Dear Paleo

Looking at life, longevity, optimum personal health, and enjoyment of it all in my Paleo Lifestyle Design, I wanted to share a ‘fulcrum point of clarity’ that simplifies the order of all things consumed while following the Paleo Diet.

Beyond all the noise you welcome into your life via the choices you make, there a basic physiological needs your body proper has to have to sustain life. For the most part, physiological needs are obvious – they are the literal requirements for human survival. If these requirements are not met, the human body simply cannot continue to function.

Straight from Maslow’s Hierarchy Of Needs we know that air, water, and food are metabolic requirements for survival in all animals, including humans. Yes, before Eve started the world’s oldest profession – sales – food was first.

So I thought to myself, “What if food was the thing in which all things in my life were centered around?” And, not just food, the very best nutritionally, taste and in experience.

Food First. Find out more at www.itsPALEO.com

Before you begin inventing an emoticon for ‘obsessive’, hear me out…

If the right foods bring optimal nourishment, and optimal nourishment is the basis for your best personal health, doesn’t it make sense to prioritize what you ingest as the most important thing in life?

Before other thoughts of priority enter this conversation, take the cliché out of my statement and let me restate this in marketing speak; Even though you’ve many forces at work telling you what should be most important in your life – that new car, a vacation, better clothes, a pill to help you (fill in the blank) – when the big decisions come, like “life or death”, food comes out most important. It’s just the way it is.

Now let’s say you’re agreeing with my premise…food is Number One. Now what?

Try budgeting everything around food. Not just food, the best food. Not the ‘marketed best food’, but the best nutrient dense food and meals that provide what we shared at the beginning of this communiqué: life, longevity, health and enjoyment.

Most every article ever written about the Paleo Diet and the lifestyle it ensues are about the best foods to consume and how to do it. Most articles that pan the lifestyle center around the cost, sustainability, and availability of cornerstone proteins and the expense therein.

I’m simply saying, “To hell with a grocery budget. I’m buying the best foods available for me, my family, my Paleo Lifestyle Design, and then budgeting everything else AFTER that.”

Food first, then everything else. Seriously.

Now take a deep breath, and say this out loud. Food first, then everything else.

With ‘Food First’, shopping, growing, ‘gathering’ food becomes a whole new ball game. I instituted this thinking into my lifestyle and guess what? My grocery bill went up. I’ve paid more for food each month since I started living this way. For my family of four, my food costs went up roughly twenty percent per month.

Where did that new money come from? How did I fit in in my budget? From wherever it was. It came from prioritizing what I spent monies on before. Rather than make a tight grocery budget and skimp on fuel, I took from other expenses I had prioritized higher than food before. There were a lot of things I deemed more important…they’re not now.

Bottom line increase in food expenses for my family of four per month has averaged out to be about $157 per month over the last six months. That was easy to carve out or previously ‘more important stuff’.

Let me testify: I eat very well.

This makes the difference between buying grass fed and grain fed a breeze. Coconut oil or saving money on other cooking oils is no longer a concern. Buying organic over non-organic is no longer a treat, but a staple.

Because I cannot control the environment, and I don’t have the luxury or a nutritionist on staff or serving me meals six times a day, we also supplement with a Paleo-friendly multivitamin, trace minerals, and other cell level supplements specific to our lifestyle and needs.

This experiment continues in my Paleo Lifestyle Design and I implore you to try it in yours. I’ve lost weight, I feel better, look better, and those traits mirror my families ‘deliverables’ from this one simple priority shift in our lives.

Food first. Is it with you? It should be….