Eat clean, move more, sleep well and get outside!

Since embarking on our quest to change our lives, my husband and I have made a number of small but significant changes to our nutrition, activity levels, lifestyle and exercise.  


As each change we have made has been relatively small and therefore pretty easy to implement, altogether, they add up to a massively different approach and attitude to everything!



I may not have learnt many things in 40 years but I have discovered a couple of things that apply to every area of my life: firstly, if I don't have a proper plan, I am doomed to failure.  Secondly, I know how much easier everything is if I have the support of my family.

To make success much more likely you need:

1 - To have a definite plan
2 - The support of those closest to you





Without wishing to get overly gushy and sycophantic, my husband genuinely has been a constant source of inspiration and support throughout my year of re-training and discover and so have my kids!  My kids have joined Junior Hero Academy and bigged it up to all their friends, they have come running with me, they have joined me in the gym for weight-lifting sessions and they have embraced all the new meals I offer them.  They have also wholeheartedly agreed to embrace the Paleo way!

My point is that without this support, I would have been doing all this alone.  I might even have been fighting against them.  It's hard to give your kids a healthy diet if your partner constantly battles you overtly or covertly.  it's hard to make changes to your own lifestyle while the rest of your family continue on without you.

The thing is, that even with the support of those around me, this would have been a really difficult change to make in one go.  Bit by bit, little by little we have been edging towards this new lifestyle and now, we are ready!

This is how we got here:

Step One

Last year we cut began cutting starchy carbs from our evening meal and limited sugar and flour from our nutrition.  We did not include the kids in this.
We did make sure that processed food was limited for us all.
At the same time, my husband and I began walking for an hour every day that we could.
We also began lifting weights and doing simple exercises.

Step Two

We decided that we were enjoying this new way of life so much and that we were seeing such great results that we didn't want to go back.  I decided to retrain as a Personal Trainer so that I could incorporate the exercise into my daily life more easily.
We both upped the walking to running - no more than 3-5k once or twice a week.
We began making ure the kids were eating less flour and sugar - we cut bread from their nutrition and made our weekend banana pancakes with ground oats instead of flour.

Step Three

We became more serious about our nutrition, cutting all grains and starchy carbs except oats from our diet and cutting sugar virtually completely.
We worked harder at the weights - putting into practise what I was learning on my courses and making sure we upped the weights regularly and varied our routines.
We ran 5k and 10 k runs.  My husband still runs to and from the station every now and then but I don't really like cardio so do it as little as I can get away with.

Step Four

We decided to go completely paleo.
We cut the last vestiges of starchy carbs from our diets - it was just oats left.
We also cut the remaining starchy carbs from the kids' nutrition - no more potatoes, rice, pasta, or oats for the children.
We also cut dairy from all of our diets.

This was the final push and the hardest to get our heads around.  We have been brainwashed for so long into believing that breakfast has to be cereal that I was really unsure what to give us if it didn't involve oats or milk or yoghurt.

But I've got my head around breakfasts and the kids are on board.  Paleo isn't just about the nutrition, it's about moving more, lifting more, getting outside more and sleeping well - basically the Junior Hero Academy mantra!  Eat clean, move more, sleep well and get outside.

Welcome to our new paleo adventure!

I'll be blogging about this as well as the usual exercise routines and less extreme ways to healthy up!

Krish x