Authors: Kellyann Petrucci

Paleo Cookbook For Dummies (7 page)

PCOS

Thyroid disorders

Ulcerative colitis

When you begin eating Paleo foods, you kick to the curb a lot of the processed foods and grains that cause this inflammation. Paleo foods are by nature anti-inflammatory and keep your immune system strong, so you effectively prevent and heal inflammatory conditions.

Make sure you're not just eating Paleo but also living Paleo. Exposure to toxins, stress, medications, overtraining, and sleep deprivation can all affect inflammation.

Undergoing the Paleo Transformation

You live longer, stronger, and more healthfully when you start eating and living Paleo because you move toward health. When you're truly healthy, your immune system is solid, protective, and strong. Your body works for you, not against you, and transformation happens.

I love to see what I call
the Paleo transformation.
People usually start Paleo to lose weight. Then layers and layers begin to peel back. Their waists get smaller, their skin and eyes glisten, and their hair may get shinier. They notice conditions healing, and before long, they get the most amazing part of the transformation â a mental, spiritual kind of change. They start thinking more clearly and enjoying a more positive outlook. When I see this start to unfold in the Paleo progression, I know healing is happening on the deepest level. I always call it “watching the de-aging process” because eating Paleo reboots the body by flooding it with vitamins and minerals. This healing is possible for anyone who decides to commit to living Paleo!

Choosing health with the Paleo Manifesto

To really look and feel your best for life, the Paleo principles are a template that works. Keep in mind the following tenets, which are woven throughout living Paleo:

Our bodies are really an energy matrix, and we should think of ourselves as electrical beings, not just structural ones. We are atoms and molecules, not just skin and bones.

Your genes express themselves according to your lifestyle. The way you eat, move, and live has everything to do with the outcome of your health. Living in a way that most closely matches your blueprint is most congruent with health and happiness. Finding time to play, get sunshine, exercise, connect with others, disconnect from electronics, and manage your stress all matter.

Most importantly, health is a byproduct of your choices. Living and eating Paleo is the healthiest template I have seen in all of my years of practice and helping people and other doctors find solutions. Results are typical with living Paleo.

Identifying why Paleo works better than other approaches

Paleo is more effective than other approaches because it centers on the food that works best with your body. Most importantly, Paleo foods have one purpose, which is what truly defines Paleo: to nourish the body and get you healthy.

That's right, the objective behind eating Paleo is to get you healthy. Period. Everything else that comes along the way just follows the natural progression. It's against natural law not to lose weight, boost immunity, fight aging, heal conditions, and perform better when you're healthy.

Switching on your healthy genes with Paleo

You're in the driver's seat of your health. Your lifestyle choices and the environment in which you choose to live have the biggest impact on the quality of your life. This science is called
epigenetics.
If you feel as though you can't lose weight or get well, no matter how much Paleo food you eat, because of your genes, you can erase all that thinking. Epigenetics is proof that how we look and feel is the result of our choices. Think of epigenetics as your ambassador of health. Epigenetics sends messages to your genome (genes) telling it to flick on the switch of health â or not â depending on your lifestyle choices.

If you're living Paleo, your body will flip the switch to health, and your genes will express this choice. You'll be healthy, lean, strong, and energetic. If you aren't making healthy choices, your genes will express sickness, fatigue, or obesity.

A Paleo diet and lifestyle create the raw material your genes need to flip the switch to health. You find that you look and feel your best â naturally.

Have a Paleo party

If you want to enroll others in living Paleo, start by having a Paleo party! Ask everyone to bring a recipe from this book. Discussing what's in some of the dishes is fun, and when your guests taste Paleo food for themselves, they're intrigued by how good it is with healthy Paleo ingredients. It's a fun and enlightening way to get people loving Paleo. My sister and I did this kind of event one New Year's Eve to celebrate the launch of
Living Paleo For Dummies
(Wiley)
,
and it was an absolute blast.

Chapter 2

Creating a Paleo Lifestyle

In This Chapter

Discovering the Paleo lifestyle

Searching out the main tenets of Paleo living

Tackling stress

Living Paleo to build a stronger, leaner, healthier body

Eating Paleo foods is exciting. It's a simple approach to eating that has gained so much traction in mainstream media because of its landmark success in helping people lose weight and get healthy. But that's just the beginning of the story.

Paleo is a lifestyle, not a flash-in-the-pan, red-carpet diet with the entire focus on just getting the weight off. That's the magic of Paleo: It does get the weight off, but it does so by creating healthier cells. When you create healthier cells, you naturally lose weight, boost your immunity, heal your body, and fight aging. You literally get healthier from the inside out when you live a Paleo lifestyle. It's against natural law not to.

Putting real food first is the foundation. However, Paleo considers all influences on your body, even those that happen outside the kitchen. Your relationship with food and how your food makes you feel, how much you eat, your movement, your exposure to sunlight, supplementation, your stress levels, and your thoughts all matter. Each of these variables creates the building blocks for the positive, long-lasting effects of living Paleo.

Ultimately, your habits and patterns are the defining factor of your success in losing weight, healing your body, boosting your immunity, and aging gracefully. This chapter gives you the lifestyle strategies that have positive lasting effects, allowing you to live your life by the optimal design shaped and molded by nature.

Getting an Overview of Living Paleo

One of the major beliefs in today's society is that the best way to lose weight and feel better is through whatever diet sheds the fat the fastest and whatever pill takes your symptoms away the quickest. Stop for a minute and ask yourself, “How's this working out?”

People are fatter and sicker than ever. Chronic diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, and cancer are affecting more people than ever. If modern-day living was evaluated like most businesses are, it would be considered a business model that needs improving, if not complete restructuring.

Here's the good news. You have a blueprint that works right at your fingertips. It's called
living Paleo
. When you discover the strategies for living how you were designed to eat, move, think, and live, a better life unfolds. Your life takes on a healthier, happier rhythm, and you flourish in every way. The best part is that it all happens naturally,
as if your body was made for this lifestyle all along!

Seeing Paleo as more than a diet

Most people start eating Paleo because they know someone (or someone who knows someone) who is getting awesome results â they're losing weight, feeling great, and looking healthier and better than ever. Getting a killer body is pretty great incentive, no doubt. But these effects are just the tip of the iceberg.

The Paleo lifestyle isn't just a diet; it's a life-improvement framework that gets results. You can set your watch to it. After you start putting real foods such as healthy proteins, fats, and carbohydrates into your body, you flourish in every way, not just on the scale. You have the energy to look for ways to heal on a deeper level. You move more, sleep better, spend more time outdoors, are more social, and even feel more optimistic. (I discuss several of these aspects of the lifestyle throughout this chapter.)

When you adopt the Paleo lifestyle patterns, you say goodbye to illness, aches, pains, and fatigue. You lose excess weight, and inflammation and bloating disappear. You start to look and feel younger. You're bursting with energy, and enthusiasm floods back into your life.

Shifting your belief system

Wrapping your head around Paleo living means changing your belief system, or
paradigm.
You may be used to some of the following beliefs about eating, which Paleo debunks:

Cow's milk is the best way to get your calcium.

Beans offer the benefits of superimmunity and fiber.

Grains and whole grains are an essential part of a healthy diet.

Soy is a superfood.

A slab of meat and a baked potato make up the perfect meal.

If you want to balance your blood sugar, grab a cheese stick.