Nell Stephenson's Blog, page 32

Common Paleo Eating Mistakes

Have you stayed your course thus far in 2015 with your new Paleo regime, yet you’re finding that you’re not yet getting the results you were after, whatever your health goals may be?

Don’t worry, and don’t throw in the towel.  The answer is not in the form of a ‘weight loss tablet’ nor to draw the conclusion that ‘Paleo just doesn’t work for me’.

I’ve noticed some very common trends with clients over the years who have tried their hand independently at Paleo but have gotten caught up with some of the less than accurate info in the media.

As such, I was thrilled to read an article written recently by Dr. Terry Wahls, published on Mind Body Green’s Website, entitled, The Top Five Mistake Paleo Eaters Make.

First and foremost, the source is incredibly reliable (if you’re not familiar with her work, you’ve got to make it a priority to learn!).

She cuts right to the chase and outlines some of the most common errors people make when trying to ‘go Paleo’ but slightly missing the mark, though no fault of their own, such as swapping gluten-containing grain products for gluten-free grain products, not eating enough veggies (from both land and sea) and eating too much meat and the wrong type.

Keep this in mind as your rule of thumb principle about what Paleo is all about:

“The idea is to mimic the food groups our ancestors ate with food we can easily find in our farmer’s markets, grocery stores and even our own backyards“, to paraphrase Dr. Cordain.

We can also refer to another succinct quote from Whole30, who also put it nicely on their site when they surmised: “Continuing to eat your old, unhealthy foods made with Whole30 ingredients is totally missing the point, and will tank your results faster than you can say “Paleo Pop-Tarts.” Remember, these are the same foods that got you into health-trouble in the first place—and a pancake is still a pancake, regardless of the ingredients.”

So, here it is.  You know what real food is, and you know what real food isn’t.  Pan seared sea bass, grass-fed skirt steak, roasted broccoli and raw kale salad = food.

Brownies, waffles, cupcakes, bread= not so much.

Again, as I’ve said and written many, many times before, having the ‘not so much’ foods as a special treat once a while, assuming you’re not following a specific protocol (such as the Autoimmune protocol, for which you’d want to be sure to avoid certain foods- like gluten- always), could be your individual balance to keeping Paleo the other 95% of the time.

Eating healthfully most of the time is certainly better than not doing so at all, and it can be that your path might include small steps to the same end.

Just be sure to make eating real food in a balanced, Paleo fashion the mainstay of your regime, certainly before you cut off your nose to spite your face and don’t give yourself a fair chance at reaping all the benefits.

Click here to get some guidance in the form of a download plan to suit many custom needs.  How to, when to and how much to eat; it’s all outlined using real, 100% food.

Have a Cuppa; Cheers to Good Health

A steaming cup of tea provides more than just another beverage option for a healthy Paleo regime; it can provide a seemingly endless list of health benefits.

And while there are some lovely premium tea options available, did you know you can just as simply make a healing (or preventative) pot of tea using some easily found foods from the grocery store or farmer’s markets such as:

Ginger Root
Turmeric Root
Fresh Oregano Leaves
Cinnamon Sticks
Lemon Wedges
Cayenne Pepper (optional)

Simply wash, roughly chop, place right in a tea pot,  pour water on top and let steep for about five minutes.

Strain, pour out and enjoy while your body thanks you for the extra immunity boost!

Cold bugs- just try and do your best; you don’t stand a chance!

 

Heat it Up, Spice It Up and Ward Off Colds with Ancient Remedies

When we think of enjoying a delicious dinner at an Indian restaurant like Lamb Vindaloo, or a hearty lunch at the local Thai eatery, like Tom Yum soup with shrimp, chances are we’re enjoying the food simply because it tastes good.

But did you know that you’re actually doing more than nourishing your body?  In addition to providing great source of proteins, fats and veggies, you’re also getting a whopping dollop of immune-strengthening ‘remedies’, courtesy of the health-promoting compounds present in all the spices.

In addition to flavoring food, spices have long been used to promote good health (not to mention preserve foods, rather than relying on salt).

In particular, some that stand out include:

Turmeric Contains Bioactive Compounds With Powerful Medicinal Properties the most important of which is curcumin
The health benefits of cumin include its ability to aid in digestion, improving immunity and treating piles, insomnia, respiratory disorders, asthma
Health benefits associated with ginger, from reducing inflammation of the colon to relieving muscle pain and nausea
Due to its innate compounds, garlic can help keep both bacterial and viral infections at bay.
Lab studies have found that cinnamon may reduce inflammation, have antioxidant effects, and fight bacteria.

Wondering where to buy these great spices?  Well, how about winning them instead, as part of this week’s Paleoista Pantry giveaway, offered in conjunction with Barefoot Provisions?

Click here  to learn more!

Treating Symptoms, Masking the Cause

With a stuffy head, a runny nose and red eyes, you’re hardly feeling your best for that presentation at work you’ve been killing yourself preparing for the last week.

So it makes sense to simply pop into the local drug store for some Advil, Sudafed and Visine, right?

In a pinch, perhaps, simply to look presentable, but not without consequence.

We’ve all been in a situation where we can’t simply go home and go to bed and that’s when it may feel like taking the over the counter tablets make sense, and granted, it may be worth it simply to get through a critical meeting at work or a key project you’ve simply got to finish.

However, if we back up and address the underlying issue in advance, we can make it less likely to get to that stage of hosting a bad cold in the first place.

As soon as you start to feel that scratchy throat or begin to sneeze, take the initiative to do everything you can in advance to support your immune system and get rid of those nasty germs early on, before they completely invade your body.

Up the water and fluid intake.   Homemade grass-fed beef bone broth as well as pastured chicken soup have natural healing properties and by  making them yourself, you can guarantee they’re not going to be loaded with sodium.
Up the green leafy veggies.  While Paleo, when followed properly, is an alkaline diet, during times of duress, like cold-fighting, we need all the help we can get, so now’s the time to go from eating a lot of these health boosting foods to eating a ton!
Add raw garlic.  So you’ll have less than lovely breath for a few days.  The richest food source of a compound called allicin, which is key in supporting the immune system, the breath odor is the only ‘side effect’ of this natural food-remedy.
Sweat it out.  While it may not be the best time to go for your typical long run or ride, a good, short sweat is indicated in helping improve circulation and flooding all tissues with a fresh blood supply, rather than letting everything go stagnant lying on the couch watching TV.    An hour spin on your indoor trainer or an aerobic run outdoors while you’re bundled up are two great options.
Soak it in.   Adding a bit of essential eucalyptus oil to a hot, steamy bath can help to open up stuffy nasal passages.  Add some lavender, too, to help promote relaxation!
Salt it out.  While eating salt isn’t part of the Paleo diet, using some in a Neti pot is a great way to natural irrigate the sinuses and get rid of some of the build up. Once you get past the initial fear (I had it, too!) of using it, you’ll find it opens your nasal passages like nothing else.
Heat it up.  Add some cayenne to your food (tread lightly- it’s so easy to over do!) in order to boost immunity even more!

By relying on natural, food-based remedies, we can keep strong and turn what might have become a full blown illness into a one or two day mildly annoying hiccup.

Zinc Supplements: Necessary in Cold Fighting?

No doubt about it, zinc plays a crucial role in keeping us cold-free during this season when people to the right and left of us are dropping like flies with a cough, runny nose, congestion amongst other unpleasant symptoms.

And if you’ve been following a typical diet, high in grains, you’re more likely to be low on this fundamental part of healthy diet.  Dr. Cordain has stated that “high levels of phytate in unleavened whole grain breads cause a zinc deficiency”.

So what’s the best course of action, now that you’re following a Paleo regime?   Is it straight to the drug store to load up on processed zinc supplements?

Below are a couple of typical reactions to attempting to load up on zinc:

Relying whole heartedly on Zicam, anytime you feel the slightest tickle in your throats or a sniffly nose.  Zicam is, per their site, “the only nasal spray that is clinically proven to shorten colds. A plant-based homeopathic no-drip nasal spray that also provides multi-symptom relief. Contains cooling menthol and eucalyptus” .  Unfortunately, it also contains benzalkonium chloride, dibasic sodium phosphate, eugenol. glycine, hypromellose, monobasic sodium phosphate, phenethyl alcohol, polysorbate 80, saccharin sodium, sodium chloride and succinic acid.

Plant-based, perhaps, but how about all that other junk?

Maybe taking a zinc tablet is the answer.  One popular brand, with “Natural” plastered across its label,  is FDA Approved (and we know how significant that is), contains Calcium, Magnesium & Zinc with D3 and “helps build strong bones & teeth”.  Oh, but wait!  It also contains Cellulose Gel , Maltodextrin , Croscarmellose Sodium , Polyvinyl Alcohol-Polyethylene Glycol Graft Copolymer , Silicon Dioxide , Magnesium Stearate , Color Added , Copovidone , Gelatin  and Corn Starch.

No, thanks.

What’s left?

You guessed it:  food!

Hands down, the single best food source of zinc is an oyster, with a single 100 gram serving providing  up to 182mg of zinc!

One again, we can see that everything we need is found in nature.

Now you have a reason to enjoy Oysters, aside from wanting something decadent or to take advantage of their purported aphrodisiac benefits.    And for those of you moms-to-be, did you know they’re also indicated in TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) to help with fertility?

Bottoms Up!

Orange Juice to Fight Colds? Think Again.

Freshly squeezed orange juice is loaded with Vitamin C, so we should drink plenty the second we feel like we’re getting a cold bug, right?

Not so fast.

As part of this week’s theme on starting the New Year off in a healthy manner, tune in each day for tips on preventing, or fighting off, common colds and the flu by supporting a building our immunity through what we eat.

Instead of heading to the pharmacy to buy products to address symptoms that actually work against the body’s efforts to get healthy, why not focus on supporting the immune system instead?

While including fruit as part of the Paleo approach makes sense, one thing we don’t want to overdo is sugar, even if it is from a natural source.

Fresh fruit juice, even local, seasonal organic, is high in sugar, low in fiber and protein and contains little to no fiber, making it a poor choice as a meal replacement option, even if the appetite is decreased due to feeling under the weather, getting more rest and taking time off from normal physical activity.

In addition, sugar is a food source for bacteria and virii, making it the last thing we’d want to supply our bodies with when the goal is to rid ourselves of the offending culprits causing the flu or a common cold.

Rather than rely on sugary orange juice, better options include green vegetable sources.

Did you know that bell peppers, leafy green veggies and broccoli all have higher amounts of vitamin C per serving that orange juice anyway?

Up the greens, reduce or preferably eliminate sugars, and you’re off to a good start at creating an environment where unwelcome cold and flu germs simply cannot thrive.

 

Paleoista New Year Giveaway: Win A Pantry Basics Basket!

We’re nearly halfway through January already; can you believe it?

Statistically, this week is when the most people will join a gym, embark on a new fitness endeavor…and begin a new ‘diet’.

While many people do, indeed, begin attempts to execute rigid New Year’s resolutions effective January 1st, for many the first week of the new year may be a combination of holiday withdrawal or, as some refer to it, holiday hangover.

A combination of feeling that inevitable resolve to do things differently in the new year, mixed with a bit of shock of  how much was eaten to excess and how little exercise was completed may’ve led to a bit of a shock once a you did a quick check in on your scale or attempted, unsuccessfully to fit into your skinny jeans.

As part of my Healthy Paleoista New Year promotion, I’d like to offer you a chance to win one Paleoista approved basket, offered in conjunction with Barefoot Provisions, each week for the next three weeks.

For this week, you’ll have a chance at the Paleoista Pantry Basics, next week will be the Portable Proteins and finally, the Paleoista Special Occasions Basket for the week beginning January 26th.

What’s in a it?

The Paleoista Pantry Basics Kit  contains:

Two of the healthiest fats: olive oil, great for drizzling on top of steamed veggies or salad, and coconut oil, perfect for cooking foods at higher temps while providing great taste and loads of health benefits.
A selection of authentic spice blends which helps you to create endless culinary possibilities you can whip up in your very own kitchen.

With an emphasis on local, seasonal produce, balanced out with naturally raised proteins, a True Paleoista regime is all about a focus on flavor and abundance of all the wonderful foods we can nourish our bodies with while enjoying ridiculously delicious foods at the same time!

Click here to learn more and then comment on which item you’d would like most from the kit, or what dish you’d make from the kit!

Your comment on facebook, twitter , instagram or my blog gets you entered.

At the end of each week a winner will randomly be selected and it starts again on Monday of the next week.

Click here  to shop online and for your entry now; let the healthy eating begin!

 

It’s National Milk Day Today

I’m not making this up.  Today really is National Milk Day.  Who knew there was such a holiday?

Apparently, it’s a celebration of the day when milk was first delivered in glass bottles in 1878.

On the very same website where I learned about this holiday, if you will, was a very succinct description of this bovine bodily fluid which I felt summed it up perfectly: “Milk is a white liquid produced by mammary glands of mammals which is the primary source of nutrition for  young mammals before they are able to digest other types of food.”

Right.

So take a step back for a moment and forget about what your views on the rest of the Paleo scope is; think about how odd it is that our society is convinced that drinking this white liquid from another mammal at an age where we are clearly able to digest other food is a normal, healthy thing to do?

Another step back; consider that the USDA which tells us what our perfect MyPlate should consists of, is sponsored by the Dairy C0uncil.

Ah!  Now it all makes sense.

Marion Nestle’s blog, foodpolitics.com, is a great resource for how the government promotes dairy foods, no matter what kind or where they appear.

So, in honor of National Milk Day, go ahead and drink up; just opt for something not dairy!

Below are a couple of ideas of how to partake without succumbing to ingesting acid-forming cow’s milk (for more on this, don’t forget to check out Dr. Cordain’s The Paleo Answer, in which there’s an entire chapter on all the reasons we should avoid dairy…even grass-fed).

If you’re somewhere tropical- enjoy the purest coconut milk you’ll ever get, fresh out of the coconut itself!  Whack open a young coconut, pour out the water, scoop out the flesh and whiz together in a blender to make an amazingly decadent beverage.
If not, have a try at making your own nut milk (so long as you’re not following the Paleo autoimmune protocol, where you’d be avoiding nuts), rather than relying on many of the commercially prepared versions which tend to have stabilizers, additives, sugars and other grain-based ‘milks’.

Or…just have a cuppa tea!

For The Love of Running

I’m going on a run today.

Kind of a long one.

And I’m doing it without having eaten cups of pasta last night for dinner, bagels and peanut butter for breakfast and you can bet I won’t be ‘recovering’ with chocolate milk when I’m done.

By eating a real food diet (Paleo) and adapting my body to have a strong aerobic base while also becoming more efficient at using fat as a fuel, I’ve been able to to train and race successfully, recover and rest properly and enjoy the process all along.

In Pocket Paleo Workout, I go into more detail about some of the myths about endurance training, but it’s pretty straightforward:  eat real food, train in an intelligent manner to balance improving without overdoing, rest, focus and be sure to take some down time to let the mind and body mellow out a little.

This run is particularly fun as it’s the antithesis of how I approach a marathon or triathlon. Nothing’s at stake; I’m not trying to qualify for anything and I am simply grateful to spend the day doing something I love so much with someone I love so much (my ultra running husband)!

See you at the finish!

Recovering Properly After Workout

It took me a good seven or eight years to figure out why I wasn’t racing and recovering properly, despite following all the advice in triathlon and running magazines.

Actually, you might argue that the reasons was precisely that- I was following all the advice!

It’s too confusing.

I began my path to sports-recovery enlightenment with The Paleo Diet for Athletes, by Dr. Loren Cordain and Joe Friel, back when I read it in 2005.  (By the way, if you’re an athlete and haven’t read this, it’s a must do!)

Since then, I’ve gotten the hang of what to eat, how much and when for any type of training, from my long endurance rides to shorter workouts done later in the day and even what to eat to bridge that grey area in the afternoon when you’re getting hungry but don’t want to head to that evening yoga or spin class with a full belly.

One of my favorite options is to make smoothies, both to prepare for as well as to recover from long training.  Tomorrow, when I run the 50 mile ultra in Catalina, you can be sure I’ll be filling my boots with great sources of clean carbohydrates when I cross the finish line…something like my recipe for a smoothie which is yours to peek at (click here) as a preview into Pocket Paleo Workout.

Joe Friel himself wrote the foreward, which meant the world to me!

Enjoy!