My Adventure With The Paleo Diet

Last week I decided to try the Paleo diet. Not commit to Paleo, but try it out. This meant cutting out dairy, grains, and sugar. My wonderful mother adapted the family meal plan to work around this, and a few of the things I ate were definitely interesting.  

For starters, I tried pumpkin leaves. Based on my online research, if I eat them everyday, I'll live past 100. To be honest, I sort of thought they were poisonous or something. Turns out that pretty much all of the pumpkin plant is edible. That doesn't mean it's delicious, though. The pumpkin leaf I had with my pineapple chicken (now that was delicious!) literally tasted like nothing except fuzz. 

Okay. So I know peanuts aren't technically Paleo, but the peanut butter pictured above was organic and almost certainly full of all sorts of vitamins and minerals. Plus, it tasted absolutely wonderful! So it must be healthy, right? 

But best of all were the egg and banana pancakes. Those were the only ingredients. Seriously. Even I was able to remember the recipe! They came out a little funny looking...but they definitely tasted much better than I was expecting.

I only tried it out for a week, but I'm so glad I did. I had more energy. I felt happier, healthier, but also hungrier, especially at the beginning of the week. The first day or two my stomach was always growling. I felt like I was eating so much food, but it wasn't taking up as much room as I was used to. 

I give a huge amount of credit to anyone who commits to doing the Paleo diet! While the benefits are wonderful, it takes a lot of discipline. I didn't used to think as much about the food that I ate. If I was at a party and there was anything chocolate or covered in salt, I would stay by the food table until I was full, and then some. 

I'm not going to continue Paleo, at least not for now, but I am going to think more about the food that I eat and remember how it makes me feel.

I 'celebrated' the end of my Paleo at a picnic last night. I do have to admit that it felt pretty good to eat some bread. ;)

My dad's lifelong dream of projecting a movie outside on our stage/deck was fulfilled as well last night. He showed 'The Incredible Shrinking Man'. My friends and I found it incredibly...um...inspiring. :)