The First Step

I have been eating paleo now for about 6 hours.  This will be just an overview of how it works.  These are the foods that can be eaten....

Meats: Look for three criteria. Range Fed/Grass Fed only, Local and Organic. Beef, Chicken, Pork, Lamb, Venison, Turkey, Fish, Eggs, Game birds, Frog legs, Crab legs, eggs I think you get the point. Flesh. Make this your priority at every meal.
 
Fruits and Berries: Look for local and organic first. Strawberries, Blue Berries, Apples, Oranges, Tomatoes, Kiwi, Olives. Anything edible raw.
 
Vegatables: Look for local and organic first. (Not Potatoes or starchy tubers). Broccoli, Green Peppers, Cucumbers, Asparagus, Celery, Carrots, Mushrooms (fungi I know). Edible raw green plants.
 
Nuts/Seeds: Look for local and organic first. Not peanuts, they are a bean. Nuts you can eat raw. Almonds, Walnuts, Sunflower seeds. Pecans, Brazil. Macadamia, chestnuts, sesame

As you can see, the first priority is to eat grass fed and free range when possible.  Local and organic is also best.  That won't be happening 100% at the moment because those types of foods are more expensive than regular grocery store produce.  I will mix it in when I can, but I'm not going to worry about it too much right now.  

These are the foods that aren't allowed....

 GRAINS!: For the most part, man’s first processed food. Wheat, Corn, Wild Rice, Oats, Millet, Rye, Barley and anything made from them. I can’t say enough bad things about them. Everything from Anti-nutrients (Phytates) to Gluten, Lectins, to spiking your insulin. I don’t care how much you paid for what they call Healthy and Whole Grains. THEY ARE BAD.
 
Sweetners and Artificial Sweetners: Sugar, Stevia, Fructose, Corn Syrup, Sucralose, Aspartame, Lactose, Honey and Molasses. Yes we had Honey, evolving in the Paleolithic era, but not enough or often enough to allow us to adapt to the sudden rush of sugar spiking our insulin levels.
 
Dairy: (not including eggs if you classify them as dairy) Milk, Cheese, Yogurt, Butter. If you are considering Whey only protein shakes you are probably OK as most are cross filtered enough to remove and immune damaging properties.
Potatoes/Tubers: Tons of carbs causing huge insulin spike. Sweet potatoes, Yams. Russet potatoes, Beets, Turnips, Cassava. Spuds in general.
 
Legumes: Beans, Peas, peanuts, soy, Green beans, Lima, Coffee, cocoa. You will see them marketed as a free food. From an insulin response they are right. From an optimal health point they are not due to the naturally occurring chemicals in them. Most containing anti-nutrients and their own Pesticide in the form of alkaloids or Lectin.

These food lists were compiled by Jamie Caporosso.  If you are interested in learning more about paleo I would recommend checking him out.  I am getting a lot of my information from him.  

I am planning on having a few cheat meals here and there during this first month.  Right now the plan is to have a cheat meal Friday evening and then again on the 4th.  The other variation that I am making is that I will be drinking drinks with artificial sweeteners in them for a while.  It will be my crutch for when I am craving a food that I should not be eating.  When I feel I don't need that crutch anymore I will drop it.  

For training I will be using Jim Wednler's 5/3/1 for powerlifting.  I'm not going to go into details.  You can google it if you're interested in more info.  It's basically a main compound exercise at the beginning of each workout followed up by high volume bodybuilding style training.  For cardio I'm just going to be doing some type of sprinting a couple times a week.  I won't be making cardio a priority right now, though.