Your body is an ongoing experiment. Furthermore, no two bodies are exactly alike. Why do you and your bestie follow the same eating plan and she loses weight and you don’t? Is it because she sucks? Maybe. But a more reasonable response to the weight loss mystery is that the two of you have different bodies with different needs that will respond in different ways.
To that end, we all may find ourselves “stuck” at different points along the journey, sometimes due to factors beyond our control and sometimes because we backslid in our intentions. Both are normal and to be expected. After all, do you know anyone who consistently loses weight week after week after week with no plateau or backlash? (Hint: If you do, you need to stop being friends with that person. Instantly.) Our bodies, minds, and emotions take time to adjust to a new mode of eating. What can help is having tools in our healthy-eating arsenal so that when those backslides or sticking points occur, a fix is within easy reach.
You can use the tips and modifications below on an as-needed basis or incorporate them as regular aspects into your diet. Just remember, slow and steady. Take it from a type A perfectionist, attempting to do everything all at once, perfect from the get-go, is almost always a path that leads straight to Ben & Jerry’s binge eating when the plans go awry. Instead, ease up, cut yourself some slack, and feel your way through those rough patches.
PAY ATTENTION TO THE FOOD THAT YOU EAT. Well, duh. Isn’t that what we’ve been talking about this whole time? Sort of. Except now I’m talking less about the selection of foods and more about the actual experience of eating. It’s a pain in the you-know-what, but being mindful of every bite that goes in your mouth is a truly excellent weight-loss tool that will fill you up faster and keep you satiated longer. I can eat the exact same breakfast of a veggie-scramble mix in the morning, and if I sit at the table and focus on my food, I’m full for hours. If I shovel the meal in while I read an article from The New Yorker, it’s almost as if I’d never eaten. Which typically leads to my eating more or starting off the day grumpy because I just ate a big breakfast and it wasn’t enough. So yes, put down the iPad and turn off the TV. You’ll feel fuller and eat less in the long run if you sit down and focus exclusively on eating.
DRINK MORE WATER. I can feel you rolling your eyes. Oh sheesh, this again? Yup, this again, only with a slight twist. I don’t think the standard “Drink eight 8-ounce glasses of water a day” adage holds true. We may not need that much water. But you probably do need more than you’re getting. Often what we mistake for hunger is actually our body telling us it’s dehydrated. When you have the urge to snack, drink a glass of water and wait ten minutes. If you’re still hungry, go ahead and eat. But you may find that water was what your body was craving and you don’t actually need to eat.
MIX UP YOUR MEALS. What do I mean when I say mix up your meals? Essentially I’m asking you to break the mindset of what is normal and “acceptable” for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Why is this important? It’s going to give you a lot more freedom and flexibility in what you prepare, which hearkens back to those feelings of abundance we discussed earlier.
We’ve all known the joys of eating breakfast for dinner. Is there anything better than a stack of hot pancakes with real butter (or ghee) running down the sides at 7 o’clock at night? (There are Paleo pancakes. Check out the super-simple mashed-banana Paleo pancake recipe on page 84.) I love pancakes, but my morning routine doesn’t leave time for them. I’m lucky if I have time to peel and wolf down a hard-boiled egg. So I make them for dinner instead.
If I’m eating pancakes for dinner, I may as well eat my dinner food at 6 a.m. And so I do. On a regular basis, I sit down to a morning meal that consists of something along the lines of roasted cauliflower steak, asparagus, and sautéed spinach with shaved pecans. Dinner leftovers are delicious in the a.m., full of unexpected spices and flavor, and the best part is, you don’t have to cook! Pop last night’s dinner into the microwave for 45 seconds and enjoy it as a delicious hot breakfast.
KEEP MEALS SIMPLE. Don’t you just love diet books that offer up seven to ten different menu options for every meal? Where exactly are people working that they have the time (and access to a stove) to prepare homemade enchiladas during their lunch hour? And who has time to mix anything in a bowl let alone bake something in the morning? I mean, seriously? Tim Ferriss said it best: “Eat the same meal over and over.” Embrace the beauty of the “go-to” meal, one you know how to prepare quickly and that you know you like. Eat the same simple meal often and save the stress of innovative cooking for the days when you have the time and inclination.
BE MINDFUL OF HOW YOU THINK ABOUT FOOD. Food should not be a reward (I earned this peanut-butter granola bar!) or a punishment (I’ve been so bad on my diet that I’m not eating anything for the next 24 hours). Unfortunately, most of us have spent our lives thinking of food exactly as that. The undoing of years of “bad thought” food training takes time, but it’s worth the effort. When you finally start looking at food as nourishment instead of slotting it into “can have/can’t have” categories, it’s world-changing. So much so that you may find that changing the way you think about food also changes the way you think about life. You’ll become more conscious of all the choices in life that are available to you. Don’t be surprised when this new and healthy way of thinking about food spills over into your cheat days. The first couple times you “earn” a cheat day, it will be like Girls Gone Wild, only with food. After the benefits of feeling good all week on the PV diet kick in, however, you’ll stop thinking of cheat days as something you’ve “earned,” and voluntarily dial them back to perhaps enjoying a good meal or eating more fruit than usual. You may even find there are weeks where you feel no need for the cheat day.
PAY ATTENTION TO HOW YOU TALK ABOUT FOOD. For me, this involved losing the mindset that food is bad or something that must be rationed. It took my 70-year-old mother talking to me on the phone one day as she was trying to lose weight and hearing her say, “Now, apples are bad for me, right?” to snap me to attention. Now I listen to my words when I talk about food to make sure they reflect my true intentions.
MAKE THE DIET FIT YOUR LIFESTYLE VERSUS CHANGING YOUR LIFESTYLE TO FIT THE DIET. Your food preparation and eating choices shouldn’t be filling your mind every second of the day. If they are, that means something about your diet isn’t working for you. Yes, there will be times when you’re prepping food for meals that will feel all-encompassing and you’ll need to monitor your protein and sugar intake, but what you can, should, and will eat should not be the focal point of your days. There’s more to life than eating a perfect diet.
BEWARE OF EATING “HEALTHY” CRAP. Fess up—most of us began our foray into vegetarianism with some form of the “ice cream and cereal for dinner” mindset. If it wasn’t meat, it was “safe” and counted as part of a vegetarian diet. Teenage vegetarians who exist on Doritos and Taco Bell bean burritos exemplify this. But we wised up, found some simple recipes, learned how to pronounce “quinoa,” discovered Amy’s and MorningStar foods, and transitioned into a healthier mode of meat-free eating.
There are a number of foods out there that claim to be Paleo. And, just as Doritos are technically vegetarian, these other foods are technically Paleo. However, check out the sugar grams on some of those “Paleo-friendly” products. I looked at a Paleo brownie the other day that had 17.9 grams of sugar. A Betty Crocker brownie has 17.1! You can eat these Paleo products and not technically be “cheating,” but you’re not going to lose weight doing it.
MAKE SURE YOU’RE EATING ENOUGH. Go ahead, say it. Best diet tip, ever. How do you make sure you’re getting enough to eat? Tracking your energy levels is a good starting point. You should not feel hungry, deprived, tired, drained, or miserable. You should feel light, energized, awake, and alert. If you’re not feeling this way, take a couple of days and track your calories—not in the interest of limiting them, but in the interest of making sure you’re eating enough. And not just enough food in general, but enough of the right types of foods. Eat plenty of fats, as these will boost your energy levels. Especially track your protein as the vegetarian part of the PV equation takes away a significant Paleo source of protein—meat. It may also help to note how eating different types of food makes you feel. For example, eating an apple before a workout made me feel full, but I find I have a better workout if I eat fat (nut butter or an avocado) instead of fructose and carbs.
GIVE INTERMITTENT FASTING (IF) A TRY. I’ve never been a fan of fasting. I don’t like skipping meals. Not so much because I’m hungry, but because it goes back to that feeling of deprivation. That, and I’m the poster child for reverse psychology. Tell me I can eat anything and I’ll shrug and say I’m not hungry or I can wait. Tell me I have to fast and it’s guaranteed I’ll be salivating outside the fridge 20 minutes after polishing off a large meal.
That being said, I’ve taken to the concept of intermittent fasting. I find it one of the fastest and—truly—easiest ways to jump-start weight loss. The theory behind IF, as it’s known, is that it’s easier to fast for one day to reduce your weekly caloric intake rather than discipline yourself to cut back on 500 calories every day.
There are a couple of tricks to engaging in successful IF. Rule number one—no gorging! There’s no need (and you’re missing the point) if you load up on food both before and after a fast. IF is about eating your normal daily intake, pausing for a set amount of time, then eating normally again.
Once your body has switched over to fat-burning versus sugar-burning, you’ll be able to handle 12 hours of fasting, no problem. This is especially true if you plan your fast so you’re asleep for most of it. If you eat a late lunch, your fast may only involve skipping dinner and then eating a late breakfast.
Ease into IF. Many Paleo websites talk about doing a 24-hour intermittent fast one to two times per week. I find a once-a-week fast of 16 to 18 hours serves just fine to keep my weight in check. Experiment and find what works for you, but remember the key word here is “intermittent.” You shouldn’t be fasting every other day. PV is not about extended caloric restriction. IF is a simple tool to jump-start weight loss. It’s not even a must-do.
A SAMPLE IF PLAN
What I’ve found that works for me is eating a late lunch, around 3 or 4 p.m., and then starting the fast. I make sure my lunch contains plenty of healthy fats and protein to keep hunger at bay but, again, I don’t overeat. A protein-laden meal is more than capable of keeping me full until at least 8 p.m. and then it’s just a matter of making it an hour or two until bedtime. By the time I wake up at 5 a.m., I’m already 13 hours into the fast. And—being a fat-burning machine—I find I’m rarely hungry, even during an IF, when I wake up in the mornings.
If you feel hungry, drink plenty of water, coffee, tea. Soda isn’t Paleo due to all the added sugars, and even diet soda is off limits as it has no nutritional value and contains non-whole-food ingredients. If you’re not a fan of plain water, sparkling water (also called soda water) is Paleo-friendly. Avoid the flavored versions but feel free to add mint, cucumber, or lemons for a burst of fresh flavor.
Stay busy. Run errands, clean the house, do some work—anything you don’t associate with eating. Try to go for 16 hours. If you need to, munch on four or five almonds, and eat each one slowly and thoughtfully. You’ll be surprised, after having not eaten for 12 hours, how filling a couple of almonds can be. Then break the fast with a late breakfast at around 10 a.m. Boom! Your first 16-hour fast, over and done with. And, really, the only meal you skipped was dinner.
If you’re so inclined, extend the fast up to 24 hours. I usually play around with the 16-to-20-hour fast, and that works for me. You’ll need to experiment and see what works for you. Also, remember that breaking the fast isn’t cause to eat everything in sight. Eat what you normally would for breakfast or lunch, drink plenty of water and continue on with the PV diet, eating when you’re hungry (instead of eating by the clock) for your next meal.
CONDENSE YOUR EATING INTO AN EIGHT-HOUR PERIOD. This is actually another version of intermittent fasting. The idea is to eat only within an 8-hour window each day, which more or less forces you into a 16-hour fast for the remaining time period.
I personally find this difficult to do given my work schedule, but it works for some people (including Hugh Jackman, who used IF and restrictive eating to lose weight and bulk up for his Wolverine roles).
COOK ONCE AND THEN COOK A LOT. We’re back to bulk cooking. I suspect I’m preaching to the choir on this one, but just in case you’re unfamiliar with the joys of bulk cooking, allow me to enlighten you one more time. It pretty much comes down to basic math: 1 mess + 1 time = 8 meals. Of course, if you have the time and inclination to prepare food daily or set time aside to cook healthy for each and every meal, Godspeed. But most of us are overburdened with the demands on our time, including work, house, spouse, kids, pets, parents, PTA, workouts, volunteer activities, and catching up on Game of Thrones and House of Cards to bother with cooking every night.
The point is, when you finally do find the time to cook, go ahead and COOK. Double or triple the side item or main dish you’re preparing so you’ll have plenty of meal options for the next few days and won’t be tempted to pay $2 for the canola oil–laden peanut butter granola bar in the vending machine at work.
EXERCISE MORE. Or less. I’ve been accused of being a compulsive exerciser. I like to work out, and when I do, I like to go after it hard. I’ve got it under control now, but for way too many years, I had a fear of not working out. Skipping even one workout meant weight gain in my mind. It got to a point where I was working out five or six days a week, usually twice a day, with CrossFit in the morning and tempo or long runs in the afternoon. I was eating all the right foods but found myself frustrated as I watched the scale inch its way in the wrong direction.
It was only when I cut back on exercise—especially cardio—that the weight came off. I suspect all the exercise—and the lack of sleep from getting up for 5 a.m. CrossFit workouts—was negatively affecting my cortisol levels. The resulting stress and inflammation threw my body into “survivor” mode where it clung to fat, literally because it sensed it was being attacked.
If you’re not doing any or only minimal exercise and your weight loss has stalled, it’s probably time to take it up a notch. Bodyweight exercises and lifting heavy things (in lieu of cardio) is extremely effective for revving up your metabolism and keeping the fires burning, even when you’re at rest.
However, if you’re a hardcore exerciser, and especially if you do a lot of cardio, play around with doing less. Take it down to three days a week instead of five or six, and, again, focus more on weight training instead of cardio. Like me, you may be surprised at the results.
GO TO BED. We’ve already discussed the importance of sleep in being healthy and regulating your body’s functions. There are new studies every day showing that lack of sleep plays a major role in people not being able to lose weight. We’re a country that prides ourselves on our ability to get by on four to five hours a night, but at what cost to our health? Lack of sleep stresses the body, causing inflammation and, just like too much exercise, makes your body think it must go into defense mode and hang on to fat. More sleep equals less stress equals a responsive body. Sleep isn’t an option when it comes to good health and losing weight—it’s a necessity. Make it happen.
REMIND YOURSELF WHY YOU’RE DOING THIS. What’s your reason for trying the PV diet? Is it because you want to be healthy or you’re aiming for a Victoria Secret–like body—or both? There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be thin and toned. It’s almost impossible not to want it giving the daily deluge of “you must be thin with perfect hair, nails, home, and children” messages we are assaulted with on a daily basis. And I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t tried diets over the years not to be healthy, but solely because I wanted to shed the pounds.
I hope, however, you’re willing to factor in your health to any diet you undertake. You want a diet that leaves you feeling energized, with enough mojo to tackle that big project at work, the renovation of your house, the half-marathon you’re training for, or dealing with the demands of your toddler.
Falling off the Wagon (and Climbing Back up Again)
In my next life, I am going to be perfect from the word “go.” Bed made every morning, floss every night, meditate 20 minutes daily, read The New Yorker instead of People magazine, volunteer with the elderly, never lose my temper, and refuse to allow a bad hair day to affect my self-worth.
That’s the next go-round. In this life, things are different. I do manage to make the bed every day and floss five (okay, four) nights a week, but I throw money at social issues instead of volunteering my time and have more than once been found sobbing in the ladies room, only minutes before a client meeting, clutching a hair straightener in one hand and smoothing gel in the other in a desperate attempt to get rid of the frizzies.
First-world problems, I know. But stay with me on this one. How we handle the smaller issues of life are a reflection of our mental sturdiness and emotional toughness to weather the bigger storms. For example, I know I lean toward the “all-or-nothing” mentality. It’s why I do endurance sports. If I’m going to run, I’m going to run—a lot. Same thing with cycling or weight lifting. If I muster the resolve to show up to work out, then let’s throw out the excuses and get to work. Otherwise it’s a waste of the mental effort it took to get me up, dressed, and out the door in the first place.
I bring the same attitude to my diet. I want it to be all or nothing. Because of that, I’m often harsh in my criticism of myself when I don’t achieve the perfection of which I believe I am capable. I may eat perfectly for three days and do nothing more than have a rice cake (a rice cake!) with almond butter one day as a snack and allow that one small lapse to snowball into a full-blown “Who am I and why do I even try?” mental breakdown. Which, as we all know, leads to even more poor eating choices.
Here’s the thing. Following the 80/20 principle, there is nothing wrong with the occasional lapse so long as the occasional lapse doesn’t turn into the “once a day” and then the “twice a day” and then the “I ate a PV breakfast so I’ll cheat at lunch” lapse.
What kind of mental fortitude do you carry? Can you drink a vanilla soy latte and do a quick rebound to get back on track or do you allow the smallest falter to throw you off your game and spiral you into an unhealthy cycle of eating? Because here’s the thing: At some point, the odds are strong you’ll fall off the PV wagon. Whether you down a Greek yogurt or a full quart of Ben & Jerry’s raw chocolate-chip cookie dough ice cream (go big or go home, I always say), what matters isn’t that you ate the non-PV food. What matters is how you bounce back.
Ideally, you’ll recognize the event for what it was: a momentary lapse that, contrary to what you may be thinking, does not say volumes about who you are as a person. Mistakes happen. Some not of your own doing. You may unintentionally stumble when you’re invited to a friend’s house for dinner and you later discover the vegetables they made especially for you were cooked in canola oil. Just last week my mom left a Tupperware container for me in the fridge packed with a batch of slow cooker vegetables she’d made just for me. I gobbled down the tender carrots, mushrooms, cauliflower, and onions. I called my mom to thank her for the food.
“Delicious!” I said. “What was that sauce it was covered in?”
“A1 Steak Sauce.”
I ran to the computer and Googled, “A1 Steak Sauce35 ingredients,” already knowing the answer. Yup, right there on the screen. Made with corn syrup. Four grams of sugar per tablespoon. God only knows how many tablespoons of the stuff my mom dumped in there, thinking that because it was only vegetables, she was making me a Paleo Vegetarian meal.
The point is, you’re not Superman with x-ray vision into the kitchen of every friend’s home. It would have been easy for me to get down about “ruining” my diet with the sugar and corn syrup (and the caramel color, potassium sorbate, and xanthan gum) in the A1, but I cut myself the necessary slack to shrug it off. It also would have been easy to get upset with my mom—who knows I follow a Paleo diet and has been lectured by me 1,001 times on what is and is not allowed and that she needs to check ingredients before she feeds me—for dousing the vegetables in the stuff and putting it in my fridge. But the bottom line is blame and guilt don’t get anyone anywhere. Instead of moving into an “I hate myself for doing that” soliloquy, I chose instead to focus on the fact that most of what I ate was vegetables. And that my mom loves me enough to cook for me and leave me food as a gift. That’s nothing to sneeze at.
Eating a sauce that you later discover has a little soy in it is a lot different from mindlessly scarfing down a flour-based, gooey cheese pizza. Both may happen. It’s life. You’re not meant to be perfect. Give yourself a pep talk, climb back on board the PV wagon, and keep moving forward.
With PV as a foundation for health, life is only going to keep getting better.
35By the way, there are plenty of yummy PV substitutions for A1 Steak Sauce. Combining tomato paste, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar with crushed garlic and a smidge of cayenne pepper is a favorite of mine, or just Google “Paleo steak sauce.” Ignore the ones that use the fat bastings from meat as the base, and boom, you’re in business.