Monday "Did you know...?" Lean and Green

A fit person on a fit planet. Check out the provoking ideas at this guide.
There's alot of overlap between being leaner and being greener. A solid example is the Paleo diet.
Here's a summary. You can see more at Robb Wolf's CrossFit (he's a Paleo guru and the site has some cool recipes on the daily blog) or at his website.

Either way...Eat less, Eat better, Move more!

All of the lean meat, fish, seafood, eggs you can eat
All of the non starchy vegetables you can eat
Plenty of fruit
Moderate healthy fats
Moderate nuts and seeds
No grains or cereals at all
No legumes
No dairy products (eggs are meat)
No processed foods – make it yourself!
No sugars. Agave, organic honey, molasses, pure spun golden sunshine….it doesn’t matter. They are all equally bad for you.
No artificial sweeteners. These are not food! Creepy laboratory products with sketchy safety records, artificial sweeteners have been shown to produce an insulin response.

MEAT:
Grass fed beef
USDA certified organic meat
Wild fish
Locally raised animals
Eggs are good. Eggs from birds allowed to forage and run around are better.
Buffalo, elk, venison and other types of wild game are excellent choices if you can get them.

VEGETABLES:
Experiment with sautéing, roasting and grilling your veggies. Try different recipes and different ethnic foods. Learn to use herbs and spices. This stuff should taste good!
Peppers, squashes, eggplant, garlic, leeks, onions broccoli, cauliflower, avocado, carrots, green, cabbage, celery, kale, dandelion (yes! dandelion) spinach, tomatoes, radish, parsnips, mushrooms….
Avoid starchy vegetable – potatoes, etc. If you must eat starch (it happens) try yams and sweet potatoes.
Avoid legumes. Peanuts, beans, peas, lentils and soybeans should be avoided.

FRUIT:
A paleo diet allows and encourages lots of fruit consumption. There are a few issues with fruit consumption though. We need to consider how the fruit was grown as well as the type of fruit to evaluate nutritional value. We also need to consider pesticide exposure.
Scavenge the local farmers market for fresh local seasonal fruit. Organic is best.
Try to avoid fruit from far away. Flying in kiwis from New Zealand is not really helping our health.
Avoid GMO (genetically modified organism) fruit. Period.
A little fruit juice occasionally can be okay but, fruit juice is really candy.
Wash fruit and vegetables thoroughly to minimize pesticides.
Some fruits like bananas have a high glycemic load and should be avoided if you are trying to loose fat.
Berries! Eat lots of berries!

NUTS & SEEDS:
Filling and nutritious. Nuts and seeds are packed with protein, fatty acids, enzymes, antioxidants and lots of vitamins and minerals, especially potassium and magnesium. It is possible to screw up your fat profile with nuts though. Lots of nuts have an unacceptably high omega 6 / omega 3 ratio. Here are the best choices:
Walnuts
Macadamia nuts
Pecans
Nuts in moderation are very healthy but overeating them can stall weight loss. Cashews especially are delicious but surprisingly high in carbohydrate and contain too much omega 6.
Peanuts are not nuts.

Read more at Robb Wolf.com.

If you're into it, you can even buy the diet in a 'kit'.

This might help through the never-ending-holiday-eating season. Keep you eye on your goal...don't make your weight-loss or conditioning plan harder than they have to be as we head toward a new year.

PS. Thanks to the dietary caveman Tanner for forwarding the Paleo material.