Derby + Paleo = paleo snobs

I just signed up for a Whole Life Challenge. This includes a paleo diet as well as lifestyle: working out daily (active recovery on rest days) and stretching, as well as drinking water etc. I'll be guest blogging about my experience over at paleo snobs. But after writing my intro/background, I thought it was too long for tumblr, and I would just link to it. Here's a recap of my short history. Enjoy!


A little background on myself:  I’m a graduate student at UCSB, one of the founding members of Mission City Brawlin’ Betties, and casual crossfitter at Crossfit Santa Barbara.  I went from inactive, to distance running after starting grad school.  Then roller derby finally made it to SB & I jumped at the opportunity to grow in a team sport.  Unlike most people who get in shape to start derbs, I gained about 15 lbs, from all the time I spent on non-exercise derby things like drinking, fundraising, coaching, and drinking. I also had the mentality that you can eat whatever the hell you want as long as you’re willing to work it off.  I’m not lazy, I need calories!  Calories = Energy.  Spend 4 hours or more on the outdoor track on sunday (and maybe ride your bike to and from) and you need to eat more.  I got my kcals from delicious things like burritos and hamburgers.  No post workout protein shake for me, it was post workout BEER!

I first heard about Paleo from a colleague who happened to be a crossfitter, who happened to have the name Crossley.  I found that entertaining.  Anyways, I think I laughed in his face when he told me ‘no beer, no bread, and no dairy.’   ...Fast forward to a couple years later, I’m out of derby on injury.  No idea what’s wrong; the orthopedic specialist says everything is fine, return to normal activity.  “Hey Dick, Everything is NOT fine.  It hurts like hell.” I play roller derby, I ran a marathon, I know how to work through pain.  This is not okay.  So I take a break from derbs (broken heart, but lots of time for finishing dissertation).  

But I don’t work well if I can’t exercise, luckily there’s a Living Social deal, crossfit intro and a month of free workouts. Score.  So I start crossfitting.  This is right around the beginning of the year, and my running partner mentions that her crossfit gym is doing a ‘paleo challenge’ for 30 days and that I should do it with her.  This friend, let’s call her KK, somehow has a weird control over me and gets me to commit to stupid ideas.  I look into this paleo thing and its supposed to help inflammation (Hmmmm, if my knee inflammation goes away, maybe I can skate again!).  I’m still not convinced I can live without grains or dairy.  I mean, how bad can this stuff really be? I have energy, I don’t have bad skin, I sleep like a rock after a nuclear fallout. Then my crossfit coach said his daily paleo diet was: bacon and eggs for breakfast, lunch meat and salad for lunch, and steak & veggies or sashimi for dinner. Sure. I can eat that for a month.   Sign me up.   Interestingly, after making it through the sugar detox phase, I don’t even really miss the foods I expected.  I did miss dairy & sushi (the kind with rice).  Oh! My knee did heal.  I still have to pay close attention to my left IT band, but I bouted last week, so that’s cool!
Relapsing to eating gluten makes me feel hungover and break out.  I ate a bunch of pasta and cake one day at a family function, I had an allergic reaction and could barely open my eyes the next morning.  And allowing tolerances for grains also leads to me eating less fruits and veggies.   
I’m about to start a 60 day ‘whole life challenge’ that includes eating ‘strict’ paleo, daily workouts and stretching.  I’ll post about it weekly to let you know what is happening, but I just wanted to give you some background before we dive in!
XoXo
Viva Violence!

Yatta!

I've completed the 4 week paleo challenge!  It went by super fast, but may have changed my relationship with food forever.  Anyways, as promised here's my comparison/experience:
I didn't take legitimate before pictures, but here's a couple from summer 2011, when I was doing Insanity and on the 'eat whatever the hell I feel like' and drinking regularly days:

And, here are my Post Paleo challenge photos:

For a quantitative analysis, I dropped 4 lbs, 3% body fat, gained 1lb muscle mass, and boosted my 'metabolic age' by 4 years.  I also lost 2 inches off of my waist, half an inch off of my hips, chest & each quad (sad face) and arms are the same, with difference in composition, as you can see.

Super awesome results, and I do feel good.  I think I'll stick with the major components of the diet.
Yesterday I ate one non-paleo meal.  I had a lettuce wrapped bacon cheese burger with sweet potato fries from the Habit.  Surprisingly, they put brown sugar on the sweet potato fries.  This, I believe, fucked me up. I had mild heart burn (which I don't get from the curry I make almost weekly) and was a little gasier than usual.  I continued to drink water throughout the evening, but woke up with a headache :(  It felt like a mild hangover.  I couldn't believe one meal made me feel so shitty.  This experience has made up my mind that sugar may very well be the devil.  It has to go.  I'm not so sure about dairy yet.  Its still the highest food on my healthy vs f off scale. So stay tuned on updates on my battle to love dairy!

Top 9

Top 9 foods that have made the past month worth living (challenge from Primal Toad):

1. Steak 
2. Salmon
3. Almond Butter
4. bananas
5. avocado
6. blue berries
7. dates
8. spinach
9. eggs

Next on the list: pork shoulder, bacon, broccoli, bell peppers, apples, asparagus, squash (acorn, butternut, yellow & spaghetti, to list a few:)

Now, I'm hungry again!  

23 days down, 5 to go

Hey!  I just wanted to check in, in case any one was wondering...

I've survived 23 days on the Paleo Challenge, and have 5 days left!  I can't believe how easy it has been, or how quickly the time has passed.  

I wanted to give report more observables, friendly encounters, motivation to stay strong, and plans for after the challenge ends (I don't want to just binge out on horrible things and erase all of my progress).  

First, the good news:

New Observable: while sitting with my now loosely (versus previously skin tight) short cutoffs on and crossing my legs (either way now, since I have that range of motion in my left knee) I noticed I can no longer see cellulite in my legs.  Now, I was rather thin/muscular to start, but when crossing my legs you could see it.  It didn't really bother me, but I'm happy to say good riddance and wear teeny tiny shorts with more confidence, no matter how I'm sitting :)

Friendly encounters: I've gone out to the bar twice the past week.  No drinking (unless you count water).  These were quiet friendly meetings, but still, there's a lot of beer at those places. And I like beer, but I was strong, and stayed true.  Its amazing the will power you have when you declare something to the world.  Also, in the presence of the superbowl, we decided not to have a pretty paleo potluck.  I mean, we were invited to a paleo super bowl party, but who really wants to sit inside on a beautiful day and watch football or madonna (two things I really don't care about) with out the drinking?

So, I played beached whale, sitting in the sun on the sand eating, then my hubs said we should have crab for dinner.  After another hour-ish of absorbing sun rays, we went to the Santa Barbara fish market and got some rock crab, muscles & oysters for a seafood feast.  YUM!  We totes effed that feast up:

Motivation:
I have felt some temptation this month.  One of the women at the gym stated my feelings perfectly, "Its not that I'm craving it, its just that I miss it!"  So true.  Pretty much all of my meals I think, "This would be better with cheese."  I miss cheese.  The last week has really been a shift in thinking.  I would look at things and think, that looks so good I want to eat the sh*t out of it!  But really, now the hardest part is walking past the free samples of locally made cheese and watching the husband eat his crab with butter.  I think you know what will be added to my diet very shortly :)

Post Paleo Challenge Plans:
First of all, the challenge ends the night before my birthday.  We've planned our 'weigh in' to be the next day's morning.  So I'm off the challenge for my bday! Yay!  We're going for sushi.  I will have rice & soy that day.  And probs some fried batter (tempura) and tofu (miso soup).  I think this is a pretty healthy cheat. I plan to spend the next couple days (2/12-?) back on strict paleo.  Then I'll add in dairy: butter & cheese.  Not as overload as I normally did, and will keep my coffee black. After 2 weeks of this, I'll have a beer day Uh, yeah, I'm saving my drinking day for the beer garden at tough mudder.   Other than alcohol, I plan to keep grains out of my diet, and avoid processed sugar-which won't be too bad, other than condiments.  I do have 3 boxes of girl scout cookies coming, but may just hide them in the freezer or give them away.  We'll see how I'm feeling.

Keep up the work!  Post Paleo pictures to come soon!

Some Observables!

Here I am! Half way through the this stupid paleo challenge.  I'm kinda used to this weird diet, and surprisingly not craving bread. At all.  Super weird. I would have some sort of bread with everything.  However, I do still think that everything I eat would be better with cheese.  (Probs some insight as to what will be added back to my diet first!)
Anyways, I have some things to report:

1. Inflammation in my knee has gone WAY down!  Super exciting.  It doesn't bother me daily.  I have better range of motion. I went to a yoga class and was able to get into Eagle pose, which I haven't been able to do since I started yoga (post injury) from lack of flexibility.  After this success, I decided to try to move up on my box jumps at crossfit.  After shredding the 24in box for a couple of rounds, the coach told me to move up to the Rx at 30 inches.  Completed. Easy peasy. No pain. SUPER AWESOME!
2. Beginning to be strong enough to add social outtings to my lifestyle.  Although I do miss Team Heckle's constant bombardment of encouragement. I went to a b-day BBQ.  I ate a bit before hand so I wouldn't ravish anything or eat any cheats.  It was a bit hilarious.  My plate was piled high with meats & salsa, while my husband had a bunch of other fluff on his.  I laughed in my head.  My office is trying to set up happy hour, and my husband is constantly offering me his 'treats.' He really sounds like the devil from the 80s children's cartoons, just always offering you a little temptation. Good thing I don't really like oreos that much.  Instead, I ordered girl scout cookies for a binge day TBD.
3. I'm not hungry all the time anymore.  I eat a lot.  My husband actually ASKS for vegetables at dinner (OMG, WTF).  Even though I eat ~65% fat (which I think is pretty awesome) I can tell I've lost fat.  I agree with the Whole 30 ideas of not counting calories, weighing myself etc. I can tell I've slimmed down by the way my clothes fit. And the beginning of my abs showing through (as if that's not encouragement enough to continue).

Well, I haven't measured anything else yet, but so far, my observations aren't bad.  The only thing I have noticed, was after eating only meat for dinner trail running 5 miles the next day may be a little harsh.  I guess I should have had some more carbs when I got home.

Day 5 Report

Here's me, my last indulgence before beginning the Paleo Challenge!  Man it was delicious!  Asada burrito w/o onions and with cheese, sour cream and guacamole.  Yum.

Since then, my meals have looked much more like this: 

with a side of: 

 Also Yum!

Over all, I feel great about the paleo diet.  I still miss delicious dairy and other convenient things.  But my body feels good.  We worked out for about 3 hours on Saturday, I took Sunday off (first in 7 days) and have done cross fit and some cardio every day since.  This week, I have NOT been sore.  Last week, by day 4/5 of crossfit (w/o running etc) I was SUPER sore every day.  So, maybe I'm getting stronger, or eating real food replenishes my body much faster.  Maybe both.

My most proud accomplishments are (besides general learning to cook and grocery shop for real food, that doesn't come in a premade package) learning fancy things like: 

1. making roasted garlic
2. making fire roasted peppers
3. getting quality meat for the next week or so, for >60% off

Okay, maybe the last owne isn't so fancy, but when your food budget is lowered by changing the contents of your cupboard & fridge, I was pretty stoked.

I think I may survive the next 23 days... 

I can has paleo & awesome friends

I tried to come up with some sort of funny intro, or funny picture, to open with.  But I'm super tired from my WOD and food coma, so I thought this was appropriate.  I had my last cheeseburger before the Paleo Challenge begins.  

I've been anticipating many challenges for the paleo challenge.  The worst I fear: being unprepared, being too ignorant (I've been reading labels on everything this week! especially after seeing that there was sugar in the bacon I bought most recently- Oops!), and what I've read is the worst: staying accountable especially in social settings.  

We're having Team Pretty Tough Mudder training this weekend, including a sleepover and planning meeting. I was a little nervous, because not all of the team is going paleo, that I would be tempted (and fail) on the first weekend.  But instead, my friends are awesome.  They've committed to a paleo breakfast (including an almond milk latte) and post workout lunch.  Super awesome.  

I've also done some grocery store recon.  Which is fun too.  My plan is to shop on Friday so that there's food in my house to come home to on Saturday, and then complete my shopping excursion Sunday at Farmer's Market.  Sunday, we're kicking off the challenge with a paleo pot luck, then' I'll be left to my own demise.  Luckily, I've now read about meal planning, found some recipe blogs (hooray for nomnompaleo) and figured that there are things I would normally eat that can be slightly altered (hopefully my husband will be happy with paleo chile verde).

So even though my I can haz cheezeberger days are limited, at least I know that there are a bunch of other Pretty bitches who will help me stay on track this month!

XXOO