What is Paleo?

Guess there is no turning back now!  I even shared this with facebook friends...oh boy. ;)  Time to dive in then:

I am no expert by any means, but here is my synopsis of what the Paleo diet is.

Essentially, you go back to eating how a caveman would-- before modern agriculture.  The concept behind it is that that is how our bodies are designed to be fed and that is how our digestive system can work most effectively.  It's supposed to help you lose weight and help to cleanse your body of all these artificial things that we put into it day after day. 

So that means meats (organic and grass fed with no antibiotics as much as possible), vegetables (TONS of them!), and some fruit and nuts.  You can cook with olive or coconut oil, and you can also have coconut milk from the can. 

Nuts are okay within reason, but you aren't supposed to have peanuts. (This one I don't quite understand....) 

And with the fruit--you are supposed to stay away from the super high-glycemic ones if at all possible, and they say berries are your best choice. 

Oh, and coffee and tea are okay too...just without anything in them. :/

So no grains, no dairy, and no sweeteners....and no alcohol. :(

And they also say give it 30 days, see how you are feeling and then, if you want, you can start to work into bringing back some of the things that you eliminated.  You can see how your body reacts and at that point figure out what works best for you long term.  (I'm not saying no to cream in my coffee forever, and I'm definitely not saying goodbye to gin and tonics forever either...but I am for 30 days.)

Sounds sort of limiting, I know. But after researching online there are tons and tons of recipes that look fun to try and many of the things we eat today you can still make, just without one or two of the ingredients.  So there ya have it.