New to Paleo, please help me get some things straight

[bradley8302]

Hey all, glad I stumbled across this forum so I can get some answers. Currently I'm 6'3" 230lbs, and would like to get down to 200lbs. I'm starting my 4th week on the Paleo diet/lifestyle and have a few quick questions I've come up with. I saw some pretty encouraging results in the first week, but those have slowed somewhat since then and I just want to make sure I'm doing everything correctly. My daily food intake normally consists of something like this: I normally bring an orange or banana with me to work to eat for breakfast. I have to be in here pretty early so it's hard for me to get up early enough to get ready and make something like eggs w/spinach, thinking about a fritata one night so I can just bring a slice in the morning though. Lunch normally consists of a fairly small portion of leftovers from dinner the night before or one of those $1 bag salads with a vinaigrette dressing. Dinner is usually a protein(chicken breast/tenderloins, fish, steak, pork) and a vegetable or two(brussle sprouts, spinach, broccoli, peppers, cauliflower, etc.). Snacks are normally dried fruits(apricot, pineapple, etc.), raisins, or carrots. I'm currently using extra virgin olive oil(very minimal amount) to cook with, but that's only b/c I haven't been able to find coconut oil just yet. Do I have the right idea with my daily intake? What should I change/add?

As far as my activity level, I'd like to think I'm very active. I try to do something every day, and more often than not it's a P90X workout. I'm in the 6th week of that program. The days I'm not doing P90X(normally just Sunday), I am playing full court basketball.

I have also been curious about a certain food item that is a weakness of mine. It's a slaw, and the recipe(makes a huge bowlful for a party or something like that) is 3bags of the pre-prepared slaw(minus dressing of course), dried cranberries, chopped walnuts, and some poppyseed dressing. The poppyseed dressing is what worries me about violating the paleo diet, but I'm not 100% certain. I know there's definitely worse things I could eat to break the diet, but so far this has really been the only thing that I think has.

Thanks in advance everyone, and looking forward to learning even more about this lifestyle!

[aLptHW4k4y]

You're in the wrong place buddy, we don't cook food here (that's what the RAW in the "raw paleo forum" means)

[cherimoya_kid]

Dried fruit is very bad for you.  It has made me and a lot of other raw fooders very sick. I would not eat it regularly, even in small amounts.

[superja]

Try to cut down on the dried fruit. There's a TON of sugar in it, firstly, and secondly, quality control on things like additives is very poor.

From wikipedia:
"In Taipei, Taiwan, a recent city health survey found one-third of tested dried fruit products failed health standard tests, most having excessive amounts of sodium cyclamate, some at levels 20 times higher than the legal limit."

Also, we don't cook here.

Are you hungry at all your meals? Worry less about eating breakfast, lunch, dinner, and more about following your body cues. If you aren't hungry, don't eat. There is freedom in this diet because you are eating food as if you hunt and forage for it. Vary what you are eating and when you are eating. As you get better at following the diet, you will find that your body indicates what it needs.