A blog entry from an old blog of mine just after completing my first Paleo challenge earlier this year:
I recently, as of a week ago, completed the daunting task of the paleo 30 day challenge. For those of you foreign to this concept, eating ‘paleo’ is imitating the diet our hunter-gatherer ancestors lived on for over 2 million years. This means ditching all grains, dairy products, refined sugars, legumes, or anything processed… so basically what tastes good and makes up about 80% of the grocery store. Foods on the can-eat lists include lean meats, fish, veggies, fruits and most nuts.
Easy enough?You might be asking yourself “why the hell would you ever want to do something like this?” Well, for starters I’ve gotten on another one of my health kicks. I’ve been crossfitting for a while now and just joined a local crossfit gym here in Austin. It seemed to be the trend amongst crossfitters to try this 30 day challenge. So, truthfully, I really didn’t know what I was getting myself into at first when I started and basically I was just doing it as a way to challenge myself and immerse myself deeper into the crossfit culture (something I’ll go more in depth into later on).
Here is more info on the paleo diet: www.thepaleodiet.com
Simply put week 1 was terrible. Now I had a pretty healthy diet coming into the challenge but I found myself craving all types of comfort foods for the sheer fact that it was prohibited to eat them. All I could think about was hamburgers, pizza and cookies and to make matters worse, I didn’t know what the hell to cook besides some plain ol’ chicken or fish with a side of sautéed veggies. The only support I had were that my two roommates who were along for the ride and decided to embark on the challenge with me (which didn’t last long at all, thanks guys). I had heard that the diet was a great way to “lean out” and lose unwanted fat mass. This was ideal for my roommates because they had some unwanted pounds to shed before lake season but I didn’t have any to spare. I was determined to keep weight which meant familiarizing myself more with the diet and coming up with new dishes to try. I also wanted to learn everything I could about the theories behind paleo so that when someone asked “why on earth would you torture yourself like this” I could give them somewhat of an intelligent answer and not just mumble out some asinine bullshit.
So I read, read, and read some more. I immersed myself in books, research articles, and blogs. Pretty soon I became infatuated with all things paleo and was willing to adopt the more primitive way of eating. I had my elevator pitch ready for anyone interested or willing to offer up a counter argument. I’m to the point where now I’m wondering why I ever took diet for granted as much as I did pre-paleo.
The cravings subsided, my face cleared up, and I started to experience a renewed sense of daily energy and focus. I am done with the after-lunch grogginess and self-diagnosed ADD pity parties. I feel more alive than ever. Most importantly I was starting to lean out and my confidence was building. I was starting to get more out of my high intensity morning workouts and longer evening endurance runs. I knew at once that I wanted to feel like this all the time.
This is how fellow blogger Karl Macphee comedically tells of his experiences. Karl writes:
Here are some of the terrible things I have noticed since falling into this Caveman style of eating and moving so far away from the recommendations of our Government’s Food Guide:
- I have so much energy every day that I am constantly getting things done around the house, and when it is time to go to bed at 9:00pm as I had done for so many years because I was exhausted, I still have too much energy and have to stay awake until at least 10:30 or 11:00opm.
- I can’t wake myself up with an alarm clock anymore! I wish I could still jolt myself out of bed with a loud buzzing noise that causes my heart rate to skyrocket, thus raising cortisol and waking me from my sleep cycle.
- While on the topic of sleep, I can’t nap anymore! I used to nap almost every day, especially on the weekends. If I was at work and thus couldn’t nap, I would become very tired and then begin falling to sleep about 7pm. I wish I could waste more of my life sleeping in the afternoon, and more often at night.
- I don’t get to workout as often. In fact, my weekly strength training routine has decreased from 5-6 hours a week to 60 -90 minutes a week at best. What am I supposed to do with my time now that I am not filling it with countless hours in the gym burning off those excess carbohydrates that I was eating while on my previous diets?
- I don”t get to run and bike for 5-7 hours a week anymore. I love to ride my bike and I enjoy trail running, but now I only do it on nice summer days instead of obsessivly in the past. Here is an example, I don’t have to bike to work to maintain my preferred body composition and fitness levels so now I drive to work while listening to educational podcasts…this is terrible.
- I still run my races in the same times as I did in the past, so that means that I wasted many, many hours training for races over the years and that is depressing!
- I don’t get to eat food every 2-3 hours! This sucks because now I only have to eat 2-3 times a day, and that means that I have even more time that I have to fill with things like reading, learning, going for nice walks, playing with my children and talking with my wife. Back then, I was able to eat every couple of hours and if I didn’t get to do so I would get shaky, irritable and even sick with headaches and an upset stomach, but now none of these things happen and I am forced to figure out other things to do.
- I don’t get to spend as much time on the toilet as well. In fact, I don’t even stink up the bathroom because my junk doesn’t stink anymore. Seriously, it comes out smooth, and only takes a couple seconds and I am done. This means that I don’t get to read while on the toilet with stomach pain and horrible gas anymore, now I have to help my wife clean, take the kids for walks, or just simply relax.
- I don’t have an excuse to leave boring social gatherings anymore. Back when I used to eat right, I was always so tired that I would have to leave by 9:30 or 10 in order to get enough sleep for the next day. When I didn’t I would be really tired for the next 48 hours, but now even if I stay up really late I still have lots of energy the next day so I have to stay at the social gatherings longer.
- I don’t have a reason to rush to Dairy Queen to get a blizzard anymore because my blood sugar is always balanced. This has significantly decreased my Blizzard consumption which is very bad for business.
- I have to buy new clothes which is quite costly. Before when I was on the food pyramid and the vegetarian plan my stomach was always bloated and my clothes fit, but now because I am eating an artery clogging diet, my waist is more narrow because the bloating has vanished and I had to buy new shorts.
- I don’t get to use soap when I shower, and I don’t get smelly like I used to. This is bad because people think I am weird now that I don’t use soap. I can use soap if I want to, but I noticed that if I use soap my skin gets really dry, and when I don’t use soap, it stays nice and smooth.
- I have to lift heavier weight in the gym because I have become much stronger. I think this has something to do with these really short workouts and the change in foods, but the doctors and fitness people say that I should be working out more often. I don’t want to hurt their feelings, but when I can achieve better results in much less time, wouldn’t it make sense to keep doing that?
Well the 30 days came and went, and here I am… a changed man. Since the challenge is officially over I haven’t strayed too far off the path to dietary enlightenment. I’ve added cheese to a couple meals and slurped down some beers (wheat beer is a guilty pleasure of mine) over the past week but not much more than that. Oh yeah.. how could I forget? I had just one tiny slice of pizza on saturday night. It was my first grainy or processed food in over a month. Worst decision ever. I woke up a few hours later feeling as if I had just swallowed a grenade. My stomach had never hurt so bad and I’ve always prided myself on having a gut of steel. Needless to say I was hovered over the toilet tossing up my cookies a few minutes later. I’m still feeling the effects a couple days later and my workout totally sucked a big one this morning. So yeah.. I’ve learned my lesson.
For any of those interested in learning more about the concepts behind paleo dieting, too lazy to google it themselves, or just want to tell me that I am stupid and they disagree, feel free to shoot me an email!!