How My Paleo Began...

Around Thanksgiving, I started to incorporate Paleo eating in mine and the husband's lifestyle.

Wait, let me go back a little further.

I had been a fairly athletic child and teenager. When I got to college I gained the cliche' "freshman 15." Then I transferred undergraduate schools and joined the college's cross country team. Then I got married and put a bunch of weight on. Then I got divorced and lost the weight. Then I started working on my dissertation which was wonderful and challenging and rewarding in many ways as I now have what amounts to a rather coveted tenure track job in a great department that allows me to teach the things I love and supports my rather unconventional research which involves a bizarre aspect of pop culture and literature of years ago. Then I lost some dissertation weight (not all) and got married (again--so much better the second time around) and then a deployed husband, a stressful job, a pseudo-vegan diet, and a whole mess of stress and I found the dissertation weight right back on (though not as full force). For a full seven years now I have been steadily gaining weight with pockets of moderate weight loss that comes right back as soon as I get stressed. And every time I decided that I'm going to lose the weight for good, I adopted some form of vegetarian or vegan plan. And every time I did so, I found myself not shedding the pounds like I thought I should and unable to maintain the active athletic lifestyle I so craved.

But this isn't a weight loss story, per se.

I've done everything, too. Weight Watchers on multiple occasions, various calorie counting and weight loss apps,  gym memberships with trainers who had endless patience with me, meal plans, marathon training, P90X, Insanity, you name it. I'm usually able to drop about 15 pounds and then that's it. My body goes no further and feels like crap.

Around Thanksgiving, my sister was telling me about her trainer and how he was trying to convince her to "go Paleo." I had heard of it. My husband, who has asked to be called Boudreaux Disceaux, was a little skeptical ("It's so restrictive--you won't be able to maintain it; just like being vegan but not."). However, I am super competitive with my sister, and not wanting to be out done by her and my mother (who had already bought The Paleo Diet Cookbook), I jumped right in. But you know, we didn't go whole hog. Rather, my goal was to have about 66% of the meals I cooked be "Paleo" meals. We ordered pizza once a week, and if we went out to dinner on the weekends, I let that be my "cheat day" for my diet. Like probably about 3/4 of the country, I made a New Year's Resolution to lose weight. So a calorie counting I went again. Logging food and feeling guilty about cheat days. Letting the scale decide my mood on any given day. On top of this, I was working out about 1-2 hours a day 5-6 days a week, getting plenty of calories, but only losing about 1/2 pound a week by about the third week. As clean as my diet was (mostly--a considerable improvement over the previous months) and as dedicated as I was to the workouts, things were moving slowly (especially with the promise of the P90X2 massive shred and rip results).

The husband, not a devote' of Mr. P90X started to do Cross Fit a few times a week. And he was loving it! The husband is NOT a workout fiend, so I thought, "hmmmmm, if he's loving this so much, I should try it!" Competitive much? For the month of February then I did my P90X2 as the warm up for the Cross Fit, do the W.O.D., and then go for a run. And I cleaned up the diet even more. We were at about 85% Paleo at this point. Within two weeks of upping the Paleo plan and adding the Cross Fit, I saw better results than in the previous month. And I was looking good by the end of February.  And I had energy for days! I was sleeping better than ever before. And I managed to miss all of the illnesses that were going around campus.

Then we went away on spring break and ate a ton of grains and gluten and dairy and all kinds of bad things for only a week. Voila! I was sick. I had no energy. The start of the quarter just about killed me. I could not keep on top of my work. My workouts suffered. So I cleaned up the diet again, but my workouts were draining me because we were still eating small to moderate amounts of gluten and dairy and the like.

I ordered more cookbooks. I found Sarah Fragoso's Everyday Paleo. After reading through the intro I decided to give the 30 day meal plan a try. Cold turkey. 30 days without dairy or gluten or grains. (Okay, I admit, around day 10 or so I cheated a bit and got gluten free cookies). And I dropped the P90X2 & P90X and decided to do just Cross Fit and running.

So what happened? I'll tell you!

I started sleeping better, that is, my brain shut off at night when I was tired and I didn't have to take any melatonin to help me sleep. Not only that, but I slept well! Like good, deep, restorative sleep. I was well rested in the mornings, so I started working out almost first thing in the morning. And I felt great! And I could work out more intensely and recover faster. As a matter of fact, I can now go 7-10 days before I need a rest day. My diet is not 100% Paleo, but I think I'd be fair to say that it's 90-95% Paleo, and completely gluten free.

I started losing weight and inches. But I don't count calories! That's one of the brilliant things about Paleo living! You don't measure. You don't log food. It's been liberating folks! Absolutely liberating! And if you're following a Paleo lifestyle, it's impossible to have junkfood! (We'll talk some more about eating and lifestyle as the blog continues, I promise!)

Another big change that I noticed too was that the Paleo lifestyle has pretty much eliminated my PMS. That's right ladies! Aunt Flo's visits are considerably shorter, less painful, and way less emotional! If that's not enough right there to be Paleo ladies, then I don't know what is!


That's where we begin today, folks. Six weeks GF. Six weeks fairly strict Paleo (we went on vacation for about 10 days, but eating Paleo on vacation is another post). And six weeks of feeling better than I have in my entire life.