My New Years Resolution - A Progress Report

I have not been doing a very good job of sticking to my New Years Resolution, but I am not going to beat myself up about it.  This year's resolution is probably the biggest resolution I have made, so a slow ramp up is okay.  My resolution is to follow the Paleo lifestyle.

I was happy with my resolution choice. I had been trying to find my place in the dietary world. I need to be gluten-free, but wasn't sure if my regular diet should lean towards vegan, vegetarian or low-carb.... for some reason I need to classify myself.  Ethically I wanted to follow a vegan lifestyle but since I didn't eat soy, due to the phytoestrogens, so that made a vegan diet very limiting, not impossible, but very limiting.  Another plus is now I have characterized myself, it makes it so much easier to find good recipes.  I don't need to wade through the high carbohydrate, GF rice flour-laden baking recipes, if I do a "paleo" search, simple, healthy recipes come up.

What I realized is Paleo is not all steak and bacon!  Half the diet is vegetables!  If I follow a Paleo diet I will eat more fresh vegetables than I ever did before.  When I am being good and eating Paleo I eat a little more meat, but the carbohydrate part (bread, pasta, potatoes, rice) is mostly replaced with vegetables.  Instead of a chicken breast with broccoli and a baked potato, when Paleo it becomes a chicken breast with more broccoli! Meatballs are crammed with vegetables and stews are full of vegetables and comprised of only 1/3 meat protein.  Though I'm sure 2/3 of my calories come from proteins and fats. I've also noticed that because the Paleo diet is made up of compact nutritious food, I am eating less; less in terms of volume.  I think I'm eating about the same calories, I just eat less because Paleo food takes longer to digest and also stops me from getting hungry sooner...I don't snack so much!

My progress after month one;

• I still have difficulty staying away from potatoes and rice, but I'm eating less.  I don't miss pasta, so that is an easy one.
• I still could eat more vegetables - the main issue here is I don't buy enough.  I start the week with a lot more vegetables in the house than I used to have, but I still come up short by Thursday or Friday. I may try freezing some prepared vegetables since the veg draw in the fridge is now always full at the start of the week.
• I need to be more organized and plan my week. When I plan ahead it is so easy to stick to Paleo, when I don't plan well enough I end up eating whatever I can find in the house.

The still feel the time is right for a Paleo me, and there is a lot of help out there...I just need to stick to it!