Hi.
Round 1 was the 30 day paleo challenge. While it would be completely false to say we succeeded in staying perfectly paleo clean for the whole 30 days, I'd still call that challenge a success. One of the many things learned was that there is no such thing as "perfectly paleo clean." There are enough deviations within the realm of the paleolithic diet to drive one absolutely insane; so many deviations in fact that some have found it necessary to reorganize the shattered factions and rebaptize the lifestyle Paleo 2.0 in order to return it to a focused movement.
I've found myself attracted to Mark Sisson's Primal Blueprint, a diet much like the paleolithic except that it seems at many times less dogmatic (for example, Sisson's answer to the question "is dairy good or evil?" is mostly a shrug: he recommends to do what agrees with your system, opting for raw or fermented and always full fat). I'm also quite interested in the Weston A. Price Foundation and the book Nourishing Traditions. This school of thought focuses on the value of meats, vegetables, animal fats and the detriment of gluten, vegetable fats, and highly processed foods. It also stresses that grains and legumes are not to be consumed unless properly sprouted, soaked, or fermented so as to remove the phytic acid which might prevent our bodies' absorption of nutrients.
All these diets have common themes:
Fat is fuel; fat does not make us fat.
Fat and protein are the keys to satiety.
Carbohydrates need not be the enemy, but the proportion they carry in our modern diets is absurd.
Processed foods are extremely unhealthful and largely unnecessary. The first and most important step is to cut out these items and fill your plate with real whole foods.
Keeping in mind that I have the tendency to become absolutely obsessive, I refuse to affiliate myself with any one particular set of rules. I have no interest in driving myself crazy. Food is to be enjoyed, and there's no sense in eating the perfect diet if I'm going to be keeping my cortisol levels through the roof by beating myself up over everything I put in my mouth.
That said, I'm still pretty paleo. I've just developed those habits.
I liked recording the meals, so I'll do that sometimes I suppose.
Breakfast, 7: Two eggs overeasy with eggplant, onion, avocado.
Lunch, 1130: Garlic-basil chicken breast with steamed cauliflower, butter, S&P
Snacks: Apple slices with flax seed peanut butter, one banana.
Dinner, 5: Cobb salad (chicken breast, gai lan leaves, cranberries, sunflower seeds, avocado) and stir fried veggies (carrot, gai lan stalks, onion).
