Okay, I must admit I stumbled rather blindly into the Paleo diet and I still tend to be a bit surprised to find myself a loyal follower of it (most of the time). You see, I have been interested in nutrition ever since I could start reading labels on cereal boxes. I started with migraines when I was three years old and at the time the doctors suspected food triggers, so they handed my mother a laundry list of foods/ingredients from which I needed to stay away (i.e., caffeine, nuts, sugar, chocolate, red dye #5, etc.) and I was trained early to scan the ingredients on packaged foods to make sure they did not contain any of the “baddie” ingredients. Since then, I have read books upon books, researched, and experimented upon myself eliminating certain foods, incorporating certain foods, and trying all kinds of supplements in the name of good health and freedom from pain. I even considered going into nutrition when looking at colleges my senior year in high school until I saw all the chemistry classes I would have to take and decided to pursue journalism and literature instead. This, of course, landed me in IT where I currently work as business solutions analyst. Makes sense, right? Actually it does. I L-O-V-E analysis, research, data, etc. You couple that L-O-V-E with a subject that I am passionate about – in this case nutrition – on top of an L-O-V-E of and a background in writing and journalism and this blog is born.
So back to my surprise in following a Paleo diet. Why the surprise? When I first started reading about the Paleo diet and eating like our Pal eolithic ancestors, all I could think of was what a tour guide told me while hiking around the red rock outside Sedona, Arizona, about the life expectancy of one of the early Native American tribes that had lived in the area around 11,000 BP being around age 30. Plus, the diet seemed highly restrictive – I mean, REALLY restrictive – like, are you serious? No grains, no dairy, no sugar, no legumes, etc.? What the heck are you supposed to eat aside from meat and cauliflower? No, thank you. Fast forward about ten years and I have my nose buried deep in the book “It Starts with Food” by Dallas and Melissa Hartwig based on a friend’s recommendation. I told my husband about it and said we should do the Whole30® based on the book. I still wasn’t thinking “Paleo” though I knew the Whole30® was Paleo-based (for more information about the Whole30®, please visit whole30.com). What I was thinking was, “Man, I really WANT me and my husband to have some of those great results they talk about in the book!” We both wanted to lose a little weight, sleep better, have more energy, and experience better athletic performance with quicker recovery times. My husband wanted to get his cholesterol under control and avoid having to take cholesterol medication. I wanted more relief from IBS symptoms that I had been battling since I was a teenager. I had been gluten-free for several years prior to doing the Whole30, but I had a feeling that there were other foods that triggered my symptoms as well.
So we did the Whole30®. I mean, we really stuck to it – breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It was hard, hard, hard the first couple of weeks (did I say it was hard?), but we knew it would be, mainly due to sugar withdrawal (what they call the “Paleo flu”), but then it got better and better. We both started sleeping better, thinking more clearly, and losing weight. My husband’s cholesterol levels greatly improved and I saw such a reduction in my IBS symptoms I stopped taking the high-powered probiotic I had been taking for years. In fact, when we came to the end of the Whole30®, I was happily surprised that my husband wanted to stay on it or on a Paleo-based diet with a few “cheats” here and there, like a glass of wine or a beer or a sweet indulgence every now and then.
So, here I am, the woman that openly scoffed at the thought of a Paleo diet many years ago, dedicating a blog to it. Why? Because I am in L-O-V-E with food like I never have been, and I mean, this is the real deal as I am in love with R-E-A-L food like I never thought possible. It is transcendent, life-affirming, and FUN! I find myself cooking certain foods and with certain ingredients I either hadn’t ever considered or had thought about but to which I never got around.
The color purple is said to encourage creativity, to be calming, and to offer a sense of spirituality, and this is how I feel about preparing and eating foods since following a Paleo-based diet, hence the title of this blog “My Purple Paleo”. Enjoy!
– Kristina
klutz015.wordpress.com 