Having tried various versions of diet plans from vegan to Biggest Loser to low-fat to low-carb to Lemon Juice Fast over the past year (um, except for the last one), I've found that I keep reverting to a crap-full diet with too much beer on the side. Unsurprisingly, given that my running was severely limited for a long period because of an injury at the same time that my eating habits were falling apart, I gained a good chunk of weight this year. Okay, I'll say it out loud: nearly 20 pounds. That's appalling.
Okay, even 20 pounds up, I'm not really fat. I'm pushing the upper end of the normal BMI for my height, though, and I don't like it. My clothes don't fit and somebody added a spare tire around my belly over the past year. Oh wait, that was me.
So, new year, new me, right? I stumbled across the Paleo diet plan and it seems to make a lot of sense. Paleo's underlying concept of eating the way our bodies evolved to eat makes sense to me. I think today's Paleo diet needs to take into account the lifestyle changes of the past 10k years, but nonetheless, it makes sense to me that a diet heavy in veggies with fruit, lean meat, nuts, and the like is probably better for me than McDonald's cheeseburgers, fries, and light beer.
Now, I do NOT think that all-meat, all-the-time is good for anyone. The Atkins diet where you can eat all the bacon cheeseburgers that you want, so long as you skip the fries and the bun, doesn't make any sense to me at all. Our paleolithic ancestors ate meat when they caught it and the veggies and nuts they found the rest of the time. So I don't think this is a license to eat unlimited fatty meat. Eating whatever we want because it's available and it tastes good is, after all, what's causing the problem.
I'm not quite sure how I'll do in a world without pizza. Sushi with rice. Onion rings. Gatorade and Gu Chomps. Milkshakes. Cheese. Chocolate... oh, chocolate... But... here's the thing. I have tried all of these balanced diet plans that were absolutely guaranteed to make me lose weight. And I haven't lost weight, and I feel like crap.
I am sick and tired of feeling like crap, and fighting with my body to force it into the lean machine that will power me through a competitive half marathon. You hear that, body? No more of this. We're going to work this out once and for all. I sincerely hope that does not mean that this can of Michelob Ultra on this airplane is the last beer I'll ever have, but I'm telling ya, if that's what it takes, that's what we'll do. Got it?
This blog is my version of a food journal, I'm hoping to use it to keep track of what I eat and how it affects me. My plan is to do 30 days of strict Paleo. I was going to start it after January 1, but I may ramp up starting right after I finish this beer. Seriously, do I think it's gonna get any easier in a few days? Probably not.
After 30 days I'll figure out if this is a fad or a lifestyle for me. A lot of what I'm reading indicates that eating Paleo 80% of the time, or even 6 days out of 7, is adequate to maintain most of the health benefits without driving yourself crazy. Crazier. My race calendar for next year calls for a half marathon or a 10 miler sometime in March, so I'll have to consider how heavy training will affect what's suitable for food. We'll wing it.
In any case, it will be an interesting experiment. I'll take some "before" pics when I get home (NO, I am not posting them!) and see what we can do for a soft launch of my 30 Days of Paleo. Yippie!
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