Delicious paleo

When I first heard about Paleo – I laughed. Huh! Caveman food? It sounded so last year, and so cultish.

However, little did I know it but my western diet (which I thought was pretty healthy) was just not good enough. My kids had constant respiratory infections, rashes (which I thought was due to heat), my husband had ezcema, and I kept getting regular chest infections and strange itchy spots on my face which I put down to stress and pregnancy hormones. Slowly we looked at our diet, removed the dairy (so hard to begin with but the rewards kept on coming – the rashes, eczema and respiratory infections disappeared), and then slowly started realising that our diet was very high in processed carbs, and very low in good fats.

2 years on and I would call our diet paleo-ish. Most of our meals would be paleo, but if we are with other people or having other people over for dinner then we are not going to snob some good old fashioned chocolate dessert. I am also a fan of goat’s cheese in our salads. There are probably some other non – paleo items too.

Paleo certainly doesn’t have to be boring or tasteless or difficult. We started with the crossfit meal plans as a way to plan our day’s food, and slowly we cut out the majority of processed carbs. We are so much healthier and happier for it!

Crossfit meal plans (a must read):

Click to access cfjissue21_May04.pdf

All before 8:30 am…

8:30am Monday morning. Ding. Murmurs of forced cheery ‘Morning!’s. Expected exclamations of ‘I need some coffee!’ as people turn on their workstations and head to the kitchen. I overhear some of my colleagues complaining of their early starts and chuckle when I hear that the early start is the not so early start of 7:30am…and catch the equally amused smile of a fellow working mother. Wow. Wait till they have kids!

…6:30 am my alarm sounds and as this is already cutting it fine, I can’t even hit the snooze button. I partially get dressed, deliberately not putting on my workshirt as I have found out the hard way that feeding a 7 month old in the morning will always be catastrophic for those smart monotone shirts that show all the attempts of cleaning off food stains! However, I do my two minute makeup and hair routine (lipstick, mascara, earings, and bobby pins, and some dry shampoo!) and then pull out a tin of tuna. A mouthful or two later, I’m into the boys room carrying them to their chairs half asleep. A tin of tuna each, a handful of nuts and specially cut up pieces of orange put in front of them, another mouthful of tuna for me then its my daughter’s time to feed. Getting dressed, mentally ticking off lunchboxes, bags, shoes, is it school uniform or sports uniform today? have I signed all excursion forms?oh dear my toe nails need painting!. Into the car the 50 minute round trip of drop offs begin for each child, complete with 2 minute chats with various teachers, the biting back of multiple ‘come on darling, we will be late, where’s your hat?  until I finally pull up at my office…

Ahh. All before 8:30 am.

Morning Tips for Working Moms