Puerto Rican Beef (GF/DF/Paleo)

This is one of our favorite “go-to” meals that we adapted to make nightshade-free.  It is delicious, easy and very filling…with all that goodness piled on a bed of sweet potato!  This dish makes great left-overs.  It’s a nice meal to make for a big family or if you have to feed quite a few people…just double it.  We make it often when we have friends over. Hope you enjoy!!

The Paleo Secret Guide to Goals vs Resolutions

I am of the belief, and I think you’ll find it echoed by experts on the subject, that “resolutions” are generally weak for several reasons. First, they tend to be vague things like “lose weight” or “get healthier” – In order to achieve something, you need to quantify what the exact desired result is. The human mind will work a lot harder to achieve something explicit, where as something vague is easy to sluff off.

Over the years it has almost become cliche for people to set “new years resolutions”, that they may aggressively pursue for a month or so, but in the end forget about 2 months into the year and slide right back into their old habits. People regard resolutions as being ok to forget about, because they’ve always done it, and everyone they know does too. A goal is more of a pact with yourself, that if written down and tracked holds much more weight, and has the potential for disappointment. If you don’t hit it, you are essentially breaking a promise to yourself by not keeping it. Resolutions are much easier to ignore, thus often times ineffective.

Celery Root Mish-Mash (paleo/GF/DF)

Celery root (a.k.a celeriac) was introduced to me by a friend of mine and I just love it!  It’s an interesting looking thing…brown and kind of ugly (see below).  You peel off the brown, outer layer and underneath is a white-fleshed root vegetable that is quite versatile. Try out this simple celery root mish-mash….its delicious!

Ingredients

• 3 celery root bulbs
• 1 small head of garlic or 5-6 garlic cloves (unpeeled)
• 1/2 cup packed fresh parsley
• 3 Tbsp coconut oil
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• sea salt

Leaky Gut: The Gateway to Chronic Disease

All diseases begin in the gut.     

Hippocrates, 460-370 B.C.

This is a very important topic that I wish more people were aware of, so I want to pass this information along.  Leaky gut is something that I have personally been healing from for the past few years.  It ended up being the underlying issue behind my chronic skin and immune system issues.  It took YEARS and many health practitioners to connect my skin issues with dysfunction of the gut.  Luckily, more and more practitioners are becoming aware of leaky gut and how to treat it.  Research continues to emerge regarding the connection between leaky gut, inflammation and many chronic disease conditions.  Hippocrates really knew what he was talking about when he said “All diseases begin in the gut.”  Please take the time to read this and be aware of how important your digestion and the health of your gut are to your overall health, immunity and vitality.  If you have a chronic disease condition, especially autoimmune or skin issue, consider looking into the integrity of your gut health as a key culprit in the manifestation of your symptoms. 

What I’ve Learned

I’ve spent the last 5 years working as a home health physical therapist.  I never expected to work in this area..it sort of just happened.  Life doesn’t always give you want you want, it gives you what you need for your own growth and evolution.

The Paleo Secret 30 Day Challenge

(This is Chris…he changed his diet for 30 days, lost 6.4 lbs, and 5.7% body fat.  He changed nothing with his exercise routine during this time and simply ate according to a whole food paleo type template)

Non-toxic Personal Care Product Recommendations

If you read my previous article, Think Twice About What You’re Putting On Your Skin, you know that on average we are putting 100+ chemicals on are bodies daily.