Paleo

While I'm still not sure I actually want to keep this blog up to date, I do kind of want to record my experiences as I transition to Paleo nutrition.

As a recap - I spent the summer racing races, training sporadically, travelling a lot for work and generally maintaining my weight even though I still have more to lose.  About two weeks ago, I was getting entirely too puffy and out of control (too much travel and restaurant foods!) so I decided to 'go Paleo'.  I've attempted this previously but was not able to stick with it.  Back then, all I could think about was the things I could no longer eat.  This time, I'm trying to avoid that line of thinking.  But I'm getting ahead of myself...  So two weeks ago, I started to eat Paleo.  This means, using the diet our paleolithic ancestors ate as a guideline for being as healthy as humanly possible.  The three biggest 'modern western diet' items to remove are sugar, grains and legumes.  All of them.  Typically, dairy is also removed but given the health benefits of raw, unprocessed milk from grass fed cows (or even better, goats!), I am keeping dairy in my diet. Dairy from our own goats...not dairy from the grocery store.  Additionally, most Paleo followers will shun potatoes.  I will be eating sweet potatoes as fuel for long workouts (I am still trying to be an endurance athlete here!) and the occasional white potato if it's from our garden.  What we will eat are tons of fresh fruits and veggies, grass-fed or wild meats, and nuts and seeds.  While it sounds restrictive, it's really not.  What I am considering using this blog for is to record how I feel as I progress on this journey AND to post some of the meals we are eating.  I think it'll serve as a good reminder for myself when I inevitably get 'whiney' about not being able to eat scones or hummus anymore. ;-)  I've purchases a few paleo cookbooks and the plethora of wonderful things to eat is truly mind-boggling!

On August 18th, I made this decision and on the 19th began implementing it.  I did not start out super strict predominantly because we had a lot of non-paleo food in the house that I didn't really want to waste.  My first few days were about 85-90% paleo with usually one partially non-paleo meal or item thrown in.  As time went on, I ate less and less non-paleo food.  After my first week (where I lost 5 lbs of bloat!), I convinced my husband to join me.  He's now been eating predominantly paleo for about a week as well.

Paleo requires a bit more planning ahead than I've been doing recently, but really, that's a good thing. We've gotten very lazy and have been eating out or eating crap entirely too much anyway.  What I don't know is how I'm going to manage my fall travel schedule, but we'll cross that bridge when I come to it.  For now, this is going very well.  I feel good.  Well, until today anyway.  Today I'm dragging ass.  There are two probable causes - the first is that its TTOM. Figures.  The second is that I've heard that two weeks into this, people start to feel sluggish and tired and then then kind of break through it and start feeling really good.  I hope that's true!  Lastly, it's possible that I just need sleep, but really - it's only Wednesday and I've been getting pretty good sleep this week so I don't think that's it.

As an example, here is what I ate yesterday:

B: smoothie made with spinach, protein powder, blackberries, 1/2 banana and goats milk.  coffee with goats milk.
L: Big salad of spinach & baby greens with cukes, sliced almonds and home-made feta.  Topped with tuna and raspberry viniagrette.
D: eggs scrambled with onions and zucchini and topped with pico de gallo.

Snacks were a few mixed nuts, one date, two plums (of our trees!) and an apple.

Doesn't sound too bad, does it?  Lets see how I feel in a few days...