30 day-challenge

In just 30 days’ time…

Feel great about eating good food

Feel excited about exercise

Be fitter, stronger, slimmer

Start transforming the way you look at

Yourself and your whole life…

From the book Instinctive Fitness available at Amazon and www.instinctive-fitness.com

Are You Your Own Worst Enemy in the Life-Long Fight for Fitness and Health?

Do you ever feel there are two very different opposing forces fighting it out over every seemingly obvious decision you make about food and exercise?

If so, you’ll not be surprised to learn there are indeed two very powerful forces with very different opinions having their say in every decision you make…

…and the most powerful and wilful is very probably not you!

You see, even though you may like to think you’re in charge of all your actions, there is in fact a power far greater guiding each and every decision you make:

Your Ancient Human Instincts

Unfortunately, this overseer of every decision we make is 10,000 years out of touch, so although still very much with the best intentions at heart – your instincts often get it very wrong in today’s fast food, highly commercialised environment.

This workbook is designed to help you regain control of your decisions, get these ancient instincts up to speed with the modern world and achieve the kind of health, fitness and body shape you always wanted.

You’re not a modern person in a modern world; you’re a magnificent ancient body trapped in a confusing environment

This ancient, time-tested approach to food and exercise will help you regain control of the animal instincts which served your ancestors so well for thousands of years - eating like a king, playing like a child and once again living life to the full!


Start Getting Fitter, Stronger and Healthier by Eating and Moving Like your Ancient Ancestors!

Welcome to this 30 day plan to start implementing the ancient life changing ideas and principles of Health and Fitness contained in the book Instinctive Fitness by Oliver Selway.

“Oh no, not another promise of salvation” you cry!

This is different, and very different for 3 compelling reasons

1. 30 days is not the end - but a very good beginning

2. You’re not going to starve, miss food or exercise till you drop

3. You will enjoy eating and activities more than you did before

“Big claims” I hear you scoff, “so what actually is an ‘Instinctive’ way of eating”?

Instinctive Fitness is not something ‘new’, but something very old – very old, the re-adoption of ancient patterns of eating and exercise which served mankind well for tens of thousands of years.

Taken from the book Instinctive Fitness, this is programme stands on its own without the need to read the book. However if you would like some extra inspiration and understanding of the hard evidence behind what is suggested here, we would point you towards the book and its background research.

The next 30 days of Instinctive eating and exercise won’t be about denying your body calories or flavour, but will in fact involve full and utter indulgence in the types of tasty, nutritious and satisfying types of food our ancestors enjoyed for hundreds of thousands of years.

If you really wanted (and could afford it) you could

indulge every single day in the delights served up on the menu in the world’s best restaurants. Check out any recipe from Gordon Ramsay, Michael Roux or other top chef and you’ll probably find they use just the very best natural meat and vegetables simply - which is exactly what your ancestors ate.

So in a nutshell, that’s what Instinctive Eating is:

proper healthy meat, fruit and veg without the sugar and processed, high-carbohydrate foods so tantalisingly peddled by the supermarkets and media. We like to label these ‘bait foods’.


As ‘human animals’ it has long been recognised that

we are drawn towards certain tastes, textures and smells without any conscious thought, and it is this that has forged multi-billion pound industries to satisfy these naturally preferred tastes – but unfortunately these industries’ priorities are to generate their own profit, not provide you with nourishment!

Instinctive Eating is about real food, which

essentially boils down to eating a clean diet free from modern toxins: a diet which promotes health, energy and weight-loss by removing items responsible for most modern diseases such as obesity, coronary heart disease and diabetes.

In fact, it’s not really a ‘diet’ at all.

Firstly it doesn’t ask you to eat less or reduce calories, although this often happens naturally. (Haven’t you noticed how you always really want what you can’t have?)

Secondly it’s not intended as a temporary solution to an immediate problem. It’s not a quick fix answer to ‘how can I lose 25lbs by next month?’ (The only answer to this question, is starve yourself. You will do yourself enormous harm, and put back on all the weight and more besides afterwards, but this choice is available to you.) No Instinctive Eating is a permanent solution to a lifelong problem.

Lastly there is no regimented plan to follow, just a series of suggestions and a new awareness to what your body is telling you.

Instinctive Eating honours what has always worked for us as human beings: feeding on the food we evolved to eat for generations.

Having said that, this is only a 30 day challenge – so what gives?!!

The point here is that although you probably already know you need to make some permanent changes to your lifestyle, a lifetime can seem like an awfully long time. So we start you off nice and easy. We believe that anyone, no matter how minimal their resolve can keep just about anything up for 30 days…

And we believe that 30 days might just be long enough to change your mind and health for life.


Why does Eating Instinctively work?

Our hunter-gatherer ancestors simply didn’t eat how we do today. The evidence (and there is lots of it) suggests that they also didn’t suffer from most of the modern diseases that we do today. In fact many modern ailments such as diabetes, obesity and cardio-vascular disease were virtually unknown but a few generations ago.

What Instinctive Eating does do is remove unhelpful elements one at a time from your diet so that you’re able to start getting a taste of how your body should feel when it is properly nourished.

By the end of the 30 days you should be largely free from sugar, wheat and high-carb junk food – and feeling like a new person.

It’s not unique There are already a number of other admirable programmes advocating a similar

approach. These are almost all great, bar one simple fact: They are in our opinion very hard for the uninitiated to put into practice. They’re normally written by experts who have eaten this way for years and can’t see why you should be able to change the way you eat entirely overnight. (I wonder if they did this themselves? I know I didn’t!)

What this programme does is gradually wean you off the bad stuff until you have formed new habits to keep you on the straight and narrow. It’s a ‘baby steps’ approach. Not too much too soon; just a gradual reduction on the ‘nasties’ in your diet at a pace that suits you and is sustainable. (Imagine trying to quit smoking, caffeine, alcohol and heroin all at the same time…same idea!)

What’s Involved?

Firstly we recommend getting rid of the foods that provoke the greatest insulin response. These are the foods that make you feel tired an hour or so after eating them, which tell your body to store fat, and are largely responsible for poor health.

What Unhealthy foods??


These Unhealthy Foods (and you may be surprised)

1. Start by reducing sugar. We urge you to start right away reducing your consumption of sugar, and

this will gain momentum over the course of the 30 day programme.

2. Next is grain. Next you’ll be cutting down on wheat one of the worst tolerated grains westerners

eat. Most of us are gluten intolerant - we just won’t know it! In fact many of the products that are made with wheat are treated by the body as if they were sugar anyway.

3. Trans-fats found in all vegetable oils, margarines and bakery products. Because these hideous

concoctions are so dangerous, should be banned but in actual fact really easy to remove, we offer healthier alternatives right from the start. These over-heated and over processed man-made fats are widely accepted as a leading cause of cancer and other inflammatory diseases.

4. Other modern addictions that produce their own issues are caffeine and alcohol and any artificial

sweeteners. All of these are also cleaned out in a series of moderate, comfortable stages.

What you might think is bad - is actually good!

Hold onto your hat as it now gets a bit more controversial!

Unless you’ve been living on the moon for the last 40 or 50 years you’d have been bombarded with the accepted advice that “carbs are

healthy and saturated fats are bad for you” – but it’s becoming increasingly clear that this advice is fundamentally flawed.

For decades now western society has diligently followed the advice handed out by industry, ‘experts’ and government eating more ‘healthy whole grains’ and cut down on the amount of animal products consumed - while at the exact same time, waste lines

have expanded and heart disease, diabetes, cancer and all manner of other modern maladies have also become epidemic.

Obviously there isn’t room in this programme to present all the evidence as to why this is the case, but the evidence is out there if you choose to look. At the end of this programme you will find a link to the book that inspired our 30 Day Challenge - Instinctive Fitness, along with a list of other highly recommended reading that will open your eyes to why the state of societies less than optimal health is not because we’re greedy and undisciplined, but because we followed the advice of the ‘experts’ whom we have trusted and have steered us on the wrong path!

So the Instinctive Fitness approach isn’t just the normal rhetoric about what not to eat but also gives you more options with tasty, healthy, satiating foods that you crave naturally and that you can and should eat.

In short, the calories that you are going to miss out on by not eating refined

sugars and grain based carbohydrates, will be replaced by the very same natural foods that mankind thrived on for millennia: Animal protein, fat

and good old fashioned fruit and veg!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1908746041/ref=as_li_tf_il?ie=UTF8&tag=paletrai-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1908746041%22%3e


Time to ‘buck the trend’?

“Quality animal products are good for you” - There, It’s said!

OK there is a caveat to that advice:

The more naturally reared the better – so we’re talking hormone and steroid free game, organic or grass fed beef/lamb/pork or real free-range chicken and non-farmed sea produce etc. And let’s not get all squeamish about fat either – fat should be the primary fuel for our bodies - it’s what we evolved to eat!

Fat only becomes a problem when eaten alongside cardiac inducing amounts of highly processed carbohydrates and sugars. In very simple terms the body will always choose to burn carbs first and put any fat into storage around the body for a rainy day.

By cutting out carbs and consuming more quality meat and fats your body will start to burn fat first – and discourage it from being stored around the body.

So in essence, the Instinctive Fitness diet involves:-

Cutting down/out processed and carb heavy foods (especially grain)

Eating lashings of fresh veg and less sugar dense fruits.

Replacing sugar/carb calories with quality protein and fat.

If you’ve tried the accepted low calorie/low fat fad diets and they haven’t worked there’s a very good reason: they don’t work!

So you now have 3 choices:-

1. Disregard this and new information and steadfastly carry on doing what you’ve been doing.

2. Trust what you’ve just read throw yourself into the challenge right now.

3. Buy the books we recommend, arm yourself with knowledge and then throw yourself in!


Are you ready to try something new and let the results speak for themselves? Are you prepared to swim against the tide of popular opinion

until you’re convinced popular opinion is wrong?

Think about it, humans are omnivores; we evolved to eat meat and have done without ill effect since the beginning of time. Meat is not inherently bad – as the evidence of evolution clearly attests, and the fact is our health problems have only come about since the food we eat has become industrialised, since food became profitable to multi-nation conglomerations, and since food became politicised by power hungry bureaucrats!

The ball is now firmly in your court!

What are the benefits?

Most people quickly notice that by replacing carbohydrates with protein and fat they take back control of their eating. Of course they still get hungry, but they tend not to be so utterly dependent on getting their food fix to feel comfortable or fulfilled. If they do miss a meal, it becomes no big deal because the programme quickly stabilises blood sugar levels.

A more controlled intake of carbohydrate and sugar means you won’t suffer from crippling low energy after meals or feel the need to reach for the biscuits after less than an hour…

Enjoy steady, high levels of energy throughout the day.

Will I actually lose any weight in 30 days?

We cannot promise anything, because strictly speaking, this isn’t a ‘weight loss’ plan! But having said that, a loss of 6-8 pounds seems to be what we typically see. Less than this isn’t bad and doesn’t mean it’s not working as muscle gain comes along at the same time you lose fat. Depending on your starting point and the amount of toxins you need to flush out of your system, it may be more or it may be less.

You see, our bodies work on their schedule not ours, so it’s unreasonable to expect a perfectly predictable response. It may be that you lose no weight at all, but when you re-measure your waist after 30 days you may still be surprised and overjoyed at how much girth you have lost.


Other benefits:

You may notice some – or all – of the following: Healthier, glowing skin; better moods; improved concentration; fewer aches and pains; fewer rashes; improved digestion; clearer sinuses; improved general health; more zest for life

The most constructive changes to look for are any sort of diet

changes in how you are feeling. In particular look out for higher levels of energy and improved mood. Making sure you journalise your progress is essential to ensure that you actually notice the difference. We tend to quickly overlook how bad things were only a few days ago, let alone a whole month.

Instinctive Eating is made up of the following food elements at roughly the ratios shown below:

N.B there is no portion guide for these recommendations. Cook lots and simply eat slowly until you are no longer hungry. Save any leftovers for another meal.

These are the unprocessed, fully digestible, nutritious foods our ancient hunter-gatherer ancestors thrived on - foods which burdened them with none of today’s modern diseases such as diabetes, coronary heart disease and obesity…

…before wheat, sugar, highly processed oils, starch or salt prevalent in modern processed food!


Don’t go too low-carb while you get off sugar, wheat and other high-carb rubbish.

Healthy Carbs

This is a broad definition just to keep things easy. In the early stages, avoiding or cutting back on wheat is priority number 1. As you progress, that should ideally include all grain products apart from rice. When freeing one’s self of the grip of grain, products made from really high fibre wheat cereals like All Bran are quite useful as a stepping stone. Ultimately you should look to move beyond these too, but in the meantime, investigate buckwheat, quinoa, amaranth and other food stuffs which, although still a bit ‘carby’, are much healthier while transitioning away from wheat.

The dangers of jumping straight in with too Low-carb

You should lose a few pounds as you complete this course, but think of it as preparation for healthy, easy weight-loss over the months and years that follow the programme. This is the work that keeps the rest of journey easy.

At this point, beans/legumes, root vegetables, quinoa, buckwheat and WHOLE grains like rice and steel-cut oats are your friend. These can all help with cravings. Lentils are also very good for this.

Meal Suggestions

At www.instinctive-fitness.com there are plenty of sugar-free, wheat-free, gluten-free, vegetable-oil free recipes. They are all 100% healthy and compatible with all the improvements made in each phase of the programme listed above.

You don’t need to follow them. You could just as easily do your own thing while sticking to the graduated rules and have just as much success as if you start incorporating these meals. Make sure you remember to send us your favourite recipes though!

BE WARNED. If you do go too low-carb in a bid to maximise weight-loss as well as clean-up your diet, you may end up with neither. If you go too low-carb too soon, you will feel horrible. You’ll lack energy and feel nervous, jittery or drained.

A sudden withdrawal from starchy carbs (just as for nicotine, caffeine, alcohol or other drugs) is very hard to do and, while beneficial, does leave you highly susceptible to giving up. It’s better to take a little longer to reach your goals than quadruple your chances of quitting. That’s why the programme is structured to remove high-carb foods gradually.


Keep fruit moderate.

Save fruit for when the sugar cravings really strike badly. If possible, opt for less-sweet fruits, such as apples, pears, plums, and berries. It’s best to reduce any consumption of mass produced concentrated fruit juices as they have had all the fibre removed and the body treats these no differently than it does sugar.

Get plenty of healthy fat and protein.

When you dump sugar and carbs, you do get to eat more fat – Yippee!

Ideally most meals should have a palm-sized portion of protein and a thumb or two of fat (along with tonnes of veggies, of course)

Sample meals:

Breakfast: Omelette with cheese, avocado, tomatoes, and onion Midmorning snack: Cottage cheese or nuts. Lunch: Chicken on salad topped with lentils and olive oil vinaigrette Dinner: Beef Chili vegetable stir-fry, topped with a little blop of real sour cream.

Eat slowly

When your palate isn’t regularly overdosing on sugar, you will notice other flavours. Eat slowly, chew thoroughly and take time to notice how things taste. Try putting your knife and fork down between bites.

Be efficient in your cooking

Buy big joints of meat. When you cook, try to cook

for more than just one meal. Cook more meat and vegetables than you need – then refrigerate or freeze it for almost instant food on a future occasion.

If cooking for a family, try preparing more than they can possibly eat and put it on a grand platter in the middle of the table. Encourage family members (eating slowly) to eat as much as they want, but not to try and please the cook by eating more than the quantity that makes them feel ‘full’.


Cut down the booze.

Understand that drinking seriously affects your judgement. If drinking reduces your self-control then controlling your drinking is essential to controlling anything else.

If you fall off the wagon, get right back on IMMEDIATELY.

All is not lost if you have a slip. Keep moving forward. Go back to your original notes about why you’re doing this, and how eating badly made you feel.

Reducing the Inevitable Cravings

Movement.

Movement is a release valve for cravings. When the cravings are weak, move gently (e.g. a walk). When the cravings are strong, move powerfully (e.g. sprints, heavy lifting, rounds punching the heavy bag, etc.)

Stress levels

Stress will make your cravings worse. Don’t take on any new responsibilities right now. Practice saying “no”. Any relaxation exercises you can do will help you in every way.

Look for patterns!

As you go through your first week, start looking for patterns in your relationship with food cravings. When does it strike you the worst? What is it that you crave? Then think back and ask yourself: What was happening just before that craving hit?

What was I doing? What was I feeling? What was I thinking?

Cravings aren’t random. Find the patterns. If you can find the trigger, you should be able to do a better job of avoiding them in the future.

If you succumb to temptation, don’t forget, it’s not all over. It’s only over when you give up.


Feel as good in your body as you possibly can.

For many, eating is a way of self-soothing. Sugar and carbs, in particular, stimulates the same pathways in the brain as drugs do. That’s why they’re so hard to kick. As far as your brain chemistry is concerned, sugar is not much different than cocaine.

Find other ways to feel good in your body. (Not just in your brain.)

Get touched. Hug your loved ones, dog or cat. Pet a fuzzy blanket or wear your favourite fluffy sweater. Get a massage or pedicure. Sit in the warm sun or a sauna. Go to bed early and if you’re feeling lucky - get yourself some ‘lovin’!

If things get really hairy and out of control with the cravings try some supplements:

One tablespoon (15 grams) of liquid fish oil A few squares of dark chocolate (75% cocoa or higher) 200-300 mg magnesium supplement L-glutamine supplement

Stress

Only start this programme when you have the enthusiasm for it – don’t force yourself into it this week if you’re also moving house, changing jobs, or signing divorce papers. Minimise any unnecessary stress during these 30 days. Perhaps put off any other life-changing efforts to a later date. Let’s do one thing at a time and do each one properly. However your health is important, so don’t miss the boat and put this off indefinitely!

Sleep

As you start to wean yourself off excessive carbs, sugar, caffeine, etc. you may find yourself getting tired earlier than normal. This is good. This is how your body should respond to a hard day’s work. If you find this happening (turn off the computer or the television and go to bed. Yes, at 9pm. You may find that you wake up at 5.30am wide awake and ready to go. Good! Get up and get stuff done. This is a good time to exercise. You will get much more done like this, rather than staying up late. You are getting back in touch with your natural rhythms after a long-time of unnatural confusion. Welcome it.


Instinctive Exercise

This eating plan works totally independently of any exercise taken. However you will gain more if you add some exercise into your 30 days. Again, you need to turn things around in bite size chunks, not rush in where angels fear to tread. If starting (or continuing) exercise is easy for you, great – do it! If this also sounds like a whole new mountain to climb, leave it for the moment. You can add it in a month or two’s time.

Low-Intensity Exercise

Firstly most of your exercise (up to 40 minutes a day) should to be really easy. A walk is fine. If you like to jog, bike, row, swim (or whatever), take it slowly. You should not be at all out of breath. Don’t try and burn extra calories with extra effort. (In fact you will just make yourself hungrier than normal and we all know the result of that, don’t we?)

The rule is simple: do as much as you have time for every day, but no more than you can easily recover from. You should feel no additional fatigue or tiredness the next day. If you do feel drained at all the next day you need to cut back your exercise times each by at least 30%.

Build things up gradually, always backing off if you start to feel any strain. If you do, ensure you are training in a really relaxed and sustained way and not allowing your competitive, ambitious, pushy side to run the show. You’ve got to completely forget about the ‘no pain, no gain’ rule many of us have been indoctrinated with.

High Intensity Exercise (Fight or Flight) If you’re comfortable doing higher-intensity exercise confine yourself to 2 or 3 times a week. If you’re really short of time, for the moment you could just do just this instead of the low-intensity sessions, as these take only 5-10 minutes a session, including warm-up. Hit it really hard during that time and have the rest of the week to recover. That’s all you need until you have your ‘diet’ fully dialled in.

If you’ve read the book Instinctive Fitness you’ll already know this is a crucial part of the programme Fight or Flight training was inspired by a Japanese researcher called Nishimura Tabata who developed what he called the IE1 Protocol. This ground-breaking scientist showed that short, high-intensity bursts of movement (4 mins/day, 4 x a week) could get participants as fit as a control group of trained athletes who logged sessions more than 5 times longer. By the end of the study the former group had a higher VO2 Max (peak oxygen uptake) and, unlike the control group, has also improved their aerobic capacity.

The benefits of High Intensity Interval Training are absolutely indisputable. HIIT has been shown to improve maximal oxygen consumption and, more recently, to improve insulin action and blood-glucose levels. Michael Mosley presented compelling evidence of the advantages of this approach in his March 2012 documentary, “The Truth About Exercise” (Horizon, BBC2).


“Your body knows best” With Instinctive Fitness we’ve taken Tabata’s principles one step

further by avoiding prescriptive formulas. No longer will you need a personal trainer to tell you exactly how long your intervals should be or how much recovery time you are allowed. Instead you’ll learn to rely on your own instinct for what’s best for you. It has been shown that the brain protects the human body by sending messages (in the form of pain) telling it to back away from using its full capacity long before it reaches a dangerous level of exertion. (Dire emergencies are a notable exception to this rule however. When these happen, hormones flood the body allowing one-off ‘superhuman’ performances from ordinary, untrained individuals that go down in urban legend. People lifting heavy vehicles off crash victims – that sort of thing) In the Instinctive Fitness (IF) system of high intensity training, we make use of this natural protective mechanism to greatly reduce the chance of stress, injury and failure. We prefer to listen and respond appropriately to pain rather than to push through it. The information and feedback your own body provides is 100% accurate, totally natural and offers a safe method for anyone to safely reach their personal optimal training intensity, without any pain and without ever over-stressing themselves.

Here’s how we do it:

1. Choose a method of whole-body movement like running, biking,

swimming, free-weight squatting or rowing. (Sprinting on the spot is a great option for beginners or those short on equipment or space.)

2. Perform this movement at your absolute top speed until your body tells you to slow down. This may be in the form of a noticeable performance drop off, or through other physical signs such as painful, laboured breathing, a stitch, other signs of physical discomfort, or just a disinclination to continue.

3. The very moment you feel your body is telling you to back off: BACK OFF! Drop your movements down to a very gentle aerobic level (perhaps 10% of your previous effort).

4. Maintain this level until your body returns to a comfortable, steady level and tells you it’s ready to go again.

5. Repeat the cycle until your body is unable to return to a steady, comfortable level. If you're not raring to go flat out again within 3 minutes: STOP!

This whole session is likely to be over in just a few minutes! There surely can’t be any excuses for not finding time for this? Nevertheless, according to the research on HIIT, this is quite enough to make a serious difference for anyone, no matter what their current fitness level. If you only did this sort of exercise a few times a week, research shows that this can be enough to control blood-sugar, improve fitness levels significantly, and thus minimise the threat of Type-2 diabetes and obesity.


The great thing about this very personal

approach is that it grows with you. You will never have to make any decisions about progression, or need to consciously push any harder with each new session. The feedback your own body gives will automatically let you push just that little bit further without trying, minimising the risk of over-exertion or injury. Before a session like this you’ll probably want to warm up a little first. All you really need to do is to practice the movements that you are about to perform in a less intense manner. If you are going to sprint, for example, you might first run 30m, then 50m, then 70m, getting up to a higher speed each time.

If you are coming into a session after hours of sitting down, to minimise even further the chances of injury, do some walking or general movements first. Some muscles can be quite tight and prone to injury if suddenly stressed. If you’re totally unfit you should take things steady, running at perhaps at only 80% of your top speed for the first few sessions.

If you are aiming to burn fat, then doing this sort of thing on an empty stomach (maybe first thing in the morning) is an amazing short-cut to fat loss! The beauty of it is, because it is such high intensity exercise, you will continue to burn calories are a greater speed for the next 12-16 hours. You’ll have effectively sped up your metabolism.

Do these once or twice a week instead of breakfast and you’re onto a secret that has been entirely overlooked by mainstream fitness. If you’re not already doing something like this, add it to your programme and watch excess flab melt away and your fitness levels soar.

Pay attention to your body’s feedback

Although this programme is written for anyone and everyone, the Instinctive approach, ultimately isn’t a one-size-fits-all thing. Pay attention to how you feel at every stage. If you notice that you felt particularly rubbish after eating avocados, then make a note of that. Try again when you’re feeling better. If the same thing keeps happening, then you have an ‘avocado issue’. Don’t bother Googling it; it’s a made-up term! The point is that this is how you work, right now. Learn to respect what your body is telling you and work with it – not against it.

Paleo isn’t specifically low carb, but most people need to go low carb- unless they are still in their youth or doing a lot of exercise. It’s up to you to work out what level of carbs work for you. Maybe stuffing your plate with yams, sweet potatoes and parsnips works fine. They are perfectly healthy after all, but they may not be optimal for you if you do not burn much energy throughout the day. If you work on a building site however, you might not get away without them. It all depends on the individual.

Now you know what this programme is all about, now all you have to do is get started!


Time To Start Making Changes For A Lifetime!

The Instinctive Fitness 30 day challenge starts here, but it’s not a ‘quick fix’.

Quick fixes only offer temporary solutions, no matter what anyone tells you!

The IF method is, we believe, the easiest, most achievable way to start transforming your health and fitness forever.

Over the coming pages we’ll introduce you to the 4 steps, the first 3 of which are purely preparatory but vital to making any changes stick.

Step 1: Prepare

Step 2 Measure

Step 3: Plan ahead

Step 4: START!

These first few weeks won’t be a walk in the park – but Instinctive Eating and Exercise does get easier, and ends up a lifestyle choice not a chore!

So you have this plan in your hand chomping at the bit to get started. But just before you start making any actual changes…

Set Yourself Up To Win!


Right now

Today.

1. Nip out and buy a notebook, but please make it a something you’ll want to use, not some dog-eared, old, wire-bound monstrosity that’s been knocking about the house for years.

Read almost any self-help book ever written, and it will advise you to write stuff down. Without going into a longwinded explanation, this seemingly benign chore of getting your thoughts and aspirations down on paper has been proven time and again to massively increase anyone’s chances of success.

2. Commit to just ½ hour a day for the next few days to get stuck into some preparation homework. Let’s not rush off and get ahead of ourselves here. Let’s do this right!

3. Set a firm start date. The first day of Action is actually day 3, so perhaps ensure day 3 is a weekend or other time when there are minimal external temptations thrust upon you.

4. Set a time to go food shopping. But this time with a new awareness. If you look at the end of this paper you will find some suggested shopping lists.

Day One

Get your head right

Before any of this eating and exercising fun and games can begin in earnest, you’re going to need to figure out and focus on why you’re doing all this in the first place.

Let’s not kid ourselves here, this will be an upheaval to the way you currently manage your life, and to ride this short, but potentially furious storm, you’re going to need to know why you’re doing it. So who do you want staring back at you from the mirror from this day forward?

Get


People DON’T lack motivation – they just lack good reasons to take action!

Preparation Exercise 1:

Write down in your shiny new book all the reasons you have to make this change.

Q1. What will a slimmer, leaner stronger you look like?

Q2. What will this energetic, vital person feel like? What could you do that you don’t have the energy for now?

Q3. What will other people think of you, work colleagues, friends, family – the opposite sex?

Q4. What would it feel like to turn back the clock and feel 10, 20 years younger?

Q5. How much more could this new energetic, committed person achieve – a person who transformed themselves, what else could they achieve in life if they really set their mind to it?

Q6. What will happen if you pass on this opportunity, do nothing and carry on as you are - where will you be then in a year, two years, 10 years’ time?

Write down at least 20 other reasons why this time you’ve got to make some serious, long-term changes.

Focus on the benefits if you do and the long-term consequences if you don’t. “I’m going to make these changes for the following reasons…” The more reasons you find, the greater your chances of making a complete change for the better. If 20 reasons were easy, write 50! The more reasons you come up with the more motivation you will build. And with the right motivation, absolutely anything is possible!

Imagine if your doorbell was to ring at 4 o’clock on a Sunday morning, would you feel motivated and eager to get up and answer, or would you swear or curse and wish they’d go away? I can just see you now, begrudgingly dragging yourself out of your warm cosy bed and out into the cold hallway, hobbling downstairs bleary eyed and lethargic and probably a little bit angry.

But the person at the door is the shopkeeper from down the road who excitedly informs you the ticket bought yesterday from his shop has just won £11 million on the lottery – how sleepy, bleary eyed and lacking motivation would you feel then?


Exercise 2.

Spend an hour or so reading about some amazing personal transformations from our favourite American blogger, Mark Sisson at Mark’s Daily Apple who uses very similar principles that we at Instinctive Fitness teach.

Find somebody whose situation you can really empathise with. There’s everyone from athletes, body builders, high powered execs to stay-at-home mums who have transformed themselves for the better.

Exercise 3.

Write a list all the obstacles you’ve previously encountered when trying to cut sugary, sweet and fatty foods, and the sorry excuses you’ve concocted to avoid exercising.

For each one, list a way you might steer around these obstacles, because this time you are going to change; you are going to get into the shape you always dreamed of!

e.g. Obstacle: Walking past bakery is difficult – Answer – take alternative route

Get informed

1) Understand all the forms of sugar. This includes:

table sugar “natural” sweeteners: honey, maple syrup, agave anything else ending in “syrup”, e.g. corn syrup, rice syrup,

pomegranate syrup molasses

…almost anything ending in “-ose”: glucose, fructose, sucrose, dextrose SEE HERE

2) Quake at the fallacy of the low-fat dieting myth

3) Shock yourself reading about modern breads

4) Squirm at the dangers of ‘healthy’ vegetable oils

That’s it. You now know what you need to know. What’s next?

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/category/success-story-summaries/#axzz1oXsYZsoF

http://www.dansukker.co.uk/uk/About_sugar/Types_of_sugar.aspx

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/07/magazine/what-if-it-s-all-been-a-big-fat-lie.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/food/article-1298227/Tescos-misleading-claims-bread-just-tip-iceberg.html

http://www.healingnaturallybybee.com/articles/fats5.php


Day Two

Measure and Record

Task 1. Measure yourself around the waist, hip, and thighs. Record in notebook. (Don’t worry too much about weight yet) Task 2. Take some front, profile and face photos of yourself. Take some personal shots just for you; make them as revealing as you dare, and some more modest ones to share with others on the same road on the forum website.

Task 3. Check out www.fitday.com and consider using it if you think it will help encourage better food choices.

Plan Ahead

Writing exercise: ‘Forewarned is forearmed’

Over the coming weeks, you’re going to be increasingly cutting the junk (bait) food out of your life, but it’s obviously not going to go away completely! You will inevitably have shiny sweet and salty morsels thrust in your direction whichever way you turn, so you’re going to need to defend yourself when they pop up.

Write down in your notebook all the obstacles and temptations you think you might anticipate in everyday life. For instance:

House Work Social occasions and parties Pushy family/relatives Other environments

Think about strategies to deal with them in advance. Write them down in your notebook and review it daily.

Prepare Your Environment

Please don’t rely on pure willpower. Never, never, never! If you were giving up smoking you wouldn’t dream of leaving cigarettes around the house, if you were quitting the booze, you wouldn’t have a fridge full of beer – this is the same!

http://www.fitday.com/


Rely on structures and systems.

Think of this like toddler-proofing your life. You’re coming off a certain chemical dependency. You’re not ready to defend yourself in certain situations yet…so the trick is to simply avoid them.

Clean your house. As you move into each new stage, get any contraband items as far away from you as possible. Clean your cupboards and your fridge. If anyone else in your house absolutely must have these items, get them to hide them and/or keep them the hell away from you.

Clean your work. Desk drawers cleaned out. Have a plan to deal with toxic co-workers as much as possible. Perhaps tell them what you are doing, people are usually very accommodating?

Clean your routine and your schedule. Find another route than the one past the bakery. Take the long way to the bathroom at work to avoid the canteen with the brownies.

Plan your meals the day before. Whatever you do, don’t wait until you’re starving before you go on the hunt for food! At least a day in advance write down the menu and pre-stock all the good things you’re going to eat. Plan this in your diary or maybe on a kitchen whiteboard. Be prepared - spontaneity is not your friend at the moment.

Plan Healthy Snacks. If you’re eating in an Instinctive way, you shouldn’t often feel the need to snack. But it is going to happen. Get yourself some healthy alternatives to beat the ‘munchies’ when they strike. Find healthy nibbles to substitute for when you really ‘need something’ e.g. gum, hot drink, fruit, nuts, celery, vegetable crisps, perhaps the dog’s stick to gnaw on, scream therapy, a walk? Anything to fend off those moments of weakness.

Recruit both support and competition.

Tell Make a bet if necessary. Gather some cheerleaders and drill sergeants. Get as many helpers as possible. Find some trusted friends to impress, the odd cynic to prove wrong. Promise yourself something nice if you stick to the programme or perhaps even garner a special ‘promise’ from a willing partner?

Do whatever it takes to stack the cards in your favour!


Keep a daily journal.

Use your posh new notebook as a journal. Use it to help you plan as well as to record:

What you are thinking What you feel, physically What you feel, emotionally

It’s OK to wobble, it’s normal. Everyone has doubts, but by simply taking 5 minutes every day to download your thoughts, feelings, challenges and triumphs onto paper it will get easier. Perhaps you could set a reminder in your calendar or on your mobile to help you remember to do this. It is really important.

I suggest a twice-daily check-in:

Once in the morning, to strengthen your motivation and plan ahead; and Once in the evening, to record how the day went, record your successes and problem-solve for

tomorrow as required.

This currently blank book, will in a year or so be your record to a fitter, healthier you, and will be your best friend and a cherished record of a momentous year.

Almost there!

Last thing to do before you take action is go over the plan below and make sure you understand it and have everything you need to crack on with it. Go back over your notebook, see what you’ve learned, and remember why you’re doing it.

Take some time now to review each phase. Then look specifically at the first phase you are about to start. Identify anything that might be challenging and work out how you can tackle with the least amount of resistance. Plan for the next phase before you begin it.

Time To Put The Plan Into Action!


Day 3: START!

Do I have to follow the plan exactly?

Of course not! We’re not a dictatorship here at Instinctive Fitness, and you can do whatever you like whenever you like, but we do suggest that even if you don’t follow the timetable to the letter, you do follow the process.

The same caveat applies here to everything else we suggest: Listen to your body, react to what it tells you, but keep a wary eye on it falling for unhealthy ‘bait’ foods.

Most of all, don’t beat yourself up. This isn’t easy, but is possibly the most worthwhile endeavour you’ve ever embarked on. Go easy on yourself, you will more than likely succumb to temptation, but temptation is not failure unless you give up.

Think about a non-food reward as you complete each phase.

Give yourself some rewards to work towards. Put them in your calendar. Reward yourself just for still being with the programme even if you’ve slipped here and there. Remember you don’t fail ‘til you stop trying. I recommend a massage or something that makes you feel really great.

Be vigilant

Don’t get lazy. Just because this is probably the easiest but most effective life change you’ve attempted, doesn’t mean there isn’t a steep, slippery slope waiting to catch you out as soon as you think about making exceptions to your own rules.

Understand that sugar hides in things. Keep reading labels.

Understand that foods can creep back in to your space. Be vigilant and keep crap away from yourself. Limit yourself to certain aisles in the supermarket.

Understand that going back will make you feel just as bad as before. Actually you’ll probably feel worse.

This will be your body giving you the message that these are foods that it’s glad

you’ve given the boot!


FAQ

What about Milk

Paleo purists advise that everyone give up milk, but it seems that many people tolerate it quite well. You can cut it out for 30 days if that’s easy for you, but it’s not essential. You can do a withdrawal test at the end of the programme if you want to see whether you could gain further improvement to your health with its elimination from your diet.

If you do drink milk, I advise Gold top milk from Guernsey and Jersey cows or at least organic whole milk. Avoid semi-skimmed which is highly processed.

What about fibre?

Somehow the grain industry persuades us that they are the sole purveyors of fibre! Vegetables are filled with the stuff – eat plenty!

How should I cook?

Anyway you like, as long as you’re not cooking in vegetable oil or overheating olive oil. Better not to burn your food either. Personally I love to use the slow cooker. It’s so easy just to chop up some vegetables and spices, add a little meat and leave for 4-9 hours until it’s convenient for me to eat. I also microwave quite a few sweet potatoes. Steam is better than boiling as you lose fewer of the nutrients this way.

How do I make food, well, more interesting?

Learn to use herbs and spices. Go mad with them. Learn to make a few healthy sauces without sugar, salt, flour and the rest of the normal rubbish. Discover new foods.

What about food quality? Easy, eat real food – of the highest quality

Meats – eat a mixture of red and white meat. Choose organic meats if you can. Ideally pasture-fed animals (e.g. cows fed on grass rather than grain). The quality of their meat is higher and contains a better balance of Omega 3 to Omega 6.

Fish and seafood – Choose wild, not farmed. Frozen wild fish are readily available in the supermarket and not expensive. It can be easily microwaved for ‘fast food’. Great with butter, steamed vegetables and buckwheat, quinoa or rice (if you’re not going really low-carb)

Oils and butters – Choose butter, lard, tallow, ghee or try pricier coconut oil. Also try various different nut butters (such as almond butter).


Vegetables - Choose organic if possible. A focus on non-starchy vegetables will maximise weight loss but may make the programme harder to stick with. If you’re struggling with lack of carbs, whack some sweet potato chips lightly coated in butter/lard/coconut oil in the oven for 40 mins. Hey Presto – healthy chips!

Eggs – No matter what scare stories you hear, eggs are good – really good. They should be considered a superfood. Choose free range and organic where ever possible. Hardboiled make for almost instant snack foods ideal for breakfasts.

Nuts and seeds

Don’t go overboard with these but they can make an excellent snack if needs be. Macadamias are the best. Peanuts are not even a nut. Avoid.

Fruit

Don’t go too mad with the fruit. It is actually made of sugar (fructose) and could encourage weight gain if you’re not careful. Better to stick with berries, apples and other fruit without a really sweet, sugary taste.

No More Waffle – Let’s Get Going!

Use the tables below to guide on your changes. Consider printing each one out and sticking it to your fridge or somewhere else you can easily refer to it. Start with Phase One on top and when you reckon you’ve got the hang of that, remove it, so that Phase 2 becomes visible. Remember to look ahead and plan the next phase before you begin it. Don’t forget to use the shopping list at the end of this document to help you organise yourself.

If there’s nothing in the first few phases that’s new to you, then simply make sure you’re following all the rules and skip to the stage that will best offer you a challenge. This means that you spend more of the thirty days in the later phases – which is great!


Start Date: End Date:

DON’T EAT THESE EAT THESE INSTEAD

Frosted Cereals/Choc Cereals

Frosties

Ricicles

Choco flakes

Honey Nut

Sugar Puffs

Anything with coated sugar/honey etc.

High Gluten White Breads

If it’s white and fluffy, AVOID!

Plain Cereals With Minimal Sugar Content

Porridge (not instant)

Weetabix, All Bran

Rice Crispies, Shredded Wheat

‘Quinoa’ Pops by Bioflair

Gluten-free, ‘Toasted Cereal’ by Eat Natural

Low Sugar Muesli

Anything plain with minimal ingredients

Wholemeal Brown Breads

Ideally with added seeds.

Margarine and Processed Cooking Oils

Do not cook or prepared food with:-

Vegetable Oil

Sunflower Oil

Any other industrialised, heat-processed oils

Butter, Lard, Ghee Or Cold Pressed Oil.

Olive Oil

Coconut oil

Anything natural and non-Hydrogenated

Sweets, Cakes and Pastries

Croissants

Confectionary

Donuts

Muffins

Cup Cakes etc.

Chocolate is still OK – for the moment!

Healthy Snacks

Fruit

Nuts and Seeds

Natural Meat Jerky

Hard Boiled Eggs

Oat cakes/unsalted Rice Cakes/Ryvita

Any other low sugar, natural snack

Tea and Coffee – Reduce by number of cups or by strength by 1/3rd

Alcohol – Reduce consumption by 50%

Drink more water (5+ glasses a day)

Give Fizzy Water, Green Tea, Roibos, or other herbal teas a go.

Replace sugary carbs with meat and vegetables!

EXERCISE:

Low-Intensity - Aim for 5x20 mins gentle exercise this week minimum,

or 3x35 mins (See previous notes on low-intensity exercise)

PHASE 1: Days 3 – 10


DON’T EAT/REDUCE THESE EAT THESE INSTEAD

Start to replace sugars and artificial sweetener with healthier, natural alternatives

Reduce all sweeteners (of any sort) added to drinks like tea or coffee by 1/3rd

Use this Natural Sweeteners instead of sugar or artificial sweetener:

Maple Syrup

Honey

Stevia

REDUCE any cereal to ½ a bowl, max.

Don’t add any sugar

Use Berries or Cinnamon to sweeten – blueberries, cranberries, strawberries

Or the natural sweeteners above (though fruit is better)

REDUCE Any intake of bread made of wheat by 50% or more.

Use Alternatives

Organic 3 grain: Rye Oats and Barley

Rye bread

Ryvita

Rice cakes

Spelt

Millet

Amaranth

Quinoa

Oatcakes

(‘Gluten-free’ options are best)

REDUCE fizzy, cola-type drinks intake by 50%

Drink tap water or bottled water instead (carbonated is ok), perhaps with a shot of cordial or pressed fruit juice.

Cut out all sweets and milk chocolate products For snacks, choose only fruit, dried fruit and nuts, dried meat or dark chocolate!

Cut out all fruit juices from concentrate. Juice not-from-concentrate, diluted with some water is okay for now.

Cook an omelette/scrambled eggs/boiled once or twice for this week for breakfast. Or go for fish. (We are loosening your dependency on cereal for breakfast)

Continue To Replace Carbs With Meat And Vegetables.

Preferably organic/grass fed cuts of Beef, Pork, Lamb, Chicken etc. Try to avoid processed meat products.

EXERCISE:

Low-intensity exercise - same quantity of as per Phase 1

High intensity exercise – add one session (see notes for instructions)

PHASE 2: Days 10 – 17



DON’T EAT THIS/REDUCE DO THIS INSTEAD

Reduce Pasta by 1/2.

Pasta is made from wheat and does you no favours when it comes to insulin production.

Choose instead:

Buckwheat or Quinoa (gluten-free)

Spaghetti squash

Rice

Beans

Potatoes.

Cook an extra/new vegetable for the evening meal. Find some new vegetables you like.

Make vegetables take up half the space on your evening’s plate.

Reduce all wheat-based products

Avoid all wheat breads , wheat-cereals and other products

Choose from the porridge, oats, quinoa, or buckwheat cereals listed; still eat half portions. Ensure they are low in added sugar. Add berries to sweeten if necessary.

Choose from the alternative breads or cereals listed or, better still, eat protein and veg – have a cooked breakfast (without the fried bread!)

If you must have Wheat, choose All-Bran.

Reduce by another 1/3 the amount of sugar added to drinks, etc

3 squares of dark chocolate is your max now...or just quit for the time being.

Natural Alternatives

Stick exclusively to Maple Syrup, Honey or Stevia for sweetening.

Maximum of 3 cups of coffee/tea a day

Further reduce sugar, replace with Maple Syrup, Honey or Stevia.

Eat some protein with at least 2 meals a day.

Halve cola-type fizzy drinks quantity again.

Drink more green tea, or herbal tea, or fizzy water perhaps with some pressed fruit juice.

Continue To Replace Carbs With Natural Meat And Vegetables.

EXERCISE:

Low-intensity exercise - same quantity of as per Phase 1

Only if feeling energetic…

High intensity exercise - add another session

PHASE 3: Days 17-24



DON’T EAT THIS/REDUCE DO THIS INSTEAD

Cut out normal potatoes.

These turn to sugar in the stomach too quickly for most people to handle.

Eat sweet potatoes (which digest more slowly)

No more store-bought sauces, jams, etc with more than 5% sugar listed in the ingredients.

Make your own if possible, without adding sugar or wheat flour (or vegetable oil!) to the ingredients.

Continue to eat protein (meat or fish) for at least two meals a day along with some vegetables.

If you can, exclude the higher-carb, healthier starchy carbs like quinoa, rice, beans and sweet potatoes from that particular meal.

Cut out all fizzy, cola-type drinks.

Drink water, bottled and carbonated if you like; perhaps with a dash of fruit juice.

Drink more herbal tea, or green tea.

Reduce Beverage Sweetners to 1/3

Unless replaced by maple syrup, Honey or Stevia. But start reducing even these healthier alternatives.

Reduce quantity caffeine to max 2 cups per day of weakfish beverages.

Eat a raw salad with meat, eggs, nuts, seeds, avocado (maybe use last night’s leftovers) for 3 lunches this period.

Cut back on alcohol to 1 large, or 2 small glasses of alcohol after dinner/supper

Consider choosing red wine, the healthiest of the alcohol options.

Continue To Replace Carbs With Meat And Vegetables.

Start to Cut out processed cured meats – stick to natural!

EXERCISE:

If still feeling energetic:

Low-intensity exercise - increase quantity of by 30% - but pay attention to bodily feedback

High intensity exercise - add another session of (see notes for instructions)

Otherwise do the same as per Phase 3

PHASE 4: Days 24-30



Want to take it a stage further?

Please don’t look at the end of this 30 day challenge as the end of the journey, but more of a great beginning. If you do stick to the guidelines we’ve given, you should notice some profound changes happening to your body, health and energy levels in just 30 days. But Rome was not built in a day, and from our experience the benefits keep increasing for over the first year and beyond as your body settles down into its own state of natural balance.

Want to lose even more weight?

For weight loss, cut out/down on higher carb items like all cereal, beans, rice, and all potatoes. This means eating wild fish, eggs, nuts, fruit or meat with veggies for all meals including breakfast. Or just skip this meal if you’re not genuinely hungry.

Want to get even healthier?

1) Avoid all foods that contain gluten and other hard-to-digest grain proteins. This means wheat, all cereals, (including oats, barely and rye), most sausages, breaded fish, etc.

2) Cut out all processed foods that contain vegetable oil, salt, sugar, sweeteners, flour or any word you don’t understand. Don't add these things to your cooking either.

3) Do the dairy withdrawal test. (On the results of this, either drink raw or gold top milk, or give it up entirely.)

4) Eat real sauerkraut, kimchi, or other fermented foods daily to protect your gut with friendly gut bacteria.

Further help, tips, advice and join the community

It’s never easy going it alone, so at www.instinctive-fitness.com we’re putting together all the resources you may need to help you through this 30 days and on-going into the future.

Although it’s early days for the Instinctive Fitness movement, we ask you to come and play your part: offer your ideas and encourage others to make healthy changes while having your resolve bolstered to boot.

We’re putting together a forum which obviously requires participants, so in the early months we beg you to come and join the community, have your say and share your experiences.

Inspire others with your triumphs

Post reports and pictures of your progress

Share your challenges

And enthuse at your favourite recipes

Whatever happens to you next on your journey, good luck and please keep in touch and let us know how you get on.

http://www.instinctive-fitness.com/


Week 1 Shopping List

Buy what you normally buy – except: white bread, margarine, cakes, pastries, sugary cereals and sweets. You could add any or all of what follows to make the first week easier and healthier.

Better cereals:

Porridge (not instant)

Weetabix

All Bran

Rice Crispies

Shredded Wheat

Low Sugar Muesli

Oat-based cereals with low-sugar

Any other cereal with less than 20% sugar content.

Wholemeal Brown Breads with seeds

Oils and fats:

Butter, unsalted, organic for cooking

Lard, Ghee or Goose fat for cooking

Cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil for salads

Coconut oil*

Nut butters*– e.g almond or hazelnut

*Holland and Barrett has these)

Snacks:

Fruit, especially berries

Nuts and Seeds and dried fruit (keep dried fruit to a minimum if possible)

Natural dried Meat (jerky/biltong)

Eggs for hardboiling.

Oat cakes/Rice Cakes/Ryvita

Any other low sugar natural snack

Dark chocolate for emergencies

Drinks:

Bottled Water (carbonated if you like it)

Green Tea,

Roibos,

other herbal teas

Fruit juice not from concentrate Vegetables: Any for the first week Check out the frozen veg section of the supermarket. Buy avocados for essential fats. Eggs, organic, free-range (great for breakfasts) Frozen wild fish – salmon, sardines, etc Cottage cheese (not ‘low-fat’) Full fat milk, Gold Top or organic Cheese – hard - not Philadelphia style Live, natural, low-sugar yogurt (‘Greek style’) with frozen Berries – blueberries, etc Selection of herbs and spices Recommended Supplements: Multi-vitamin Fish oil High Quality Probiotic


Week 2 Shopping List

Restock exactly what you bought last week if necessary – except don’t buy milk chocolate products or any sweetener apart from those listed below. You could add any or all of what follows to make the first week easier and healthier. Healthy Sweeteners

Maple syrup

Stevia

Honey

Berries – strawberries, blueberries, cranberries, etc. (Don’t put these in your tea!) Alternatives to wheat-based bread

Ryvita

Rice cakes (unsalted)

Oat cakes

Breads made from Rye, Oats, Barley, Amaranth*, Spelt*, Buckwheat* or Quinoa* (Check out the organic, wheat-free breads made by Schneider Brot or Biona)

* Supermarkets often have some of these less usual grains/seed products but health food shops usually have a better selection. Dark Chocolate (high-quality, 70% chocolate or higher) Fruit juice (not from concentrate) Bottled water (even fizzy if this will make you drink more)

Check stocks:- Do you need any more snacks, vegetables, meats, dairy products or cooking fats/oils as detailed on Week One’s list?

Week 3 and beyond

Replace stocks from weeks 1 and 2.

Buy sweet potatoes, rice, spelt, quinoa, buckwheat (it’s not actually wheat at all), millet and beans (e.g lentils, kidney) to replace pasta and normal potatoes.

Buy a few new vegetables you’ve never tried before: Butternut? Celeriac? Swede?

If you’re looking for a replacement for flour in dishes, try arrowroot powder, coconut flour or ground almond.

More eggs for breakfast (free-range organic, ideally)

And loads of high quality meats, wild fish and colourful veg!


Want to Learn More?

As you might have guessed by now Instinctive Fitness doesn’t position itself as another expert all too eager to push its ideas and philosophy on you. We urge you to make up your own mind on the information we offer, to dissect it and reach your own conclusions, and from there choose whether, on balance, what we have to say is more credible and (through personal experience) whether it works for you in your life.

To assist you to make your own informed decision, please refer to the resources we’ve put together below and piece together your own version of Instinctive Fitness (or whatever else you may choose to call it).

Unashamedly first; own book Instinctive Fitness.

We believe that this is the one book that puts together all the ideas and scientific evidence in a uniquely accessible way, clearly showing how mainstream science has got it badly wrong. Not only that but Instinctive Fitness offers more than cold hard facts, but also inspiration to stop headshaking and ‘tutting’ and get up and take action to transform your life.

Get it now on Amazon HERE

The Primal Blueprint by Mark Sisson We think this is the ideal accompaniment to Instinctive Fitness if you want to find out more about the science behind our approach. Mark Sisson is one man who has possibly done more for us, and the Paleo movement as a whole than any other with his book Primal Blueprint. In our opinion this is not necessarily the easiest read as it digs right into the detail of human anatomy and physiology, but if you want to really understand how your body works then we think this is a truly great read. Available on Amazon HERE

The Obesity Epidemic by Zoe Harcombe

Not strictly Paeo but a book that we feel makes the case against the mainstream wisdom of low fat, high carb diets - perhaps better for people not wanting to don a bearskin and get right back to their prehistoric roots. With 400 references and every fact backed up with sourced and solid evidence, this is possibly the most informative book on the subject of obesity ever written. You cannot fail to learn a great deal and have your thinking continually challenged in a highly engaging way. The research for this book changed everything the author held to be true. Read with an open mind - it could do the same for you. Love it or hate it, you have to read it.

Get it now on Amazon HERE





Dr. Loren Cordain′s The Paleo Diet

A great cookbook from one of the inspirations behind our Instinctive Eating philosophy! It demonstrates how the diet of our Palaeolithic ancestors can be brought into the 21st century. Eating the foods we were genetically designed to eat, this revolutionary cookbook gives you more than 150 satisfying recipes packed with great flavours and variety to help you enjoy the benefits of eating the Paleo way every day.

Available on Amazon HERE

.

Everyday Paleo, by Sarah Fragoso Another book we highly recommend because it offers detailed instructions for acquiring and maintaining a Paleo lifestyle and improving the health and longevity of your family. Sarah Fragoso shows how to make Paleo your whole lifestyle, not just another fad diet . Get it now on Amazon HERE

Trick and Treat by Barry Groves Another of our favourite books: The health industry is ruled by the multinational pharmaceutical companies and big food companies. It is they who control what health professionals are taught, making doctors, nutritionists and dieticians into unwitting mouthpieces and drug pushers. But TRICK AND TREAT shows that there is a way out: while the 'health industry' tries to make everyone into 'patients', we don't have to comply, and we don't have to get ill. Live the right lifestyle and they cannot force us to take their drugs and unnatural 'foods' if we don't want to.

We love it!

Available on Amazon right now HERE

The Paleo Solution by Robb Wolf Robb Wolf explains how If you want to lose fat and stay young, all while avoiding cancer, diabetes, heart disease, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and a host of other illnesses paleo’s the way to go! The Paleo Solution incorporates the latest, cutting edge research from genetics, biochemistry and anthropology to help you look, feel and perform your best. Well worth reading.

Available on Amazon right now HERE


http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/098256581X/ref=as_li_tf_il?ie=UTF8&tag=paletrai-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=098256581X%22%3e



30 day-challenge

Education