Paleo Revisited

Last summer, on my flight home from a conference in Miami, I read Doug Willen's book, entitled "Quantum Paleo." It was the first literature I has read about the Paleo, or Caveman, diet, and it opened my eyes to a whole new way of thinking about food. I immediately jumped onto the diet without really evaluating the why or how, and quickly discovered that it simply wasn't the right time in my life to make a change of that magnitude. But the idea has been pecking away in the back of my mind ever since, so over the past few months I've been doing more and more reading on the Paleo lifestyle, exploring recipes, and talking to others who eat Paleo.

Over Christmas holidays I decided to start slow. Immediately after Christmas, I eliminated gluten from my diet, and stopped drinking dairy products. Within a few days I felt a dramatic change. All the bloating and fullness in my abdomen disappeared, my energy level increased, I started sleeping better, and I no longer felt tired and burnt out mid-afternoon every day. I also noticed benefits when exercising. I was running further and faster without getting as tired, I was recovering more quickly, and I was less sore in the hours and days following a strenuous workout. All that from eliminating wheat (I never ate much rye or barley anyway, so gluten free for me is mainly wheat free)? It couldn't be that simple. But it appeared it was.

Within a couple of weeks I realized the jump to Paleo would not be too hard. The only other staple grains in my diet were rice and corn (my husband is Mexican and we eat a lot of corn tortillas), and rarely eat refined sugar, so how hard could it be? Well, we'll see. Yesterday I began my new Paleo eating and am very excited to see what this new lifestyle change will bring!