The Whole30 Paleo: My January Experience

This year's holidays were a big difference from the past. A year of living mostly Paleo meant that I no longer even wanted to eat anything with gluten in it (bye bye bread, rolls, cookies, cakes), and I didn't even really overeat on sugar much. When it came to holiday meals, my body knew what "enough" felt like, and that generally meant stopping well before that holiday over-full sensation that many of us know all too well. I like that I feel so in tune with my body, and am inclined to choose healthy foods because that's what makes me feel best, not because I feel like I "should" or would feel guilty for eating otherwise.

Still, I had been indulging the sweet tooth a bit much, and January is a good time to re-boot healthy habits, so I decided to take the Whole30 Challenge and go thirty days on a strict Paleo regime. I also thought it would be a good opportunity to see if removing the smallish amounts of raw dairy that I normally eat would produce any notable benefits, and whether or not I could train at a high intensity on a strictly Paleo diet.

I have to admit that the first week was consumed with chocolate withdrawals. It's my last indulgence and a hard one to give up. I usually have a couple squares of good dark chocolate every day, and I realize that it makes a difference in my mood. To call me "cranky" in the first week of January would've been an understatement. The second week felt pretty great, but by the third week I felt frantically under-carbed after a lot of workouts. I felt like I just could not get enough carbs into my body and it made me appreciate the necessity of fueling workouts with a proper amount of glycogen. I ate a ridiculous amount of dried fruit (which had the predictable digestive effects), plus bananas and yams until I was sick of them.

There was one occasion on which I blew the Whole30 protocol, and it was definitely tied to glycogen depletion. After a hard swim workout followed by a tough interval run, I came home and prowled around the kitchen like a crazed beast. I ate some nuts, ate a banana, followed it with some dried mango, then opened the cupboard and poured myself a big bowl of organic rice krispies. Aaaaahhhhhh. All of a sudden, equilibrium was restored. So that was a clue to me that perhaps 100% Paleo is not going to be the way I eat for the remainder of my Ironman training.

After a month of eating 100% Paleo (except for one bowl of rice krispies), I have reached the following conclusions:

1. I need to fuel tough workouts with simple sugars. Sometimes I can get away with fruit leathers and bananas, but using drink mixes, gels, and bars gets to be increasingly crucial as you dial up the intensity and duration. I'm going to go back to following the recommendations in The Paleo Diet for Athletes for fueling my training sessions.

2. I didn't notice a difference between having some dairy in the form of raw goat's milk and giving it up on the Whole30. So I'm going back to milk in my tea and smoothies. Especially smoothies, I found that coconut milk and almond milk messed with my stomach and didn't give me the protein boost that using milk does.

3. Although I proved I can do without for a month without a great deal of difficulty (barring the first few days), I'm definitely going back to a couple squares of chocolate a day. Just for my mental health.

4. I'm not opposed to adding in "safe starches" (rice and potatoes) when necessary, especially if I feel like my glycogen is getting depleted. But being on the Whole30 made me more conscious of where I use these as filler, and what I can use as alternatives (like cauliflower for dishes with sauces).

All in all, I think the Whole30 is a worthwhile thing to do. It makes you rethink your approach to food and to try new meals. I used a lot of new recipes, and the ones that I liked will get included in my regular repertoire. It's a great way to reset yourself and to find out which parts of your diet are working for you and which are not. I'm not enough of a Paleo Purist to eat like this all the time, but it's a useful tool in finding the optimal diet for each of us.

Paleo Challenge Report Part 2: What I've Been Eating

A couple of quick notes about the Paleo eating plan and the Paleo Challenge:

1) This is not a diet in the usual sense of that word. Originally, diet meant basically what you eat. Like birds eat a diet of seeds and bugs. But now if you say "I'm eating a Paleo diet", what immediately pops into people's minds is "weight loss". While the Paleo diet seems to induce weight loss in a lot of people, especially if they're typically eating a lot of simple carbs going into it, that's not the main focus (for me at least) of trying to eat this way.

2) The main focus is health, across all body systems. Good health feels like this: You go to sleep easily, you pop out of bed with lots of energy, you can perform all sorts of demanding tasks during the day both mental and physical without feeling tired or lethargic, and your body systems all function well.

Okay, that being said, it seems like eating this way might take some getting used to. So what's a typical day on the Paleo Challenge like? Easier than you might think.



First of all, I try to think of each meal as about 2/3 vegetables, 1/3 meat or other protein. I've tried to get really good about prepping a bunch of vegetables all at once so I've always got a supply on hand of vegetables cut and ready to go for anything I want to cook.

BREAKFAST:

I like to start out my day with a whole bunch of veggies, scrambled up with some eggs or sausage or bacon or even some hamburger left over from last night. For hubby and I, I basically fill my cast iron skillet with vegetables before adding 4 eggs, so there's a good wallop of vitamins, anti-oxidants and protein to start off our day.

Once a week on Sundays, I cook up a big batch of "Paleo Crepes" made with almond meal and coconut flour. I put the extras in the fridge and the kids eat them all week. I usually have them on Sunday morning with a bunch of berries.

LUNCH:

If we're at home for lunch, I might cook up a nice stir fry. Throw a bunch of veggies in the pan and add some frozen shrimp. Toss in some garlic, onions, ginger, a spritz of sesame oil, some Bragg's Liquid Aminos  which add a flavor similar to soy sauce, and you've got a really great lunch in five minutes.

If we're out of the house, I might take along some turkey or chicken slices and a bunch of snackable veggies like carrots, red pepper slices, celery, etc.

DINNER:

For dinner, I try to get creative and find things that fit well with my Paleo desires, but that the kids will also like. Taco Night is a good one, because I just make a huge Taco Salad (with no chips or taco shells), and the kids make regular ol' Tacos.

Other favorites are:

Pasta (I make a big meat and veggie sauce and serve it over steamed cauliflower for myself/hubby and pasta for the kids)

Soup: My homemade chicken or turkey is a huge favorite, and if we roast a whole chicken or turkey I can make an extra meal or two out of it by boiling up the carcass and making soup. I make it good and spicy with lots of veggies and pepper.

Fried Chicken: I've discovered I can make this by lightly rolling the chicken pieces in coconut flour. The kids declared it "delicious". I served it with some big bowls of steamed broccoli. Yum!

That's about it. I try to rotate through stuff so I don't get bored. I try to make sure I'm feeling happy about what I'm eating, and getting lots of fresh and steamed vegetables in there. If I feel like I need a few carbs during a heavy workout day, I'll throw in an apple or some dried fruit. Snacks are often nuts, jerky, or coconut chips (my favorite).

Paleo Challenge: The Report, Part 1

I finished the 30-Day Paleo Challenge this week, re-starting it after the stomach bug caused me to resort to saltines on Day 5.  For the most part, I found it was very easy to do.

The Sugar Monster

After just a few days, my sugar cravings were completely gone. You might remember that just a couple of months ago I was craving sugar like a heroin addict looking for a hit. So to have it depart so suddenly, to be able to open up a cupboard and look at a pound of chocolate, or to dish out an entire pan of lemon bars to hungry teenagers and not have a single bit, that's pretty amazing, right? Well, I think it is. I've lived with the Sugar Monster my entire life. I remember walking to the store as a 12 year old to replace with my crumpled up bills of allowance money an entire quart of ice cream I'd eaten, so my parents wouldn't find out and get mad at me. How screwed up is that? I ate so much sugar, I had a yeast Army living in my body. I actually got thrush as a teenager and the doctor said that was so unusual he'd never seen it except in babies and seriously ill old people.

So the fact that this Sugar Monster was just {poof} GONE is amazing all by itself.

The Thyroid Horror Show

The next issue I was wondering about was my thyroid. One of the things that spurred me to take the Paleo Challenge was that my doctor had recently decided to lower my thyroid medication (possibly because the earlier switch to mostly Paleo made my thyroid actually start working again, hooray!). Whenever they muck with your medication, Bad Things Happen. Like you hair starts to fall out, you get incredibly cold, your skin gets scaly, muscles get achy, and you gain weight like nobody's business. The last time my medication got mucked with I gained 13 pounds in about three weeks. It's crazy. So this time when they changed my medication I watched all of this happen and decided that if Mostly Paleo was good news for my thyroid then 100% Paleo might just stave off the Thyroid Horror Show.

You know what? I was right. By the time I started on the Challenge, I'd reduced my medication (per doctor's orders) by 25%. I was already starting to experience some of the thyroid symptoms (very very cold for one thing) and had gained 5 pounds. But by a few days into the Challenge, it all stopped. Within a week I wasn't cold anymore, and my family was happy that I didn't have to roast them out with the heaters. My muscle cramps stopped. The weight gain stopped, and within three weeks I'd lost it all back to my regular body weight. Pretty powerful stuff.

No Carb Exercise???

Through it all, I've continued both aerobic and anaerobic exercise. I've run as much as an hour and a half on the trail with no carbs whatsoever (and doesn't that run counter to conventional exercise "wisdom"??). My typical pre-workout breakfast is a big egg-and-veggie scramble. No bagels, toast, or even a banana to get those carbs flowing. Post workout snacks are jerky, and maybe some carrots. For fruit I've mostly stuck to frozen berries that we picked last summer. I have had a few bananas and half an apple here or there, but no serious carbs.

So without fueling with carbs, I've worked out an average of 13.5 hours a week, with a low of 11 and a high of 15.5. I've done weights, crossfit, trail running, kickboxing, Master's swimming, karate, track workouts, and taught Karate Conditioning without feeling underfueled or under-recovered. In fact, my recovery is pretty amazing.

For instance, my Tuesdays  include an hour to hour and a half of Karate in the morning, then an hour long hike with my dogs at noon, two hours of Karate in the evening (which often includes bodyweight work like pushups, situps, squats), and Karate Conditioning at 7:00. By the time I get home, I've exercised for 4 - 4.5 hours, some of it very high intensity (like today included sparring matches). I wake up Wednesday morning feel fresh as a daisy.

In A Nutshell: The Wrap-Up

At age 44, having that kind of energy is, well, nothing short of miraculous. So that's the first installment of my Paleo Report: Sugar Cravings Gone, Thyroid Stabilized, Incredible Fueling for extreme workouts. I call that success.

Tomorrow: What did I eat?

I Caved (and Not Like A Cavewoman)

Guilty. I admit it. I busted my 30 Day Paleo Challenge on only Day 5.

You would think that Day 1 would be the hardest, giving up on the chocolate and all that.

Nope.

You would think that Day 3 might present problems, being taken out to a nice restaurant for a business dinner. They ordered a big basket of bread with roasted garlic and butter and put it right down in front of me. They practically ran the dessert cart over my toes. Did I cave then?

Nope.

It was the stomach virus that did me in. I've been a little queasy for a couple of days. At first I wrote it off to maybe changing up what I was eating, but that wasn't it. I'll spare you the gory details, but at a certain point you simply know it's not caused by your menu. So what do you do when you have endless intestinal troubles? The BRAT diet of course. Bananas, Rice, Applesauce, Toast. The rice and toast are out in Paleoville, so I tried the applesauce (homemade, no sugar) and a banana. No dice. I tried some pickled ginger. No dice. By 7:30 yesterday evening when hubby was on his way home and called to see if I wanted him to pick up anything at the store, the only thing my body wanted was a few Saltines and an Ultra Strength Gin Gin or two.

So that's what I had. And I felt a whole lot better.

I guess that means I have to reboot the 30 days for busting the challenge, but it was worth it. I could actually sleep without a visit from my friend Ralph, and all was well in the world.

Paleo Challenge: Ground Zero

It's Moment Zero today for the 30 Day Paleo Challenge. I moved all of the chocolate and anything else tempting down to the basement cupboards. If hubby or the kids want some, at least I won't have to see it! I don't really like much in the way of sweet stuff, but giving up my daily dark chocolate habit will be HARD, no doubt about it.

I also went to Trader Joe's today and stocked up on veggies and nuts. Tried to get some different stuff that would be interesting palate-wise so I don't get bored. Also got some seafood and just in case I need a carb fix I got a small thing of figs. I figured one of those babies would do in a pinch ;-)

I'm not going to bore you with a daily blow-by-blow of Paleo eating, but my general plan (which is pretty much how I usually eat these days anyways) is:

Breakfast: Big egg/veggie scramble. I try to mix this up from day to day so I don't get bored. Mushrooms/spinach/bacon is one favorite combo, another is green pepper/zucchini/onions, and sausage/sun-dried tomato pesto in another.

Lunch: Often a salad. Lately it's been Lamb's lettuce with leftover holiday turkey. Sometimes I do tuna fish on celery, or other stuff. Usually some kind of fresh greens with some kind of meat that's not hot. Either that or leftovers. Today I had some leftover Turkey Soup that was really spicy and yummy on such a cold day.

Dinner: Variations on a theme of "How many different ways can I combine meat and vegetables and not get bored?" Stir fries are good, curries are also good, especially if mixed with coconut milk. Taco salad is my hubby's perennial fave. Mine is usually a good, really spicy pasta sauce served over steamed cauliflower.

Snacks: Some nuts, dried coconut, fresh snacky veggies like carrot sticks, and if I'm exercising I might have piece of fruit or some applesauce or yams.

That's it. It's not tough, though it can get boring. The rest of the family will probably complain some as I get very uninspired to cook things like my homemade Mac-and-Cheese or pizza for the kids when I don't even get to have a bite. Eventually after the challenge, I'll try to go back to my usual 80/20 or 90/10 eating, which is to say most of the time I eat pretty paleo, but I'll have half a piece of pizza or something when I feel like it. Plus the dark chocolate. Sigh. The dark chocolate, how I will miss thee!

Paleo Challenge for 30 Days, Who's In?

I am planning on re-dedicating myself to a strict paleo regimen in the new year after a few weeks of indulging in Christmas cookies and candy canes. I don't feel bad about the indulgence, mind you. For me that's part of the joy of the holiday season and with kids who love to do the holidays up big, I don't feel like being the Paleo Grinch who won't eat a bite. I also don't think a couple of weeks of eating a few cookies here and there is going to kill me. Still, I can feel that it's starting to wear me down (for one thing, I got my first cold in about 10 months, and I don't think it's any coincidence that it comes after two weeks of eating stuff like sugar and grains.)

With my new-found optimism about my improved thyroid function and the fact that even my lifelong battle with anemia rarely rears its head any more, I can see how much my health has improved during the months that I've focused on a more paleo-centric diet. Plus, I have a couple of friends who want to do a Paleo challenge, so this seems like an appropriate time to start.

Luckily, the folks over at Crossfit Love are doing a 30-Day Paleo Challenge starting on January 3. It's always nice to have some support and enthusiasm when you're challenging yourself, so I'm going to participate. They're doing to have interviews, give-aways, and recipes to keep us motivated. So if anyone's interested in joining me and seeing how the Paleo lifestyle can improve on your own health and fitness, let me know! Last year I started in Feburary after breaking my arm, figuring that since I couldn't exercise at that point, the best thing I could do for my fitness was to eat very very well. It made a huge difference in how I was feeling, so even when I could go back to exercising like I used to, I've kept most of the eating habit changes I made.

Here's the challenge details. Take a deep breath and jump in with me!

Join us for the THE WORLD’S LARGEST PALEO CHALLENGE.

Simply, 30 days of eating real food. Along with your high quality eating, you will have the ability to be a part of great giveaways, daily Paleo blogs posts, expert video interviews and much more. Expect to learn awesome knowledge, be ready for sweet giveaways and get an inspiring start to 2011.

Get Some.

On 1.3.11 you accept these challenge rules (Whole 9 Inspired):

1. Do not eat dairy. This includes butter, cheese (hard and soft), yogurt (even Greek) and milk (including cream in your coffee or tea). Dairy Penalty = 100 Pushups 2. Do not eat grains. This includes bread, rice, pasta, cereal, oatmeal, corn and all of those gluten-free pseudo-grains like quinoa and sprouted grains.  Grain Penalty = 100 Burpees
3. Do not eat legumes. This includes beans of all kinds (soy, black, kidney, etc.), peas, lentils, and peanuts. (No peanut butter, kids.) Legume Penalty = 150 Walking Lunges
4. Do not eat or add sugar of any kind, real or artificial. No maple syrup, honey, agave nectar, Splenda, Equal, Nutrasweet, xylitol, stevia, etc. Sugar Penalty = 200 Situps
5. Do not eat processed foods. This includes protein shakes, processed bars (like Zone bars), dairy-free creamers, etc. Processed Penalty = 100 Air Squats
6. Do not drink alcohol, in any form. Alcohol Penalty = 50 Pushups
7. Do not eat white potatoes. It’s kind of arbitrary, but one, they’re a nightshade, and two, sweet potatoes and yams are a more nutrient-dense option, so go for those instead.  (On that note, if you have serious inflammation issues like arthritis, you may want to consider avoiding all nightshades for 30 days.) White Potatoes Penalty = 20 min run

Each category has a separate penalty, if you break that rule please preform your penalty before rejoining the challenge. Penalties are cumulative. Ex: If you eat bread with butter, the it is a 100 burpees and 100 pushups.

Paleo Friends and Family Challenge

If anyone wants to virtually join in, the 6-week Paleo Challenge is on. My mom, my daughter, hubby, and some friends are all joining in.

So far I've completed 6 weeks of Paleo myself, with only one real cheat day (yesterday went out for an awesome burger and chocolate malt with birthday gal Carrie).

Results so far for me:  11.5 pounds GONE, also down 3.5 % body fat so I have been losing fat, not muscle. Just had to pile up a whole ton of clothes that no longer fit to give away to Goodwill.

The rules are simple:

1) Think about what a paleolithic hunter-gatherer would eat
2) Eat that

Okay, so maybe it isn't that simple to eat like a caveman in modern times. So here's some basic guidelines:

1) Every meal consists of meat or fish + 1/4 to 1/2 pound of vegetables (yes, you heard me right!)
2) No legumes, potatoes, rice, grains (yes this means no PB&J sandwiches, no soy, no peanuts, bread, pasta, etc.). Tree nuts are fine.
3) Fruits and starchy veggies like yams, squash, sweet potatoes only after a workout, and only in moderation.
4) Strict paleo is no dairy. Okay, I do cheat on this one since we drink raw milk and I think it's a great protein source. You can decide for yourself on this one. For sure no sugary yogurts or highly processed cheese food substances.
5) No sugar
6) Limit of 4 alcoholic drinks a week (not all in one day!) Red or white wine is fine, no beer. Yes, beer is made from grain.

I think that's it. It's a good idea to take some "Before" photos and measurements, as well as weight and body fat. If you've recently had blood work done (cholesterol, etc.) that's another good point for comparison later. You don't have to share this info with anyone, but if you want to later that's good too!