What I eat. What I do. How I roll.

Yesterday I got an email from a friend asking me what I eat, what I'm avoiding, and what I do for exercise (like when, where, etc). I haven't had much time to blog lately, and thought it would be the perfect time to update my blog since I'd be writing the same stuff in an email anyway.

In our daily diet, we follow what is termed the Paleo-Zone diet the best we can. CrossFit Journal 21 recommends "eat meat and vegetable, nuts and seeds, some fruit, and no sugar." This is essentially the Paleo philosophy. The Zone aspect comes into play by making sure every meal and snack you eat is a balance of protein, carbs, and fat.

While our diet is not close to being clean enough, we have come a long way from where we were last year.

Yes I will tell on myself and say I brought home cookies from a girls night out party and ate 6 of them yesterday before I threw the rest of the box away.

We have cut out most grains and starches. I no longer buy bread or make bread (ok, so sometimes I do bake bread). I avoid cooking with pasta, potatoes, ramen (I'm not even sure that's a real food), and rice. We have also cut way back on the amount of milk we drink as a family. We do not keep soda in the house, and very rarely do we have fruit juice on hand.

However, our fridge is consistently well stocked with fruit such as oranges, apples, pears, grapes, etc. I like to keep strawberries and blueberries in the freezer. Our girls go through fruit quickly, it's their preferred snack. If there is candy in the house they'll eat it, but if it's not here they don't ask for it but just reach in the fridge for some fruit. We probably eat more fruit than recommended, but it's better than candy or potato chips.

Meat/ Animal protein is essential for growing kids and for helping one's body recover/rebuild after a hard workout. We eat a lot of chicken, turkey, fish, cheese, and eggs. Beef occasionally depending on the cut and how good of a sale it is. Very rarely we eat deer when we're blessed with some from a friend.

I like to grill, bake, broil, or steam. I avoid breaded chicken or frying my meats when I can.

Yes you can get some protein from beans and soy. But beans are more carbs than protein, and beans give us horrible gas so it's not worth it for me. From the reading and research I've done, the human body assimilates animal protein better than plant protein, and a plant's amino acids are not the best for rebuilding muscle.

Eggs are cheap protein, and easy to fix for a quick meal or snack. You can poach them or fry them in small amounts of canola oil for breakfast, or lunch sandwich on some tortillas. Or you can hard boil them for a take along snack.

I do not eat pork. I avoid it if at all possible. It's just a personal preference of mine, and Jerimiah will eat it any day of the week. To me, there's a reason swine were forbidden to be eaten under the Old Testament Law. Swine are natural garbage disposals, and will eat anything including manure or other dead animals. They are great for rooting around, and turning the soil if they are temporarily penned in an area you plan to make a garden, but I don't consider them good for food. Plus the way most of the pork on today's market is raised/produced is not healthy for the animal or for me.

I also avoid Catfish for the same reason.

Cows thrive when fed fresh green grass. Poultry thrive when given free range to eat bugs, worms, and vegetation. (Have you ever had a garden and let chickens free range through it? In my childhood experience, they like tender peas and beans. We had ducks a few years back and they constantly ate my tomatoes!)

Vegetables, I buy as fresh as I can get them. Kale, spinach, Romaine, tomatoes, cauliflower, etc. Veggies I usually buy frozen are peas, mixed veggies, corn, etc. I love farmers markets and farm stands. There is a "You Pick" farm down the road that I'm going to try for next year for most of my veggies. I tried several years to have a garden of my own, but we have numerous stray cats in the neighborhood and I got sick of cleaning cat mess out of my soil. If you can grow your own, do it! If not buy it as fresh as you can get.

We eat a lot of oatmeal for breakfast, and I'll occasionally make pancakes with cornmeal and whole wheat or rye flour.

I don't like to cook with pasta. But spaghetti squash is a great substitute for spaghetti nights.

What about no sugar or sweeteners? I have cut out almost every sweetener from my personal diet. I do use raw, local honey in my coffee and on the kids oatmeal. But no processed sugar, no sucanat, no turbinado sugar, no molasses, no stevia, no splenda, no aspertame, etc. Splenda and Stevia may say on the box the have no sugar or no carbs. But research has shown that just tasting something sweet causes your body to respond by increasing insulin in your bloodstream. Frequent insulin spikes wreck havoc, and the crashes cause cravings for more, resulting in a really bad roller coaster ride mentally and physiologically.

We eat fats such as olive oil, canola oil, almonds, cashews, and avocados. If I can I like to avoid fast foods, fried foods, lard, shortening, and most oils.

Well, kiddoes, I'm out of time. My youngest is stirring in her bed so I need to grab a quick shower. I hope to answer the rest of this question tomorrow!

Be Blessed