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... 

WTF?!? Me? Do Paleo?

If you know me, you know that I don't really give a shit about food.  Food is delicious.  Food is fuel.  Splurge every once in awhile!  If you work out enough, it doesn't matter how much or what you eat. Within reason of course.  I've moved more toward natural or 'real' food and away from things that will last in the cupboard longer than my lifetime.  I've even recently moved towards an attitude of 'eat carbs when you need them' attitude to see what protein would do as my exercise routine moved more towards weight/strength training from cardio/endurance.  But, notice the words there to see what protein would do.  (I'm a scientist so experiments are interesting to me:)

So when my friend KK asked if I wanted to do the Paleo Challenge with her Crossfit Gym (crossfit pacific coast) my initial reaction was to laugh out loud.  Yeah, right! Me drastically limit my food diversity?  HaHaHaHaHa!  But, I'm also really bad at peer pressure, so after some reading and major pressure, I've decided to give it a shot.  Of course, I consulted with my husband.  He of course rejected the idea (he makes me look like a diet crazy person already!) Don't worry, I convinced him that its a good idea because we'll be eating mainly delicious meat every night, and that he doesn't have to follow the diet, just support me.

What made me really decide to do this Paleo Challenge? Well, I'm introducing myself to Crossfit as well (at Santa Barbara Cross Fit), so I think this will be the best time to see some awesome results in my body (double experiment time yay!).  I've been injured for almost 4 months I haven't been able to play roller derby due to an injury that is JUST INFLAMMATION! If this diet will help get rid of inflammation, it should help me heal. And lastly, I'm working on healthy drinking patterns, so the challenge falls in the time range of no alcohol anyways, so it's one less major sacrafice.

Follow my paleo journey here!