Okay so it’s not officially Winter yet but, brrrrr…. it’s already pretty cold up here in North Staffordshire. And it’ll get worse. It always does. Increased heating bills and lowering temperatures. Not a happy time. And how on earth can you stick to a Paleo diet in a time of cold? As any fule well kno, you need fuel in Winter. You need food to keep you warm, wrap you up cosy and make you feel safe and secure.
Winter food is baked potatoes with melted butter slivering all over them, hot steaming pies, mugs of hot chocolate and freshly-baked rich fruit cake straight out the oven. The only thing that makes Winter bearable is eating hot carbs. How on earth am I going to resist?
Winter Paleo food
Well it’s a challenge but this is a year-round diet and you-know-what is just around the corner with its tables groaning full of goodies stuffed with sugar, wheat and dried fruit. I have scaled back my targets accordingly, accepting that I’m unlikely to stick to Paleo as strictly as I did in the Spring and Summer.
I’ll be happy – delirious even! – if I can get down to 13 stone 2 (184 pounds/83 kilos) just before Christmas and I’ll worry about what happens then sometime in January! 13.2 is still way too big for my 5’6 (1.68) size but it’ll be down by 30 pounds since I began in February. A nice round figure to say I’ve lost in a year. Then we’ll attack the next stone and a bit next year.
Still keeping it Paleo
I will still be trying to go mostly Paleo. I’ll have hot coffee instead of hot chocolate, hot spicy chicken instead of baked potatoes and mixed grills instead of rich fruit cake.
I will succumb, inevitably I will, with various festivals, parties and celebrations on the horizon. I rarely drink so instead I’ll allow myself some cocoa-dense chocolate or the odd piece of rich cake. I believe we are programmed to want carbs in Winter because of the comfort factor as much as the warming one.
Keeping warm
But speaking of keeping warm… best way to do that is to eat hot food you’ve cooked yourself. This has the effect of making you warm twice over – while you cook it and then when you eat it. Plus it warms up your kitchen. A warm kitchen is one of the loveliest delights at this time of year.
Lucky
I do feel so very lucky to have access to food, clothing, warmth and shelter. If my only problem in life is eating too much then it’s not really much of a problem is it? Not when you think about people living in The Philippines who have lost everything. We can’t do much for them save to make a donation to the Disasters Emergency Committee if we want to but perhaps just as importantly is to remember how well off we really are. Hope that doesn’t sound trite or pompous. But I really do believe that there’s nothing quite like counting your blessings to make you feel better about whatever ails you.