As with high intensity training, the Paleo diet can be scaled down accordingly for every individual. Most people cannot just jump right in with 100% strict Paleo. In our gym, Nxt Level, I have found that a better way is to dial in each individual. Seek to improve upon your current diet and strive to make it cleaner & better, by setting new food goals, every 1-2 weeks.

First, A Few Ground Rules

You must start a food log. You will always get to your destination faster if you have a map, know where you are starting, and know where you are going. You need more than a lofty goal, you need a game plan. Keep the food log simple. Use 1 page per day. Record the time you ate, what you ate, and how much of it you ate. This is the very basic and first requirement.

Get yourself a regular notebook or journal to work as your logbook. Pick up a cheap food scale from the “household” aisle of your local grocery store, it’s about $10.00. Read up on the “Paleo cliff notes” to get a basic starting point, buy the book “The Paleo Diet” (the only one I recommend because it is written by the World’s leading expert on Paleolithic diets), or visit his website for the best current information and published scientific research.

If you want to know WHY you should eat Paleo, here’s the “WHY Paleo cliff notes” . Start recording everything you eat & drink into your log, start NOW. Even if you don’t know what you’re supposed to be eating. You need to see clearly what you are actually eating every day. After about 3 days of recording, you should be able to see where your trouble spots are. Now, let’s improve your diet.

Pyramid of Danger

The Paleo diet end goal is to eliminate Processed Foods, Sugar, Grains, Dairy, & Legumes/Beans from your daily diet. And I placed them in a specific order I call the Pyramid of Danger. Eliminate these groups a step at a time.

Processed Foods

Real food doesn’t come from a box or a can. The toxic chemicals used to preserve it, the added salt and/or sugars do not need to be in your body. Frozen dinners… read the ingredients label. If you cannot pronounce something or you don’t know what it is… don’t eat it. Simple ingredients are always better than chemicals. Eliminate the processed foods from your diet first. Cook large batches of quality foods and then pack into tupperware. Store in the fridge or freezer and now you have a healthy frozen dinner that YOU made.

Sugar

There is nothing good about sugar. NOTHING! It spikes your insulin levels, making you more susceptible to becoming diabetic, having high cholesterol, stunted growth, inability to absorb nutrients, getting hyperinsulinemia, or just plain old getting fat. Where am I getting this stuff? Go HERE and read the references at the bottom. Sugar is bad stuff! Get it out of your diet. This is #2, because at least it’s not a toxic chemical (unless you eat/drink that made-made sugar, then see #1 above), but it will still lead a sure path to disease and sickness.

Grains

Also called cereal grains, include wheat, corn, rice, barley, sorghum, oats, rye, & millet. Grains are used in cereals, breads, pastas, and used in almost ALL processed foods (read the label!). Grains are not nutritionally balanced compared to fruit, veggies, nuts, and even meat! Our digestive systems and bodies are flat-out not designed to process grains, no more than it can process dirt (and there are some nutrients in that too but why would I want to eat it?).

Grains contain anti-nutrients (phytates) that rob your body of nutrients, like affecting calcium intake. And then there’s gluten containing grains (wheat, oats, rye & barley) and Lectins. Those cause intestinal permeability, which means that your gut lining weakens and food bacteris etc can pass out of the intestines and start floating around the body. All this causes inflammation of nerves & tissues, causes intestinal distress, and can lead to disease when consumed in excess. Read the full article HERE from Loren Cordain, PhD. Lose the grains!!

Dairy

Babies are meant to get milk from their mother, not a cow or a goat. And adults don’t need milk. Most of us lack the enzymes to process it anyway. On top of that, dairy raises insulin levels. I don’t care what the Dairy Council says or even Mark Rippertoe. You don’t need milk!

Why do you think you need it anyway? The protein? You’ll get better quality protein from animal sources. The vitamins & minerals? That’s why you should eat nuts, veggies, & fruit. Worried about osteoporosis? Worry less about calcium intake (you get calcium from fruit & veggies) and worry more about calcium excretion (caused by grains!). Read HERE for more info. Get the dairy out of your diet.

Beans & Legumes

This includes: peas, beans, black beans, kidney beans, green beans, lima beans, soybeans, tofu, peanuts, anything ending with bean or peas. This group contains phytates and lectins, that you read about above in the grain section. So, same problems. They gotta go too.

Level 1 Paleo

It’s tough. That’s why there’s a pyramid to ease you into this. Just keep in mind, I always allow 3 “cheat meals” or “open meals” per week. This allows you to reap the benefits of staying healthy while allowing for a couple indulgences to keep your sanity and have fun, because life is meant to be fun. But you have to be healthy enough to enjoy it!

This is what I call Level 1 Paleo. It’s systematically eliminating unhealthy foods from the daily diet and recording food intake, whatever it is, in a logbook. It’s the first step to success. Eliminate one group at a time. This could be daily, weekly or monthly. Whatever will keep you consistent, on track, and moving forward. If you fall off, just get right back on track. No one is perfect, but we must strive to be healthier, not just for ourselves, but for our families.

At Level 1, I don’t restrict calories. I want the focus to be on food quality. I also advise everyone to eat a minimum amount of protein. The easy method: take your bodyweight; the first 2 digits is the amount of ounces of protein you must eat at a minimum.  Tommorrow Part 2