"Would you make up your DAM* mind?!" or...Why I'm changing my diet. Yes, again.

I'm a morally conflicted human being. Yes...yes I am. I've expressed my moral convictions in the past through lifestyle and eating habits (The long tenure of my vegetarianism, which packed on a significant weight increase but was also in the height of my depression...)
I've been going along feeling really good on Atkins. REALLY good, if evidence of my recent facebook posts shows anything. I've been walking several times a week at the local YMCA, being the fattest woman there and still huffing it out next to the adorably skinny/perky brunnette who frequently jogs next to me...(boy, if that alone is not a reason for going to the gym....!) I've been biking. I've been gardening. I've been making art. I've been studying (I'm going back to school for my masters degree) I've been LIVING MY LIFE!

It's awesome. But it doesn't solve my moral confliction about being a wild meat eater. So I sat down and took a good hard look at my diet. On it, I feel amazing AND I've lost weight (22 pounds and counting), this is true. But there's a definate room for improvement. Atkins does a fantastic job of bringing in the protein and fat, but I just worry that in cutting out things like fruits and nuts for long term (during induction which should go on for longer than 2 weeks if, like me, you have significant amounts of weight to lose) that I'm limiting myself a good bit of healthy nutrients. SO I started doing some digging and I came up with this: http://primalblueprint.com/pages/What-We-Do.html and this: http://thepaleodiet.com/. Fad looking diets, yes. Aren't fads fun? (Thinks back fondly to the parachute pants fad....)  But anyway...look closer. They aren't really that FADish at all. They are diets based on whole foods, unprocessed CLEAN foods (remember the clean food diet? WHY didn't I pursue that further?). Foods that are known to be good for brain health and lacking in the known allergens that are suspected to aggravate autism (this is a gluten/grain and dairy FREE diet.) And the killer for me, I'm already really close to doing this on atkins. The only things I need to cut out are the foods that logic and heart tells me aren't good for me anyway, and to add in the foods logic and heart tells me I SHOULD be eating. (GOOODBYE cheese, HELLO almonds! GOODBYE splenda, HELLO stevia!) This isn't really a fad, it's a realistic look at what we really eat and WHY it affects us. Why we are suffering from previously unheard of diseases at an alarming rate. Why FOOD is MEDICINE and FUEL and not entertainment or a luxury.

I'll get off my soap box now, I promise. And I'll let you know how I'm liking my new "Caveman" lifestyle in a later post. But for now, some dry roasted almonds and a few blueberries are calling my name.