You may know Patrick Vlaskovits as the CEO of Paleohacks, the place to get answers to questions on all things Paleo. (You can also peruse recipes or listen to the podcast on the site.) But in the tech startup world, Vlaskovits is known as the New York Times bestselling author of The Lean Entrepreneur: How Visionaries Create Products, Innovate With New Ventures and Disrupt Markets, a mentor for the 500 Startups seed fund and accelerator, and the cofounder of Superpowered, a startup that increases speed on mobile devices.

Paleohacks is particularly intrigued because of the crowdsourced questions and answers. It provides a very necessary platform for thoughtful discussion about what's working and not working for site readers.

If you’ve grown comfortable with the proliferation of Paleo blogs widely plastered all over the internet, try to remember back to the time (early 2010) when this wasn’t the case. "I was into Paleo stuff a few years ago and at the time there were only a few blogs talking about this stuff. It was even before Mark Sisson had a blog. There was Richard Nikoley's blog, and Art DeVany had a blog, and a few other folks,” Vlaskovits recalls.

“I started Paleohacks because a lot of the same questions kept coming up in the comments of these blogs and the comments weren't a good place to answer these questions because the answers often change as new knowledge emerges. At the time the Stack Exchange platform was pretty new, and I thought it could be a really good platform for the community that was emerging around Paleohacks. I'm a big believer in n=1 self-experimentation, and the quantified self stuff people talk about and I thought I could do something cool and build a community, and that's how Paleohacks got started,” he adds.

The Paleo community has grown in leaps and bounds in the past few years, and this has led to m any people embracing Paleo as a lifestyle choice or image. Vlaskovits believes this has its pros and cons.

“I don't like the infighting. It's just less interesting. It's very silly and tribal,” he explains. On the positive side? “…the good part it is that so many of us are thinking about our health and where our food comes from. I have two children and I think a lot about whether I'm feeding them the lowest common denominator wheat-based or corn-based shit that American agribusiness has foisted on us; I try not to do that. The bad part is where it's sort of a human vanity BS type stuff, and [people arguing about] who's more Paleo, are you really Paleo type of stuff,” he says.

Like many of you, Vlaskovits is juggling a hectic career, multiple side projects and a family, and managing to maintain a Paleo lifestyle while working in a community where drinkups and crap food are the norm. He offered five hacks for maintaining a Paleo lifestyle in the midst of dinner meetings and events where you’re surrounded by free pizza and beer.


1. Eat before you to go events where you'll be surrounded by shit food.

It seems like a no-brainer but the trick is to actually do it. "You go to a hackathon and then just go to a local pizza place and everyone just gets beers and cokes, and it's kind of fun, everyone's having a great time and good pizza tastes good. I personally react very poorly to wheat and gluten. They really mess me up, and so one hack I try to do is I try to eat before I go. I know that sounds pretty obvious, but if you can do that you're at home and can eat some eggs or whatever and then show up, you're not hungry [and] that makes a big difference,” he explains.

2. Drink liquor, not beer.

"I love beer, by the way, I love drinking a good beer,” Vlaskovits admits, “but I know that if I have beer ,I'll feel like crap the next day, even if I have just one or two, and if I have a few more, there's a chance I'll have a legitimate migraine the next day. So for me, I just don't drink beer, but I'll drink high-quality spirits like vodka or even whiskey because there's no gluten in those." Robb Wolf’s NorCal margaritas are also an option.

3. Remember how bad you feel when you eat pizza, beer and chips.

It’s sometimes difficult in the moment, but remember what you feel like after you gorge on specific foods because everyone else is, and “… then the next day you're like, ‘Crap, I feel like shit. Why did I do that?’ whereas if you eat pretty clean the next day you feel really healthy, you can actually feel that. I see it on my face. When I eat poorly I wake up and I'm like, ‘Jesus, I look terrible today,’ Vlaskovits says.

4. It's okay to have a cheat meal.

As long as you’re consistent most of the time and aren’t suffering from a chronic illness, you might be able to handle cheat meals from time to time. "When I'm in New York, I will go get a good New York pizza even though I know my body will not like it, because I'm in New York; I'll have some pizza. But generally I try to eat healthy, I'll try to eat Paleo-ish, but you don't have to be nuts about it,” he says.

5. Paleo doesn't have to be socially awkward.

You can make healthy food choices without being aggressive or making others uncomfortable. "What I don't want to do if I'm in a business meeting or at a legitimate business dinner, I'm not going to go to extreme measures to eat Paleo. If I'm at a business lunch and everyone else is getting sandwiches, I'll just get a salad, which isn't weird or anything, but I'm not going to go crazy and make people feel weird. I'm not going to be the guy who goes, "Ooooh, I'm gluten-free," in a way that makes people feel awkward and weird. I personally don't like being that guy,” Vlaskovits explains. "Eating with people is about interacting with them and getting to know them and being a super-aggressive hyper-aggressive Paleo person is I think silly."