DISCLAIMER: I am not an expert on the Paleo/ Primal/ Evolutionary/ Caveman diet. I read a lot about it… I follow great blogs… I listen to podcasts by people that are the experts. I will offer my opinion, but I will also link to many blogs and other great resources.
Here we are… day 1. I have been thinking about a Paleo challenge for some time… more than a year now. Why wait so long? Well, I should start with my intro to CrossFit and Paleo.
I started into CrossFit in May 2009. Before that, I had not really exercised on a regular basis for more than a year… maybe even 2. I had worked out in TaeKwonDo for 3-4 years before that, and really nothing else since high school. I had been traveling a lot for work and had just come home from working 42 days in the Arctic Circle in a remote camp on the North Slope Oil Fields in Alaska. Not a very fun place… the scenery never changes, the cold is REALLY cold, and when the wind picks up, it is almost unbearable to be outside in it. Imagine being a medic in a camp of ~165 folks, available 24 hours a day with nowhere else to go and the only people you regularly talk to are only there to see you because you have cold medicine or something to help them sleep. It was stressful… to top it off, when I got home from this trip, my wife was in the process of becoming my ex-wife… just a little added stress? YES! I was overweight, depressed, and uncomfortable in my body. I felt like I needed to change me in order to make my life a little better. Enter CrossFit South Aurora (CFSA) and my old friend and past co-worker, Dave Gordon. I walked into CFSA with no idea what to expect. I just came in to see what this CrossFit thing was all about. It scared the crap out of me. However, I came back the next day to try the workout at Dave’s insistence. I couldn’t even finish the workout of the day or WOD… for nearly 2 weeks. I came in 3-4 times a week to workout. It was cathartic… we would play angry music to help my mood and to get me through the WOD. I always walked out in pain, but felt so much better than I did when I walked in. Along with CrossFit, I started walking a couple of miles a day and tried a run at the South Beach Diet which I had attempted a couple of times before. I lost 30 pounds between May and August and felt amazing. I started hearing about the Zone diet and Paleo. I read up on both and thought Paleo sounded more along the lines of what I might be able to stick with. I think I actually tried Paleo around the middle of July (South Beach was too restrictive and was no fun). It is worthwhile to mention that I have been in Emergency Medical Services (EMS) for more than 22 years now. Why is that important? If you know anyone that works on an ambulance, you know a little bit about the EMS diet… caffeine, nicotine, chocolate, and alcohol. I have never been much of a drinker, and only smoked for about a month when I was 18, so I probably overcompensated with the caffeine and chocolate. There is not much of a workout program unless you work for a fire department, and unless we were on a call, we did not do much besides sit around waiting for the next call.
The heaviest I have ever been was about 220 pounds with a 41 inch waist. When I started at CFSA I weighed 205 pounds and had a 39 inch waist. From May to August of 2009, I dropped 30 pounds and 7 inches from my waist. Not bad… but I knew I could do better. I started reading as much information about Paleo as I could… I followed blogs and listened to podcasts. Before I knew it, I was answering questions that folks in the gym and elsewhere had about eating a clean diet. CrossFit helped me a lot, but CrossFit and a better diet made a world of difference.
Fast forward to today. Think about why you started CrossFit. Have you met your goal(s)? Do you look, feel, and perform better than the first day you walked in and tried a workout? My guess is that unless you started today, you have seen some positive results. Is CrossFit for everyone? Maybe not… but some form of exercise is. If you stumbled onto this blog and are not regularly exercising… and you ARE still reading this, thank you. Some exercise will help you reach your goal of improved health. However, this is a Paleo challenge. While I will talk about exercise a bit, I will refer you to the CFSA website (here) or to the CrossFit main site (here) to learn more about adding regular exercise to your life.
If you have seen results with exercise, you may be feeling like it is not happening fast enough. You may think you too can do more. So, we have challenged you to try a new diet… I don’t really like the word diet, so let’s call it a lifestyle, for a month. You can do anything for a month, right? “But Scott, what does this lifestyle change mean? What am I going to eat for a month? Can I still have my coffee and bagel for breakfast?” … This IS a lifestyle change. In a nutshell, it means no more buying packaged/ processed food, no more bagels or grains of any kind (for a month), no more dairy (for a month), and no more legumes (for a month). Paleo is a way of eating that mimics, in a fairly neolithic way, the way our ancestors ate more than 10,000 years ago.
Our paleolithic ancestors were hunter-gatherers. They were not farmers. They were nomadic and followed food around in order to survive. They did not have a nice 2-story house or an apartment. They did not have cars or grocery stores. There work was foraging and hunting for a few hours a day and relaxing and playing the rest of the time. They walked everywhere. They slept when the sun went down and woke when the sun rose again. They ate whatever fruits and vegetables they came across that were in season. The meat they ate was free-range and ate off the land. The fish they caught was wild. The fowl they ate was allowed to eat whatever it found on the ground or in the trees. We are not our paleolithic ancestors. We do have a house or apartment, we can get in our cars and drive to the grocery store at any hour of the day or night, we have electricity to power our artificial light 24 hours a day. This has made it really easy to be lazy about what we put into our bodies. Eating a clean diet does not take a lot of brain power. It does not require a lot of work. There is some buying, preparing, storing of food, but it is not a lot of work. Just like you can do anything for a month, you can take a few minutes to prepare a meal or several and put the leftovers in the refrigerator.
“How do I get started on this paleo journey?” Great question… start by cleaning out any non-paleo foods from the pantry, refrigerator and freezer. Remove anything with grains: bread; bagels; flour tortillas; crackers; beer (What?!?!?); oats; flour; rice; barley; bran; cereal… remove any dairy: milk; you can keep butter, but it is best if it is from grass fed cows; soft cheeses; hard cheeses (if you want to lose weight)… remove any legumes: peanuts (they ARE a legume, not an actual nut); peanut butter; black beans; lentils; pinto beans; soy beans; lima beans; grean beans; etc. es, I am asking you to not have grains, legumes, or dairy for an entire month. Now, look at all that empty space. Go to the store and stay on the periphery, that is where most of the good stuff is… avoid the bakery. Buy some beef, chicken, pork, fish, shellfish, fresh veggies, salad fixins, maybe a good salad dressing (just to get started) without milk or grains in it.
Watch this video by Robb Wolf… paleo guru.
Go to this page to get started. There is a ton of great stuff on Robb’s site.
“But, isn’t eating paleo expensive”? It can be, but it doesn’t have to be. Check out this post by primaltoad. He put together a good paleo meal plan for 30 days for just over $200, and he ate really well. There is a shopping list and some recipes in this blog post. This is your starting point.
Other things to know…
Sleep is your friend. Think about our paleolithic ancestors. They did not have electric lights or television. They did have a fire to offer some light and warmth, but they most likely went to bed when it was dark and woke up when it was light again. In an ideal world, you would be getting 8-10 hours of sleep a night. Sounds tough, right? How am I supposed to get that much sleep when “I have to be up early for work”, “I have kids”, “I can never get to sleep before 1 am”, “I can’t miss the 10 pm news”, or “I have to have the TV on to help me fall asleep”. Lots of reasons why 8-10 hours of sleep is “impossible”. Start by getting over the idea that you need the TV on to help you sleep. The easiest way to do this is to take the TV out of your bedroom. That’s right… banish it to the garage, the den, or the basement. With that distraction gone, you have already begun working the concept of sleep hygiene. Here is the short version of sleep hygiene:
- Your bedroom should be primarily for sleep (with the occasional, or more frequent, romantic interlude)
- The bedroom should not be your office, or anything else that is extremely distracting
- Have a bedtime routine. This means go to bed at the same time every night. Do not drink caffeine after 4 pm (or so), don’t exercise within 2 hours of bedtime, don’t read any engaging books or work on anything that makes you think a lot (I like mindless things like word searches)
- Sleep in a totally dark room. There should be no light from a nightlight, your alarm clock, or outside. Blackout the windows if needed.
- Sleep in a room that is a bit cool. You can add blankets if you need to, but the room should not be too warm.
- Wake up without the aid of your alarm clock… that is coming if you do all the stuff mentioned above.
Make sure you get some regular exercise. You don’t have to CrossFit everyday. You really shouldn’t CrossFit everyday. In order to see results and reach your goal, you have to set aside and take recovery time. This does not mean that the days you are not CrossFitting that you go for a long hike, a run, a swim, or ride your bike. Recovery only happens when you rest (see “sleep is your friend” above). You can get exercise by means other than CrossFit. Go ahead and take a long hike alone or with friends, swim, play hockey/ rugby/ football, take up a martial art, ride your bike, whatever. Make sure you are moving a bit. Have fun.
That’s it for now. Check back here every few days. I will expand on the concepts listed above either through my own take on each area, or by linking to the experts. I will post links to some great recipe websites and offer some advice on how you can make it through this first 30 days. It might be a good idea to subscribe to the RSS feed so that you receive an email when changes have been made. Feel free to leave me comments and questions. I will try to answer them every couple of days or so.
Have a great day and congratulations on starting this journey.
Scott
