Paleo and Liking It!

It's Day 5 of my Paleo experiment and can I say, "I'm impressed!"

So far I have not experienced any of the side effects (major cravings, withdrawal, fatigue) that many others have reported on various forums. I feel great, energy is high, and my mood is quite good. I've already lost 2lbs in these first few days.

There is going to taking some tweaking and creativity on the menu planning to keep it interesting and not fall into eating the same proteins all the time, but I like to cook so I don't think that will be too much of a problem.

I had a great smoothie this morning, post workout: 1C green ginger tea, 1 orange, 1 frozen banana, 1T walnuts, 1T flaxseed meal. I love my VitaMix blender!! The smoothie powered me through a crazy work morning...I didn't even realize I missed my snack until it was lunch time!

Going Paleo

I've been intrigued with the Paleo Diet concept since I read The Paleo Diet for Athletes last summer, but never really worked up the courage to put it in motion.

The time has come.

Although reasonably happy with my pre-injury weight at the end summer, I could never get past a certain point even though I was eating clean and still training six days a week. I was still carrying around a higher percentage of body fat than I really wanted. Perhaps it was the diet fairly high in lowfat dairy (cottage cheese, greek yogurt, 1% milk) and grains (oatmeal, brown rice, kashi cereal) - mainstays of the athlete's diet, or so I thought.

Now that I am post-injury and back on a regular training schedule (12-week Oly plan starts in two weeks), I thought I would have lost some of the injury/holiday weight I put on (about 8 lbs), but the regular plan is not working and my body is stubbornly clinging to the fat. Keep in mind that I wasn't looking for miracles either; one to two pounds a week would have suited me just fine. Grrr.

Just around Christmastime I received my copy of The Paleo Diet Cookbook. It was languishing on my nightstand as I pursued the tried-and-true (or so I thought) eating plan these past few weeks. What was the push? I just came out of a two-day migraine bender, usually triggered by food. I picked up the book, read through it, and decided it was time to try something different.

I'm starting a two-week test period on Saturday and trying to go cold-turkey. I don't know how my family is going to react, since all dinners will be Paleo dinners, but I am confident that I will be able to make something everyone is going to like. I "test-drove" the recipe pictured above, Chili Lime Shrimp, which everyone liked.

I'll talk about the process here. The recipes, preparation, ups and downs, and the "how am I going to possibly do without oatmeal, bread, cereal, milk, cheese, yogurt" dilemmas I face along the way.

Oh, and I'm leaving for a business/family visit trip to the mainland after the first two weeks, so I'll talk about how THAT is going to work with this new plan too.

I'm excited!