Paleo Diet for Beginners – How to BEGIN Eating Paleo

September 11, 2018 by Mike Westerdal
Filed under Articles, Fitness Experts, Health and Fitness, Interviews, Nutrition, Recent Posts

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by Carissa Alinat, Ph.D. in Nursing

Chris Wilson: Hello there, welcome. Thank you so much for tuning in. Coach Chris sitting here in the Critical Bench Compound office and I’m here today with Nurse Practitioner and weight loss expert Carissa Alinat.

Carissa Alinat: Hi there.

CW: Carissa is here today because we want her to talk about a paleo diet for beginners, somebody just getting started, looking into going paleo and we wanted an expert. We wanted somebody that has some background more than I do in this topic.
Carissa, for someone who’s truly a beginner, can you first define paleo diet and then take them beyond that, like, what three things should they start to do or stop doing to go fully kind of into that paleo diet in their lives, incorporating it?

CA: Okay, yeah. So, the paleo diet is basically focusing on the way that our ancestors ate. In these modern times we eat a lot of refined grains, a lot of sugar, our diet is just not very healthy. So, the paleo diet is eating the way that our bodies were meant to consume food and metabolize food so that we can not only lose weight, but also improve a lot of health conditions like autoimmune disease, allergies, leaky gut syndrome, things like that.

CW: Yeah. So much—so many things that are so prevalent today that people are like why is my kid like this or why am I like this. Why am I constantly having allergic reactions to this, that and the other. And people don’t realize a lot of it just in part to do with all the processed stuff we’re constantly consuming on a daily basis.

CA: Right. So, the concept of the paleo diet is that our body hasn’t really evolved, it hasn’t kept up with this technology. We haven’t been eating greens for that long if you look at the span of mankind. With all these technologies that have advanced our food has changed and our bodies haven’t been able to keep up with it. So, our digestion is screwed up and now we’re kind of suffering because of it.

CW: Yeah. What are the cornerstones or the foundation food items of a paleo diet? So, if you had to kind of just name them, for someone watching, what would you tell them are the focal points of a paleo diet?

CA: The focal points are removing processed foods. So, removing things that are packaged, focusing on whole foods like fruits, vegetables and meat products, whole meat.

CW: Right. Anything that you’d be finding in nature, right?

CA: Exactly. If it grew from the ground or it if walked, roamed the earth, then it’s probably good to eat.

CW: I remember somebody I worked with years ago and he would say if it’s swims through the water, if it ran across the ground, if it flew through the air, or if it grew from the ground, basically like—then you’re good to go.

CA: Yes. Yeah. If a caveman was eating it, then you should probably to eating it, too.

CW: So, for anybody just starting out, if you’re a beginner, use that as kind of your motto, maybe. If it swam through the water, so if it’s a fish, go for it. If it scurried across the ground, go for it. Or if it walked across the ground. If it flew through the air. So, I mean, you have a lot of options there.

CA: Right, exactly.

CW: And then if it grew.

CA: If it grew in a laboratory, then you shouldn’t eat it. That’s not good.

CW: Right. But you have your seeds, you have berries, nuts. I mean there’s lots of stuff that’s truly good, like certainly snack items. Like when I think paleo I think of like dinner is easy.

CA: Exactly.

CW: And then I think snack items are pretty easy. So, then it’s just like okay, I’ve just got to tweak my breakfast maybe a little bit, but you can eat salads all the time.

CA: And there’s not much prep work, too. I mean, you’re eating whole foods.

CW: Correct, yeah, your ingredients are pretty simple.

CA: Exactly.

CW: Wow, that’s fantastic. I love it. I hope you found this information helpful and useful and there’s going to be more content with Carissa, so certainly stay tuned on our YouTube channel for more paleo diet videos.

Now, before you go we want to give you something for free. It’s a paleo diet cookbook. It’s call our 5-7-15 paleo diet cookbook and you can get it by clicking the link below.