Common Mistakes When Starting A Paleo Diet

Hi, my name is Kate Simpson, I’m the health coach here at Arizona Wellness Medicine. And today I’m going to be sharing on the topic of the common mistakes that I see being made when people are transitioning to the paleo way of eating. Or more specifically, when they’re getting ready to do a 30 day reset or also known as a 30 day elimination diet. And I feel like the top three mistakes can be mistake, one A, one B and one C. They’re not necessarily in order of importance, I see these three mistakes pretty frequently.

And the first one is not having the mindset that this is something that’s short-term. I think a lot of people are looking at this as this is the long-term way that they’re going to be eating and it’s not true. It is intentionally restrictive, the 30 day reset is removing the most common allergens that are known to be problematic for individuals. In the hopes that you might land on a food that is problematic for you and contributing to some of the health challenges that you’re currently experiencing.

My second mistake really dovetails off of this, and that is not allowing a proper period for food reintroductions. And that’s because we say that it’s a 30 day reset, but it really does stretch beyond that. And you need to plan accordingly and just recognize that the food reintroduction stage is a really important piece. Because again, we’re trying to identify any food that might be problematic for you as an individual and contributing to some of the health issues that you have.

Third on the list is lack of planning. So I mentioned that being important and that’s because we should be looking at our calendar 45 to 60 days out and trying to identify anything that we know we have upcoming, whether it’s a social or business commitment and trying to plan around it. Because again, the goal is during the reset that we eat the majority of our meals at home, and we’re the ones preparing them and so we know what ingredients are going in them. And in order to do that, we really do need to plan. So that rounds out my top three.

Number four in the list is including a healthy source of fat with each of your meals. I think it’s often overlooked and I’m not a hundred percent sure, but it might be because this feels like a diet. And we often think that fat makes you fat and it shouldn’t be included in our diet, but it’s not true. It’s really important because fat gives us energy and it helps sustain us from one meal to the next. So that’s my encouragement and it’s a common mistake that I see. So please, please, please include a healthy source of fat on your plate.

And then just lastly, I would just say don’t over complicate things. We give you a really great resource in that document that you get called the 30 day reset. And I encourage you, especially early on to use that resource and don’t do a lot of digging on the internet. There’s a lot of really great information available about paleo on the internet, but there’s a lot of really bad information. And it pretty quickly gets confusing and becomes a slippery slope. And so I would just say for the time being, use the resources that you have available with that document and with health coaching. So I’m a resource for you, I’m available to you. And you are welcome to call the front desk and schedule an appointment. And I encourage you to do that if you want some support in your journey. Thanks so much for your time, I’ll look forward to seeing you again.