meat are not highly processed;
- Eggs especially rich in omega 3;
- Vegetables such as broccoli, kale, spinach, onion, garlic, carrots, tomatoes, celery, asparagus, cabbage, parsley, eggplant, peppers, etc;
- Fruits such as banana, apple, grapes, pears, avocado, blueberries, oranges, papaya, peaches, lime, ginger, guava, plums, etc;
- Nut and seed including walnut, hazelnut, sunflower seed, pumpkin seeds, almonds, pine nuts, chia seeds, etc;
- Healthy fats and oils such as virgin oil, palm oil, olive oil, coconut oil, avocado oils, etc;
- Fish and seafood such as salmon, shrimps, trout, haddock, etc;
- Tubers such as sweet potatoes, potatoes, yams, turnips, etc;
- Other friendly food such as coconut oil, spirulina, cardamon, mace, cinnamon, tahini, apple cider vinegar, coconut amino, etc;
6) Paleo meals
Paleo meals are easy to make, especially if you love cooking and get your hands dirty in the kitchen. There are plenty of recipes that you can try to make your own Paleo meals.
You should try to make variations in Paleo meals every day. Use high-quality fresh ingredients in unique ways of combining beef, vegetable, and fruits.
Whether you are cooking for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, you should include vegetables and protein in your everyday meal.
Paleo diet is not allowed to eat heavy carbohydrates; you should replace protein and vegetables to give energy to your body.
In the night, you can make avocado with a spiced chicken salad to help you easily to sleep. Simple baked salmon with lemon and thyme are also the great Paleo meal for dinner.
You just merely bake salmon with small portion added with lemon or lime or other fruits.
Salmon tastes great and also loaded with plenty of omega-three as well as healthy fats that help to function in your body. Spaghetti squash with meatballs is also a great idea for dinner in the Paleo diet.
Spaghetti has significant carbohydrates to change your grain such as rice and grains. You can make meatball by adding beef or pork depends on what you like and portion.
Spaghetti and meatballs with a little bit squash are the perfect combinations or your dinner, not only it tastes better, but also, it’s healthy.
If you want to include dessert to make the variation in your meal, you should make a healthy Paleo dessert. One of the best desserts that you can try is spiced autumn apples baked.
You can bake spiced apples by adding raisin, brandy, cinnamon, nutmeg and try a little bit honey at the top.
You can eat dessert in the afternoon or night, but do not eat before you are ready to sleep. To lose weight in Paleo is not easy while at the same time it’s not hard too, it depends on your consistency.
7) Paleo weight loss
When it comes to losing weight, Paleo might be a perfect way, especially for women. Paleo requires discipline especially in the term of eating habit without forcing you to have more severe exercise.
Weight loss in Paleo’s definition is simply to change your eating habits combined with regular basic exercise. Some people find it difficult to change their eating habit, by adding more sugar without conscious.
People tend to do exercise while they also eat junk food that makes the diet is far away from the balance. As mentioned above, balance is the most important principle that you have to follow in the term of Paleo.
The balance is simply about controlling what you eat and the exercises that you do. Too much exercise in a day also affects an imbalance in your body.
Sometimes your body burns too many calories and fat fastly in a day while it sums up again in another day. It means that you need consistent and regular exercise.
Also, the Paleo weight loss method is also about a positive mindset by avoiding stress and getting enough sleep. Men and women have different timing of sleeping too.
So, know your sleeping pattern. Paleo diet is basically the alternative and a more efficient way to lose weight especially if you follow the rules appropriately.
Conclusion
The three basic fundamentals of Paleo including eating the right food, exercise regularly and consistently and be positive inside and outside are the primary keys to the Paleo diet that you should follow.
If you want to be serious about the Paleo diet to lose your weight. You should discuss it with the expert and nutrition for a better understanding of your body.
If you want to know more about the Paleo diet, try to get knowledge by reading Paleo nutrition book and other resources too.
The more you learn about the Paleo diet, the more you can understand your body.
