THEN

Back in the 1990’s and 2000’s I was all about a Low-Fat diet. I thought I had to eat low-fat to be fit and health. Keeping in mind I was in my early 20’s I was fit, but I was not healthy. At all. Then I also became un-fit as well. I yo-yoed back and forth for years.

Side note: Even when I was eating low-fat, I was never really able to eat as low-fat as I thought I “should” be eating. I still don’t know what people eat to maintain super low fat intake.

Enter “The Paleo Solution Diet” by Robb Wolf. This is a great book – I highly recommend it!

I again was not healthy. At all. So, I dove into Paleo face first. Over a few years I became very health and fit again. It was fantastic! I felt great – I preformed great – I looked great!

Somehow I ended up messing around with a super low carbohydrate diet. Between the low carbohydrate diet and poor lifestyle factors, and after some time…I became unhealthy and un-fit yet again.

I’ve been working to flight my way back ever since. This time my body broke down to levels I did not know existed and wish I didn’t know.

NOW

Through all of my diet and health struggles…..this is what I’ve learned.

• Paleo is not dogmatic (you’re the only person that can impose rules on yourself)
• Low-fat diets will eventually break you
• Low-carb diets will eventually break you
• Excessive exercise will eventually break you
• It takes longer to heal the broken than it takes to break

I will no longer cut out a whole macro groups (protein, fat, carb) from my diet ever again. It isn’t necessary and in the long run it will break you.

Eating protein, fat, and carbs is required.

I know….I know…. everyone is either still in the low-fat camp or all about the ketogenic diet – it is everywhere and I’m sure most people are super confused about it all.

Truth is everyone’s dietary requirements are different from everyone else’s and each person’s dietary requirements change throughout their lifetime.

Recommended Books

• Wire to Eat
• The Paleo Cure

Soooo…..I’m not a man…I realistically cannot speak to that….but I can tell you….as a women….while we can adjust our macros (protein, fat, carb) of how much of each we take-in we need to be eating all three. Maybe not at every meal and maybe not every day, but you need all three in your face…in your body if you want to maintain your life, health, well-being, fitness, hormones, sleep….etc.

I find that I personally do not do well with restriction. Restriction in anyway will send me into a tailspin. So, now….I do not tell myself that I cannot have something. I can have anything I want any time I want. It is my responsibility and my choice to eat something or not to eat something that I choose…knowing that it either helps me or hurts me and it either gets me closer to my goals or further away from my goals. I own it and I suffer or reap the consequence of my choice one way or the other (I don’t feel bad about it either way).

UNCOMPLICATED

This whole thing is less complicated than what folks make it out to be.

Eat whole real foods.

If you can answer yes to these three questions, then it is real whole food.

• Did your food grow out of the ground, fall from a tree, or have a mother?
• Will it spoil?

There are times when we will eat foods out of a box or a bag; this day in age it is inevitable.

• Can you pronounce all the ingredient’s names? (if not, find a better quality product with simple/less/pronounceable ingredients)

Go back to basics.

Trust me I get it….while this is a simple approach….it isn’t necessarily easy. BUT there are lots of tools out there to help (including me). I have found that we can and will do anything that we determine is important to us.