How to Ready Yourself (and your kitchen) for Paleo

Just like anything in life, you need to best prepare yourself for endeavors that you’re going to undergo. While some challenges in life are unexpected, deciding to take up a diet to incorporate in your lifestyle is something that you do consciously.

If you want your diet to be effective, you need to prepare yourself mentally, emotionally, and physically for it.

Of course mentally covers the why you decided to do it, it has to be for the right reasons. Emotionally preparing means that you’re doing it wholeheartedly, and for the physical preparation, you need to condition your body to its optimum.

In order to start on the right track, you need to build a good environment around you. Keep friends that are supportive of your endeavor and distance yourself from the ones who may tell you that you can’t do it.

Also, you need to have a positive outlook in life so that you are always reminded of what you are working towards, and not just physically.

You would also need to purge yourself of the possible temptations that could derail your success in your diet.

So how do you start doing this? By purging your kitchen.

How to do a proper kitchen purge:

First of all, you may wonder, what do you need to purge? Well, here’s a short breakdown:

– expired goods
– food you can’t identify (yes, we all have that in our fridge)
– things you need to avoid in your Paleo diet

Obviously for the expired food and the ones you can’t identify, it’s advisable to throw them out immediately.

Also a good tip is, if you’re sharing your house or kitchen with people who aren’t taking up the Paleo diet, and are probably going to eat food that you can’t eat, give them some shelf space for their own food in the refrigerator and the shelves. Don’t let your food mix so as not to tempt you or confuse them.

Keep a calendar for the food that you put in the fridge so that you can keep track of when they’re going to expire.

Same goes for the food you put in the freezer! It’s trickier to determine what it is that you’ve kept there because things look different when they’re in there. So it’s good if you can find a way to label your frozen food.

It will also be helpful if you put ready meals in there for easy thawing and eating if you’re pressed for time. Of course, your ready meal needs to be healthy and Paleo friendly. (Consider cooking extra every time so that you can put a portion of that meal in the freezer when you’re in a pinch.)

Paleo list:

Keep in mind that you need to purge yourself from any food that’s poor in quality so that includes junk food, food that uses pesticides, hormones, antibiotics, and the like.

If you can, choose produce and meat that are organic. Those are free of the chemicals that are usually used. The words grass-fed, free-range, local, and hormone-free are what you should procure. (For seafood, try to get those that weren’t bred in farms)

What to remove:

– Dairy products (butter, cheese, creamers, ice cream, milk, yogurt)
– Fruit juices
– Sodas
– Tofu and Soy products
– Condiments (ketchup, mayo, mustard, dressings, soy sauce,)
– Microwaveable frozen food
– Grains (all breads, rice, etc)
– Lentils/beans
– Candies/sweets
– Baking goods (even gluten-free)
– Junk food (chips, crackers, cookies, energy bars)
– Vegetable oils
– Pasta
– Corn products

Of course this is not the complete list, this is just to get you started.

Read labels, research on the ingredients, on your food history, etc. You’ll really benefit from it.

And when you are already on a Paleo diet, don’t let your momentum die down! Encourage yourself to continue with what you’ve started. You will never regret the things you do to better yourself, no matter how it pans out.

Take a look at this!

We have lots of delicious, healthy and easy to prepare recipes for you and your family.

And if you are serious about starting a healthy lifestyle, you can join and be a YUM PALEO VIP member and get Yum Paleo Ebooks and Exclusive-for-Members-Only videos.