What can I eat????
With all the conflicting information, misinformation, and disinformation out there regarding nutrition, to someone who is just starting out on changing their diet to lose weight or get healthy, it can make their head spin! 
Vegan is a huge craze right now, especially with the movie “Forks Over Knives” that just came out. (I haven’t seen it yet, but I intend to “stomach” it and view it sometime soon).
The movies and books promoting the vegan diet are usually well-intentioned. And, they even provide a place for those eating the Standard American Diet (SAD) to go and get healthier. Going from eating lots of sugar, and getting the bulk of your calories from grains and processed foods, to a plant-based diet is no doubt a step up in health.
But is it possible to get even healthier?
Of course!
The vegan diet is so restrictive, that you pretty much have to eat grains to survive. And grains, especially wheat, as we know are the cause of so many problems including “wheat belly” and other nasty maladies!
So then what? Well, as we have discussed on the Healthy Mind Fit Body podcast, the healthiest diet will be one consisting of a variety of meats, veggies, fruit, some nuts and seeds, and some dairy if you are able to tolerate it.
It’s really not that complicated. And, this “diet”, whether you want to call it paleo, primal, or low carb, actually allows for a whole lot of tasty foods and interesting variety!
I hear a lot of people who truly want to know what is best, and REALLY want to get to their perfect weight, get confused at what is “good” and what isn’t. There are a few points that are really important to grasp no matter where you are in your journey, to make sure to make the positive changes permanent:
1. If you have followed the USRDA or the S.A.D., you are addicted to sugar. You must lose that addiction! This doesn’t have to be as hard as it may sound, or even that you can never have the taste of sugar on your lips again. As you replace you sugars with healthy fats, you will start to miss sugar less and less.
2. If you have transitioned to veganism, you may have to get over your fear of meat. Meat has certainly been demonized from many angles, particularly after the now-debunked China Study came out a few years ago. However, ancestrally speaking, it’s what we as humans were meant to digest. And, this idea that you will get sick if you transition from a vegan diet to one with meat is also a myth! You may have a transitionary period where things aren’t perfect for a while, but this would also happen if you were quitting sugar. Hardly a bad thing!
3. Get interested in vegetables. There are so many of them. You don’t have to be boring.
4. Find what works for you. Get the general gist of paleo/primal/low carb, but don’t become religious about it. If you think something isn’t working for you, remove it from your diet for a month. See what changes happened.
A lot of this will be trial and error. You will learn what works for you.
Do you have any good paleo/primal/low carb recipes you can share for the newbies?