Why I Don't Eat Strict Paleo Anymore

A lot of this blog has been dedicated to Paleo and Whole 30 eating. Like a lot. Like several years of me trying to make worldwide recipes Paleo friendly... and now we're ditching it.

BUT WHY?!

Well, there are a few reasons that are too hard to explain on Instagram so I thought it was time for a blog post.

1) Food In vs. Energy Out

Paleo emphasizes not really needing to count calories. If you're really eating strict paleo, your calorie count will be lower. It is definitely the biggest positive of eating Paleo and why so many people find success with it. Think about it - you're cutting sugar which has a ton of empty calories (things that give energy reserves but don't make you less hungry) and many carbs (which do help the hunger side but also provide a lot of energy that needs to be burned).

What this really sums up to - a non-Paleo diet usually leads to higher energy reserves (aka calories) that will convert to fat if you're not burning them....

Post Whole30 - Literally starving

And I had the opposite problem. As I ramped up our fitness by working out more and training for half marathons,I was really really hungry. Paleo wasn't always giving me as many calories in as I was burning out. That's why I lost so much weight on Whole 30 (like 15 pounds in a month) despite not being very big to begin with. I was burning up all my fat reserves while training for the half marathon and I would come home from a long run and spend the whole day eating. The problem was that all these Whole30 compliant foods were not filling me up so I'd have to snack all day to try to replenish the 1000+ calories I burned on my run.

On any given day, my exercise leads me to burn 300-800 extra calories and the easiest way to get those back was just to let myself eat things we liked like Mac & Cheese or pasta or cookies. We earned it.

So - I started looking at food more like that - what does my body need? Did I burn a lot of calories today that I need to replenish? Am I still eating plenty of protein and vegetables?

This is largely known as Macros which are huge in the workout world. It's keeping track of what out versus how much you exercise and adjusting your diet for optimum fitness. While I'm not super mathematical about it, I do track my workouts and know how many calories I burn a day and take that into consideration when I'm planning our dinners.

After this we got Mac & Cheese and went beer tasting. Because Macros.

2) Ok I Guess I Do Like Bread

One of the reasons I was so ok with Paleo to begin with was that bread and pasta and lot of those things didn't really excite me. They felt like vehicles for sandwich filling or sauce and it felt like I could just translate those to a salad or put sauce on vegetables instead. That worked really well for a while and I really didn't miss the carb-filled vehicles.

But that slowly changed.

Mac and Cheese is BAE

First, I started growing a love for Mac and Cheese. Despite several attempts, it never tasted as good when I tried to make it paleo friendly or with quinoa or something else. There is substitute for ooey gooey cheesey pasta.... so that became part of our 80/20 (eat paleo 80% of the time and 20% of the time cheat).

And then I fell in love with butter. That sounds gross but I discovered grass fed Irish butter Kerrygold and it was so creamy and delicious, I wanted to eat it on everything. While it was great for cooking, especially on steaks or fish... everyone knows good butter needs good bread. I started buying sourdough and making toast occasionally... and then more frequently... and now it's basically my breakfast staple.

The bread might still just be a vehicle for my butter but the combination of sourdough and creamy butter is perfection and I love it.

Also - have you tried Avocado toast? It's like really really good. Also, not Paleo.

3) Sometimes It's Just Easier

Yea, I said you were easy.

Look, I like cooking. However, it's hard to have a job and workout a lot and take classes and read a bunch of books and balance everything. Sometimes you just want something easy. Sometimes that's heating up a frozen enchilada from Trader Joe's or running to the Mexican restaurant on the corner. Eating clean 100% of the time? No one has time for that. I have every kitchen tool to make cooking easier but sometimes there's no substitution for the 5 minutes it takes to run to Del Taco. It's not every day but sometimes you have those days where you need food quickly and can't whip a totally clean meal. Even when I do have time - pasta or tacos are just easy dinners that I know will check off all of our Macro boxes. 

4) We Still Eat REALLY Healthy

Pasta AND veggies because we're healthy like that

I was Paleo for a long time and if anything, I learned a lot about food. I think the biggest take away, and something I plan on sticking to for life, is to know what we're eating.

I'm obsessed with labels. I check what we buy and try to limit excess chemicals or sugars. We avoid "fat free" like the plague and instead stick with items that have a few natural ingredients. I still make most things from scratch. Dan begs me to make paleo ranch because he likes it better than the store bought stuff.

I still have tons of Paleo cookbooks and follow Paleo bloggers. I still make Paleo recipes. Our default dinners are still mostly meat and vegetables. Maybe I'll snack on a piece of toast and maybe we'll have a pasta night once or twice a week but we do it in the cleanest way possible. I buy fresh bread. I make our own pasta sauces that have more vegetables than you'd believe.

Not being strict Paleo does not mean we don't eat clean. Sure - we have our beer and donut dates. Yes, we are obsessed with Mac and Cheese, but those are still the exception. On any given night we have a plate full of broccoli, some meat, and maybe a side of rice.... and then we'll have a cookie because hey, we workout.

We went on a hike so it's ok!!!