The Cardboard Phase

What the heck is that?

It came back from one of the first times I was having a conversation with a client who had asked whether it was hard to keep true to my Paleo lifestyle and how I dealt with the ‘cravings for breads, pastas and cookies’ she assumed I must be having after first omitting gluten and then going completely Paleo a year later, back in 2005.

I explained to her that it wasn’t a case of me having some sort of super human will power and fighting off daily urges to eat grains, sugar and the like.  Rather, when I discovered that by not eating gluten (all grains, for that matter) or soy, I no longer had the horrible pain associated with a lifetime of GI distress, it became ridiculously easy to simply choose not to eat those foods.

I likened it to having had food poisoning at a restaurant and then making the connection that that particular dish made you sick and therefore, you’d not likely want to eat it again.   In that scenario, of course, it was likely a one-off occurrence however the resulting consequence and decision to avoid going there and eating that dish again is the same nonetheless.

Same with me and gluten/soy (all grains and legumes!) and dairy.

I know that those items will all make me feel horrible so I cannot think of one good reason to eat them, or anything made with or from them.

“I’d rather eat cardboard” (than eat cakes, cookies, bagels, pastas etc…)is the phrase I used to demonstrate how unappealing those foods now sound to me.

And we can all get there.

When we follow Paleo correctly and focus on the bounty of copious amounts of veggies with wild proteins and healthy fats- balanced out throughout the day, loaded with every last nutrient we need, lovely to look at and fantastically delicious to boot- there’s nothing ‘strict, restrictive or weird’ about any of it.

It’s just food.

Let’s eat food.  And not eat junk (or cardboard.. but I do have to think I’d actually feel less awful if I ate a piece of cardboard compared to how I used to feel eating all those inflammatory foodstuffs!).

Cardboard phase- the longer you stay Paleo and continue to see your health improve, regardless of why you opted to go Paleo in the first place, the sooner you’ll get there!

Honestly.