The Diet

That word has such a bad connotation. Images of starving yourself, of eating things that you don't really want to, and for all intensive purposes, things that don't even taste good. There are tons of diets out there. Atkins, South Beach, Biggest Loser, there's even a banana diet. Google it...they love it in Japan. But diet shouldn't be a word we dread. A diet, after all, is a plan. We have plans for other areas of our lives. We have a budget for our finances. We have a calendar for our social lives. We have wills for after we pass. And we all recognize that if we don't have a plan for those areas they will suffer. But rarely do we have a plan for what we eat. We as a country are suffering. Heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity are just to name a few of the food-related illnesses we suffer from. Not to mention we are the second-most obese state in the nation. You could safely say that not having a plan for what we eat is spreading into an epidemic. I encourage everyone to watch this this video from chef Jamie Oliver. It truly is mind-blowing to realize that not only are we slowly killing ourselves but we are also setting a horrible example for the next generation. And what's crazy is that these diseases are preventable, but not without a plan. There are many things that I love about my box (name for Crossfit gyms), Iron Tribe Fitness, and one of those things is how they encourage every athlete to get in charge of their nutrition. And they have made every effort to afford everyone at Iron Tribe the information to successfully implement a plan for their nutrition. This is where I learned about The Paleo Diet. This diet consists of eating meat, vegetables, some fruit and nuts. No gluten. No dairy. No sugar. And I will preface this by saying that yes, this is not an easy diet. And this is where planning comes in handy. I have learned many times over the past year that if I don't have a plan for my diet, I will definitely fail. But a little planning goes a long way and the gains are worth every minute of planning. My goal with this blog is to make planning for The Paleo Diet a tad bit easier. I will be posting Paleo recipes as I go along. Please let me know if you try anything you like and feel free to e-mail me suggestions and recipes. I hope this blog will be a tool to encourage and inspire you along your Paleo way. Also if you want to learn more about The Paleo Diet I would highly suggest reading Robb Wolf's "The Paleo Solution".

"Tell me what you eat, I'll tell you who you are."
~Anthelme Brillat-Savarin