Paleo Detox Nutrition Plan

A healthy diet is the foundation for a healthy body. For 30 days, we will eat real food: food that our bodies have been engineered to eat.

Everything we put in our mouths should fall into one of these two categories:

1) You can pick it out of the ground and eat it raw

2) Before it was on your plate it could run, swim, or fly

You can dig up a sweet potato and eat it. You can grab a coconut out of a tree. Same goes for apples.

Not so much for wheat, oats, and other grains. Without some serious food processing these are inedible grasses. Animals that subsist primarily off grasses have four stomachs to help with digestion.

I can almost hear some of you out there saying "What about corn? You can pick that out of the ground and eat it without processing!" While this is partially true you will never convince me that something that exits your body looking exactly the same as it did entering your body is being properly digested.

Legumes are out too. You can’t eat raw beans without getting sick. They are loaded with toxins and gut irritants that can only be partially removed with careful soaking and long cooking times. Under our rules, dairy products are also eliminated, although small amounts of butter and heavy cream can be used in moderation.

FOODS TO EAT WITH EVERY MEAL:

1) Fibrous vegetables of any type, including asparagus, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, spinach, lettuce, greens, etc.

2) Healthy fats such as olives and olive oils, coconut milk and coconut oil, and avocados.

3) Protein such as beef, chicken, fish, shellfish, eggs, turkey, duck, veal, pork, and any other critter that could walk, fly, or swim before it was killed.

FOODS YOU CAN EAT IN MODERATIONS:

1) Fresh Fruit has loads of soluble fiber, vitamins, and phytonutrients. And while it's generally healthy to eat two or three servings of whole, fresh fruit per day, I highly suggest eliminating them if weight loss is your primary goal. Long distance runners and triathlon competitors can increase fruit consumption to match their activity level.

2) Starchy root vegetables such as potatoes, yams, and yucca, and sweet potatoes should also be eaten according to goals and activity level. If weight loss is your goal, eliminate these as well. For lean muscle building, eat a serving after weight training only. Hard training endurance athletes can eat these according to appetite.

3) Nuts and nut butters (other than peanuts), and seeds can be eaten in moderation, again in accordance with goals and activity level. For weight loss, limit to three servings per day.

4) Alcohol should generally be avoided although one or two glasses of red wine per night are acceptable. This will slow weight loss, but will not negatively affect the healthfulness of the diet. (FYI, please don’t save all of your red wine servings for Friday night and then tell me the diet isn't working!)

FOODS TO ELIMINATE FROM YOUR DIET:

1) All grains including wheat, corn, rice, oats, barley, quinoa, etc.

Although grains are a very cost effective source of calories, they are also inherently unhealthy. There is absolutely no reason to eat grains of any type.

I know it sounds crazy, but it’s true. I've listened to all the arguments. I’ve heard all the reasons to eat whole grains. But these arguments are all flawed. Let’s examine a few common ones:

“Grains are a nutrient dense source of vitamins and minerals” – Calorie for calorie, there is nothing in any cereal grain that wouldn’t be found in higher quantities in a big salad or a serving of beef or fish. For example, spinach has four times as much magnesium as oat bran. Liver has six times as much folic acid as 100% whole wheat bread. Even enriched breads have less thiamin, riboflavin, and niacin than salmon.

“Whole grains are a great source of fiber” – See example one. NOTHING in whole grains cannot be provided from vegetables.

2) Beans and legumes

Beans and legumes are certainly not the worst food you can eat. But they are also not the best. Although they do provide protein, they are also very high in fattening carbohydrates. They contain high amounts of many minerals, but these minerals are very poorly absorbed due to the high fiber content of beans. And some legumes are extremely high in phytoestrogens. For example, a cup of soy milk has the same estrogen activity in the body as a birth control pill!

3) Dairy products

Dairy has positive and negative consequences on your health, but nothing that can not be obtained through other, healthier dietary sources. Yes, even calcium. Collards and other greens have 20% or more calcium than skim milk, and many nuts are also very high in this mineral. And those foods don’t contain potentially toxic amounts of lactose.

If drinking black coffee is a deal breaker, you can lighten your morning java with a small amount of heavy cream and can sweeten it with a bit of honey or raw cane sugar. Although not ideal, I understand that for some people (including me!) coffee is an absolute must in the morning. And although I prefer mine black, many other equally caffeine addicted folks cannot handle plain coffee.