8 ways to party and keep it paleo socalising christmas

8 Ways to Party – and Keep it Paleo

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It’s that time of year again where the party season is in full flow. It’s a time where everyone should be in good spirits, surrounding themselves with great food, music, and most importantly, great company. It can sometimes be a bit of a challenge to stay on track with your Paleo lifestyle at this time of the year, especially if your family and friends aren’t as conscious about their health as you are. Thankfully, there are plenty of ways that you can stay on your path to better health, whilst not missing out on any of the enjoyment of the holiday season.

8 ways to party and keep it paleo socalising christmas

1. Be careful at the buffet

This one is self explanatory, but if you’re at a social event hosted by a non Paleo friend or family, the chances are the buffet table will be laden with gluten, sugar, and countless additives. If you’re hungry and don’t want to miss out on the social connection of eating with friends, head straight for the crudités. Filling your plate with crunchy raw vegetables will help you stay sociable and have a full plate at the same time. You may be lucky and find some nice meats, hardboiled eggs, and maybe even some salted nuts. Just watch out for anything swimming in sauce, as its most probably ‘enhanced’ with sugar and some kind of thickening agent.

Sometimes it can come across rude asking ‘can you check the ingredients in that?’ or ‘are those sausages gluten free?’ – so it’s best to stick to the food you know will be safe. If you’re really concerned there will be nothing for you to eat, tip number 2 is something worth bearing in mind.

2.    Eat before you leave

If you don’t want to risk being gluten bombed at the buffet, I’d recommend eating a good meal before you leave. It might mean changing around your meal times slightly, but it’s much better to leave the house knowing you have eaten well, rather than fret about the lack of healthy options when you arrive. If there is anything suitable for you, then hey, it’s a bonus!

3.    Experiment with IF

If you’ve never tried Intermittent Fasting before, now could be as good a time as ever. If you’re going to be travelling to visit relatives, or at long events where there may be a lack of good food options, why not try incorporating a 12 – 24 hour fast into your day?

4.    Paleo cocktails

If you’re at a social event where the drinks are flowing, you may be presented with a lack of options. If you want to stay alcohol free, there are plenty of great non alcoholic cocktails you can make. Equally, a sparkling water with some ice and a wedge of lime is refreshing and looks sociable.

If you want to treat yourself to a drink or two, do so. You deserve it. Just stay away from the beer and high sugar mixers if you can. Your best choices would be red or white wine, but if you’re in the mood for spirits, look towards cocktails made with tequila or rum. Try and mix them with low sugar options like sparkling water or vegetable based juices to avoid blood sugar crashes. Dark rum and coconut water is incredibly refreshing, and the electrolytes in the coconut water will counteract the dehydrating effect of the alcohol.

5.    Throw your own

If you really can’t face a non Paleo party, why not throw your own instead? You don’t have to make a big fuss about the health benefits of your food – simply serve up lots of tasty meat, veggies, and Paleo friendly drinks and nibbles. You’ll be able to spend good quality time with your friends and family, whilst being able to enjoy clean, wholesome food at the same time. Chances are, they’ll be none the wiser either!

6.    Take advantage of the extra free time with long walks

We know how important it is to move often, so try and incorporate a good amount of movement into your day where you can. If you can’t get to a gym, you can’t beat a long walk with friends or family. Alternatively, head to your local park in the morning for a few sprints and pull ups using tree branches. You’ll have some extra free time (hopefully!) so put it to good use with a bit of exercise every day.

7.    Sleep well

Again, take advantage of the extra free time and focus on getting some good quality sleep. Aim for at least 8 hours a night, and as you have no work to set an alarm for, wake up when the sun wakes up to reset your circadian rhythm.

8.    Don’t worry too much!

Last but not least, if you do fall off track, don’t beat yourself up about it. Wake up the next morning, and get back on the Paleo wagon. After all, you have eaten healthily for the other 364 days of the year – we’re all entitled to ‘off’ days every now and then. Simply put it to the back of your mind and move on. The most important thing about this time of the year is the people you spend it with, and a bit of a slip up every now and then won’t hurt you.

Happy Thanksgiving paleo recipes turkey healthy

Happy Thanksgiving

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With a lot of my readers being American, I couldn’t ignore the fact that today is Thanksgiving in the USA. So if you’re American – Happy Thanksgiving – and if not – how about having your own international Thanksgiving day? It’s often quite hard to get hold of Turkey where I live in Australia, but I find it a little easier to obtain at this time of year, thanks to the American Expats who live here!

If you are celebrating Thanksgiving, how can you accommodate your guests while still keeping it Paleo? Fortunately there are several options out there that will be great for everyone, using a few substitutions to the traditional Thanksgiving menu.
Happy Thanksgiving paleo recipes turkey healthy

Substitution Ideas For Traditional (Non Paleo!) Thanksgiving Recipes:

  • Substituting bread crumbs. A lot of recipes will ask for bread crumbs when you are cooking. A good alternative to bread crumbs is crushed up pork crackling/ pork rinds. Just crush them to the same consistency as you would bread crumbs – or alternatively try ground nuts.
  • Instead of sugar, if you can, try to omit entirely. If you can’t, try a more natural sweetener, like raw honey.
  • Substitute starch with spaghetti squash, butternut squash, or acorn squash.
  • If you are planning on making a salad use a natural dressing like olive oil and lemon or lime.
  • If you’re making a dessert, a recipe may call for whipped cream. An alternative to whipped cream is chilled coconut milk – both healthy and delicious.
  • Instead of making a traditional desert, keep it simple with berries in coconut milk.

Cooking for a group of family and friends is a great chance to show case your Paleo diet – and show that eating healthy food does not sacrifice amazing tasting food.

Thanksgiving is a time to share thanks for the blessings in your life – a worth while thing to do if you’re American or not. Are you celebrating Thanksgiving this year?

Happy Thanksgiving!

Halloween healthy paleo recipes

Happy Halloween

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Do you celebrate Halloween? Like so many festivals, Halloween is heavily linked with trashy food. If you are interested in ways to have a great Halloween while still following a healthy Paleo lifestyle then read on, because I have some great ideas to help you have a fun holiday.

Halloween healthy paleo recipes

One of the things to keep in mind with Halloween is that it’s all about spending time with family and friends and having a good time – rather than the treats you can and cannot eat. I know that Halloween is a big “treat” holiday, but there are plenty of other things you can focus on to have a good time.

As far as trick-or-treating goes, you can still have fun and do that; however you want to focus on the social fun traditional aspect of it, rather than the end result of candy. Take your family out and have fun. You can have a lot of fun creating unique costumes and so this is your chance to go out and show them off. At the end of the night you can spend time with your family and make your own tasty paleo treats. Some parents offer their kids a buy back scheme – to offer cash or another reward in exchange for the junk they collected.

I was really impressed to see how one father enabled his son to join in the fun – whilst avoiding the sugar filled junk normally given to trick or treaters – see the photo below. Would you try something like this?

Paleo Diet Halloween Trick or Treat Alternative
You can make some great Paleo friendly treats to enjoy. Try spiced nuts, jerky and kale chips instead of sweets and candy.

When you buy pumpkins to carve, make sure you save the inners to make a huge batch of pumpkin soup. You can use the carved pumpkins to serve dips for veggies, instead of plain bowls.

Well there you have it! Here are some ideas for you to make the most out of your Halloween. Just remember to not focus on what the world tends to focus on, which is the sweets, lollies and candy. Focus on having a fun time with friends and family and prepare some Paleo friendly snacks in advance.

Do you do anything for Halloween? How do you keep it Paleo?

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FREE Health Events This Week

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Ever given much thought to the Psychology of Eating?

It’s time for a whole new understanding of our relationship with food, with this weeks free online Psychology of Eating event.

Obesity, overeating, body image concerns, emotional challenges with food, and diet-related health issues are with us more than ever. People have abundant access to nutrition facts and information, but need to search long and hard for true healing wisdom.

It’s time for an approach that honors all of who we are as eaters – body, mind, heart and soul. Get inspired by speakers from a variety of disciplines who have something unique and innovative to share.

2nd Annual Online Eating Psychology Conference

Some topics include:

  • A Deeper Dive into Body Image
  • Neuroscience and Personal Change
  • A Holistic Approach to Eating Disorders
  • The Healing Power of Embodiment
  • Mindfulness based approaches to overeating
  • Sexuality and the Psychology of Eating
  • New insights into Weight
  • Culture, emotional health and metabolism
  • Hormones, Eating and Inner Health
  • The Gut-Psychology Connection
  • Spirituality and Nutrition
  • The Hidden Politics of Food
  • New Approaches to Nutritional Health
  • And much more…

Dates: July 21 – 26
Price: FREE
Where: Online!
Find Out More Here: http://paleo.com.au/Eating-Psychology

Also…

Functional Health Summit Free Online Event

The Functional Health Summit is another free online event that has been running for the last few days – but there are still two days left.

In this event 39 leading experts in functional medicine, nutrition, exercise physiology, dentistry, immunology/allergy, psychiatry, mind-body medicine, endocrinology, gastroenterology, and much, much more share their knowledge  in a way that you can understand and implement.

The Functional Health Summit Will Teach You–

  • Why weight loss is never a one size fits all approach
  • Why your gut status is the key to restoring health
  • How to prevent disease before it happens
  • How medications can cause Leaky Gut
  • The common myths the food industry helps perpetuate
  • Why using an environmental dentist is crucial to oral health
  • Why everything you thought you knew about exercise is wrong

The schedule for the last two days:

Tuesday July 22 – Foods and Eating

• Kathy Smart – Change What You Eat, Change Your Life
• Dr. Jonathan Tait – How Eating the Wrong Food Can Cause Arthritis and Chronic Pain
• Ymis Barroeta – The Future of Food: Clean Eating Without Toxins
• Dr. Russell Jaffe – Food and Chemicals: A Hidden Cause of Disease

Wednesday July 23 – Aging Well

• John Rowley – Power of positive fitness
• Dan Ritchie, PhD – Exercises to Improve Your Balance, Mobility and Agility at Any Age
• Dr. Jeffrey Moss – Sarcopenia: How Age-Related Muscle Loss Contributes to Chronic Health Issues
• Dr. John Brimhall – 6 Steps to Maintaining Wellness At Any Age

Dates: July 14 – 23
Price: FREE
Where: Online!
Find Out More Here: http://paleo.com.au/Functional-Health

So even if you can only spare half an hour this week, check out these two free events – you never know, it could change your life!

7 Ways to Keep it Paleo While Travelling on the road healthy diet flying plane flights airport-min

7 Ways to Keep it Paleo While Travelling

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Whether it’s a holiday, a business trip, or just visiting friends and family, sometimes it can be difficult staying on track with your Paleo lifestyle when you’re travelling. We've all been in a situation at one time or another where we've been faced with food, sleep, or exercise difficulties when away from home – the important thing, however, is how you deal with them. Thankfully, with some proper planning, it’s easier than you may think to stay true to how you want to live when travelling.

1.    Get an Esky/ cool box

If you’re going on a road trip, or even if you just travel for long hours in your work days, investing in a good quality Esky (cool box) is a no brainer. Fill it with ice, and it becomes a great place to store pre prepared salads, meats, hard boiled eggs, fruits and veggies when on the go. Plan your meals in advance so you’re not caught hungry, and stash them all in your cooler to stay fresh.

2.    Bring travel safe snacks

If you don’t have access to a cool box or refrigerator, bring food that travels well. Packets of nuts, seeds, jerky, cans of tuna and whole fresh fruits are good options. Even home made fruit and nut bars are good if you’re hungry. If in doubt, bring extra – you can always share or simply take them home again. Make sure to bring plenty of water to stay hydrated.

7 Ways to Keep it Paleo While Travelling on the road healthy diet flying plane flights airport-min

3.    Cooking Facilities

Whenever I travel now, I always aim to stay somewhere with cooking facilities – even if the standard isn't brilliant, a small fridge, a hob and a couple of pans can be life savers when you’re on holiday. Aim to stay with friends, relatives, or go self catering. Even some hotels have mini kitchens in the rooms these days, so try and book a room where you have the facilities to cook for yourself. Don’t forget to bring along your coconut oil!

4.    Stock up on food whenever possible

When you’re in a new place, you never know when you might run out of options to get your hands on some good quality, fresh food. That’s why, when the chance comes along, its important you take advantage and stock up on as much as you can carry. If you come across a small butchers or farmers market, and you have the time available, fill your boots!

5.    Research the area

If you are planning on eating out a lot when you’re away, it would be a good idea to do some research on the area before you leave. Check out the local restaurants and see if they have any choices on the menu that are suitable. If needs be, call them in advance and let them know your requirements – the chances are, they’ll be more than happy to help.

6.    Intermittent Fasting

If it’s just a short trip, why not take it as an opportunity to experiment with intermittent fasting? You could do a 12, 24, or even 48 hour fast. This is an especially good technique when you’re on a long haul flight and don’t want to face the prospect of reheated aeroplane food.

7.    Spontaneous Exercise

You’ll struggle to follow your usual training plan when you’re away, but that’s ok. When the opportunity presents itself, engage in some spontaneous exercise. Throw a few sprints into your day, go for long walks, swim in the sea – any little bit of activity you can squeeze in while you’re away will make you feel much better.

I’d love to know how you keep Paleo when travelling! Do you have any tips or tricks that I may have missed?

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Christmas Menu Plan

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What are you cooking this Christmas? Are you going with a traditional menu, or perhaps you're serving up something completely alternative?

It can be hard to stick to your good Paleo intentions over Christmas – particularly if you’re having to cater for lots of relatives, who perhaps don’t follow a healthy lifestyle like you do.

Traditional Christmas recipes are often full of the dangerous white stuff – sugar. How can you take the sugar out of the equation, without taking the fun away too?

I Quit Sugar Christmas Meal Plan

Sarah Wilson has got a great festive ebook, to go along with her “I Quit Sugar” series. The “I Quit Sugar Christmas Meal Plan” contains three entire, step by step, Christmas meal plans that you can follow, or mix and match. There is a big buffet menu, a sugar free version of the traditional Christmas menu – as well as a summer barbeque menu for those of us celebrating from the Southern Hemisphere. The meal plans are organised to be made in advance, leaving the big day itself a lot less stressful!

The book also features a leftovers menu (we know we all end up with enough food to last the rest of the year!), homemade sugar free gifts (much better than buying gifts), cheat dishes, fermented recipes (great for your gut health) and bonus recipes from other bloggers (including Gwyneth Paltrow).

If you want to check out the Christmas Meal Plan ebook, you can find it here.

What are your menu plans this Christmas? I’d love to hear what you’re organising, so please share in the comments below!

Paleo christmas menu plan dinner lunch primal diet-min

Sexy back summit sean croxton underground wellness

The SexyBack Summit

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If you enjoyed the Paleo Summit, or last year's Real Food Summit, you’ll be excited to hear about this year’s summit. This year, it’s all about natural sexual health, with Sean Croxton’s FREE SexyBack Summit!

SexyBack Summit

Instead of solving problems with pills, the SexyBack summit is going to explore natural ways of solving sexual health related issues. For women, issues like PMS, frequent UTIs, yeast infections, fertility, or even a non-existent libido will be addresses – and for men low testosterone, high estrogen, E.D. and a dwindling sex drive will be explored. Balancing hormones, nutrition and fitness are all going to be covered. As people are reluctant to talk about a lot of these issues, they don’t seek help and let these issues remain needlessly. Well, not anymore!

If you missed out on last year’s presentations, here’s how the summit works… Sean has put together 24 presentations (videos you can watch at home, with slideshows). The talks are hosted by all different experts, including by Chris Kresser, Dr. Sara Gottfried, Paul Check, Jane Bennett, Dave Asprey, Alisa Vitti, Elliot Hulse and Dr. Jen Landa. From the first day of the summit on the 19th of May, until the last day on the 26th of May, there will be three to four new videos everyday. The videos are free for you to watch for 24 hours, before they’re replaced with the next days scheduled videos. So you can watch the entire event – and all 24 presentations – completely free of charge!

If you want to reserve your free spot on the SexyBack summit, just click here to register! You’ll also get access to some (free) advanced videos that are showing now.

paleo events in australia sydney melbourne brisbane new zealand which going to-min

Which Paleo Event Are You Going To Next?

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Having been to many Paleo events, and being involved in some of the Paleo meetup groups, I highly recommend putting some events into your calendar!

When you eat differently to your friends and family, an evening out with like minded people can make all the difference in terms of encouragement and support. I also find local events are the best way to find out about places to eat – and where other locals buy their Paleo supplies from.

Head over to the brand new What's On page, where you'll find all of the Paleo events going on where you live – and around the World. Some events are definitely worth travelling for!

The best way to attend Paleo events is to sign up to a meetup group in your area. If there isn't a meetup group yet, then it's easy to create your own (and if you do, please come back and tell me about it, so I can add your events to the Paleo calendar!)

There are so many events scheduled now. From big, formal conferences, lectures and symposiums – to small casual after work dinners, in local Paleo friendly restaurants, there is something for everyone. Our local Sydney Paleo meetup group has organised barbecues, picnics, pot lucks and dinners. The Melbourne group have regular classes to teach you how to make your owned fermented foods. As Paleo continues to get more and more popular, we should see even more Paleo events in the calendar.

The Paleo Calendar features all of the events in Australia (there are now ten Paleo meet-up groups in the country, at least one in every state!), New Zealand (Auckland and Wellington), the UK (London, Birmingham & Milton Keynes), Canada (Toronto) and of course America (there are LOTS of events and meetup groups in the USA!). If I'm missing your event or meetup group, please let me know!

Are you a member of a Paleo meetup group? What type of Paleo events would you like to attend – and which events have you been to so far?

paleo events in australia sydney melbourne brisbane new zealand which going to-min

PrimalCon

PrimalCon 2013

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I’m just back from a fantastic Paleo trip to America (Jetlag is most definitely not Paleo). A couple of weeks after PaleoFX in Austin, Texas, I made my way to Oxnard, California, for my third year at Mark Sisson’s PrimalCon weekend. Unlike the Ancestral Health Symposium, or PaleoFX, PrimalCon is a hands on practical weekend. As well as hearing about all things Paleo – the focus is on doing.

PrimalCon Oxnard CA 2013

With relatively small numbers of attendees – and lots of different presenters, there’s a chance to meet and speak to everyone. There are lots of regulars, who attend each year, but it was also great to meet so many new faces – as well as some others from Australia and the UK!

With Kelly Starrett and the Gokhale family, there were several session on posture, mobility – and the correct way to stand and move to avoid injury. Whilst these sessions were completely different, it was interesting that their methods and ideas are completely complimentary – hardly surprising as they’re based on how we’re supposed to move.

Another highlight of PrimalCon for me was finally meeting Sarah Fragoso of Everyday Paleo – who really is every bit as lovely and knowledgeable in real life as she is on her podcast!

Chef Rachel Albert gave another fantastic cooking demonstration. It’s amazing how many simple tips I pick up each year, despite being a regular in the kitchen myself!

I also loved William Vives Kettlebell session and as usual, learnt lots of new techniques that I can’t wait to practice at my Crossfit box. There were a few other fitness sessions too, such as barefoot running and sprinting techniques – and I especially loved the Olympic Lifting session – I can’t wait to master that!

As always, the food was absolutely fantastic. A local Paleo food truck (so jealous we don’t have those in Sydney!) provided a lot of the catering, and there was such a huge variety of grass fed meats, burgers, salads, veggies, nut butter – and an amazing coconut bark! It’s so nice to be able to dive into all of the food on offer, without even having to ask what is in the meatball sauce. You just know it’s 100% Paleo!

What would you most enjoy about an event like PrimalCon? The people, food or particular activities?

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PaleoFX

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Last weekend I had the opportunity to travel to Austin, Texas to attend the second PaleoFX conference. Three days of talks and panels on all things Paleo – surrounded by like minded people! It was good to see a few other people had also travelled to the event from outside the US.

It was especially great to see Jimmy Moore and Nora Gedgaudas, who have both been out to Australia for seminar series in the last year or two. I also got to meet Robb Wolf, Sean Croxton, Abel James and so many others.

PaleoFX 2013

Having attended the Ancestral Health Symposium, I was interested to see how this event would differ. As well as lectures, PaleoFX had a lot of panels, where a group of “Paleo experts” sat on stage and answered a wealth of questions on a particular topic. As with the Ancestral Health Symposium, up to three talks occurred simultaneously, so it wasn't possible to listen to everyone. Fortunately they are releasing videos, so it will be possible to catch up on what I missed!

The highlight for me was meeting Dr Terry Wahls and listening to her lecture. I also enjoyed Dr Cate Shanahan, who I first heard on the Paleo Summit.

PaleoFX 2013

On the ground floor was a big exhibition set up, with stalls selling all manor of Paleo products. Books I've not been able to get in Australia, jerky, kombucha, fitness products, supplements, vitamins, Paleo snacks – everything you could possibly want.

With such a big Paleo community of our own here in Australia and New Zealand, we’re really excited about the next seminar series we have in the pipeline. I’d love to hear who you would like us to invite to speak in Australia and New Zealand – and what you would like them to speak about? And which cities should the series travel to, each state capital? Please please share your thoughts in the comments below, or send me an email.