The Paleo Diet Unleashed.
It’s been slighly longer than one month since I started the Paleo Challenge. I’m by no means an expert but here are my thoughts so far:
1. This way of eating requires FAR less mental energy compared to Zone eating. No weighing, measuring, or eyeballing Zone blocks when I go out to eat. No math. Eating is fun again. I see food as food and not as macronutrients, grams, or blocks.
2. I can use the additional mental energy (toughness) other places – such as in a WOD. Think about it, if you’re always freaking out about how many blocks, what kind of carbs, what ratio, how much fat, how many grams, and when to have your snack – how much mental energy do you have to commit to kicking ass in the daily WOD? My goal is better performance, improved health, and PRs so why would I want to eat in a way that takes away from one vital aspect of getting through a WOD – mental energy.
3. Prior to the Challenge I was strict zone (3x fat). For some ridiculous reason, I thought the non Paleo foods that I ate were the ones that weren’t that bad – such as legumes and buckwheat. Legumes grow from the ground, they are a product of the earth, how could they be bad? I thought that by avoiding the really bad non Paleo foods such as milk, butter, cheese, and ice cream (most of the time) that was good enough and that I was getting most (if not all) of the benefits the Paleo diet claimed to deliver. Apparently, this was my way of justifying that what I was eating was OK.
Going strict Paleo made a huge difference. I gained mental sharpness. I sleep better. My performance is improving. I am less irritated. I don’t crave foods. I’m not hungry for hours after I eat. I eat a meal and then move on with my day, rather than obsessing about the next time I will eat. Instead of focusing on what I can’t eat, I am excited about the healthy meals I can create.
This past weekend I had some ice cream – Boulder Ice Cream Sweet Cream. I was a little sad to break my Paleo streak but decided I would see what affect it might have. I was mostly curious to see what kind of cravings it might stir up. While I still liked the taste of ice cream I didn’t have the desire or craving for more. I’m back at Paleo as of today.
I want to thank Rochelle Hagnas of CrossFit Portland for her help and tips in getting me started on the right track for my Paleo Challenge. Rochelle passed on some great tips to get me started.
Her recommendations were:
1. Keep it simple. Eat Paleo. Don’t try and combine it with the Zone.
2. Eat a pound of vegetables a day, make sure you get your required amount of protein each day, and then add some fat.
3. When you get a craving eat some nuts, or nut butter, or a salad with some olive oil.
My recommendations after my month are:
1. Keep a food log. At least for the first week. Track the food you eat (what kind of food, not how much), cravings, moods, and length of time until you are again hungry. Look at your log after one week and see what information you can pull from the data collected. Are you satisfied for longer periods of time? Are your cravings diminishing?
2. Eat. Sounds silly, but EAT. Eat whatever quantities you heart desires for now – just make sure it is ALL paleo foods. It’s too difficult to dial in a complete overhaul of your diet, overcome cravings, make good choices, AND be worried about quantity. Once you’re dialed in on what to eat after a month, then go back and think about eating a little less, if you think you need to. Many people follow Paleo without any weighing or measuring and perform at a level with which they are content.
3. Try to drink 1/2 your body weight in ounces (150lb person should drink 75 ounces) of water per day. Altitude dries us our up here in Boulder. Stay hydrated.
4. Great reference on what to eat/not eat: Paleo Diet Foods. If people have others, please let me know!
Sleeping like a RockStar
Sleep does great things for athletes. It enables us to recover and perform better, makes us less prone to injury, and makes us mentally sharp for our daily tasks. But sleep and I have never been on the same side of the bed. I could go to bed at 8pm or 2am and I will still wake up at 6:30am. I’m a natural early riser and must get to bed early to have any chance of logging some hours of mattress time. The problem is that most of my hours spent in bed are a half sleep where I drift in and out of consciousness. On days that my alarm is set for 5:45, I wake up at 5:43.
Trying to go back to sleep after I wake is a waste of time. The day has started! On the very few occasions that I have managed to sleep until 8am I wake up and think to myself, “Shit, the day is half over.”
If there was a WOD – sleeping for time – I would DESTROY it. My time would probably be better than my Fran time, well, maybe not, but you get the point.
With all that said, it has come to my attention that, since starting the Paleo Challenge, I sleep. I sleep straight through the night and on Saturday – I SLEPT FOR 12 HOURS STRAIGHT. I’m not sure that has ever happened – honestly. I’m also dreaming – vivid dreams that I remember details of after I wake up. I’m sleeping in a deep sleep. This morning I woke up confused as to where I was, what day it was, and why Pink’s So What was blaring in my ear (it’s my alarm song).
I’m still drinking coffee (one cup a day) so it’s not the absence of caffeine. I’m training the same schedule as always w/ CrossFit 3 on 1 off supplemented with CrossFit Endurance workouts.
Could legumes and dairy really have that much affect on my sleep??!! I’ll go sleep on it.
Read MoreHunger Graph
As mentioned in an earlier post, I started the Paleo Challenge last week and kept a log on paper. I posted some of my first week’s log entries to this blog.
It’s now been 11 days since I started the Paleo Challenge. The first few days were difficult. The cravings were not horrendous but my body felt lethargic despite the fact that I was eating almond butter in large quantities from the jar with a spoon. As a side note, growing up, my mother used to send my brother and I out the door to school with peanut butter on a spoon. No, it wasn’t Paleo, but she had is right knowing her kids needed fat rather than Pop Tarts for a good day at school!
When I did the Zone, despite my consistent adherence to my block prescription and increasingly multiplied fat blocks, I continued to be hungry all the time, or om, obsessed with food. This did not change much with what I ate or what I was doing in the hours between meals. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still a big fan of the Zone and think my eventual end point will be a Paleo/Zone eating style, but for now, I’m focusing on Paleo only.
As part of my log I kept track of the number of hours until I experienced hunger. I know, I know – there is little scientific basis for this graph. You’re thinking, “Come on Nicole, there are a TON of factors that you have not accounted for in this graph.” Fine, I will agree with that. But it’s still interesting to look at! Check out the increase in hours until hungry beginning at Day 5! I’m going to create another graph for the last week of my Paleo month and compare.
Paleo for Dogs
One of the leading factors in my pathway to Paleo was reading the CF Journal from November 2003 which contained an article titled “Dog Food: Carnivore or Cornivore?” The article profiles Athena, the CrossFit mascot who eats a well-balanced diet of raw chicken legs, fish oil, and a little grass.
“Take any dog food manufacturer’s claimed caloric requirements for a dog and place an amount of naturally available biomass equivalent to that load of sixty to seventy percent carbohydrate and place it on a tarp. Now find a dog that will eat that much grass and vegetation. It would take a goat.
The premise of a dog requiring a high carbohydrate diet is patently absurd. the industrialization of food has produced faire that neither man nor dog should eat.” - CF Journal, November 2003
This resonated with me. My dogs were active and happy, yet hyper, but overall pudgy dogs. I didn’t overfeed them. I fed them almost HALF of what was recommended on the back of their food bag for their body weights. But every year they went to the vet having gained a pound or two. Sound similar to some human experiences?
I looked into their food’s nutritional breakdown and discovered that their food was 48.67% carbohydrate!! And just 22.56% protein!! A brief internet search for a breakdown of the diet of wild dogs or wolves turned up this great article:
“Because of the various canine features discussed above, it is logical to conclude that the diet of the dog should be closely linked to the diet of wild canines like the wolf. This gives us a strong foundation for how to feed our own dogs. According to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, the Timber Wolf (the dog’s closest living relative) diet is comprised of 55% white-tailed deer, 16% beavers, 10% snowshoe hares, 19% rodents and other small mammals. The wolf and the wild dog ingest almost the entire carcass of the prey they catch. This means that there is a small amount of pre-digested vegetation eaten when the stomach (tripe) of an herbivore is eaten.
Your dog can be fed in the exact same way. ” Source: Evolutionary Nutrition for the Dog, written by Sarah Griffiths
That was enough information for me. I was also curious to see if the diet would cause them to lean out, change behavior (all that stored up insulin has to have an affect on them somehow!), or improve their terrible breath. So off we went on a Paleo Challenge for the dogs.
Solstice is a moody but loyal 7 year old mutt whose personality and physical appearance most resembles that of an Australian Shepherd. She enjoys obsessive compulsive sessions with any tennis ball in site, chasing small children that move too fast, and eating at a snail’s pace. Her records indicate she has gained twelve (TWELVE!?!) pounds since she was 1.5 years old despite maintaining an active lifestyle and extremely consistent amounts of food intake. Weigh-in: 61 pounds.
Emmy is a ditzy but loyal goofball. A golden retriever of five years old she enjoys squiggling around on her back, wondering when her next meal will take place, monitoring any action in the kitchen, and snoring even when she is awake. Her records indicate that she has gained 6 pounds since 1.5 years of age. Weigh-in: 59 pounds.
Here they are at their first Paleo meal. Obviously excited.
Eat a Donut People
My boss brought donuts to our staff meeting this morning. At one point the meeting fell off pace and to restart the group he chirped, “Eat a donut people, you need sugar!”
It was as if the Paleo world was throwing it in my face! While I can’t eat donuts in the first place (gluten intolerant) I am a sugar addict – chocolate, cookies, ice cream – and I got an instant hunger and craving in my gut after he said that. Ah! Maybe there is something associated between sugar and cravings.
6:00 – Felt hungry when I was teaching class
7:15 – 1 date at the grocery store on way to work
7:30 – Paleo pancake, 2 oz. Deli meat, ½ cup blueberries
7:35 – I’m already done eating??!!
tea (caffeine free, herbal), water
10:15 – I’m hungry and I have a headache
10:30 – cup of coffee
12:00 – lunch, Tahini Spinach, 1.5 ounces ground beef, 2ish ounces turkey deli meat, 1.5 cups broccoli and @ 10 macadamia nuts
12:28 – I feel hungry
1:14 – still getting hunger pains
1:38 – 10 almonds, Starbucks peppermint tea, I averted my eyes from the Dark Espresso chocolate bar
1:50 – my head hurts in the front left side
2:00- zero brain power right now, I’m in a daze
4:00 – ate everything in site, an egg, some ham, a lara bar, lots of almond butter, oddly still not full
9:00 – ½ avocado, tomato chicken, and olive oil salad, sautéed onions
