I don't wannnnna!

Hi. My name is Ashley and I'm a quitter. Haha! Yes, it's true. If it's something hard, I'll likely give up. I'm not even sure how I've made it to 15 months of breast feeding, because that -ish was no joke in the beginning. I guess I had my priorities straight about that. Who knows.

But I'm not here to talk about breast feeding (although my friends know that I could talk about that subject for-ev-er), I'm here to talk about making the transition to a paleo/primal lifestyle. I have tried to do the Whole30 challenge once and epically failed. I'm mentally charging myself to take that beast on again, but I think I'm going to wait until my husband deploys to tame that animal again. That's yet another post though. I'm rambling and not really getting to the point of anything. Many apologies.

My point: I want to help my friends transition to a paleo lifestlye and I want to make it as easy on you as possible. Off the top of my head, I have two friends who are really interested in it, but with so much info out there, things can quickly get overwhelming and out of hand. Not to mention, the infamous paleo police and perfectionist that hinder every one else's results around them. I will not be your police and I am no where near a perfectionist. However, when I choose to eat a non-paleo food, I don't trick myself into thinking it's healthy because of x-y-z. I don't make excuses. I just eat it and move on...and likely blow my butt hole out. Man, I'm telling you. I just can't handle processed foods anymore. It got me earlier.

What I want to do is set up one thing to change per week. That way, there's no sticker shock (let's face it, canola oil is cheap and coconut oil is not) or aggression/depression about dropping certain foods. We treat food as comfort, when we should be treating food as nourishment and finding comfort in our loved ones. Let's move away from this and get healthy! (One reason why I get so angry at the infamous grandparents wanting to "spoil with food," but that's another story too.)

This week's goal: change your oils. That's it - and not even everything. We have a long way to go with oil, my little dears. Take all of your cooking oils/sprays/salad dressings/condiments out and sit them on the counter. Anything that says soybean, canola, vegetable, corn, sunflower, peanut, safflower, shortening, or grape seed needs to be tossed. Sorry. I know it seems expensive and a waste. It is. But these are a waste on your health too. I'm sure you can google something to do with all of your excess oils. The replacement is easy though; just use real fat. Bacon grease (if you save it or you can start saving it), real butter, unrefined coconut oil, and olive oil are a few simple things to start with. There's a few other oils you can play with, but those are an easy start. Please feel free to use avocado oil (for very low heat cooking) and walnut oil (NOT to be heated)...but I'm trying not to be overwhelming, remember? See this excellent guide to fats/oil by one of my favorite bloggers. 

Notes on your oil choices: olive oil should only be used as a dressing and never heated (or heated at a VERY low temp). I was guilty of this myself for a while, but now I know and you do too. Also, when buying butter you have to read the ingredient listing. It shouldn't contain anything other than milk or cream. Consider this your first lesson in ingredient reading. I personally love KerryGold and it seems to be the choice butter in the paleo world. However, it's kind of expensive and we're trying to be simple this week. So, just read the ingredients and get whatever you want (as long as the ingredients are acceptable). Now, a small caveat. Paleo followers typically do not consume dairy, which would omit butter. I know that my body (and my son's) can tolerate butter, which is why we continue to use it. We can't, however, handle ice cream and conventional milk. For now, use real butter. We'll talk more about this later.

Need an acceptable replacement for salad dressing? Try mixing some balsamic and olive oils or just plain olive oil with a few dried/fresh herbs. And know that if ordering a salad at a restaurant, it will contain vegetable oil if you order any dressing other than olive oil. I personally don't get salads when we're out, because I don't trust the oils. Or you can take your own. Who cares what people think? You're on the road to health and they aren't. Bam! Take that, judge-y people who make fun of all of my food quirks!

Recap
Week 1: Replace cooking oils and salad dressing oils
HW for next week: Start reading ingredients. You'll notice that oils are in pretty much everything processed. You don't have to make any additional changes other than what I've already asked. I just want you to start becoming aware of what's in your food and how to read the ingredients. Eventually, you won't even be buying processed crap, so it won't be as big of a deal. 

As the weeks progress, things will get a little harder and then it'll eventually be easy peasy. Oils are in EVERYTHING, but we're only going to focus on this small step for right now. Good luck and remember Gs up, hoes down!