Welcome!!!

Hi there!!!

Welcome to my page that is dedicated to anything and everything Paleo!!!

I know some of you already know me, but for those of you who do not, here is a quick run down of who I am:

My name is Samantha, and I live in the Kansas City metro area. I currently work for a large jewelry company; I basically sit in a cubicle all day. I am engaged to a wonderful man named Cody, who is also Paleo, and is currently in school for drafting and design. We just bought our first home almost a year ago, and we will be getting married on May 17th, 2014!!! I am in the middle of planning it, which he has actually been a big help on! So you may hear a little bit about that :) We met in college where I was originally studying Fine Arts, and then later Sociology. I have not painted in quite a long time- something that I need to get motivated in again, because I do love it. I am quite the nerd, listening to How Stuff Works Podcasts every day at work, mostly Stuff You Missed In History Class and Stuff You Should Know!!! Love you ladies and gents!!! I am also somewhat of a book worm- but not as much as my fiancé, he has read somewhere around 30 books this year so far!!! Maybe more, I have lost count. My favorite books are The Hunger Games series, Between Shades of Gray (not 50 shades!) Harry Potter, of course, and many, many more. I have two truly favorite T.V. shows, Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead, although we don't have cable and really do not watch a lot of T.V. We also have four children... furry children, that is. Two dogs, and two cats. The dogs are named Sheldon and Hagrid. Sheldon is a coonhound shepherd mix, and Hagrid is a lab airdale mix, or a labaire, as they are apparently called. The cats are Sultan and Squeek. Sultan is a Bengal, and squeak is a tabby Siamese mix (or so my grandma says.) We are one big happy family! At least for as long as I can hold Cody off from having kids. :)

What else... OH YES! I have recently become Paleo!!! What is Paleo you might ask? Well, let me tell you!!! The basis of Paleo is to eat only what we could have when people were primitive. So, meat, eggs, veggies, fruit, and nuts. That is about it. No grain, no dairy, no extra sugar. I know, I know, "no pasta? No yogurt?!" That's right. Just the basic stuff we could have gotten our hands on before agriculture, technology, and bakeries stepped in. If we couldn't hunt or gather it, then don't eat it!!! Now, that isn't to say we eat everything raw and blah. Yes, raw veggies are better, but you can cook them on Paleo. We use plenty of seasonings on our meat, but only olive oil and sea salt. No vegetable oil, no table salt. And very little sea salt, I might add. But from what I have read so far, as long as it doesn't have a ton of regular salt in it, everything else is okay.

I want to also say that there are a lot of differing opinions on what you should and should not eat on Paleo. Some people say none of one thing, while others say yes to it. I say, do your own research and decide what is best for you. For example, PB2, the powdered peanut butter cocoa stuff that you can buy nowadays. I was craving something sweet besides grapes or apples, and peanut butter sounded mighty delicious. So I got online and did some research. You are not supposed to have peanuts on this "diet" (we will get to that later) but some argued that because the oil is taken out, that it is okay in small quantities. Others said NO! And some said, I have it sometimes for a sweet craving. So, what did I do? I made some paleo ice cream with PB2, almond milk, and honey. Because you know what? I have changed my eating habits so drastically, that anything that I am doing right now, is better than what I was doing before. Cody and I have both decided that we are not going to be super hard on ourselves. Yes, 95% of the time, we are going to stick to this way of eating. But when it comes to hard core cravings, holidays, birthdays, weddings (OUR wedding too ;) ) we are not going to limit ourselves. But, that does not mean that we are going to fall back into our old ways either. Once you start, you don't want to go back! We both feel so much better not eating all of the processed, fried, crazy stuff that we ate before.

Speaking of before, one might be wondering why we made such a quick, seemingly drastic change. Well, over the last three years, Cody and I have both been text book yo-yo dieting. Losing 20lbs here, gain it back there. Go on a different diet, quit a few months later and gain it all back. We have done a number of diets, all that work very well, but that have a lot of limitations and that can be expensive. Then about a month and a half ago, we had an emergency room visit. Cody woke up with severe abdominal pains, and we rushed to the hospital. They admitted him that night for severe gallstones, and removed his gallbladder a couple days later. For those of you who do not know Cody, even at his heaviest, he does not appear to be obese. He generally looks broad and fit. Even when we were dieting, he would have people ask him why. But yes, he did eat very unhealthy, lots of fried and fatty foods. And it caught up with him. After the hospital visit, it was a wake up call for both of us. The hospital put him on a low fat, low carb diet to help his body transition without the gallbladder. We decided to stick to it, just to start eating better. About a month later, Cody had lost about 10lbs, and I lost around 5lbs. (MEN, puh!) And then about a week and a half ago, we were being couch potatoes one night after a long day at work, and we decided to watch this documentary called The Perfect Human Diet. You can watch it here http://www.youtube.com/movie/the-perfect-human-diet for $3.99, unfortunately, or on amazon prime, where we watched it. However you are able to get your hands on it, if you are interested in trying Paleo, WATCH IT!!! It made so much sense as to why this is how humans should eat. It had such an impact on us, that the following weekend, we literally emptied our fridge, freezer, and cabinets, and gave away all of the food we could not have on Paleo. I'm talking probably a couple hundred dollars worth of food. We then went to the store and stocked up on lots of meat, including steak, chicken, and salmon, and fruits, veggies, and nuts.

Bam. That was it. That was all it took and we were hooked. Since then, about a week and a half now, we are so hooked and so passionate, that, well, I'm writing a blog about our experience and progress. Because here is the big part of it- this is not a gimmick, this is not just about losing weight. This is a lifestyle change to make a healthier you. Yes, we have both already lost quite a bit of weight for the short amount of time- since we started, Cody has lost almost another 10lbs (in one week) and I have lost another 7lbs now. On the low fat low carb diet, it took a month for Cody to lose 10, and me to lose 5. In a weeks time on Paleo, we have doubled that. So yes, you can and will lose weight on it. But that is not what the big picture is about. It is about giving your body what it truly needs. As the documentary says, human food versus non-human food. And that totally makes sense now. Especially, after Friday of last week. Ladies, you know what it is like when it is almost "that time of the month." Cravings up the wazoo! And my boss bought us some cupcakes. Cupcakes that had eggless cookie dough as the "icing." Well, I don't have the best self control normally when it comes to food. So I ate it. And the crazy thing was, that I really didn't enjoy it like I used to. Yes, it tasted good, but it wasn't the same good that it used to be a week ago. And, to top it off, it kind of made me feel sick. Now, after that realization, I have lost most of those cravings. Yes, I do miss pasta sometimes, but not like I did when I dieted before. I don't want to go back this time. I feel that good.

You may feel like it is a hard change, or that you don't have the time to cook a lot, or lots of other excuses. But honestly, we do not spend a lot of time in the kitchen. More than before yes, because I spent maybe one or two nights a week in the kitchen really cooking before. Now, one of us does cook almost every night, but it is not time consuming. Narrow down what you want to make, and do it. Get lots of meat for the next few days cooked, and prep some fruit and veggies too. Like, tonight, I made 6 steaks in the frying pan, and baked some butternut squash (which I recently discovered is DELICIOUS.) We also have fruit, salad, carrots, and celery ready to go. I also boil plenty of eggs for the week. Done, easy. The other concern that we had before starting was spending so much money on meat. Turns out, if you aren't spending the money on the other stuff, like pasta, frozen meals, boxed rice and sides... you spend about the same amount, maybe a little bit more. All depends on how you go about it. We have been buying a lot of steak, so this weeks groceries were a bit higher than normal, but not so significantly that it is affecting us. There are ways around that, like I will be looking more into coupons and such, but I was planning on doing that before too :) And, in the long run, our bodies have become more important.

So, to end this extremely lengthy first post, I want to say, do your research. Use good old Google, read a book about it (there are plenty) or even search Paleo on Pinterest. That is where I have found a lot of my information, as well as millions of delicious recipes. I will be posting hopefully a couple times a week with our progress, as well as helpful information that I have found, and of course, yummy recipes!!! And, hopefully soon, I am also going to be starting my journey in becoming more fit!!! That means, running, walking, weights... whatever I can get myself hooked on more quickly. I used to be very active, so hopefully some of that motivation will come back to me.

Please, feel free to ask any questions. I do not have all of the answers, and I am still doing research myself. But, I do know my experience so far, and I am happy to share it.

Now, off to boil some eggs! Everyone have a wonderful week!!!