Your Personal Paleo Code: The 3-Step Plan to Lose Weight, Reverse Disease, and Stay Fit and Healthy for Life (38 page)
Authors: Chris Kresser
Tags: #Health & Fitness / Diet & Nutrition / Diets, #Health & Fitness / Diet & Nutrition / Weight Loss
If you have young kids, different strategies may apply. This is especially true if your child has a health problem you are trying to address with a Paleo approach. Here are some additional things to consider with young children:
•
Depriving children of their favorite junk foods isn’t child abuse—though they may certainly do their best to make you feel that way. I often hear parents say things like, “My kids would never give up their Kraft Mac and Cheese.” Trust me—they won’t starve if you stop feeding them this stuff. You may have some epic battles initially, but if you stand your ground, eventually they’ll get hungry enough to eat what you’ve put in front of them. This may sound harsh, but when your child’s health is at stake, it’s actually the most loving action you can take.
•
Kids don’t need kid food; they need good food. Big Food has been wildly successful in convincing us that babies and kids need special foods (usually packaged, processed, and refined) that are different than what their parents eat. The reality is that kids need real, unprocessed food even more than adults do, because they’re still growing and developing. The sooner you let go of the idea of kids’ food, the better off you’ll be. You won’t have to prepare separate snacks and meals for your kids, and they’ll naturally begin to eat the right foods—because they’re what is available.
•
Young kids don’t have the same prejudices against foods as many adults do. For example, adults may think of cod-liver oil as gross, but a young toddler has no such preconception. When our daughter Sylvie was a toddler, she actually
asked for
unflavored fermented cod-liver oil after meals. And we couldn’t keep her away from the raw sauerkraut!
I realize it can seem especially hard to make the transition with young kids. But know that thousands of parents have gone before you, and it’s absolutely possible with a little perseverance and planning. And don’t try to do it alone! Join the forum at ChrisKresser.com/PPC to get some support from parents who are on the other side.
Regardless of whether you live alone or with family, enlisting the support of your friends is another way to ease the transition to Paleo and increase your chances for success. Here are some tips for doing that:
•
Find a Paleo pal.
See if any of your friends are interested in doing the Thirty-Day Reset with you. That way, you’ll have someone to share your challenges and successes with. And once your friend experiences the results, he or she is a lot more likely to stick with Paleo over the long term, which means you’ll have at least one friend who’s on your path.
•
Lead by example.
The best way to get your friends interested in Paleo is to “speak softly but carry a big stick.” Proselytizing and being pushy usually just create resistance and may end up jeopardizing your friendship. But if they watch you drop thirty pounds in two months, see your skin clear up, and observe your energy level and mood improve dramatically, they’ll start asking questions.
•
Educate them—gently.
If you sense that your friend is interested, rather than telling him all about Paleo yourself, consider giving him a book (like this one) as a gift. Sometimes the information is better received when it comes from a third party.
•
Find some new friends.
If the people you hang out with aren’t really interested in improving their health, it’s probably time for you to find some new friends that are. One of the best ways to do that is to join a gym, participate in group exercise or sports, or join a Paleo meet-up group in your local area. There are hundreds of these groups now around the world. See Paleo-Diet.meetup.com for a listing, or simply Google
Paleo Meet-up
and the name of your city.
In addition to family and friends, tap into online support resources such as these:
Visit ChrisKresser.com/PPC to register for free bonus chapters, program-enhancing tools, resources, guides, and ongoing education and support to help you meet your health and wellness goals. There’s also a forum where you can interact with people from around the world who are following the Personal Paleo Code approach.
Check out my website and blog for regular articles on nutrition and health, recipes, book reviews, a lively discussion forum, recommended programs and products, and an online store with hand-picked supplements that I use every day in my clinical practice.
Don’t miss my podcast, available on my website and iTunes, where I discuss my latest research, provide practical advice on how to use nutrition to prevent and reverse disease, interview expert guests on a wide range of health-related topics, and answer listener questions.
There are several fantastic websites and forums that cover various aspects of the Paleo approach. I’ve listed some of my favorites on my website.
Finding a health-care provider who understands and endorses the Paleo approach is another important step in making the transition successfully. Fortunately, that has become much easier now with two online directories of Paleo-oriented clinicians (physicians, naturopaths, chiropractors, acupuncturists, and so forth):
•
The Paleo Physician’s Network (PaleoPhysiciansNetwork.com)
•
Primal Docs (PrimalDocs.com)
Both of these networks have practitioners listed in every state in the
United States and in many countries worldwide, and both are growing quickly, with new practitioners added on a weekly basis.
In addition to seeking out a Paleo-oriented clinician, I’d also suggest finding one that practices functional medicine. Functional medicine is neither conventional nor alternative medicine. It’s a combination of the best elements of both, and it represents the future of medicine. For more information on the differences between functional and conventional medicine, see my website, where you’ll also find a list of questions that you can ask your health-care provider to determine if he or she is Paleo-friendly.
Notes for this chapter may be found at ChrisKresser.com/ppcnotes/#ch19.
Personalize Your Paleo Code for Specific Health Conditions
Here are some basic nutritional and lifestyle strategies for ten of the most common health conditions people face today. At
ChrisKresser.com/PPC,
you’ll find a free bonus chapter for each health condition discussed below, with more background information and detailed recommendations for supplements (including dosage and brand recommendations) that may be beneficial. You’ll also find an interactive quiz that will help you identify which of these bonus chapters you may benefit from reading, based on your particular symptoms.
Diet
Start with the low-carbohydrate version of the Thirty-Day Reset that I recommended during Step 1. You can find specific instructions starting
here
. If you’ve already tried this, follow the suggestions below:
•
Eat more protein.
Aim for as much as 35 percent of calories from protein until you reach your target weight.
•
Don’t snack.
Snacking can lead to overeating and may cause hormonal shifts that aren’t supportive of weight loss.
•
Go dairy-free.
Many of my patients find it easier to lose weight when they aren’t eating dairy (with the exception of small amounts of butter and ghee).
•
Reduce calorie density
by adding extra vegetables (both nonstarchy and starchy) to your meal.
•
Eat all of your food within an eight-hour period each day.
This is called intermittent fasting. See
here
to learn how to do it.
Several lifestyle factors contribute to weight gain, including:
•
Sitting too much and not moving enough
•
Not getting enough sleep or poor sleep quality
•
Too much exposure to artificial light at night
•
Chronic stress and adrenal fatigue
•
Poor gut health
Be sure to read
chapters 10
,
12
,
13
, and
14
in the book and the bonus chapters on adrenal fatigue and digestive conditions on the website for more information on these topics.
Diet
The basic Personal Paleo Code diet I’ve suggested in this book is inherently a heart-healthy diet. That said, you can make your diet even more heart-healthy by getting enough of the following seven foods and macronutrients:
•
Cold-water, fatty fish and shellfish.
Aim for one pound (sixteen ounces) of fatty fish and/or oysters and mussels a week.
•
Monounsaturated fat.
Try adding a handful of macadamia nuts, a quarter or half an avocado, or a tablespoon of olive oil to your diet daily.
•
Antioxidant-rich foods.
“Eat the rainbow” by choosing a variety of colors of fruits and vegetables, and don’t forget that animal products like organ meats, meats, eggs, and grass-fed-animal dairy are also rich in antioxidants.
•
Polyphenol-rich foods.
These include green tea, blueberries, extra-virgin olive oil, red wine, citrus fruits, hibiscus tea, dark chocolate, and turmeric and other herbs and spices.
•
Nuts.
Aim for a handful of tree nuts such as almonds, Brazil nuts, cashews, chestnuts, and filberts/hazelnuts each day. Be careful not to overeat nuts.
•
Fermented foods.
Add one to two tablespoons of raw sauerkraut or kimchi to each meal, and have half a cup of beet kvass or kombucha and half a cup of yogurt or kefir daily.
•
Soluble fiber.
Eat a wide range of fruits and vegetables every day, especially starchy tubers like sweet potatoes and yams, which are particularly high in soluble fiber.
•
Meditation.
Chronic stress significantly increases the risk of heart disease, and stress-management practices such as meditation have been shown to reduce deaths from heart disease. See
chapter 14
and the website for recommendations.
•
Sleep.
Chronic insomnia doubles the risk of heart attack and stroke. See
chapter 13
for recommendations on improving sleep.
•
Physical activity.
Physical activity improves metabolic and cardiovascular function in several ways and extends life span. Remember, your goal should be not only to exercise more, but to sit less. See
chapter 12
for recommendations.
Diet
•
Strictly avoid refined sugar.
•
Increase potassium intake. See the bonus chapter on high blood pressure for a chart of potassium-rich foods.
•
Eat one pound (sixteen ounces) of cold-water, fatty fish and/or shellfish, like oysters and mussels, per week.
•
Increase magnesium intake. Nuts, seeds, spinach, beet greens, and chocolate are the food sources highest in magnesium on a Personal Paleo Code diet.
•
Eat one silver-dollar-size serving of dark chocolate (greater than 80 percent cacao content) a day.
•
Drink two to three cups of hibiscus tea each day.
•
Add wakame (seaweed) to soups and stews, or rehydrate it and eat it on its own. Use caution if you’re sensitive to sodium.
See the bonus chapter on blood pressure on the website for important information about salt. You might be surprised by what you learn!
•
Weight loss.
Excess body fat can increase blood pressure, and reducing it can lower blood pressure. See above as well as the bonus chapter on weight loss on my website for specific recommendations.
•
Physical activity.
Endurance exercise, strength training, high-intensity interval training, and simple moving around more during the day (outside of a distinct exercise period) have all been shown to significantly reduce blood pressure. For specific recommendations on physical activity, see
chapter 12
.
•
Sleep.
Short sleep duration, poor sleep quality, and sleep apnea increase the risk that you’ll develop high blood pressure. See
chapter 13
for tips on improving your sleep.
•
Ultraviolet light (via sunshine or tanning beds).
Ultraviolet light increases the body’s production of nitric oxide, which helps blood vessels to relax and lowers blood pressure. See
chapter 16
for specific recommendations for ultraviolet-light exposure.
See the bonus chapter on the website for several other important lifestyle modifications for lowering blood pressure.
Diet
•
Follow a low-FODMAP (fermentable oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides, and polyols) diet. See the bonus chapter on digestive conditions on my website for a detailed description and printable cheat sheets.
•
Reduce your consumption of nonstarchy vegetables high in insoluble fiber and prepare the ones you do eat with methods designed to make them more digestible (including fermentation). See
here
for details.
•
Consume one-half to two cups of bone broth per day, in soups, stocks, stews, or sauces. You can also drink it like tea.
•
Eat plenty of fermentable fiber in the form of fruits and starchy vegetables such as potato, sweet potato, plantain, yuca, and taro. (If you have GERD, heartburn, or inflammatory bowel disease, you may need to limit these foods for a time.)
•
Consume fermented foods like sauerkraut, kimchi, curtido (Salvadoran sauerkraut), beet kvass, kefir (dairy or water), and yogurt. Though milk (in kefir and yogurt) and cabbage (in sauerkraut and kimchi) are both high in FODMAPs, fermentation breaks them down and makes these foods tolerable for most people with digestive issues.
•
Limit alcohol consumption to four to six drinks per week, or avoid it altogether if you have significant gut issues.
•
Manage stress.
In plain language, stress wreaks havoc on the gut. See
chapter 14
for recommendations on stress management.
•
Gut-directed hypnotherapy.
Gut-directed hypnotherapy is a form of self-hypnosis specifically designed to alleviate the symptoms of IBS and other functional gut disorders. It is one of the single most effective treatments for IBS. See my website for a specific recommendation for a home-based, audio instruction program.
•
Sleep.
Disturbed sleep interferes with gut functions in several ways, and many IBS patients notice an increase in their symptoms when they don’t sleep well. See
chapter 13
for recommendations on improving sleep.
Diet
•
Adjust carbohydrate intake.
Using a device called a glucometer to measure your blood sugar after meals, you can determine exactly how much carbohydrate is safe for you to eat. See the bonus chapter on blood-sugar disorders as well as the cheat sheet on blood-sugar testing on my website for detailed instructions.
•
Eat more protein.
Higher-protein diets seem to have a stabilizing effect on blood sugar, regardless of whether you have a tendency toward high or low blood sugar. Aim for between 25 and 30 percent of total calories from protein (160 to 195 grams per day on a 2,600-calorie diet, or 125 to 150 grams per day on a 2,000-calorie diet).
•
Eat fermented foods and fermentable fibers.
There’s a strong connection between gut health and metabolic health. See
chapter 10
and the bonus chapter on digestive conditions on my website for more info.
•
If your blood sugar is too high:
Avoid snacking and consider intermittent fasting (see
here
to learn how to do it).
•
If your blood sugar is too low:
Don’t go more than two or three hours without eating; eat a high-protein breakfast (at least forty grams of protein) within thirty minutes of waking up; and eat a snack before bed. See the section below and the bonus chapter on my website on adrenal fatigue syndrome for more detailed recommendations.
•
Physical activity.
Getting adequate exercise and sitting less is crucial for regulating blood sugar. See
chapter 12
for recommendations.
•
Sleep.
Sleep deprivation impairs metabolic function and blood-sugar control by several mechanisms. See
here
for a recap of sleep recommendations.
•
Stress management.
Stress reduces blood-sugar control, promotes inflammation (a primary cause of blood sugar–related problems), and leads to low levels of cortisol (which can further disrupt blood-sugar control). See
here
for a recap of stress-management recommendations.
Diet
•
Low-FODMAP diet.
See the bonus chapter on digestive conditions on my website for more info.
•
Glycine-rich foods.
Balance your intake of lean proteins (such as lean red meat, boneless, skinless chicken breasts, and so on) with more gelatinous cuts of meat (such as oxtail, shanks, brisket, and chuck roast), bone broth, and egg yolks.
•
Fermented foods.
See
chapter 10
for more information, and visit my website for instructions on how to make fermented foods at home.
•
The GAPS (gut and psychology syndrome) diet.
The GAPS diet is a therapeutic approach to treating psychological and behavioral conditions by improving gut health. See my website for an outline of the various stages of the diet, along with recommendations for books, websites, and how to find a GAPS-certified practitioner to work with.
•
Sleep.
There are few things more important to maintaining brain function than sleep. See
here
for a recap of sleep recommendations.
•
Stress management.
A regular stress-management program is a must for those suffering from brain disorders. See
here
for a recap of stress-management recommendations.
•
Physical activity.
Movement and exercise promote healthy brain function in several important ways. See page 224 for a recap of recommendations to increase your physical activity.
•
Nature.
Natural environments have restorative effects, reduce stress, and improve your outlook on life. See
here
for a recap of recommendations for reconnecting with nature.
•
Light therapy.
Bright-light therapy involves sitting in front of or near a device that emits artificial light that mimics natural outdoor light. It is particularly effective for seasonal affective disorder but has also shown positive results for non-seasonal depression, postpartum depression, and bipolar disorder. See the bonus chapter and resources on my website for dosage and device recommendations.