When Adam and I first heard about the paleo lifestyle, we read a few articles saying how hard it was to find recipes - or come up with inspiration for meals. Yes, sometimes thinking of what to make for dinner is hard, especially when we do the shopping once a week in a town 45 minute drive away, but that has nothing to do with being paleo. In fact, we always used try to eat healthy, with the occasional pizza or scone with jam and cream, now is the same just minus the pizza and scone or cake.
We haven't found the transition too difficult, well it wasn't even a transition. We had a week 'trial' to see how we felt. In that week we both lost about 2-3 kilos, just like that. Then we went away for about 10 days, to Wales, Rome and Barcelona. We decided there was no point even trying to eat paleo while we were on holidays, as we were still newbies to the lifestyle and one of the reasons we decided to go to to Italy and Spain was for the pizza, peroni, pasta, tapas, sangria - I wasn't kidding in an earlier post when I said that I love food, and food dictates my travel plans and makes my experiences. There was no way we would walk into a pizza joint in Rome and ask for a gluten free crust, or if the bakery had any sugar free cakes- we're not mad. It was actually quite amazing, being away and looking forward to coming home to restart the paleo lifestyle.
So after our week trial, then our 10 day binge, we woke up on March the 12th and got straight back into it. Now, I think I should mention how we interpret paleo, because there seems to be quite a few ideas, theories and so many rules that we just find confusing.
We are simply no gluten, no dairy, no sugar, no processed foods and no legumes. This is our mantra. Some add no caffine and no soy to their paleo list, we barely drink coffee, if we do its made on the stove with ground coffee beans, and its about once a week. If we were to have a coffee in a cafe, we would have it with soy, because hey, where else in Yorkshire will we find a cafe that has anything we can eat, and we still like the atmosphere, maybe in future we will just have a herbal tea. The more research we do, the more apparent it is the paleo is a bit of the word of the month, a bit of a fad. For me, it is just easier to say paleo than the list at the beginning of the paragraph. We don't like to refer to it as a diet either, for us the word diet denotes a short term fix, lose the weight then go back to the old way, it's only been 3 weeks and I don't think I will ever go back.
It's been 3 weeks, and my body has changed shape, I never really had much of a belly, but that is flat now, and my bum is shrinking, I was referred to as having a 'J LO' bum by a relief chef about 3 months ago, well at this rate, never again. I'll always we curvy, that's what the hourglass figure is, but at least I will be more in proportion.
The point is, for us, paleo is worth it, it works, we feel great, the energy we feel now is indescribable. I went for a 10km bike ride this afternoon with Adam, because hey, why not? I never would have done that before.
Now, onto the ease and speed of paleo cooking. I don't like long winded complicated recipes, I tried melting chocolate and butter in a glass bowl over a saucepan about 2 years ago, for a (non paleo) brownie recipe and the bowl cracked in half and all the chocolate melted into the water. FAIL. So all my recipes are easy, generally pretty quick, healthy with no faffing about.
BLT SALAD
Ingredients
2 rashes of bacon - we are lucky enough here to get local bacon which is just incredible, you can totally taste the difference between it and ASDA bacon which just ooozes water when we try to cook it.
2 ripe tomatoes
1/2 head of iceberg lettuce chopped
5 basil leaves chopped - I put the basil leaves on top of each other on the chopping board and fold the stack in half and chop it really finely with a sharp knife
1/2 an avocado chopped
1/2 a carrot grated
1/4 head of red cabbage finely shredded
1/4 head of fennel finely sliced
add cold roast chicken shredded for an extra boost
Method
Cook bacon in a non stick pan, I don't use any oil as the fat from the bacon should create enough to prevent the bacon from sticking. Stand aside to cool - and chop into strips.
Place all other ingredients into a bowl and toss, then and the bacon strips and WOLLAH! All done. Enjoy.
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