D!NCHACK LIFE

Dinner of grilled fish with vegetable salad

In a post last month, I wrote about my introduction to Paleo and the 30-day challenge. Well, 30 days are over and here are the results: lost 3kg and 2 inches from the waist.

If you don’t want to read the book, here’s the summary: The basic theory behind the Paleo Diet is that our bodies are evolutionary and genetically designed to thrive on Paleolithic era. You choose foods that were available during the caveman-era, such as meat, fish, eggs, roots, vegetables, berries and mushrooms. And you give up on all processed foods and everything that came along after agriculture and animal farming were adopted such as sugar, added salt, dairy, grains and all processed or fast foods. You drink water and eliminate all beverages, except green tea and coconut water.

My challenge was to cut down on lentils, yogurt, fruits, home-made roti (bread) and the afternoon latte, while introducing eggs and meat back into my diet. Here’s what my diet looked like:

• Breakfast (around 0700): omelette of two egg whites, often with sautéed tomatoes and mushrooms
• Mid morning snack (around 1030): green tea, grapes/berries
• Lunch (around 1230): tuna/salmon salad
• Afternoon snack (around 1600): coffee (mostly black), mixed nuts and raisins
• Dinner (around 1900): grilled fish/chicken with vegetable salad, often with avocados
• Dessert: 2-4 dates

What about exercise? The usual evening walk at night or swimming before dinner, plus an addition of squats and push-ups (got to 30 each in 30 days). Couple of other benefits of the new diet, besides the weight/waist loss were an increased energy level – the swimming goal was also achieved during these 30 days, and improved quality of sleep. I’m very inclined to adopt Paleo as a lifestyle.

Anyone interested in weight loss should seriously give Paleo a try. You can find loads of material on Paleo with success stories of hundreds of people who lost as much as 100 kgs over a period of time. It’s not a difficult diet, particularly for non-vegetarians. If you are a vegetarian, here’a another one of my tested and proven quick weight-loss diet.