diet

"I wanna be skinny! Tell me what to eat!" 

Man, I wish it were that simple. First of all, eff your desire to be skinny. What you should be aiming for is peak sexiness and healthiness (which are the same thing in my book.) That being said, you also shouldn't be expecting some "it's the destination, not the journey" kind of thing, because when it comes to achieving a healthy lifestyle, it is entirely the journey... there isn't really a destination.

That being said, I do have some tips on how to reach some of your "Beyonce" goals or "Peak Sexiness" goals, and let me tell you, it does start in the kitchen. You can exercise all day but if you are not feeding and healing your body with food that it is designed to eat to nourish and give it energy, you are wasting your life on a treadmill when you could be watching 'Grey's Anatomy' instead, for all the good that will do. So if you want to change how you look and feel and your overall health: It starts in the mothereffin' kitchen! (Or Chiptole, if you hate cooking.)

So people as me all the time what I eat and why I eat it. I'll say it simply: I eat what I want. This isn't necessarily a good philosophy to have, because most of the time I want pizza and ice cream. But what I want even more than that... is to look good and feel good, so most of the time, I want to eat food that is nourishing for me. So 80% of my meals on an average basis are close to a Whole30 or 'paleo' food template.

Do you know what Whole30 or Paleo eating are? No? Okay, then you need to find out right now!

The Paleo diet isn't really a diet, but it is a lifestyle change. It is a reorientation of how we approach food and living which is mostly from the lens of, theoretically, how our bodies were actually designed to eat and live. Consider that we are beings that exist on a planet that has forces of time and evolution exerting themselves upon us: our bodies are adapted to live in certain conditions. We have organs, cells, systems within our bodies that function on energy gained through nutrition and lifestyle, and the idea is that we want to feed and treat our bodies the way they are designed to be fed and treated.

So what does that mean?

No gluten.
No processed sugars. (*cue violent screeching violin noises*)
No legumes. (Peanuts, lentils, beans, etc.)
No grains. (This means quinoa, rice, barley, etc.)
No dairy. (Unless you are a freak whose body has evolved to break down that enzyme, in which case, I hate you.)
No corn.
And a significant limit on alcohol and naturally occurring sweeteners.

Essentially what I tell people who just want the simplified version - I eat meat and vegetables and healthy fats. 

People are shocked that I had butter, bacon, yolky eggs and red meat every day for a year and lost 68 pounds but it is true! Good, healthy fats are OUR FRIEND not our enemy as really terrible, outdated science would tell us. Sugar, in all of its glory, is the true enemy we should unite behind to defeat.

Do I eat this way constantly? Hell no. Because as much as I would love to not get cancer or heart disease, I also really value enjoyable food moments, especially when it is a rare thing that I won't get to enjoy again for a while. So I will eat a slice of cheesecake that looks breathtakingly glorious, and I had pizza on my birthday, and Lord knows if I am up in a soul food place ya girl is getting mac'n'cheese but most of the time, at least 80% of the time, I just stick to eating meat and vegetables with the occasional bit of full fat dairy.

Check out my Instagram @Paleobeyonce or this blog for more information on how to eat well, to live well.