When we choose to change our eating habits food oriented family gatherings – like Thanksgiving and Christmas – can present some of our biggest food and lifestyle challenges.  The following article, written by Amy Kubal for Robb Wolf’s (the author of The Paleo Solution) blog, provides some helpful tips and tricks for navigating the family dinner table when your nearest and dearest innocently seek to derail your dietary train.

Paleo (the Paleo Diet) – In simple terms the paleo diet is built from modern foods that (to the best of our ability) emulate the foods available to our pre-agricultural ancestors: Meat, fish, fowl, vegetables, fruits, roots, tubers and nuts. On the flip-side we see an omission of grains, legumes and dairy.

Read the rest of the blog post defining the Paleo Diet here.

Holiday Help: Dealing with Non-Paleo Peer Pressure   

By Amy Kubal, MS, RD

“But Grandma made it just for you.” 

“Have a beer with me – one won’t kill ya.” 

“Why aren’t you having any (insert non-paleo food item here).” 

Yep, it’s that time of year again – time for the seemingly endless holiday parties, gatherings and holiday celebrations.  We’re all painfully aware that the season’s food laden festivities often result in the ‘phenomenon that is, (insert sound of impending doom – dun, dun, dun), the elastic waistband’.  While this is something we’d like to avoid, sometimes that seems an impossible feat due to being ‘guilted’ into eating and drinking things because of those pesky ‘holiday food pushers’ – (seriously, they are VICIOUS!!)  I mean really, who wants to ‘strong arm’ Grandma or cousin Eddie – there are just some things that you don’t do…  And damn, that beer, egg nog, pie, cookie, candy, stuffing and hell, even the jello were a whole lot of tasty.  The day after that gorge-fest, however; – um, can you say – EPIC Food Hangover!!  This is like a fate worse than death in some cases – think ‘Montezuma’s Revenge’ along with a college hangover headache and the lethargy of your common house cat…  But it happened, and in a few days, maybe next week and definitely again at Christmas – it’s going to happen again.

Read the rest of this post – get the tips and tricks to navigate your Thanksgiving table as well as your friends and relatives here.