Eat Like a Predator, Not Like Prey

I found a link to a fantastic page, Eat Like a Predator, Not Like Prey: Paleo In 6 Easy Steps, A Motivational Guide. The way it was written really broke things down and made the hows and whys of the Paleo diet easy to understand. I've added it to the Helpful Links section to the right, but wanted to share some of it's better gems here for you all.

Step 1: Eat Meat, Not Birdseed

• Eat more meat. If it's not meat, it's not a meal. Favor animals that eat grass and leaves.
• Eat more fish and shellfish. Favor oily fish like mackerel, sardines and wild salmon, but watch your methylmercury content. ***I will not be eating any fish because of my seafood allergy, but Chad will.
  
• Do not eat anything made with "flour". No bread, no pasta, no cereal, no crackers, no cookies, no donuts or danishes. Period.
• Do not drink your food. No soda (even diet soda), no sports drinks, no milk, no soy milk, no smoothies, no fruit juice, no yogurt or vegetable drinks. ***I've been drinking a Naked Juice here and there, and I know Chad has been too. It's 100% fruit and vegetable juice with no additives, so if you feel like you need a little boost of vitamins, this is probably your best bet, not counting taking an actual vitamin.
  
• Do not eat table sugar, or it's equivalents.
  
• Get your carbohydrates (sugars) from plants, not their seeds. Prefer foods that are high in glucose, low in fructose. If you must eat birdseed, white rice is the "least bad" of the grains.

You're a predator: Eat like one!

Step 2: Eat Food, Not Diesel Fuel

• Buy fatty cuts of meat, cook with their included fat.
  
• Cook with butter, coconut oil and beef tallow. ***I've read in other sites that butter is not OK, so we're forgoing it and using coconut oil instead because there's no dispute between sites I've read as to whether or not coconut oil is OK.
• Cook with eggs, and always eat the yolks. Egg whites are just protein, the nutrition is all in the yolk. ***Chad can do this all he wants. I hate eggs, so I'll be skipping this piece of advice.
• Do not eat "vegetable oils". The term itself is a lie. Extra virgin olive oil, cheese, avocado and nuts are OK in moderation - just think of them as condiments, not ingredients. If you need to eat a can of nuts or a brick of cheese, you didn't eat enough meat. Heavy cream, sour cream, full-fat yogurt and whipped cream make delicious sauces, condiments and desserts when used in moderation. But remember that fatty meat should always be your main source of calories. ***Dairy has also been in debate on the sites I've read - some say it's OK, some say it's not, so we're just steering clear as a general rule.

You are becoming less tasty and more dangerous each day!

Step 3: Supplements For An Imperfect World

• Consider vitamin D3 supplements. Our bodies produce D3 from sun exposure, but Paleolithic humans didn't live and work indoors. 2000-4000 IU per day is a good start for most adults on days they don't get good sun exposure. ***I'll skip this for the time being. Most sites I've read state you don't need extra supplements. I plan to get a blood workup once my diet is more established and I'll deal with supplements then if it's indicated that I need them.
  
• Consider EPA and DHA supplements. 1g/day of EPA and .5g/day of DHA can be helpful if you haven't eaten any fatty fish that day. ***This might be worth considering, at least for me, since I never eat fish.
  
• Flaxseed oil (ALA) is not an acceptable substitute. It's real name is linseed oil. That's furniture polish, and furniture polish is not food.

Step 4: Play Like A Predator

• Play hard, work hard, challenge yourself, then rest. Lift heavy objects, sprint until you're out of breath, climb trees and jump up and down, kick balls, shoot baskets. Shovel snow, dig dirt, split firewood. Practice agility as well as strength and endurance. The world is your playground! ***I think this is common practice when you have kids, so I think I'm doing good here.
  
• Don't "exercise", don't "do cardio". The only way to improve is to push your limits. You'll lose more weight and gain more strength from periodic bursts of short, intense exercise than from hours of "cardio". You're a human, not a hamster; get off the treadmill! Imagine this: every time you get hungry, you and your six closest friends have to chase down an antelope or spear a mammoth - and if you don't, none of you get to eat. That is the required intensity.
• If you must "work out", do bodyweight exercises, and get some dumbbells or kettlebells.
  
• Stop trying to "save energy". Make physical effort part of your life. Don't waste time looking for the closest parking space; just park and walk. Take the stairs. Shovel your own snow, split your own firewood.

Your body is finally - perhaps for the first time - beginning to function as it should.

Step 5: Optimization

• Remove any remaining grains from your diet.
  
• Remove any remaining legumes (beans) from your diet.
  
• Remove all remaining junk from your diet. If it has more than one layer of packaging, contains any ingredient you don't understand, claims any health benefits on the label, or is a fake version of something else, it's not food.
• Experiment with removing dairy from your diet. ***Already done.

Step 6: Never Stop Hunting

• Push yourself harder and in new ways. Explore someplace new. Learn a skill you're bad at. Throw and catch with your "off" hand. Try a team sport if you're a soloist, or a solo sport if you're a team player. Set goals you're not already sure you can achieve.
• If you're going to cheat, cheat with something delicious and portion-limited, or too expensive to eat often. Eat a Reese's or drink a Coke before you eat pasta or bread, cause they're individually packaged. Once you open that bag of Goldfish crackers, they're all going down the hatch, and we all know it.
  
• Be suspicious of all diet advice. Observational studies don't necessarily tell you whether something is healthy to eat: they tell you whether the healthy people in that study at that food.
  
• Listen to your body. Once you're functioning at a high enough level to tell the difference, you'll understand what's helping you and what's hurting you - not what's feeding your addictions.
  
• Your life and health are your own.

I would like to reiterate - I DID NOT WRITE THIS. I added a few comments here and there, but this piece was found here. I just wanted to share it with you all, as it cleared up a lot of questions for me.