Ok, so today is Sunday 8/29/10...its about 1pm and I just had myself 2 cups of coffee with cream and sugar and a bowl of cereal. Now the reason I'm writing about something as trivial as that is because there is some significance behind it. Starting Wednesday 9/1 my girlfriend Jessica and I are starting a 30-day paleo challenge being done at Crossfit Oakland. What that means is for 30 days we will not eat ANYsugars, grains or any sort of dairy. Essentially, we are going to eat as close as possible to the way cavemen would have eaten thousands of years ago. So....sugars, bread, rice pasta, dairy...anything that was farmed or processed is out....for thirty days. Now maybe this sounds easy to some...but really...think about it...how often do we not eat these things for extended periods of time. I am pretty attached to my slice of whole grain toast in the AM as well as the occasional sandwich or pasta and its all gone. Brown rice??? NOPE! Its all out. Its an experiment to see what kind of goals I can reach with this way of eating (I don't like calling it a diet). I'm not nervous about doing it but there is some anxiety attached to it...as I'm about to start this I'm realizing I've never eaten like this. My whole life there was some sort of grain, potatoes, beans etc. with each meal and now for thirty days its all pretty much meat, fish, chicken, veggies, fruit, nuts and seed. The only thing I will be drinking will be water and my cup of black coffee in the morning. So this morning's breakfast, however lousy it may have been, was sort of a goodbye to that food. I fully intend on seeing this through knowing that I can only benefit from it. So, over the next month I'm going to try and keep updating this so I can go back and see where I was at in the challenge. Going into this I know that its going to be tough especially in mine and Jessica's line of work...I work in the news biz and I'm always out and about running around....gathering news, sometimes stuck in one place for hours with only crap to eat nearby (but thats pretty much everywhere outside of what you bring from home). Jessica is a barista at Starbucks....always abundant sugary-bready snacks and sweet sweet drinks for days. Yeah...this could be tough....so we gotta be tough :)
We've taken before pictures and we are going to take after pictures...they'll be posted at the end of the thirty days
Couple of key points for me to be successful:
I have to get in control of my sugar eating urges, they can be pretty bad sometimes.
I absolutely have to pack lunch every day for work or I WILL FAIL
I have to remember that while this challenge restricts me from eating certain foods I will eat good...real good.
Oh yeah. I'm also giving up alcohol until the new year. Just a personal challenge that's linked to my fitness goals at crossfit.
