"The deepest secret is that life is not a process of discovery, but a process of creation. You are not discovering yourself, but creating yourself anew. Seek, therefore, not to find out Who You Are, seek to determine Who You Want To Be." -Neale Donald Walsch, Conversations with God – Book 1
First off, happy hump-day to everyone! I know I personally do a quick cheer each week when I get over the hump...two more days till I get to sleep in, yay! Also, I will always jump at the chance to say "hump," especially in a non-crass way. And every time I use the word "crass," I think of my dear mother who has coached the crap out of me to not embody the aforementioned modifier. It's a tough job, but she has heart and endless determination.
We are approximately sixty days strong into
The Clean Year. Whoop! Time to do a recap. It started with three weeks of hell, i.e. withdrawal symptoms from caffeine and sugar followed by approximately three weeks of smooth sailing. My energy levels went from a 5-6 ish range to a 7-9. Restful sleep became easier to attain. My skin cleared up quite a bit. Cravings were not too frequent and not too strong. Six weeks in, I hit a big wall and cried about it,
publicly. Discovered new ways of crutching myself. (Yes, I turned "crutch" into a verb...you're welcome, world.) Stress levels sky rocketed, refined-sugar free binging commenced, skin broke out, tossing and turning replaced sleeping, used all possible restraint to not drink a gallon of beer/wine/tequila to relax my old-fashioned way. Gah! Refocused and rejuvenated myself with outside time and with support of a great community. Began ten weeks of Paleo-Zone style grub-munching a week and a half ago.
Why Paleo-Zone? First and foremost, because when I eat this way, I shed fat like it's nothing (
click here to see), I lift heavier weights and get faster times on workouts, I feel amazing, and most of all, my energy and moods become super stable and positive. I know that for me, it's a great avenue to work towards greater health and ultimately, a long and disease-free life. The nutrition lecture at
Crossfit Verve a week and a half ago reminded me of the reasoning behind it.
Paleo is all about eating
quality, anti-inflammatory foods: lean meat, veggies, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch and no sugar. Paleo style eating can come in all different flavors and can be tweaked to meet each person's individual needs. Check out this nice, concise
blog that compares and contrasts the different takes on "caveman grub".
Zone, on the other hand, addresses the
quantity of food/macronutrients I put in my pie-hole.
Realizations since starting my Paleo-Zone party are as follows:
- Weighing and measuring is a pain in the ass...AT FIRST! Then, it becomes a part of the routine. Easy peezy.
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| Post 5K recovery: 3 blocks of food and a crap-ton of ice. |
- I was eating wayyyyyyy too much. As in, I don't get to eat just cuz I feel like it?!
- When I'm consuming appropriate amounts of carbs, protein and fat, I am forced to eat a ton of veggies so I don't starve all day. I have to think about my carbs and how to "spend them". Luckily, that's how my body likes to be fed...it's the brain that needs the convincing.
- I'm lazy. Or maybe it's just that I have no free time. Either way...I don't cook that much. I love to look droolingly at food blogs. I dream big, then get back to my reality: eating bags of frozen veggies or raw no-prep veggies, with a hunk of meat that I mass-grilled on Sunday and sliced up avocado or a few nuts. Even the lazy man's Paleo is delicious. Not joking. People get jealous.
- I get smaller when I eat appropriate amounts of quality foods for my lean body mass. Who knew? So far, I have shrunk the same amount (a couple lbs and about a half an inch at the waist) in a week and a half as I did the first seven weeks of this journey. Boom.
- A food journal is a fascinating tool. You can figure out all sorts of sh*& about your body by looking for patterns of what you eat. It is also a necessary practice for significant forward progress in my nutrition.
- A well-balanced meal that will keep me full and energetic will also make my jaws hurt from all the chewing. Seriously, I eat at top speed all the time, and these meals still take, at the very least, ten minutes to finish. If it's done in two, we've got a problem.
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| Driving back from the cabin with Sarah Bear and Jo Jo. |
- Life still comes first. Out of the last ten days, five were great Paleo-Zone days and four were Paleo-Zone-
ish days and one was a Paleo-ish day. Great? Nope. But I went to a cabin with some of my favorite friends, where we cooked and ate as a family...was I gonna whip out my scale and measuring cups right there? Nope. I might be there one day, but last weekend was all about friends and food and fun. And watching them get all happy-drunk while I sipped on sparkling water with a splash of juice. It was a GREAT weekend.
So, the next "crutches" in my squashing machine (not to be confused with the smooshing machine, says the reality T.V. addict...hahaha, cracking myself up) are grains, most dairy, eating too much or "just cuz I wanna", and too much fruit. I'm on my way back to Awesome...and loving the journey!
I know a ton of people who also started dialing in their nutrition recently, how goes it with you?
