Paleo and Faileo, Days 1-14

This post is related to diet. Not diet-ING but general diet. DISCLAIMER: When I write about diet, please know that I love pizza, cheeseburgers, french fries, chocolate, cake, and cheesesteaks as much as the next guy and if you can easily and often wholeheartedly enjoy these things and live life and enjoy them and love yourself and do all the things you love, I think that's great! You go girl or boy! You go. My posts on diet will be meant to share experiences, experiments, hypotheses, and personal unfounded theories that may or may not make sense for you and your body. ;) I know of other friends who struggle with finding a balanced and delicious diet and hopefully, collectively, we can, sometime, in the near or distant future, find a solution that works for each (or heck, even all) of us.

So okay, let's talk about Paleo for a hot minute here. For those of you rolling your eyes and shaking your heads, please take a moment and humor me by reading a little background on Paleo and my relationship to Paleo, so we can get to the real reason for why any of this might matter to you:

What is Paleo?

Paleo is a diet (and lifestyle) that is based on eating how the hunters and gatherers of auld used to eat-- anything you could kill, pluck, pick, or forage for is okay. (Read this blog post to learn more about it-- it's what got me interested despite all of the things I'm about to tell you.)

Since agriculture was not yet born, and animal husbandry was not yet a thing, grains and cows are out. Anything processed is evil not okay. Added sugars? NO! Peanuts? No! Beans! NO! Bread? NO! Bagels? I'll take mine toasted with a side of NO! You get the point.

Why, then, would you think that this was a good idea?

So why would I subject myself to this rigorous set of guidelines? Well, a couple reasons.

1. I'm puffy-- some of it is a little extra fluff, some of it is inflammation due to the fact that...

2. I have a wheat allergy.

3. I'm training for triathlon and need to reduce BF to increase my speed.

4. I'm working on my shred-- but no seriously, I spend three very meaningful days a week in the weight room with my trainer lifting heavy things and 4-5 days a week doing some type of cardio, and eating like crap makes it difficult to make progress anywhere.

5. And last, but certainly not ever least, I constantly and consistently make poor food choices when I have no structure.

So, how's that going for you, Katie?

A loaded question. Days 1-10 were great! I went from my fluffy 13 pounds over race weight to a more reasonable 8 pounds over race weight. I'm assuming most of this quick loss was from release of toxin build up as a result of my never-ending consumption of wheat, though I did feel and look more muscular. Around Day 2, however, I did iterate to lacto-paleo, since I need the calcium and the protein. This did not affect my progress. Most of you that have gotten this far already know all of this from my Facebook posts.

I could literally feel my skin getting closer to my muscles. I didn't feel swollen or puffy, and I didn't LOOK swollen or puffy. Both my trainer and I could see true progress! This is not a common occurrence since I'm, pretty much always, puffy. #Shoutouttowheat So, to summarize...

Things I loved: 1) Feeling good   2) Looking good   3) Not feeling guilty about what I ate

Things I hated: 1) Not being able to eat my normal comfort foods, even the healthy ones like oatmeal, but honestly it wasn't that bad.

Days 11-14, I did a secret experiment and I didn't tell you guys. I let a select group of foods (specifically corn, potatoes, peanuts, and rolled oats) back into my diet. Guess what I weighed on Tuesday. -5 lbs! Guess what I weighed today at weigh-in! The same as I did before Paleo.

If you want to know my weight, I'll tell you, just ask or let me know if you think I should add it in here.

I am extraordinarily disappointed in the regression of my progress but energized that the premise of Paleo seems to have something to it. As of tomorrow, I will be going back to strict Lacto-paleo and hope to continue where I left on Tuesday. I'm a little scared that spring break starts tomorrow and I'll be around food 24/7 for a week, not to mention our trip to New York. Wish me luck!

Is Paleo reasonable and sustainable? The quest to discover the true answer, at least for me, continues. What are your experiences?? I'm glad to have learned more about my body but sad that I can't eat french fries. :( Maybe ice cream will still be in the running!