Over the past 5 weeks I’ve been transitioning over to the Paleo diet.  If you’re not familiar with the Paleo diet, the simplest way to describe it is to tell you that you only eat what our ancestors would have eaten 100,000.  This is basically anything they would have been able to shoot or pick. Meat, nuts, fruits and vegetables.  No dairy because they didn’t dare try to milk wild animals and no wheat, grains or rice because they didn’t have farming. No processed meats, no sugar and no salt.  Again, just whatever they could hunt and gather naturally. The reason I decided to give Paleo a try was because I’m quite a bit lactose intolerant and also have a small gluten intolerance and I was going to be cutting these out of my diet anyway, so I figured Paleo may be the way to go for me.  I researched online and read the Paleo Diet book by Dr. Cordain and got up to speed on what it consisted of. The Paleo Diet book is pretty poorly written and repetitive, and I’ve had several other books recommended to me (that I haven’t read yet), but the information and the theory behind the whole thing is great and I got a lot out of it. As a whole, the diet is pretty strict and it’s tough to follow 100%, but it’s not supposed to be followed 100%. Most people who go Paleo follow the 80-20 rule where they do Paleo 80% of the time and 20% of the time they allow themselves to “cheat”.  This actually works really well for me. A lot of people I know who are Paleo have their cheats consisting of dairy and wheat, but since I can’t really handle wheat and dairy, my cheats consist of BBQ sauces, hot sauce, protein shakes and Gatorade.  Seriously.  These are my cheats.  Don’t’ get my wrong, all I want to do is pick up a block of smoked Havarti cheese and devour it with some good crackers, but I’ve realized it’s just not worth it for what I go through intestinally afterward. Plus it’s not fair to those around me either. How is it going?  I won’t lie, it’s been tough! The key to success is you have to be prepared! Lots of cooking, not much eating out and always having food ready are the biggest keys to success.  I usually have three of four chicken or turkey breasts already cooked and ready to grab and go and I always have lots of fruits, vegetables and nuts around me at all times. I’m someone who is always on the go, so before Paleo, protein bars use to be my best friend.  I kept them everywhere. Work, gym bag, truck, the missus’ purse, but now since I can’t eat them, having food ready “to go” is the toughest part. As tough as this was initially, I’ve now caught on to some of the tricks and it’s not as hard this far down the road as it was initially.  And even though it wasn’t easy at first, I’m glad I stuck with it because I no longer count calories and I’m losing inches around my waist.  I feel better. I’m not gassy anymore. I don’t have any intestinal issues. It’s been great! I’m going to keep at it for a while and see what happens. I’ll keep you posted on how it continues to go....