Cavewomen Don't Get Fat (14 page)

Protein and fiber-rich vegetables are your BFFFs (Best Friends Forever Foods) when it comes to preserving lean muscle mass. Without adequate protein intake, you'll lose muscle mass, which can lead to systemic inflammation and a surge of stress hormones, as well as a slower metabolism and an increase in body fat. Eating dietary protein preserves metabolically active muscle mass while keeping your brain biochemistry in check. That means you'll feel great through better body composition, sleep, moods, and hormonal balance.

As I mentioned in chapter 6, you should aim for at least 1 ounce of protein per pound of body weight. So if you weigh 150 pounds, eat 150 grams of protein per day. There are 7 grams of protein in an ounce, so 150 grams of protein equals 21 ounces per day. This means that you can eat an average of 5 ounces at meals, and another 2 to 3 ounces for each snack.

If you're worried you're going to be increasing your calories and gaining weight, don't be. The Paleo Chic plan is all about hormonal balance, which ultimately retrains your body to burn calories efficiently while burning body fat. Rest assured you will not
be dramatically increasing your calories, but you can still reduce your body fat, have greater endurance during your workouts, and feel fuller for longer amounts of time. Which means fewer cravings and less dependence on stimulants just to get you through the day. Remember, your diet will dictate 80 percent of your body changes and help you build lean muscle; exercise helps you stay lean and drives insulin into cells for the remaining 20 percent of fat loss.

Greens are an essential part of the Paleo diet. Nutritious greens—dark, leafy ones such as kale, spinach, arugula, and others—clean up your liver, quench any inflammatory fires in your intestinal tract, give you gorgeous skin, and tons of energy.

What can greens do for you?

• Detoxify environmental estrogens and help prevent cancer.

• Provide a boost of antioxidants and stimulate enzymes that detoxify the body.

• Render harmful substances such as booze and tobacco into waste products that the body can eliminate.

• Protect against environmental carcinogens by binding to toxins and deactivating them.

• Stimulate digestion, regulate appetite and sugar cravings, and promote weight loss.

Most of us don't eat enough greens on a daily basis, so green juices are a quick and easy way to get a healthy dose of their nutrients. But use them to
supplement
your vegetable intake; there's no replacement for fresh, fibrous, green vegetables!

I recommend you drink green juices three times per day for the first two weeks of your Paleo Detox.

There are three ways you can drink your greens:

1. freshly juiced in a juicer;

2. blended together in a Vitamix blender, which combines whole vegetables and leaves the fiber intact; and

3. powdered greens added to a glass of water or to a postworkout smoothie.

No matter what your choice, your body will thank you with renewed energy, a trimmer waistline, digestive wellness, and glowing skin.

“But Esther,” you ask, “the thought of drinking greens daily makes me want to hurl! Can't I just eat a lot of vegetables every day instead?” I never ask my clients and readers to do anything that I wouldn't do myself. So hear me out on this one, because it's easier and more pleasant than you think. The reality is that in the world we live in, we all need to drink our greens on a daily basis to keep our bodies running smoothly and detoxify all the chemicals we're exposed to daily. And volumewise, a tall glass of juice can expose your body to three times the amount of vegetables that go into a juice than you can ever fit inside your stomach or actually have time to eat. So jump in, kids, and let's get those feet wet! Here is my favorite straight-up, no-nonsense green drink that will leave you fresh as a daisy and energized for the day:

THE GREEN GANGSTA

Serves one

1 cup spinach

2 cups kale

2 cups parsley

1 cucumber

1 celery stalk

Put all ingredients in juicer or Vitamix; add 1 cup water if you are using a Vitamix.

Drink immediately.

If using powdered greens, purchase one flavored naturally with mint or lemon-lime. I recommend PaleoGreens by Designs for Health. Each tablespoon of powder provides a hefty dose of organic greens that have been processed at a low temperature to keep all the active enzymes intact. I take some with me when I travel and dump some into my postworkout shake if I don't have any fresh greens on hand.

Think fiber isn't glamorous or sexy? You might change your mind once you have a flat stomach and gain control over your hunger and your cravings. Getting enough fiber will keep your digestive system humming along smoothly with regular bowel movements and less gas and bloating. Fiber helps build the “good” bacteria, or probiotics, in your system, which, in turn, helps your body make digestive enzymes. Fiber also bulks up your bowel movements and enables them to pass through more quickly.

One of the most common reasons that women come to see me is constipation. As we do some detective work into their digestive history, often these women have a history of antibiotic use and have either been on or still take oral contraceptives. What does either medication have to do with your digestion? Everything. When you take antibiotics, you wipe out the offending bacteria that are causing problems, but you also wipe the good bacteria from your intestines as well. The pill can also cause a bacterial imbalance in the intestinal tract, allowing yeast overgrowth. Fiber to the rescue! It is crucial in restoring digestive balance and enables healthy bacteria to recolonize the gut.

Fiber is also a crucial component of hormonal balance. It binds
to estrogen in the intestinal tract so that the body can excrete it. The lignans in flaxseeds are phytoestrogens (estrogen-like plant compounds) that can act like estrogen at low doses but block estrogen at higher doses. So if you're suffering from wicked PMS each month or are heading down the menopause highway, incorporate some ground flax and chia seeds into your diet to reduce your circulating estrogen levels.

How much fiber should you aim for daily? As much as you can tolerate, but eat at least 30 grams per day. Excellent high-fiber choices are 2 tablespoons of freshly ground flax or chia seeds (4 and 7 grams of fiber, respectively), dark green leafy vegetables, sweet potatoes and winter squash, and fresh fruits. The average American eats only 12 grams of fiber per day and just isn't eating enough of rough stuff. So make sure you're eating at least 6 to 8 cups raw vegetables per day, or 3 to 4 cups cooked. And if that's just too much food to put in your stomach, or you don't have the time to get it down your gullet, toss some of those veggies into a Vitamix and drink up.

While it's true that cavewomen did not have access to agricultural foods, we modern women do, which can make for some grey areas within the Paleo plans. So if you tolerate the foods listed below, you can incorporate them into your eating plans. If not, you should avoid them altogether or enjoy them as an occasional indulgence. I am not putting a Paleo stamp of approval on these foods, mind you, but I am making an exception because I recognize that these foods can exist within a dietary loophole of Paleo eating. Ultimately, the Paleo lifestyle needs to be sustainable, and that may mean that some loopholes exist.

Back in the good ol' Paleo days, the only milk our ancestors drank was breast milk until they were weaned. In contemporary times,
however, milk, cheese, yogurt, and other dairy products are part of many diets. Lactase is an enzyme that helps break down lactose, another enzyme that makes it possible to digest milk. While some Europeans have no trouble producing lactase, almost every other ethnic group stops producing lactase at an early age. For this reason, cow's milk and other dairy products cause digestive problems in people with lactose intolerance. (Some people can tolerate goat's or sheep's milk.) When they do eat them, they often become nauseous, bloated, or develop diarrhea. Even if you do tolerate milk, proceed with caution: many studies have linked consumption of pasteurized milk with exacerbation of lactose intolerance, allergies, asthma, frequent ear infections, gastrointestinal problems, diabetes, autoimmune disease, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and constipation. Just one glass of commercial milk can contain a cocktail of up to twenty painkillers, antibiotics, and growth hormones, not to mention omega-6 fats and residues of GMO corn and soy fed to the cows. No, thank you!

We also have to take into account the hormonal effects of milk and dairy products. Because milk is rich in carbs (12 grams per 8 ounces), it will raise your insulin level after you drink it—especially if it's low fat or fat-free. Many athletes use milk in their postworkout shake for this very reason. But if you're not very active, and you drink at least three to four glasses of milk per day, that's an automatic recipe for weight gain and fat storage.

Raw milk is easier to digest than pasteurized milk because it is rich in probiotics and maintains the balance of healthy bacteria in the gut. In addition, raw milk contains phosphatase enzymes, which help the body absorb calcium. Raw milk from grass-fed cows will also help keep you lean, since it is rich in the powerful antioxidant conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) and omega-3s, which naturally help the body burn fat. And raw milk contains protein, trace minerals, and every known fat and water-soluble vitamin. (To find
raw milk near you, go to the website A Campaign for Real Milk (
www.realmilk.com
.) This website is the work of the Weston A. Price Foundation, a nutrition education foundation that supports the research of Dr. Weston A. Price and a diet rich in whole foods and saturated animal fats.

Once milk is pasteurized, it's a whole different story. The beneficial bacteria are destroyed, the calcium can no longer be absorbed, and the raw enzymes become denatured. If you can't tolerate milk products, ask yourself if it's the type of animal whose milk you are consuming or the pasteurization process.

We now know that grass-fed cows produce quality dairy products. Aside from the heart-healthy saturated fats present, quality dairy foods are chock-full of the bone-building vitamin K2, omega-3 fatty acids, and as you now know, CLA. I'm not telling you to consume sticks of butter, mind you, but should you decide to consume dairy, make sure that it's the best you can find.

The best cheeses for you are goat cheese, feta cheese, sheep's-milk cheese, buffalo-milk cheese, and any raw, unpasteurized cheeses you can find; goat, sheep, and buffalo-milk cheese are usually better tolerated by people who have allergies or sensitivities to cow's milk. And unpasteurized cheeses are richer in calcium than the more processed brands, since the pasteurization process makes it difficult for calcium to be absorbed by the body.

Yogurt is a fermented form of dairy rich in probiotics, which are live microorganisms present in our intestinal tracts that facilitate digestion, keep our immune system healthy, synthesize nutrients, and support the development and functioning of the gut. Fermented dairy is one of the best forms of dairy to eat or drink, because most of the sugars present get consumed during the fermentation process. Healthy people normally have about four pounds of
beneficial bacteria in their intestinal tracts, and yogurt helps keep that balance intact. Yogurt is low in lactose and easy to digest. So if you eat yogurt, make sure that it's the full-fat variety from the milk of either a goat, sheep, or cow; fat-free dairy products register as carbs in the body and raise insulin levels. And skip the sugary varieties with fruit; add some fresh berries, slivered almonds, and stevia if you need a sweet fix.

Butter and heavy cream are some of my favorite fats. And although they fall within the dairy family, they are comprised mostly of saturated fat, with just a trace of lactose. So putting a splash of heavy cream in your coffee or cooking your vegetables in butter doesn't pose a problem for most people. But let's say that you want to up your clean game one step further. This would be an opportune time to get to know ghee, a butter that has been clarified. This means that all milk solids have been removed, and what's left is pure, delicious, and healthy butterfat. It stands up better to high-heat cooking than butter, and will keep fresh for long periods of time. So unless you are managing autoimmune conditions or severe food allergies, enjoy butter and heavy cream from grass-fed cows, or keep it squeaky clean with ghee.

To make your own ghee, place unsalted butter in a saucepan over medium heat until it becomes foamy. Once the foam settles, there will be white specks in the butter that soon turn brown. Put the bottom of the saucepan in cold water. Strain the butter through a coffee filter or double piece of cheesecloth into a measuring cup or a small dish. The clear—clarified—butter will drip to the bottom. Discard the coffee filter with the milk solids. Use the clarified butter immediately or cover and refrigerate until needed.

To make 100 percent dairy-free whipped cream, use coconut cream instead of heavy cream. Open a can of full-fat coconut milk and scoop out the thick cream at the top and put it in a bowl. Add
¹
/
₂
teaspoon vanilla and a pinch of stevia powder and whisk until
thick. You can also buy canned coconut cream and stir in vanilla and stevia. I love to plunk a tablespoon into a shot of coffee and then hit the gym afterward!

Whey protein is another gray area in the dairy department, and it becomes black and white for some people. If you are not dairy sensitive, you can enjoy some whey protein smoothies a few times per week, but it must be a high-quality version. You will need to look for a minimally processed, nondenatured whey from grass-fed cows that hasn't been subjected to high temperatures when manufactured. Steer clear of any whey protein that has been subjected to cross-flow filtration, microfiltration, ultrafiltration, hydrolyzation, or ion-exchange methods, which denature the original proteins. The vast majority of whey proteins available use high-heat pasteurization. High heat does irreversible damage to the majority of the components of milk and may cause intolerance even in individuals who have no history of milk allergies.