markwhelan92

Hey there, congratulations on your new job! - I have a few staples that keep me going, here's some ideas. Salads - self explanatory, easy to whip up and keep in a lunch box. Wraps - The same as above, but substitute a tortilla for some deli meat, perhaps some ham. I also like to wrap stuff in salad . Nuts and Fruit - more of a snack but probably more satiating than a salad. Skewers - adds a little variety! Make some chicken kebabs! Soup - in a flask. Yum. Cold Casseroles - So that's Paleo stews or curries left over from the previous night - I enjoy eating them cold for lunch the next day! I also try to include cold potato in my diet for a helping of resistant starch, so often I'll make some chips (blanch them for 3-4 minutes then put them in the oven for 20 minutes on highest heat) and take them to work. Hope this helped!

That sounded delicious. !

Definitely what DerekP said. The whole breakfast cereal thing is insane - really does make a huge difference when you switch to a protein breakfast. I'd just like to say keep at it - it really really does get easier. I absolutely love sugary snacks, but I have little trouble not eating them nowadays because my body has just got used to life without them. You'll feel a lot better when you've finally kicked them, just keep at it!

I have a similar problem to this, it's hard to strike a balance really. Purely in terms of health, you certainly don't need to be doing this much exercise. That said, I'm guessing you're pretty passionate about this, and it's awesome that you do it so much! I play a lot of sport myself - and I know it's pounding my joints and leaving me a little susceptible to injury, but there's no way I'd give it up. I think just following a general Paleo approach but with everything intensified a little would be best. I'd aim to get a lot of calories, especially in the form of fats and protein. I also would maintain a high carb intake (high by Paleo standards atleast), specifically after your workouts in the form of sweet potatoes and white potatoes. As for pre-workout, I generally just stick to something light and protein-y. I think you're better, long term anyway, getting your body used to consuming a lot of fats and recovering after a workout, so you have more naturally sustained energy. I find that if I have some really fatty grass-fed meat in the morning with a tonne of butter, I'm buzzing pretty much all day and recover much quicker afterwards too.

Haha, definitely! I think that's another thing - when you're not feeling great, you sort of forget how good you can feel when you've got your diet/exercise balance right. If you felt like that now, or could feel it for a while, it'd be easy to motivate yourself, but when you're in a rut of eating poorly it's difficult to get out of sometimes. That's my own experience of it, anyway! Like I said though - no matter how long it takes, keep trying and you'll get there eventually. It does become easier and easier, so easy that you don't have to even try.

I find that for most people, eating "paleo" alternatives of non-paleo foods helps them stay broadly on track. Taking a strict approach can breed negative associations with a diet that's actually really forgiving and includes tonnes of tasty foods. Definitely take a break - It's my belief that you'll notice how much worse your body feels and you'll soon desire breaks less and less - atleast that's what happened to me. That said, if you can satisfy your cravings for a break with Paleo friendly snacking (almond cakes, chips cooked in butter, etc) then that's obviously a lot better! Goodluck!

That sounds like a really good approach - it reminds me of my own transition and I think you'll have a similar experience. I would eat whatever I wanted at the weekend, and usually that would be a whole load of rubbish. After a few weeks of doing that, I realised that every Thursday I'd feel awesome, and every Sunday I'd feel like crap. Naturally, I began eating less and less rubbish, simply out of choice. Nowadays, it's not that I don't want to eat bread, cakes and donuts, I'd really enjoy the actual eating part. It's just I'd rather spend that day, that afternoon, that week or whatever feeling awesome.

Hey there! This is a recipe I made recently using lamb neck. Lamb neck is easy to get hold of and really surprisingly cheap - if you take a trip down to the butchers then I urge you to pick some up! This is a recipe using the middle neck. The scrag-end is pretty tough and best stewed, whereas the best-end is more expensive; you can make lamb cutlets out of it. These kebabs are absolutely delicious served with salad! Ingredients - One big fat juicy grass-fed lamb neck fillet (middle neck) - 2 peppers (one green and one red for a bit of colour) - Chillis (I used two, one red and one green. It depends how hot you’d like them). - A tomato - An onion - Grass-Fed butter - Coconut Oil - Mint - Garlic (smoked if you can – I used about 4 biggish cloves. Use less if your not so much of a garlic maniac) - Olive oil - White wine vinegar - Lettuce - Salt and pepper - Cayenne pepper (if you want a bit more spice). - As many kebab skewers as you want kebabs. 1. Slice the lamb neck into equal portions. I chopped mine up into 6 to make two kebabs with three pieces of meat on them. Get them about 1.5 inch thick. 2. Combine garlic, butter, chilli, salt and black pepper in a frying pan. Chop your garlic and chilli very fine and use plenty of butter! 3. Combine the mixture with the lamb using your hands – add some finely chopped mint too. Get stuck in and make sure they’re rubbed with plenty of garlic and chilli. Pour any juice from the pan over them too. Stick them in the fridge all day or all night – or as long as you can. 4. Get them out and stick them under the grill. Do them for about 15 minutes each side. You want to get them crispy on the outside but tender on the inside, so if they’re crisping a little too quick either lower your grill heat or lower the meat if possible. You want them pink on the inside but you don’t want them quite steak-medium-rare pink. 5. When you’ve got about 10 minutes left, chop and saute half of your tomatoes, peppers and onions in a bit of coconut oil on a medium heat in a frying pan. Don’t move them too much so they char a bit. 6. When you’re nearly ready you can prepare your salad. Dice the rest of your onions and peppers and shred some lettuce up. In a separate bowl, create a dressing using olive oil (6 caps), white wine vinegar (2 caps), salt and pepper. Add your lettuce, onion and peppers in and get ‘em all nice and dressed. 7. Stick ‘em on the skewers and get stuck in! Thanks! I hope somebody gives it a go! Let me know how it turns out if you do!

I make bigger portions of whatever meal I'm eating, and just eat more later on. This works best if you've made a big batch meal, like a curry or a stew . Most of my other snacks are almond or fruit based, but I do sometimes make some sweet potato chips. They're really easy and quick - just peel the potato, cut chips about 1cm thick, blanch them for 3 minutes in boiling water and put them in the oven on a high heat. Serve with salt and Kerrygold butter . I also whip up plenty of chicken legs / ribs and stuff like that with plenty of spices / some paleo dips !

Hey there! I think I'm on about round 43 at the minute. But the difference between round 43 and round 2 is that my time off the wagon was much shorter, and instead of eating about 4 tubs of icecream I had a few too many almond cakes and some dark chocolate that I've been trying to kick. As for cold turkey vs gradual - I honestly think they're as good as eachother. You can only go cold turkey for so long before you'll fall off the wagon again, and then you'll come back for round 3 stronger. I think this is probably quicker and more effective, as long as you don't beat yourself up when you do fall off! A few things that I find help when I want to jump back on: - Setting a specific day (and before the day hits, binging quite abit) - Line up a few recipes to try - Buy a few essential products (for me - almond butter, coconut oil, kerrygold, fresh veg) - Make a point of throwing out any rubbish snacks. - I also like to make a lot of lists and plans - Try stickk.com (you place a wager against yourself to stick to something) - Try LIFT - an app that requires you to click it each day when you've done your habit (i.e. eaten Paleo, not eaten refined carbs, etc). I think diet, like anything, takes time to change properly.The most important thing is to never give up - and understand that failing is part of the process. Goodluck!

I just use quite a bit of salt and large globs of kerrygold butter. Makes anything delicious hehe!

I've never made paleo bread before! How did you go about doing that? And yeah it does work, I know some people have had really good results coating things like chicken and pork in almond meal. I've tried to make onion rings with it before and they were okay, and I cooked a really nice recipe coating king prawns in it and frying them. Came out really nice and crispy. It's difficult though, I think you have to use quite a bit of almond meal, and it doesn't stick to the food your frying very well either. Just to clarify though, if you try those cookies then get the flaked almonds instead of almond meal, otherwise they come out like little cakes (still really nice, just not crunchy).

Hi Candace, there's two that come to mind.. The first is some crispy chips. Not totally Paleo or lowcarb, so I only really have these after an intensive workout. You can make them with sweet potatoes but they aren't as crispy/nice. Cut them 1cm thick, blanch them in boiling water for about three minutes, and stick them on an oiled baking tray on the top shelf of a pre-heated oven (on highest heat) for about 15 minutes. They come out really crispy, and I like to serve them with a few globs of kerrygold butter (and plenty of salt). You can do this with sweet potato too - and they do come out really nice. Just not as nice. Or as crispy. The second is Paleo cookies - sweeter than the fried foods your probably used too but they do provide a crunch: Buy some flaked almonds (these) and mash them in a cup (I use a wooden spoon). Do it for about 2 minutes then put them in an oiled baking dish. Add raw honey (if you have it, or just use some honey) and some cinnamon, and put them in the oven on gas mark 4 for about 15 minutes. You can stir the mixture and mix it up a bit during this time to cook it more evenly too. After around 15-20 minutes, when they're nice and brown and crispy looking, take the mixture out and quickly form it into little cookies (as the mixture cools they don't mould together as easilly - if they cool too much just put them back in the oven for another minute). Leave them to set in the fridge for a short while and voila! Really gorgeous Paleo cookies. Can't think of anything else to recommend at the minute!

I agree completely with the advice above. When I first transitioned to the Paleo diet I was taking on a lot of exercise on very few calories and no carbs. I was ridiculously tired all the time. Before / after exercise make sure you have some carbs - whether it's fruit, sweet potato, or regular potato. On exercise days I try to get about 80 - 100g, but I've been eating Paleo for quite a while - if you're still sluggish then you can have even more than this. Also, this may not be the case with you, but I find that in the early days of a Paleo diet, a lot of people still don't get enough saturated fat - which is essential for building your mitochondria and helping you to process fat as an energy source. It sounds like you're enjoying your coconut oil, I'd advise just eating a few spoonfuls of that in a morning. Plenty of grass-fed butter too! As I said, with me it was also due to a lack of calories, so I would experiment with bigger portion sizes too. This is a common theme among Paleo dieters, I think it's down to your body making changes and you yourself being in the early days of self-experimentation. Don't worry; you'll sort it out and you won't have to rely on your coffee. One of the benefits of a Paleo diet is increased energy afterall .

Definitely stews and curries. Here's a really quick stew recipe that I find makes four servings: _______________________________ 500g stewing meat, a tin of tomatoes, tonnes of carrots, a turnip, 2 onions, loads of garlic, chilli, mushrooms and whatever the hell else you want to throw in there. Throw it all in a huge pan (or two pans) and boil it for an hour (or until the meat is tender) with the lid on. Take the lid off and let it cook until there's not much liquid, but the dish is still juicy. Add a tonne of pepper, salt and cayenne pepper if you like it spicy. I like to eat it with big old globs of grass-fed KerryGold butter too muhaha. And here's an awesome curry recipe that's really quick - 2 tins of tomatoes, some meat, 2 onions, loads of garlic, chilli, ginger, and maybe some pepper. And some coconut milk (preferably Biona if you can get it) Cayenne pepper, cumin, turmeric, curry powder, paprika, salt and pepper, coriander. Cook your meat separately (and I like to steam some veg to serve it over). Fry your onions, garlic, chilli and ginger in some coconut oil. When they've softened up, throw in generous amounts of turmeric, cayenne pepper, paprika, coriander, curry powder, cumin, salt and pepper. Add in a splash of water and let it cook for another minute. Throw in your tomatoes and usually about half the tin of coconut milk. Or all of it, just taste it after it's all blended together and judge it yourself. Mix it all up and serve it over your meat / veg. ______________________________________ These are my favourite meals to make if I have a busy week. Both really easy, really tasty, and store well. I struggled at uni (I went to Liverpool) to stick to my diet and I wish I'd have kept it up, I feel amazing now I'm more into it! Would have had so much more energy hehe.

Hi there Eckokitten! Giving Paleo a try would be awesome for you, and I'm confident it would do wonders for each of your conditions. Since eating Paleo, I feel transformed as a person; much happier, more confident and energetic. I think there are ways you can achieve these benefits even as a fussy eater! First of all, there are lots of alternatives to regular meals that are Paleo. I make Paleo chips, Paleo pizzas, burgers using a lettuce bun, Paleo curry's, Paleo stews.. maybe there's a few of those that you're not keen on, but if there's something in particular you really like then there's probably a replacement for it. I make a lot of Paleo noodles by finely chopping a celeriac, for example. Second, there's nothing to stop you smothering your food in butter and salt. I mean I guess you shouldn't go overboard, but realistically if going overboard on those gets you to eat Paleo, you're body will thank you. I mention this because I reckon that butter and salt make everything so much tastier. I also find that as I progressed in my diet, I started to learn a lot more about cooking and about food. It might be that placing a greater emphasis on your diet, experimenting with recipes and knowing where your meat / fish comes from helps you to eat it. These foods contain tonnes of goodness, but I think it's more important that you stop eating refined sugar and refined carbs. I understand how hard that can be especially as you're a carb-fanatic, but it's another area where the more you learn and develop your knowledge, the more you just don't want them. The addictive hold they have on you gradually wanes, and because you understand how they're contributing to conditions like diabetes and anxiety, the less they seem like a good choice. Even if I crave grains now, I just can't bring myself to eat them. And remember, just take it slow and don't put too much pressure on yourself. Taking on a new diet takes time, and you'll probably mess it up a lot before you perfect it. Keep trying meat and fish where you can - I know you said you don't like them, but I know a lot of people who've changed their minds when they've been more exposed to these foods. Finally, just have faith, I believe taking on this diet is the best thing anyone can do for their health.

Yeah honestly Dogzilla, stick at it! The carb cravings are difficult to manage - it literally is an addiction; they create the same reaction in your brain as cocaine does. But they do subside. It's likely you'll mess up at some point but when you do, still don't give up, jump back on the Paleo wagon. I've messed it up so many times but now I've reached the point where anything with gluten in or refined sugar just isn't an option because I know how it'll make me feel and what it's going to do to my body and health. Keep at it !

Hi there! I think the best approach is to take action while you feel like this. First of all I recommend the website stickk - it's a website where you place a bet that you can stick to a new habit. If you don't log on and confirm you did it, (i.e. eat Paleo) then your stake goes to a prescribed place (I use an anti-charity - a charity that you really disagree with. I think I used one that supports theories against global warming. That way you'll definitely follow through). Second, keep checking in here for support. It's hard at first but there's loads of people with solid advice. Third, have faith that if your health is suffering and you're not feeling great, a Paleo/Primal approach will make you feel awesome. As for Paleo breakfasts - the best thing you can do is get over the preconception of what a breakfast should be. Just have anything; I often make extra curry or stew the night before and eat that. Sometimes I'll whip up a lamb chop with eggs and fried onions. Maybe some left over roast meat with some steamed veg. If you're considering doing this, I can't encourage you enough - you'll feel much much better . So good luck!

Yeah, if you're new to the diet it'll be low-carb flu. Everyone goes through it - your body is adapting to using fat for energy. It's building something called mitochondria - organelle in your body that process fat for energy. It takes your body time to build mitochondria and increase the efficiency of them. I would imagine that the feeling is exacerbated by your pregnancy too. The best thing to do is to make sure you are getting a lot of fat, preferably of a high quality. Also I'd avoid full-blown no carb paleo, and try to eat a fair amount of sweet potato and white potato. Have faith too - it does pass; usually after about 2 weeks. As stated above, hammer the fat. Plenty of butter, coconut oil, juicy fatty meats, macadamia nuts, bacon. Yum .

I know how frustrating this can be - I think the best approach is to try to avoid the subject, and then blind them with your results. It's likely that your diet will be giving you greater energy, athleticism and improving your mood, and people will take notice. You'll probably find that after all the comments, a few of your friends will start to get a bit intrigued. If they do bring it up, it helps to have a lot of ammo against common misconceptions. Stuff like "you do know cavemen had low life-expectancies?" and "you're aware of studies linking red meat to cancer?" I think there's a finite list of criticisms and questions most people come up with, so if you're well read you can generally combat them.

I love your name. I hope it's what I think it is. The hardest part is definitely the sugar, but here's some tips: Replace chocolate with dark chocolate - if it's a little bitter at first stick with it. I was a hopeless chocoholic but now I genuinely prefer strong dark chocolate. Get some ground almonds - You can make really simple Paleo cakes and cookies. Just use 1 egg per 100g of ground almonds, put them in a cake tin / shape them into cookies / and mix in some honey. Stick the mixture in the oven on a low heat for about 20 minutes and you'll have a beautiful Paleo-ish cake. If you're not big on cooking/baking don't worry - this is realllly hard to mess up. Eat fruit after a meal - helps to subdue your cravings. Keep giving it a go, I find that the best way to progress at anything is to keep messing up and trying again. The paleo diet is like any skill, the more you learn about how things affect you and the more you get used to following the diet, the easier it gets. Eventually you'll be a fully fledged caveman .

I see dairy as a grey area but as far as I've noticed it doesn't seem to affect me negatively. That being said, there are respected commentators who think dairy consumption is plain bad for you. I've heard even without considering lactose/casein intolerance, it puts you at greater risk for epithelial cancers, i.e. carcinomas. But I'm not sure if there's research or an argument that negates that. Anyway, given that it is generally considered a grey-area, my philosophy is to take occasional breaks from it. Maybe not have it 2 out of 8 weeks or something like that. And when you do have it, do your best to get it whole, unpasturized, raw, etc. My staple is butter... if your butter goes missing, I probably took it .

Your mind-set is the most important thing - you're obviously taking it seriously so you won't make any major slip-ups. And it's only major slip-ups that would go any way towards reverting your progress. Don't worry you're still on track

The new Call of Duty comes to our screens on Thursday the 5th of November (in the UK anyway). Anybody getting it? Wasn't sure whether to buy it at first but I can never resist in the end .

I've just managed to get Pokemon on my iphone. Going through my yearly Pokemon phase but couldn't afford the new one on 3ds so found one called liquid crystal which seems pretty good - like a fan made one incorporating three islands and other cool features .