More and more people are looking toward dietary changes, not primarily for weight loss, but to improve their health.  In many cases, they’re making these changes in an attempt to combat serious and/or chronic health problems.  The most common diets for this sort of thing are the paleo diet, and various adaptations of it.  (They may or may not directly be “adapted from” the paleo diet, but they’re fundamentally similar.)  The GAPS diet and the AutoImmune Paleo (AIP) diet come to mind.

Nutrition has far-reaching impacts on our health, so making this kind of change is a wise move!  Unfortunately, it can also be very hard.  Especially if you’re on one of the more restrictive diets, the list of foods you can’t use as ingredients seems to cut out so many of your longstanding meal options that it fundamentally alters your whole food/kitchen lifestyle.  You basically have to start all over again learning how to meal plan, shop, and cook.  Believe me, I understand!  (More than I wish I did. 😉 )

But we can help by making it as easy on ourselves as possible, and some of that may include relying on some figurative “crutches” for a while.

Everyone’s journey is different, but I know that for me, I had already baby-stepped my way to the point that most of what we were eating was whole foods made from scratch.  And then all these restrictions were put in place.  So my mindset is still that “end of the journey” mindset of needing to do everything myself.  But the fact is, I’m not there yet, on this new journey, and I need to cut myself some slack.  “Cheating” can be really helpful as a starting point while I (we?) baby-step our way back to that same, “I’m totally at home in the kitchen” point again, with this “new normal.”

That was a bit rambly.  Were you able to follow?  Hopefully those of you who needed the encouragement followed along okay!  (And if you didn’t, oh, well…just skip to the practical stuff that comes next.)

Tools

One of the “crutches” we can rely on is pre-made meal plans.  I’ll be honest: pre-made meal plans are typically not “my thing.” I tweak everything, so it’s typically not cost-effective for me to purchase a meal plan because I’m just going to change it anyway!  But you know what?  Right now I can’t.  It’s just too overwhelming.  There’s next to nothing in my repertoire that meets the current dietary needs, so it’s just too much.

Having something as a starting point — even if I have to tweak it — is huge right now.  eMeals is a great option, because they have so many options.  There’s Clean Eating, Kid-Friendly, Slow Cooker, Budget-Friendly, Gluten-Free, and a handful of others…yes, including Paleo!  And depending on how long a period you pay for at a time, you can get dinner plans for as low as under $5/month.

If you’re not quite so overwhelmed, and putting your own together is more your style, don’t forget Pinterest.  It’s a mother lode of new meal options!  Narrow your results by searching for “paleo” or “GAPS” or “AIP,” or whatever it is you need.

Convenience Foods

Here’s where I really run into a guilt trip.  I feel like prepackaged food can’t possibly compare to real, homemade-from-scratch fare.  And that’s largely true.

But here’s the rub: if I’m completely overwhelmed, I’m not going to end up making the from-scratch stuff, anyway.  I’m going to panic as soon as dinner time rolls around and ultimately end up serving something completely unplanned — that’s even less healthy than some of the prepared foods out there.  I may as well just acknowledge that from the outset and plan for convenience foods that are a little less awful.

I’ve talked before about “choosing second best.”  That’s helpful.  It’s also helpful to have some prepackaged stuff to fall back on that’s maybe not as healthy as a from-scratch meal, but beats fast food. 🙂

Focus on a Few Core Things

I don’t know about you, but I find myself coming back continually to the same few things, where if I just had a viable option for about three items, there would be about three dozen more things I can eat.  For example, I can’t have mayonnaise right now.  Well, that cuts out tuna salad and chicken salad, even though the tuna and the chicken are both “legal.”

Some form of bread would enable any number of things to be eaten that currently have no viable means of being conveyed to my mouth. 😉  But I don’t have any bread options.

Are you seeing where I’m going with this?  I could work at some new dinner recipe and have one more recipe in my repertoire.  Or I could figure out a workable substitute for bread and have a couple dozen.

I’m not suggesting you don’t cook anything else new.  I’m just saying find your “sticking points” and see if there’s a way to fix those.  If you can (fix them), they’ll open up so many possibilities all at once that it will go a long way in combating the overwhelm.

Your Turn

Do you have any other practical tips for keeping a restrictive diet on-course?  Or a “core” recipe you’d either like to share, or are hoping someone else might be able to help you find?  Chime in, in the comments!