Don’t forget that you can still sign up for the Paleo Summit and catch the next 3 days of presenters.  To catch the presentations you may have missed, make sure you check out the Paleo Summit Upgrade Package.

I was so exited to hear Sarah Fragoso of Everyday Paleo speak.  She is a very engaging speaker and I have listened to all her podcasts. I love that she is just a mom like me.  She has been feeding her family of 5 a Paleo diet for a few years now.  She has authored two books; Everyday Paleo which is a great intro to Paleo eating and cookbook and Paleo Pals: Jimmy and the Carrot Rocket Ship.  She also started EP Lifestyle and Fitness.  You can actually check out EPLifeFit for just $5 your first month with the coupon code from the Paleo Summit Upgrade Package.

Finally onto the actual presentation.  Many people wonder if kids can benefit from the Paleo lifestyle.  The reality of the health of our kids generation is staggering.  Childhood obesity has tripled in the last 30 years according to the CDC.  Children are being diagnosed with adult-onset diabetes.  Now it is called Type 2 Diabetes.  Why is this happening to our children?  If adults are acheiving health and wellness through Paleo, why shouldn’t kids be?

But how do you change your child’s diet to a Paleo diet?  The transition may not happen overnight.  For some it is easier if you just go cold turkey and remove everything at once.  All kids are different.  Stay positive and gentle.  There may need to be different approaches taken for different kids.  I am looking forward to writing a post about our transition as a family.  I think hearing our story will encourage you in this journey.  Now if only my kids would give me the time to do it.

Kids nutritional needs are different from their parents and you may worry that they can’t be met by eating this way.  But a child’t nutritional needs can be met with a Paleo diet.  It is actually much easier to build a nutrient dense meal this way.  It isn’t about how much pasta they may eat but how many nutrients they are getting from that meal.  Not nearly what they can get from a much smaller Paleo meal of meat, veggies, and fruit.   Also, when gut irritating foods are removed they are then better able to absorb the nutrients they are getting.  Kids may eat more/less at different times and may need to graze instead of consuming larger meals.  It all depends on where that child is right now.  Gear the diet to your child’s needs.  Look at the course of what they have eaten all day instead of worrying about how much they eat at one time.  Give them access to all the fat and sweet potatoes that they want.  She says never put a child on a calorie-restictive diet.

Sarah’s Secrets to Success are make it FUN.  Use games, songs, art and stories.  Get the kids involved in the kitchen.  Even the youngest kids can do something in the kitchen like tear the lettuce.  I have found that kids are more likely to try a food that they have had a hand in preparing.  Make it a journey instead of a destination.  We all need to remember that we need to make this a lifestyle.  Let them see the choices you are making and let them make some choices too.  This is your life so make it kid friendly.  All or nothing never works, especially for kids.  We don’t live in a bubble, so lead by example and teach them about making good decisions.

Sarah made some great points about the emotional piece of changing your family’s diet. Diet and lifestyle are not to be dreaded.  We need to set our family’s up for a lifetime of health.  Take care of your diet first and your family will follow.  Take care of your health first.  It’s not all about the food.  Change your habits and perspective and look at your emotional/physical needs.  An example is get more sleep, turn of the TV and create new habits.  People are more likely to revert back to old habits when they focus only on the food and not on their entire lifestyle.  This was all so good and so needed for me.  So often I focus just on the food and just pretend like all the other habits I need to change will happen someday when I get exactly where I want to be with my food.  However, when I am not getting enough exercise and sleep, I find it harder to eat clean.

Avoid setting aesthetic goals.  “Aesthetic goals happen by accident when you focus more on what you really want to accomplish in your life” Jason Seib. Focus on your strength and fitness goals.  Setting goals is important but they need to be the right kind of goals. This goes back to changing the habits.  We need good lifestyle goals to get our habits in check which will go hand in hand with our food and body shape.

How are you going to manage these major changes?  Sarah reminds us that any change is stressful but change is imminent.  Many aspects of our lives are out of our control but we can control what we eat.  Get out of your comfort zone and don’t go back to the old because it is comfortable.  That is one issue that I am struggling with.  I keep slipping back to comfortable.  I need to get to making better goals and habits so that I can have a new comfortable.

She summarizes by encouraging us that in time, the Paleo lifestyle will become part of our life.  Just enjoy the journey.

I am going to try to consistently post my meal plan for the week for you all.  Mostly because I do much better when I make a plan and posting makes me have a plan.  Yes, the plan may change and flex but having one in place helps keep peace at dinner time.  It also keeps us from hitting dinner time and reverting to bad habits.  All of these recipes are Paleo friendly and Whole 30 compliant (with the exception of the mongolian sauce which has a small amount of honey in it.)

Monday – Meatloaf

Tuesday – Paleo Chicken Cordon Bleu

Wednesday – Bacon Kale and Sweet Potato Soup

Thursday – Stir fry with Mongolian Sauce

Friday – Chicken “Non Noodle” Soup

Saturday – Ranch Chicken Sandwiches (I’ll be working on a Paleo Ranch Recipe to share.  Come back to get a link soon.)

Sunday – Citrus Pulled Pork

Linked to Meal Plan Monday

If you are anything like me, you run across recipes online that you want to try sometime.  Then you forget about them or don”t remember where you saw them.  How do you try a recipe that you can’t find?  And you can’t try most recipes immediately as you need the time and ingredients.  I also want a place to share these recipes with my friends and family.  I share them on Facebook but then trying to weed through all the other things makes it impossible to find again.  I decided to start compiling them here in my Recipe Research Rolodex.  Each week I can publish what I have found for you and for me.  These recipes are all Paleo friendly (possibly with natural sweeteners) unless otherwise noted.  Don’t forget to drop me a line if you try one that you found here so that I can be inspired to try it too.  I’ll make sure to make note of recipes that I have tried so come back often to check them out.

Healthy Almond Joy Bars and Almond Power Bars from Whole New Mom

Grape Kombucha Granita From Cultured Food Life

Rhubarbecue Sauce by The Liberated Kitchen, LLC

Pumpkin Bread and Refreshing Coconut Water “Green” Drink by Delicious Obsessions

Sri Lankan Chicken and Citrus Pulled Pork from Rubies and Radishes

I have had many people ask me about breastfeeding and eating Paleo/Primal. Most of my post is going to be based on my experience. I am not a doctor but seeing that I am nursing my fifth child, I like to think that I have more experience with breastfeeding then your average MD. Mark Sisson, author of The Primal Blueprint, wrote a great article on eating Primal/Paleo while breastfeeding if you would like a little bit of extra info from a man much more reputable and well studied then myself.

I started eating 90% Paleo during my last trimester while pregnant with my fifth little bundle of awesomeness. You see, I have big babies and I wanted to make sure to keep my sugars/carbs down as I would if I had gestational diabetes. (That is a whole other story. I can see it now. Pregnancy and Paleo. I feel a series coming on:) I felt great. After my tiny little 9lb 0oz baby was born, I let myself eat what I wanted. I had worked hard to cook that baby and get him out and besides, I wasn’t sleeping well. I had a newborn after all. Cue cute picture of my sweet baby.

So Dresdan was and still is a super sweet natured content baby. Problem was when he went to sleep he got very gassy. He didn’t scream about it, just grunted and groaned every 15-30 minutes all night long. He only ate every 2-3 hours but needed to be rolled, shifted, or patted every 15-30 minutes. It wasn’t working for me. I knew what I needed to do. I needed to cut certain foods out of my diet. Removing dairy has been shown to help reduce colic. I tried that but he wasn’t colicy. I also knew that gluten could be the culprit. I cut them both and he started sleeping better. When I slipped, I paid with sleep deprivation. Not worth it. Let’s just say this baby helped me stay the line. So I went back to an 80% Paleo diet. We were completely gluten and dairy free but did let some corn, rice, and sugar through here and there. I was exclusively breastfeeding and had no problem. I listened to all of Everyday Paleo’s podcasts and knew that it would be fine. (I highly recommend listening to them all. They are easy to listen to and full of great information.)

What I learned from the podcasts was this…drink enough water and eat enough food. Pretty simple huh!?! I made sure that I ate enough good proteins and fats. These included red meat, chicken, avocado, coconut oil, and nuts. Guess what happened next? My baby started sleeping better. Make note, I did not say that he was sleeping through the night. But he was sleeping 2-3 hours chunks without grunting, groaning, and pushing all night. I felt like a new person getting two hours of sleep at a time. My milk supply was great and my little man continued to grow leaps and bounds. Insert another crazy cute picture of him at 6 months. (I love being able to show off his super cute picture)

Fast forward to January. We had been eating Paleo for about 5 months, including Thanksgiving, when Christmas with my family hit. I decided to give myself a little leeway to eat the traditional sweets that are made only once a year. Dresdan slept horrible. Uugh. What was I thinking!?! This put us into the second week of January and it was time to really clean up our diets. We decided to take on the Whole 30 Challenge. This is a super strict Paleo diet for 30 days. Again, I ate plenty of fat and didn’t limit fruit or nuts. By eating fruit and sweet potatoes, this wasn’t a low carb diet for me. This wasn’t for weight loss, it was to obtain the best health for myself and my baby. My milk supply has never suffered.  I mean look at the bod on this handsome little man.

Through it all I exclusively breastfed. We have yet to introduce solids. (Again our delayed introduction of solids will have to be part of the series:) We are now on the other side of the Whole 30, fell off the wagon, and have gotten back on board. Dresdan is 7-1/2 months old and weighs 20lbs. I want to encourage you to not shy away from improving your health just because you are breastfeeding. What better time is there? You want to supply your baby with the best nutrition possible and that means getting the best nutrition possible for yourself. If you notice a change in your milk supply, check your water consumption, your calorie intake, and your fat intake. My guess is that one of them is too low.

There just isn’t a ton of information on the web about this topic yet. I was so discouraged to see that one of the first articles that comes up when googling breastfeeding and Paleo was written from someone with no real knowledge about eating Paleo. There is so much misinformation about breastfeeding out there. I could just go crazy but I will stick to the point. Here is part of the wrap up recommendation, “Babycenter and the Children’s Hospital Boston warn women not to follow weight-loss diets while breastfeeding, especially during the first two months after giving birth. Restricting your diet during this time can jeopardize your milk supply and make you feel exhausted. Babycenter advises setting aside calorie counting entirely and instead eating to satisfy hunger.” First, while weight loss is a benefit to eating Paleo for most people, it is not the reason most of us eat Paleo. We eat this way for health and as a lifestyle not as a diet. (It is such a bummer that it has been called the Paleo Diet as it really throws people off.) Second, there is no calorie counting when eating Paleo. I eat until I am full and I eat well. It is obvious that the woman that wrote this article really has no knowledge of Paleo/Primal eating and stumbling onto common misconceptions about eating this way, she has written them as fact.  Ok.  I’m climbing off my little soap box now.  Trust me.  You are lucky I didn’t pull out the big one.  Maybe next time:)

Here is one more picture just for good measure.  Got to leave everyone smiling.

Do any of you have any questions or experiences eating Paleo/Primal while breastfeeding?  I’ll answer as best I can.