Paleo diet is also known as the caveman’s diet. The word paleo comes from the stone age era. It is the consumption of food that was available and being eaten during the paleolithic era.
This diet includes fruits, nuts, vegetables, meat, and roots. Quite uncommon for most diet, it doesn’t include foods that contain dairy products, sugar, salt, processed oil, alcohol, grains, legumes, and coffee. This diet mainly avoids processed foods and foods that were introduced during the Neolithic era.
PMR and Diet
Polymyalgia Rheumatica is known for its painful symptoms including stiffness and inflammation to different parts of the body commonly to the neck, shoulders and hips. It also includes extreme fatigue, depression, fever, loss of appetite and loss of weight.
Having a healthy lifestyle, proper diet and exercise can help lessen polymyalgia symptoms. Why don’t you try the paleo diet for polymyalgia?
Paleo Diet Foods
It became popular and known as a way to improve health and wellness. It is composed of 55% calories from seafood and lean meat and 15% calories from each of these — fruit, nuts, seeds, and vegetables. It has no dairy, and a little amount of grain or if possible no grains at all. No sugar and no salt, too.
Examples of paleo foods for polymyalgia include:
- Meats: Lean meat from chicken, pork, beef, turkey lamb, chicken, and others.
- Fish and Seafood:Prefer the wild-caught and other fish such trout, salmon, thaddock, shellfish, shrimp, shellfish,
- Eggs: Pick the omega-3 enriched eggs or pastured free-range, pastured
- Vegetables: Organic produce like onions, carrots, broccoli, tomatoes, kale and many others
- Fruits: Bananas, apples, avocados, blueberries, strawberries, oranges, pears, avocados, and other fruits.
- Tubers:Include in the diet sweet potatoes, potatoes, turnips, yams and others root crops.
- Healthy Fats and Oils: Some nuts and fruit oils like olive oil, coconut oil, and palm oil
- Spices and salt: turmeric, ginger, garlic, rosemary and other herbs as well as himalayan and sea salts
Paleo can be challenging especially if you are the type of person who is used to the modern food including junk foods. There is also a tendency that a person having this kind of diet can have a bland taste for food. This can be an effect of eating fresh and raw foods.
Although paleo is one of the easiest way to prepare your food. There are tons of paleolithic recipe books available on the market. Even as an amateur cook, you can prepare food for yourself using a diet plan or guideline.
One thing to remember in preparing a paleo meal is to make sure that all ingredients are fresh every time you prepare one.
Paleo diet doesn’t only offer a great effect on the body. It also improves your well-being.
You can prepare meals from breakfast to dinner including snacks. That’s how flexible a paleo diet is. It’s actually fun to try out different kinds of fruits and vegetables you can mix and match and see which combination taste better.
Sample Diet Recipe
Here’s a free simple diet recipe you can try to ease your polymylagia rheumatica symptoms.
Grilled Fruit Salad Recipe (Preparation Time: 20 mins)
Makes 4 servings
Ingredients:
- 2 ripened peaches pitted and cubed
- 1 ripe mango peeled and cubed
- 4 pcs regular size strawberries
- 1 cup of cantaloupe
- Toasted walnuts
- ¼ cup of coconut cream
- Fresh lime extract
- Mint leaves for garnishing
Preparation:
- Thread the fruits onto skewers depending on their cut to make the grilling process easier and faster.
- Preheat a gas or charcoal grill to medium heat.
- Grill the fruits for a couple of minutes, until charred and lightly caramelized.
- Remove the skewers from the heat and transfer to a bowl with the walnuts.
- Divide between the grilled fruits to 4 different plates.
- Whisk the coconut cream and the lime juice together and top the salad as a dressing.
- Garnish with mint leaves.
Paleo Exercises
In addition to paleo foods, exercise is also an important part of the paleo lifestyle. Paleo exercises are also called caveman exercises because these are primarily physical movements that do not use modern day exercise equipment, such as treadmills, weights, or kettlebells. Paleo exercises include squatting, bending, lunging, pushing, pulling, twisting, and running.
Exercise can be very effective as it can reduce pain and fatigue. It also strengthens the muscles and can lessen the stiffness on the muscles. Exercise is a good way to decrease polymyalgia symptoms and it works best if it is accompanied by a proper diet such as paleo diet.
Limiting intake of foods that can cause inflammation in PMR is the key in reducing the symptoms besides having a regular exercise.