Day 12: Sorry about the gap...

Visiting this site for the past few days must have felt like an exercise in futility. Bang your head against a brick wall too many times and you might learn not to do it. So, for those of you that are harder of head than the rest, thanks for coming back.

It looks like I'm in a salad mood today, as I had one for lunch, and I plan on dining on another tonight for dinner. Just regular mixed salad with eggs, bacon, grilled chicken, and tomatoes.

Glad you came back for this entertaining/insightful post now?

All kidding and self-deprecation aside, this does bring me to a topic that I've been wanting to address. A HUGE part of diets are sticking to them (obvious guy left his job last week so I'm taking over his position). As such, the mental energy to stick with them is at a premium and probably is the cause for most people breaking their diet. Keeping enough mental energy becomes important because we all will reach a point where it's all used up and we reach for the easy meal.

(Side note: I hate to use the word diet here because I completely agree with Cordain. Eating Paleo foods offers the most optimum source of nutrition for us and doing so should not be seen as a crash diet but as a way of dietary life. You know, just as it was when we had no other choice than to run after our food on a daily basis. BUT, we don't have the luxury(?) of spending all of our time chasing after food because we are busy people. Exhibit A: the success of fast food restaurants. It's there and available so why waste time and effort fixing your dinner?)

Yes, yes, I know, this is an amazingly original post talking about how to make a diet work. You're welcome : ).

I digress and want to put the focus back on how you can conserve mental energy when planning out paleo meals for a week. Make it easy on yourself, as I do, by establishing a baseline of foods that can be thrown together to make quick meals (no, I'm not riffing on Rachel Ray).

Since starting to eat paleo, I've been in the habit of picking up a few items from the grocery store that, in a pinch, can make a suitable meal. My routine during a typical trip to the store is to pick up whatever fleshy fruit looks most delicious (nectarines have been amazing recently!) , pick up berries (strawberries, blueberries, and blackberries), pick up walnuts and almonds and macadamia nuts and pecans, and pick up romaine lettuce and baby spinach. Those foods will cover most of my hurried breakfasts, lunches, and/or dinners that aren't freshly prepared or left over. Also, I've been in the habit of picking up some deli meat (only smoked turkey or chicken, ensuring that they are very low sodium) to make sure that I'm getting enough protein in these quick meals.

So, moral of the story, establishing a baseline grocery list of foods, which you purchase each visit that can be eaten on the go or quickly thrown together for a healthy paleo meal, goes a long way to keeping you eating like a caveman.