I think I can speak for both Ianna and myself by saying that this is one incredible diet. First entering the diet I was quick to point to a certain absurdity in the idea of basing a diet on what we can only guess our primitive ancestors ate, though I also saw the unquestionable logic to the idea that our bodies may have never adjusted to those grains that have become such a staple of modern human’s diet in the short time since we began agriculture. Eating simple foods such as meat and vegetables while excluding all processes foods and sugars is also solid nutritional advice of course. In short, the diet was intriguing. With Ianna’s suggestion, I was quickly sold.
Unlike our previous three challenges, we decided to do our next challenge of going paleo for two full weeks. I was overall very happy with the diet and did not find myself missing or craving many things. Perhaps, this was because I have gotten a bit used to the no sugar or no bread thing for the past three weeks. A few times a craving did pop up, but it was never as strong as it had been in the past. This was really a relief as my sweet tooth has always been intense and almost unstoppable. The issue of not being able to eat grains was a bit tough too, because I had recently switched over from my usual yogurt every morning to various whole grains (brown rice, quinoa, or barley). Not having those, nor yogurt, immediately forced me to mix up a bunch of fruits, coconut flour and flax seeds every morning. Still, this was delicious.
Like the other challenges, I was not expecting any particular or detectable results of any kind, but was simply going for the ride of such a challenge. As such lack of expectations go, within one week I was experiencing immediate results of sorts. Two are worth mentioning.
As a regular runner, I do one long run a week followed by two smaller ones. My week is built to this long run and the muscle aches I expect to experience the days following it. Let me say that these past two weeks my aches usually at about a 70-80% pain threshold were easily down to 40%-50%. The reason for this seems obvious to me. I was eating more meat, or better, I was just eating meat. This is one part of my diet that I personally know has been missing too much in my life. While I don’t refrain from eating meat, I am naturally not inclined to eat too much at all. Perhaps even once or twice a week will I eat meat of any kind (tuna, beef or a Korean style dumpling with some meat inside). I am simply amazed by how much my aches have gone away by forcing myself to eat more meat. After this diet, I absolutely plan to incorporate at least a little more meat into my diet.
The second result of this diet has been weight loss, and quite a bit in such a short time. I lost about 6.5 pounds in two weeks. I should of course mention that I do not want to lose weight and did not intend on this at all. Noticing my weight drop quite a bit by the first week I tried my best to adjust my diet so it did not dip down too much, but I struggled because of a number of personal food eccentricities. A. I could only eat so much more meat B. I have like one food disgust and that is too oily or fatty foods (so I couldn’t just drench my food in these things). C. I already eat absurd amounts of vegetables and fruits a day (so couldn’t go that route). And D. I already eat a handful of nuts and seeds everyday so did not want to overdue this any more. Judging from my experience, the paleo diet all in all seems excellent for weight loss, but the paleo community has little to say about how one manages their weight once they reach their goal or did not begin the diet for weight loss in the first place. I would be very interested to hear about this, as this is for the main reason that I do not think I can fully go paleo from now on (Though I certainly would). This is not to say that I will not strive towards it from now on, indeed I plan to do paleo 60% of the time, with the occasional grain here or there. And snacks. Good old snacks…
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