6 weeks Train Dirty, Eat Clean

Monday Aug. 27th Jessica and I decided to give it another go after not fairning so well on our last Paleo challenge. In a 30 day challenge we lasted about 3 weeks. What can I say...dinner with friends...some wine and we were off the paleo wagon. Moving on.

So here we are, almost done with the first week of a six week challenge and it already feels different from the last challenge. Personally, I feel much more focused and determined to finish in high fashion and Jessica is right there with me. 

The difference for me this time is I have a goal of training 3X/week for that six week period...at a minimum. If I can get my butt out of bed early enough on the weekends, maybe I can get more time in. The challenge also has a bit of money riding on it ($40 buy in) and I want to win. The first time I took part in a paleo challenge I won $100. I handed to Jessica. If it wasn't for her I never would have made it through the first week. The pot is a bit bigger this time so maybe we'll split it this time if I win. 

OK, here's the update. Sunday night we took our before photos and went to bed. Monday morning we woke up had a bit of breakfast after I got back from a workout. The workout was brutal as always and I felt slow and weak during. I think that may have been due to the lousy fuel I had put into my system that weekend. Final dinner on Sunday was Mexican food with lots of tortillas and a margarita. Monday's breakfast was clean food and there was an added challenge for me; I am off the coffee for the duration of the six week challenge. A bit daunting as I am a two cup per day kind of guy. I have some Yerba Mate to help with the horrible withdrawal symptoms I get when I quit cofffee. It helped. As I packed my lunch for the day the house was beggining to smell good from the chicken Jessica had started cooking in the crockpot. I was already getting hungry, especially after the morning workout. I leave the house with a bit of food and surprisingly it was an easy day with minimal hunger and no caffeine withdrawal symptoms. My lunch got me through the 8 hour shift with ease. That night we ate the crock pot chicken and some asparagus, it was delicious. 

Tuesday; Rough day for me

After a bit of breakfast and 1 cup of Yerba Mate it was off to work early. I packed some of the leftover chicken,fruit and nuts. The moment I got in my vehicle I noticed I was getting a headache. By the time I crossed the Bay Bridge I was in complete caffeine withdrawal headache hell. It was brutal and I had to work my entire shift that way. Brutal. 

I didn't eat much that day. The headache ruined my appetite. After coming home, Jess had some dinner ready, we ate and went to bed, my head throbbing. 

Wednesday; Much better, more determined

Worked out and was incredibly sore from Monday's workout but I pushed myself as best I could. Ate some breakfast and had two cups of Mate out of concern for another day of headaches from hell. No headaches and I think the rough day prior made me a bit more focused. I cruised through the day keeping my food clean, even though I was in my work building most of the day. I have this job where I don't go into an office. I hop into my vehicle and do my days work, starting and ending my day at home. I also work alone most of the time so there is less pressure to cheat by going out to lunch with your coworkers (eating socially has been a pitfall for me in the past). This time though, things are different. Like I said I spent a lot of my time at my work building. Any of you who have ever worked in an office know it is a battlefield lined with sugary landmines. My work is no different, except we have one of the most impressive vending machines I've ever seen. I walked by them several times ignoring them as best as I could. The hard part was the smell of the coffee brewers. There is almost always a fresh pot brewed and its decent coffee so avoiding it was a bit of a triumph...I was tempted.

I made it through the day with very little food in my lunch pack and it was sufficient. I wasn't hungry all day. I got home and Jess had made baked salmon and kale salad with baked sweet potato slices. Life is good.

So here we are Thursday afternoon, breakfast was three hard boiled eggs some berries and leftover sweet potato. Satiety achieved. 

For lunch Jess is going to make fried salmon cakes out of the leftover salmon. Dinner we're going out to eat. Keeping it Paleo. 

I fully intend on winning this challenge. 

Second time around....

Two things; sticking to a Paleo regimen is way easier the second time around. I guess its because I already knew what to expect and there were no anxieties like when I first started the 30-day challenge in September.

Today I went back to work after a lovely four days off. I packed leftovers from last night as my lunch for the day. Threw in an apple, clementine orange and a Larabar. Well, as luck would have it I got so busy today that I had no time to eat. This is where the fruit and Larabar came in handy. That and a handful of nuts and dates I had after breakfast (eggs and veggie scaramble) got me through the day. I would have preffered to have eaten more protien today but managed to not allow myself to get too hungry and freak out. Well I didn't but when I got home I was pretty hungry. I threw down some almonds and some grapes to bed down my appetite and right now Jessica is making baked salmon and artichokes. All is well....or it least it will be very soon.

The second thing; I went down another notch on my belt.


I'm thinking March is gonna mean all new clothes if this keeps up.


Only one notch left on that belt by the way.

60 Day Paleo Chalenge

Now that the bloody holidays are over I've decided to go 60 days strict paleo. Since October I've managed to keep my food intake to about 70% paleo....Then December came and I was throwing down sugary and fried foods like the world was gonna end on 01/01/11. Rather than stress out about it I came to terms with it knowing it was just all that damn holiday food and set my mind on a 60-day paleo challenge at the start of the year. I did, however go out with a bang this weekend. I ate it all, cheeseburgers, beer, ice cream, lasagna....what the hell it was the new year, I was off and I was celebrating the end of a pivotal year in my life with food and drink. There was a side-effect though; As of last night I was completely sick of food, not just junk food but FOOD! Guess I overindulged but I seem to remember feeling this way last year. This is a good thing becasue I feel like I've satiated myself from that bad stuff for who knows how long and I can focus on my fitness goals now. 

The good news is I didn't put on a whole lot of weight over the holidays, I'm still down a size in clothes and the pants I bought after the 30 day challenge ended are started to feel a bit loose. During all the holiday madness I managed to get into Crossfit Oakland to get some good workouts in. I didn't get in as many times as I wanted to but work was really nuts this past month. I did manage to get my ass in and finish my first "MURPH" workout. Which was as follows:

run 1mile

100 pull-ups

200 push-ups

300 squates

run 1mile

it was BRUTAL, going in to it I was actually scared that I wasnt going to get through it. I decided to take my time and no matter how long it took I was going to finish it. I did finish....DEAD LAST at 72:56 but I finished and I could not be prouder of myself. :)

This is the workout I avoided last NYE because I was scared of it. How things can change in a year, no?

So, back to the challenge. For the next 60 days, meat, veggies, nuts and seed. Thats it. Jessica is on board with me again and thats a good thing becase she owned it during the thirty day challenge. I never would have made it without her. 

Today my body weight is about 220. Before I started the 30 day challenge I was about 235 -240. So I lost about 15-20 pounds since then. So, we'll see what the next 60 days bring. I'm not worried about failing this time. The 30 day challenge taught me that its not hard to do and you feel fantastic so it will be a piece of (paleo) cake :)

Oh and one other thing; the 30 day paleo challenge at crossfit back in september....I won it. $100 cash in my pocket!

So here we go; 2011 is gonna be a bad-ass year. 

Day 29

(Jessica and our first Paleo breakfast on day one of the challenge)

I'm only minutes away from eating my last meal of day 29 of the paleo challenge. Tomorrow I will take a photo and post it along with the photos I took just days before the challenge started. Let me just say that things have changed for me in a phenomenal way. My stomach is a comepletely different thing now. Today I had three scrambled eggs and some grapes for breakfast. Snack was a paleo-friendly Larabar and black coffee. Lunch; a handful of dried fruit and nuts. Hunger is a completely diferent thing now, before paleo when I got hungry I would almost freak out. There was this sense of desperation to not be hungry anymore. Now, I get hungry in a different way. My stomach doesn't rumble as much if at all...and when I do get hungry I just need a small snack to tide me over for a while.

Physically, the changes are pretty easy to see and pretty exciting. Lookign in the mirror I'm starting to see something I've never seen in my nearly 39 years of existence...my stomach muscles. No I don't have some ripped six pack but I can see the definition of the top part of my ab muscles. Pretty damn exciting for a life-long fat guy. This has changed my life and I can guarantee you I will be sticking to this way of eating for many years to come.

I cannot believe I've made it this far with no sugar, bread, rice or any other grains and no dairy.....

I feel incredible. I am truly amazed. I feel like I'm running on the right kind of fuel for my engine.

AWESOME!

Halfway Mark

Today is the halfway mark of the paleo challenge and I am kicking ASS!!!. In all honesty I had doubts about my ability to make it this far. Maybe I didn't believe in myself and that could be attributed to the countless number of times I "went on a diet" or told myself I was going to eat better....only to find myslef in the line at starbucks getting a double mocha and a slice of iced lemon cake by the week's end...pretty much accepting my failure and justifying it by the stressfull week I had or the fact that I had missed lunch. Whatever the case may be I can say that this challenge has done a lot for me. It's really opened my eyes at how sugar and carb-y foods were affecting my life. Here's a prime example; One of the main changes (and probably the most significant to me) I've noticed is that during my normal workday I don't have to pee as much and I can also hold it for much longer. This has been crazy because before the challenge I would get these frequent and urgent needs  to urinate to the point where I would be in pain the longer I held it. Even if I went to the bathroom I'd have to go again within 20 minutes. This was making me MISERABLE. Today things were very different. I was on an assignment (I'm a news cameraman) and ended up in a place where there were no available bathrooms and I had to pee the moment I got there. Obvioulsy I couldn't and for over four hours I held it. Now this may be no big deal to some but for me this was huge. Honestly I was starting to watch those commercials for medication for people who pee to frequently and wondering if I was gonna need that stuff soon....this was not good. So I give up sugar for two weeks and already I'm noticing major changes for the positive...awesome!


When I was on the white poison (saw that name for it on the internet) I never knew how much it was screwing up my body....how could I know?? I've been eating sugar almost all my life so not having it was an unkown way of life to me. If I really want to be specific I can probably say that the last time I ate a true paleo regimen was when I was breastfeeding. Because I know for a fact once I started taking the bottle I started getting sweet drinks. And they weren't "organic" "good for kids" type sweet drinks (if such a thing even exists) it was probably Kool-Aid or sweetened fruit juices. I know this because I was a fat kid growing up. We ate a lot of sugar in our house. My parents justified it because it made us kids happy and we bugged them for it. Growing up we didn't have a lot of money so things like candy bars and soda were a prized treat. These were things that me and my brothers would fight over as kids and until I gave sugar up I never even thought about these things.

Day 15 and things are going great. I don't miss sweets. I don't crave them and to be honest I feel like I'm looking at things like that in a diferent light. I know what negative effect they have on my body that goes beyond weight gain. I believe I understand how my sugar addiction probably had me on a path to diabetes. No guarantee I won't become a diabetic someday, its pretty dominant in my family, but I at least know I can do something to work against it.

15 days of paleo and I feel amazing. I'm losing weight, sleeping better, waking up earlier and I've noticed an improved mental clarity and an increase in overall energy.


Who knew life without sugar was this good?


:D

Two weeks

Ok, things got a little crazy with work and all and I haven't posted yet so I have some catching up to do.
First off I am stoked to say at fourteen days I am still doing well with the Paleo challenge. I have not once cheated. Las week I was sent to the fires in San Bruno and set up at the evacuation site. After the word got out about the fires folks started bringing all sorts of food for the evacuess, in particlar, pizza. They were giving it out to everyone there and this red cross lady offered me a whole large pizza. I said no and she got kinda pushy and said TAKE IT! I respecfully and repeatedly declined so she stuck the pizza in the back of my van and I was stuck with it. Mind you this story was so crazy I hadn't had a chance to get dinner. I had a banana and nuts for dinner and lunch was nuts and dried fruit....
Still, the whole time I refused to give in and didn't eat the pizzza. I ended up giving the pizza to a coworker at the end of the night who hadn't eaten either and was having a lousy night. The starbucks was also giving out free drinks, the sugary kind. I stayed away. The next morning I had to go back to the same spot and there were people giving away sweet coffee drinks, sodas, chocolate croissants and other sweet breads. I remember looking at them and thinking "I am not going to have ANY of that, I am not goign to fail today"


So, anyhow all is going good. Breakfast is getting pretty boring though....All the other meals have been great!


I'm also figuring out how to eat out and stay paleo. During this San Bruno story I needed to get dinner. I was at a strip mall and wanted to get some food. I walked up to a restaurant, read the menu and walked away. Next I saw a burger joint that was crowded and smelled great. Obviously they make good burgers there. I sniffed the air for a few more seconds and walked on. Then I decided to go into the Mollie Stone's grocery store. Dinner was served! They had a salad bar and a deli so I made myself a paleo salad and got a grilled chicken breast from them. Success!!!

A couple of days later I was there again and wanted a hot meal,  I was pretty tired of cold food. They have a hot food deli (most of it I can't touch) so I got some sliced turkey breast from there and a 1/2 pint of mixed berries from the coolers. Dee-lish!!!

The next day I went in for a chicken breast and some fruit. The lady behind the deli counter was a nice woman and we started talkign about the explosion when she saw on my jacket that I worked for a TV station. She gave me the chicken breast for free and I bought a pear and an apple to go with it. Lunch was $1.49 that day!!! My point, I can manage to eat out and still eat paleo. I was pretty worried about that in the beginning.

 Sidenote: Tango apples are awesome!!!


Oh yeah, I'm really starting to see the physicall changes :)

Day 2

So yesterday was a more or less flawless day. I wasn't even tempted to cheat. Maybe I was just fired up about this or maybe its becuase Jessica is my accountability partner and I don't want to let her down. Either way, I exercised hard yesterday and ate well. Today I'm resting up, pretty sore from Monday and Wednesday. Right hip is pretty tight so I gotta try and loosen that up over the next few days. Today is also going to be a bit of a challenge because we really need to go grocery shopping. We have food but we're runnning low :)

One thing I noticed yesterday evening. I was tired....Jessica and I went to get a few things at Trader Joes and Target last night. This is a pretty normal mid-week errand for us but last night I looked over at Jessica and she was yawning and her eyes were a bit glazed over....she looked sleepy and I felt exactly the way she looked. So my first day of Paleo went fine but I was pretty tired by the evening. So my energy level was pretty low by nighttime.

So today is day 2 of the paleo challenge and I'm fully fired up about the next 28 days. Hopefully I can keep up this tempo and get to see some results at the end of the month. Jessica is helping a lot. She threw away all of our rice, grains etc. that will help for sure.  They can't tempt us if we can't see them!

Ok, thats it for now. Kinda boring I know....but my cup of black coffee awaits.


BTW - this weekend I ate whatever I wanted knowing I was going to start this challenge. That was a bad idea. My stomach just reminded me that I'm almost 39 and that kind of food just doesn't work for me anymore. In short....my lifelong path with food like BURRITOS is coming to and end...the last couple of times I ate like that I was hurting. My point is the paleo way of eating could end up becoming a very normal thing for me.