Hooked on Paleo Worked For Me!

I’ve often wondered why modern Americans have such a love-hate relationship with food. Instead of viewing it for what it is – fuel for our bodies – it has become almost personified as a force for good or evil in our lives and how we relate to it says more about our emotional state than our bodies’ need for nutrition. We look to food for comfort, reward, happiness, etc. We make our food choices more often out of a concern for convenience than for health.

My own history with food is similar to many people my age. As a kid, breakfast consisted of some sugary cereal with a cheerful cartoon character on the box. Lunch was whatever processed slop the school was doling out that week. If I did pack my lunch, it consisted of a peanut butter sandwich, fruit roll-up and a Little Debbie snack cake for dessert. No wonder I grew up carb-addicted. I was raised by a frazzled single mother, so fast food was a staple. Eventually, we moved in with my grandparents. They kept a garden in the back yard and made almost everything from scratch. Simple, Midwestern farmhouse suppers like stews and casseroles became routine, but fast food was still a reliable weekend treat. The food at home was much healthier, but my Grandparents’ insistence on clean plates at the table was not. They had both been raised during the Great Depression and had known what it was like to be hungry. Waste was not tolerated. To this day, I feel a twinge of guilt if I leave any food on my plate. What would all those starving kids in China think?

As a teenager, I got a job at the mall and became more food-independent. I also unleashed my inner party girl. During high school, my four food groups were basically alcohol, mall pizza, chocolate and caffeine pills. I was skinny but far from healthy. I was working too much, partying too much and with the invincibility of youth, I never really thought about my health. I was burning the candle at both ends. I was pale and tired all the time. My grades suffered but I didn’t care. I lived in the moment and never once stopped to think about what I was doing to my body.

By the time I entered college, I was burned out, mentally and physically. My studies gave me a focus and a sense of discipline. I cared about my courses and I wanted to do well. I stopped partying and got serious about life. I was working multiple jobs to put myself through school, so that didn’t leave time for much else. This hectic schedule brought convenience eating to a whole new level for me. By this time I had a serious boyfriend, so I kind of let myself go. I wasn’t on the market anymore, so no need to keep the man-trap shined up. We settled into a comfortable routine of work, studying and bad eating. After we moved in together, dinners were all-American crap classics – Hamburger Helper, Chef Boyardee Ravioli, Kraft Mac n Cheese and our weekly rotation of all the local fast food joints.

It was during my college years that I decided to become a vegetarian. I thought I was making a healthy lifestyle decision, but I was still eating a lot of processed crap and carbs. I was still pale and tired all the time. I still depended on caffeine to survive my demanding schedule. Cutting meat out of my diet didn’t actually make me feel better, but the sense of moral superiority seemed to make up for it. At least for a little while.

I eventually ended my vegetarian experiment after gaining quite a bit of weight, but the carb addiction was stronger than ever. I did slim down a bit for my wedding at 26 and walked down the aisle at about 15 pounds above my skinny high school weight. Not too bad. As we started our life together, the hubby and I decided to eat healthier. So, we bought the whole-grain bread, rice and pasta. We traded regular dairy products and condiments for the fat-free versions.

For exercise, I would take my dog for long walks in the park. I joined a ladies’ fitness center. After work, I would go to the gym and walk on the treadmill for an hour while reading a magazine. Then I would go home and make a healthy whole-grain pasta dinner with fat-free cheese and have a diet coke. That was healthy eating, right? Conventional wisdom told me that whole grains were good, your body needed carbs for energy. Fat was bad, it clogged your arteries and led to high cholesterol and heart attacks. Sugar was bad, so the latest artificial sweetener was the miracle answer that would let me enjoy my junk food guilt-free. During this time, Snackwell cookies made their appearance on the grocery store shelves. We would finish a whole box in one sitting. But it was ok because they were low-fat. Even though I was eating the way all the magazines and TV doctors were advising, my weight was creeping up and I was tired all the time.  I still depended on caffeine to get through the day.

When the kids came along, I was determined to establish good eating habits in our household. I made sure they had lots of fresh fruits and veggies and we did not keep sweets or sodas in the house. We would go out for a treat like ice cream once in a while. Our ‘healthy’ diet included things like yogurt, cheese sticks, whole wheat bread and pasta and bagels. It also included a lot of kid convenience foods like chicken nuggets, mac and cheese, pasta in a can, toaster waffles and various other processed but easy crap.

When the kids started school, I began to pursue my interest in herbal medicine. I started taking some classes locally then gradually expanded into more comprehensive programs. I also had a health scare that made me re-examine every aspect of my life and my health. I didn’t like what I found. I was determined to make changes and I discovered the clean eating movement. Well, basically, I read the Clean Eating magazine. We greatly reduced but did not completely eliminate the processed food from our diets. We still ate out about once a week. The occasional treats were a little more frequent. We did incorporate more fresh fruits and veggies, but the whole-wheat products remained a staple in our diets. We were still buying into the notion that the whole grains were good for us, so it was not surprising that the changes we made did not result in big progress on the scales or in our overall health.

I first learned about the Paleo diet around 2010 or 2011. It seemed a bit drastic and crazy to me. At that point, I was still more focused on replacing processed foods with real foods and the thought of giving up grains and dairy seemed impossible. My herbal studies had given me a new perspective about holistic health and what was really good for my body. I wanted to get back to a more natural way of eating. I just wasn’t ready to give up bread and cheese. Besides, what about everything that I had ever read about nutrition? Grains were good, fat was bad. Now I was hearing that grains might be bad and fat might be good. It took a while to wrap my head around that possibility.

Still somewhat skeptical, I read The Paleo Solution by Robb Wolf and started inching my way into the Paleo lifestyle. I did not go completely grain-free, but I made an effort to be gluten-free. I cut out sugar and replaced it with Stevia, a natural sweetener. I cut back my dairy consumption by about 75%. I had never been a milk drinker, but yogurt and cheese were longtime favorites. I made them occasional treats. I used almond milk or coconut milk in my coffee and smoothies. I planned meals around meat and veggies. Snacks were fruit, raw veggies or nuts.  I did my best to end my addiction to Coke Zero. That has been the hardest thing to give up, and I still break down and have one once in a while. Yes, I am fully aware of how horrible the artificial sweeteners are and how much damage they do to my body. I’m working on it.

After making these changes, I began to notice a huge difference in how I felt. I had energy. I was sleeping better. No more headaches. No more mood swings. No more afternoon slump. No more brain fog. I could function better, think more clearly and began to have a more positive outlook overall. The pounds starting coming off. With more energy, I could exercise more. That made me feel even better.

It has taken a while to get on board with this new lifestyle. I have been at around 60% - 90% Paleo over the last year or so. When I have a rough week and get overwhelmed trying to juggle work, kids, housework, etc., it is easy to slip back into the old patterns of convenience. When I am exhausted after a long day, it is still easy to pick up something quick and crappy to eat. Sometimes I am just too stressed out or tired to care. But I know that when I eat better, I feel better, so I am determined to keep at it until it becomes habit.  Realistically, I don’t think that I can sustain a lifestyle that is 100%  Paleo, but I think that a consistent 90% is achievable.With a little discipline and planning, it can be done. The results are well worth the effort.

30 Day Challenge Progress

Week 1 – April 8. The first week has been fairly easy. My motivation is high and resolve is strong. As far as food goes, it is more a matter of convenience than cravings. It was a chaotic week with a lot of time away from home, so it was a pain in the butt to plan out my meals or make sure I had healthy snacks readily available. Day 4 I was very tired just felt drained. Maybe my body was adjusting to the carb deprivation. Maybe it was the 35 degrees and rainy, gray day. My only real temptation was when I took the kids to Bojangles to use a gift card. The berry biscuits drizzled in frosting were hard to resist because I knew how good they were. I just had my coffee and let the kids enjoy their treat. The kids were on spring break this week and my gym has no day care, so I did not get to the gym. I did make sure to take long walks of about 2 miles every day. I only got one weights workout in this week. My excuse – the weekend weather was beautiful so I decided to go for a long hike at Tallulah Gorge instead. The hundreds of stairs going up and down the gorge were more challenging than doing squats anyway. I still feel a little bit guilty and will make up for it by doing 3 days of weights next week. While reading one of my favorite health websites,  Mark’s Daily Apple, I found an amazing article about Health Integrity: http://www.marksdailyapple.com/why-health-integrity-matters-or-the-power-of-being-honest-with-yourself/#axzz2PSJWsZ6N

  He summed up exactly what I want to accomplish with this challenge.

Week 2 – April 15. OK, halfway through. A strange thing is happening – I don’t even think about junk food any more. Healthy eating is becoming a habit. Yes, it is still an inconvenience to wash and chop raw veggies for a snack instead of grabbing a bowl of Cheerios, but I am getting better about being prepared and having healthy food on hand. I make sure that I have lots of fruits and veggies and nuts available for meals or snacks. In a pinch, I just grab my shaker cup and mix up a quick shake with protein powder and water. The lesson this week is mindfulness. I have become painfully aware of how little thoughtless actions can add up in a day or week and have an impact on my weight. Things like snacking while cooking or taking a bite of the kids’ food to test the temperature can really add on extra calories. Watching my diet carefully has brought attention to the little habits that I hardly even noticed before. The only thing that was hard this week was when I took the girls out for ice cream on Friday and couldn’t have any with them. That has been our Friday tradition since they started kindergarten and I did feel like I was missing out on something. The scales have been all over the place this week – up, down, up, down. And I don’t even care. In the past, when the scales would smack me in the face with the cold truth, I would beat myself up over every little cheat and treat that I had indulged in. The guilt and self-loathing would set in and I would feel horrible. Not this time. I know I have done everything right. My diet and exercise have been consistent. I feel great. The skinny jeans are fitting nicely, with room to spare.  My energy levels are high, I  no longer have the afternoon slump and I have been able to drastically reduce my caffeine consumption. That alone is a miraculous achievement and one that I will celebrate. The other thing that I have become mindful of is that I need to cut back on my weekend drinking if I really want to make the maximum progress. When I started this challenge, I didn’t plan on cutting out alcohol, I decided that I would just choose healthier drinks – no more pitchers of beer or Jack’n’Cokes. I still allowed myself some light ciders, red wine or paleo margaritas. Well, when I really paid attention this week, I realized that one day I consumed five ciders and another night I had three margaritas. Not good. 120 calories for each cider doesn’t seem like much, but indulging in five of them added 600 calories to my day. There is no way I would have eaten an extra 600 calories worth of food, but it was so easy to drink them away throughout the day. From now on, I will limit myself to 1-2 drinks once or twice a week.  I am also going to track my calories through an app on my phone. I’ve never been disciplined enough to be a calorie-counter, but it’s worth a try.  Three weeks until my next mud run and one month until I am on the beach. No time to waste!

 

Week 3 – April 22. Ok, this is getting tedious. What a pain in the ass this is becoming. Calculating and recording every single thing I consume is not much fun. Maybe I am just feeling grumpy and overwhelmed by work, kids and the upcoming move and it feels like this is just one more annoying chore to keep up with when my time and energy are already stretched so thin. Annoyance aside, it has been a week of interesting revelations. After a few days of using the calorie counting app My Fitness Pal, I realized that I was not consuming enough calories to make up for my workouts. I adjusted my intake to meet what the app recommended and finally broke through the plateau on the scales. That was very rewarding, so I guess it is worth the effort. I have also seen a couple of other amazing health developments. For the first time in years, I had no PMS this month. I actually went all month without really wanting to smack somebody.  My sprained hand has shown more improvement in the last three weeks than in the previous three months, so the anti-inflammatory benefits of this diet are proving themselves in a tangible way. I am having some pretty intense cravings for good dark chocolate and I hate not being able to have ice cream with my girls on Friday. Other than that, I don’t really miss anything and I feel great. Exercise is starting to become a habit, although I have to accept that if I am devoting the time to diet and exercise, other things are going to suffer. That is just part of the balancing act. I guess I can deal with the dog hair on the floor, mountain of laundry and huge stack of papers and receipts to be filed. Maybe someday I will discover the magical secret to getting it all done. I do have a lot more energy lately, but still not enough to finish the never-ending to-do list. One more week to go.


May 1st - 

So, my 30 day challenge ended and I came to an important realization – that my life is so chaotic and out of control that I will probably need a new 30 day challenge every month for the rest of my life. Taking the time to focus on changing one thing at a time, 30 days at a time is a great concept. The first 30 day challenge was great. 30 days was a doable amount of time. When I was tempted to give up, I just kept telling myself “It’s only 30 days. I can do it” And I did. I made health my priority for an entire month. I worked out regularly and paid close attention to my diet. I guess the most important lessons I learned from this experiment were discipline and mindfulness. I had to stop and think about things. I had to plan – I had to think ahead to make sure I had what I needed to succeed. I had to think about and plan my grocery list. I had to schedule  my days more carefully so that I made time for workouts. One day a week, the kids had an after-school program at the community center, so I would leave an hour early and do interval runs on the little track around the soccer field. I had to make a schedule and stick to it. Yeah, I had to do all the things I should have been doing for a long time. Oh well, better late than never I guess. It is kind of hard to measure the results of the challenge. The scales fluctuated quite a bit, so I guess I lost about five pounds. And I quit using the scales as a measurement of success or failure. I am getting stronger, my clothes are fitting better and I feel amazing. So to heck with the scales. I’ll still check in with them once in a while, but they will no loger be the focus of my health journey. The intangible benefits of discipline and mindfulness were the real prize from this experience. I am hooked on the idea of a 30 day challenge, but what to tackle next? Maybe getting more organized,  filing papers and receipts as they come in rather than letting them pile up, being a better friend, keeping in touch with those I don’t see regularly, remembering birthdays, not procrastinating, reading the books that are piled up on my bookshelf beside the bed, getting back into making my herbal medicines, being a more patient mom, being a better driver. It seems the list of my faults and flaws is quite extensive.  Well, that gives me a lot to work on. My 30 day challenge for May will be to just survive the month, then in June I will re-evaluate and see which of my issues will be the next to tackle.