Paleo people...what's a typical day look like for you?

Good work on the tree rats. That Tapioca flour is tasty and a good change from simple grilling. Had some Tapioca fried Antelope heart and liver last week.

I like your take

Haha funny story Poser. Everyone at my CF gym loves the fact that I hunt...and all very dissappointed that I didn't bring home an elk this year.

A lot of good advice here but I'll just add a couple things. If you're looking for performance from workouts in the "off-season" then it's pretty dang easy to UNDER-eat while on a Paleo diet. Eating veggies and fruits are great, and obviously needed, but they just aren't calorie dense enough to fuel your body for a good hard workout unless you're carefully monitoring your intake and know you're getting enough cals. Me personally, I won't do a true paleo diet because it's hard for me to get the cals I need for workouts. There are certain things I do try to eliminate like dairy, sugars, and anything processed, but cutting out all grains like rice for example is just crazy to me. Not saying it can't be done, but it's definitely harder and something to consider and monitor.

bjaegers said:

Good work on the tree rats. That Tapioca flour is tasty and a good change from simple grilling. Had some Tapioca fried Antelope heart and liver last week.

I like your take

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It is indeed tasty. My wife just made paleo "tortillas" with tapioca, egg and plantains for venison tacos. I was mainly talking about the crazy, 400 ingredient baking recipes, the $4 cookie. I'm better off just eating a couple of real cookies anyway. If you tell their paleo, I end up eating 30 of them....

Any of you make your own jerky for a paleo snack? Not cured with sugar of course. The wife and I just ordered one of those Excalibur dehydrators so I'll be cranking out some jerky real soon. I unfortunately was not able to harvest any animals this year so I'll probably go out and get a roast from a grass fed cow and have that thinly sliced to make my jerky. Either that or flank steak.

We're now on with the planning stage of clean eating. Getting recipes together and clearing the house of foods we won't need. I thank you all for your input. Let's keep this thread alive.

Drew

Steeliedrew said:

Any of you make your own jerky for a paleo snack? Not cured with sugar of course. The wife and I just ordered one of those Excalibur dehydrators so I'll be cranking out some jerky real soon. I unfortunately was not able to harvest any animals this year so I'll probably go out and get a roast from a grass fed cow and have that thinly sliced to make my jerky. Either that or flank steak.

We're now on with the planning stage of clean eating. Getting recipes together and clearing the house of foods we won't need. I thank you all for your input. Let's keep this thread alive.

Drew

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I do jerky and also cure other kinds of game charcuterie as well too keep around for snacks. -pickled heart, venison salami, pepperoni etc. With that dehydrator, you can also do your own fruits and vegetables, too. When I went through my initial carb withdrawal, I found that salty snacks were a big help.

I think you're right about salty snacks. They're going to be a big help at first. Home made Kale Chips will be a regular item for us i'd imagine.

I have been eating "slow-carb" for most of the last year or so. It is akin to paleo but with the addition of legumes and the subtraction of fruit. It also requires a cheat day once a week. I find that I feel better when I am eating slow carb if I get off it for a cupple of weeks I don't feel as good. I do cheat and have a little bit of cheese sometimes. The cheat day helps for me because if I am really craving something I know that I never have to wait more than six days to have it.

We're going to do the whole 30 and will then think about some cheats.

If you're looking for performance from workouts in the "off-season" then it's pretty dang easy to UNDER-eat while on a Paleo diet. Eating veggies and fruits are great, and obviously needed, but they just aren't calorie dense enough to fuel your body for a good hard workout unless you're carefully monitoring your intake and know you're getting enough cals. Me personally, I won't do a true paleo diet because it's hard for me to get the cals I need for workouts. There are certain things I do try to eliminate like dairy, sugars, and anything processed, but cutting out all grains like rice for example is just crazy to me. Not saying it can't be done, but it's definitely harder and something to consider and monitor.

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I have read and heard this context from the very beginning of my own paleo lifestyle change. A year of reading blog posts and user comments before I ever picked up a book and obtained factual information that I could review. In my personal experience I found that many many people had never picked up a book and read it to obtain more than generalized information. Many people focus on bullet points and think that is enough. To gain an understanding of the intent of the paleo lifestyle you need to pick up a book and obtain factual information to build a foundation of understanding. Or spend the next six months reading every blog post on Marks Daily Apple from the beginning. Umm, I'd rather spend a week reading his book.

What is lost on nearly everyone I have talked to about paleo is that it is meant as a nearly fool proof way to recover your health from a standard American lifestyle. For some people it can turn off Type II diabetes, it can reverse heart disease, it can reverse obesity. It did two of those for me within a few months. The primary use of paleo is not to improve your athletic performance. It can do that for a couch potato, but an elite athlete may struggle if they are following a strict health recovery diet. The reason they may struggle is explained in great detail in a variety of books. One of the better ones is this one. Its not paleo, but is low carb focused based on scientific studies on ketosis. If you really want to become a high performing paleo athlete you need to become well versed in the science of ketosis. The Eating Academy will help with that.

There are resources out there now for athletic performance using a paleo diet. Not the lifestyle to regain your health which is the foundational purpose of paleo lifestyle changes. Below are some resources for those that want to be very athletic and still maintain a paleo diet.

http://stupideasypaleo.com/performance-paleo-cookbook/

http://whole9life.com/2014/01/introducing-paleo-athlete/

http://breakingmuscle.com/nutrition/paleo-mystique-deciphering-paleo-eating

The last link is as close to useful bullet points as one can get and obtain anything of value.

A high output athlete can easily eat a paleo diet and still meet their performance goals as long as they have a good foundation of knowledge. If they don't like sweet potatoes it could suck, though.

Lots of good info has already been posted. I've been on the 90% Paleo plan for 1 year now. I dropped 30 pounds like nothing once I started eating Paleo and working out (190-160 in about 5 months).

My post workout breakfast (I don't usually eat breakfast if I don't workout):
2-3 eggs
Breakfast meat (if I have time)
Grapefruit or apple
Greek Yogurt (if I don't have eggs)

Lunch:
Salad of some sort
Allowable veggies
Smoked salmon or whole muscle deli meats (I need to find a substitute for this)
Cheese. I love it and I won't get rid of it.
As unprocessed of salad dressing as I can find. For sure only the refrigerated dressings, and if not that, olive oil and balsamic vinegar.
Cottage cheese.

Dinner:
Whole muscle meats
Allowable veggies
Occasionally will throw in a rice, pasta, or potato.

Snacks:
Jerky
Almonds
Apples
Vodka & Club soda (rather than beer). I love it and won't get rid of it.

When I started this, I spent the first two weeks hungry. Then seemingly overnight, I switched to almost never hungry, and this was on about 1,600 calories per day. It was amazing. I did find that once I got into the really intense workouts, I was lacking energy. At this point my carb goal was roughly 50-75, and I found that increasing to 100-125 fixed things immediately, along with adding in a few more calories.

Since getting back from my hunt last September, I haven't worked out, and have only gained about 4 pounds by maintaining my diet at roughly 80% Paleo. The holidays threw in a lot more carbs, calories, and a lot more cocktails than they should have. Today I start 60 days of Insanity, followed by 90 days of P90X. Since I've maintained so well with a 2200 calorie goal, I'm going to continue that and see what happens with my weight, and how I feel.

Awesome info guys! Thank you.

Ray,

Thank you for posting those links. I'll definitely be reading them. I'm currently 5'11" 220 lbs. I carry weight well so I don't look 220 but I feel it! I'm looking to get to around 190 and shredded. We've been doing push ups at work throughout the day on our breaks. We also, recently got a Power Tower for our break room so we can do pull ups, chin ups, and dips. My plan is to give my body a chance to adjust to Paleo for a couple weeks and then ramp it up and possibly join a crossfit gym. There's a million of them in Seattle where I live and always groupon deals going on. I'll have to go tour some of them soon and meet the trainers.

I also, truly believe that going with the Paleo lifestyle will greatly improve the way I feel. I generally get pretty bloated feeling each day at some point. I'm guessing grains and sugar definitely have something to do with that.

One thing is for sure: it is difficult to deny the results of eating Paleo + Interval Training (whether it's crossfit or some other name). There certainly are other ways To get fit, but this particular combination produces effective results for quite a large number of people and it's not rocket science to understand and execute.

On a side note, We made Jamaican style Venison meat pies tonight using Plantains, eggs, honey, lime juice, coconut oil and tapioca flour for the pie doughs -a little hot sauce, avocado, cilantro and fresh mango for garnish. Excellent!

Poser,

Those pies sound incredible!

sorry if this has been mentioned but if not mentioned there is a book: Nom-Nom Paleo. some fantastic paleo recipes in there, most are really fast and easy to prep. and the book is a great read as well. Wife has been cooking out of this and Ive lost 9 lbs with no other workign out.

Do you guys stick to paleo in the back country too? Seems like that would be particularly challenging as most backpack food is grain heavy, other than jerky and trail mix.

As close as possible but those calories are much needed in the backcountry. At least that where I stand on it.

OH,, and we also make our own BAAAAACONNNN! Just got some out of the smoker a few hours ago put in freezer to firm it up and will be slicing it up in about 15 min. its DA BOMB!
We buy pork bellies by the pound at a local butcher shop for $2.99 a #. Usually 5 bl slabs. pretty dang cheap bacon!

Cure it with honey, pink Himalayan salt, and spices. smoke in apple or cherry or hickory.

View attachment 22761
ready to be sliced home made apple smoked pork belly, AKA elbkow69bacon

live2hunt said:

Do you guys stick to paleo in the back country too? Seems like that would be particularly challenging as most backpack food is grain heavy, other than jerky and trail mix.

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It's really hard to do, but there are some paleo/primal backpacking options out there now.

About two weeks before my hunt I'll transition to more pasta/rice in my diet to make it an easy transition to Mountain House dinners. I tried to do my own dinners last year, and it got to be more hassle than what I want to deal with. I'll still stick with paleo/primal breakfasts and snacks.

Lip_Ripper Guy said:

It's really hard to do, but there are some paleo/primal backpacking options out there now.

About two weeks before my hunt I'll transition to more pasta/rice in my diet to make it an easy transition to Mountain House dinners. I tried to do my own dinners last year, and it got to be more hassle than what I want to deal with. I'll still stick with paleo/primal breakfasts and snacks.

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Yeah, its really tough to do in the backcountry. I go for more of a 70/30 approach on hunting trips. Heather's Choice meals are a good option: http://www.heatherschoice.com/ The Buckwheat breakfast meaks are excellent (not technically Paleo, but often considered a reasonable cheat). The Chipotle chili is also very good.

I basically try to keep it heavy on the Paleo foods for breakfast and lunch and snacks (cured meat, nuts, dried fruit) and then eat various dehydrated meals for dinner.
Instead of transitioning leading up to a hunt, I start the first couple of days out more exclusively Paleo (Heather's Choice meals for dinner) and then transition into eating some Granola, rice etc as my body gears into more of a "just eat calories" demands. I'm not much for the Mountain House meals, but Alpine Aire has some that I really like. I do absolutely avoid dehydrated meals with legumes.

Everybody is a little different here. Some people's bodies will go into shock by suddenly adding in non Paleo foods. Other people transition fairly easily. Its best to know how you are going to react before you get in the backcountry, so be sure to experiment otherwise you may find yourself needing extra TP