I’ve been going at this paleo/primal/whatever-you-want-to-call-it diet for over a year now. Using what I feel is a common-sense dieting approach, and some exercise thrown in for good measure, I’ve transformed myself into a much more fit, active, and positive person.
The fact that the diet works comes as a shock to many people. We’re eating terrible saturated fat, red meat, and eggs while completely eliminating “health foods” like whole-grain wheat, pasta, and soy and we look and feel much better than they do. What kind of sorcery is this?
In fact, the lifestyle has worked so well that I have family in California that I haven’t seen in over year who weren’t adding me on Facebook because they didn’t think it was my account from looking at the pictures. That’s great!
But more or less there are two types of people we are running in to on a daily basis:
Type A: These are the people who are tired of being obese and are desperately looking (or at least want to say they are looking) for a solution to their problem. I feel for some of them. I was obese and I felt terrible. It’s a bad situation, believe me.
But these are the people who want everything done for them. They want to believe that the Ab Rocker (or Ab Lounger, or Ab Master Pro, or …) is going to make a difference between meals at McDonalds. They are the people who want their doctor to prescribe them adipex and risk their health to effortlessly shed off the pounds while still eating a carton of Oreos.
These are the people that send us requests for recipes for Mexican Food, or want us to make copies of recipes for them, or print them out recipes from our blog, or call us on the phone asking if the boxed Almond Breeze Chocolate Coconut Milk is the same thing as the raw Coconut Milk from a can. No, No, No, and It’s not.
These are the people who read this very blog and then post on some other website asking if our recipes are ‘strict enough’ to be called primal or paleo? Guess what? We really don’t care if they are. They work. And if you’re more concerned about the semantics of the words paleo and primal rather than results, you are probably going to fail.
Unfortunately these are also the people who, sadly, create other diet blogs showing their weight counter where they have lost 1lb in over six months allegedly sticking to a paleo diet. They didn’t stick to the diet. We know they didn’t. You know they didn’t. And if that blogger is you, you know you didn’t.
If you don’t actually believe that the food that made you obese is bad for you, and not a symptom of 70% of the United States having a thyroid problem (like our doctor said WE had), you are probably going to fail.
As far as I’m concerned, Type A people can’t be helped by anyone else. Until they convince themselves that the food they are eating is killing them, they will continue to look at what we eat as diet and a way to lose 15lbs until they can resume eating Taco Bell. It’s not prudent for us to try to change these folk’s minds, and frankly, we’ve stopped trying.
Type B: Then we have people who have watched us slowly progress over the year. People who express sincere interest in the diet and philosophy. People who read our blog and love the idea of eating clean, but talk themselves out of it because it’s too hard. Or they’re too busy. Or they can’t afford it. Or the food isn’t sweet enough. Or their kid’s are picky eaters. Or their husband’s don’t like the food. Believe me, we’ve heard all of these excuses and more many, many times.
There is nothing preventing these people from turning their lives around and getting healthy except that they are standing in their own way. The excuses need to be laid to rest and they need to start progressing (slowly at first if you need to — like we did), but once you are losing weight and get into a system where the groceries you are buying allows you to easily put together healthy, delicious meals it becomes almost effortless.
These are the people we want to cater to with this blog and I’m going to be writing more posts in the future with these people in mind.
However, if you are a Type A person, you are still more than welcome to read along. When the adipex fails to deliver results, or you are eventually diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes from fast food binges, we’ll still be willing to help once you’ve accepted the harsh reality that your diet must be fixed.
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