Going Paleo: My First Week

I’ve conquered my first week (and a bit) of the transition to the Paleo way of life. I've cooked and eaten some delicious food, and am really enjoying exploring this new way of eating.

Lamb Chops and Baked Veggies - Just one of the delicious and simple Paleo dinners from this week.

I’ve heard that the first few weeks are the hardest. Getting used to eating differently, and letting your body adjust to such a significant dietary change. It’s been a tough, but incredibly positive experience, and I thought I would share some of the details of my brief experience so far, and the main things I’ve noticed.

Cravings

I had a patch, a couple of days ago, when it was like my head and stomach were screaming at me for carbs and/or sugar. All I wanted was anything in the cupboard that I can’t eat (which there is still lots of because the Fiance isn’t going Paleo and I can’t bear to throw away good food). One morning, I woke up and the Fiance had left some chocolate on the kitchen counter that he bought his dad for Father’s Day and, I am not kidding, it nearly broke me.  Other than this short patch of intense cravings, they haven’t been to bad. Occasionally I think something along the lines of “Oooh, I could really go for –insert non-paleo friendly food here-“ and then realise that no, I can’t eat that. I’ve been keeping cravings at bay by allowing myself to snack on more fruit than would probably be acceptable.

Energy

The energy that I’ve had for the last week and a half has been insane. I feel like I’ve constantly got the energy to get up and do anything. I had 5 and a half hours sleep last night, worked with kids all day, didn’t have more than a chicken leg for lunch, am still going strong and on my walk this evening I felt the urge to run up a hill. What is that?!? I have never had that urge before in my life. I expected my energy levels to be bad and/or all over the shop while my body adjusts to the changes, but it’s been the opposite. I feel amazing, and I really hope it’s the diet that’s doing it, because I don’t want it to stop!

Sleep

Sleep has been the one downside to all this energy. I’ve had a lot of trouble getting to sleep lately. I’ve found myself awake some mornings until 1am and still not tired. Then, the next morning, waking up is impossible. Once I’m up, I’m good, but waking up has been a big struggle.

Mood

I was expecting some weird mood swings coming off of carbs and sugar. I didn't think I was eating a lot of sugar, but I am amazed at just how much they manage to sneak into everything! Luckily, my mood has been mostly stable. I had a couple of cranky patches, where I was incredibly grumpy for no particular reason, but they were very short and nothing compared to good ol’ PMS.

There have also been a few lessons learned this week. Things that have been important for being successful so far, and that I need to keep in mind.

 Prepare and Plan Ahead

Not just my usual casual planning, but knowing and having on hand everything for every meal and snack is almost essential. If I run out of something, haven’t got something or don’t have something planned, it’s much too easy to revert back to eating poorly. Being prepared is also important mentally. Knowing that I always have food and meals on hand makes it so much easier to ride out cravings.

Cravings Will Pass

Despite the strong cravings I had, a day or two on and they are gone. I’m going good now. I know that they will come back, but they will also calm down if I DON’T feed them. On the flip side, if I do feed them, then I’m only going to have to fight them harder for longer.

Eat Fat

It helps keep you full and fuelled. This has been really hard to get my head around, because every part of my previous food experience tells me that fat is bad and should be avoided at all costs. It’s already becoming clear, however, how important fats are in keeping me satiated. Eating a lean Paleo meal means I’m hungry and snacking on sugary fruit about an hour after a meal, whereas a meal with some fat to it seems to keep me going for quite a while.

Start Slow and Go Easy On Yourself 

I feel like I’ve gone for a fair bit at once, cutting out grains, legumes, non-natural sugars and basically anything not 100% natural. It’s definitely been manageable, and encompasses some of the most major aspects of the diet, but switching to Paleo completely all at once would just not work for me (especially living with someone who’s not making the switch). From what I’ve heard and read, going cold turkey has worked wonders for some, but it’s ok if it doesn’t. Finding what works, and what is sustainable long term is more important than the pace.

So far, going Paleo has been a predominantly positive experience. I'm seeing changes that I would never have expected to see so soon, and overall I feel amazing. I'm keeping my fingers and toes crossed that I continue to feel this good, because although this way of eating makes sense to me, I won't be able to say whether it is the right choice until I've given it time. For now, I'm excited to keep pushing onward.

Weekly Weigh-In

First real week of my slow transition to Paleo down, and I am happy to report a solid loss of 1.4 kilograms! This made me so excited when I jumped on the scales this morning, because I had no idea what to expect.

I stuck to my Paleo inspired eating goals of no whole foods, no grains or legumes and no non-naturally occurring sugars (i.e. anything other than natural sugars in fruit and honey) pretty well. The only real deviation I made was my daily Pepsi Max (which I am dreading giving up) and yesterday when I had a couple of dolmades as a snack. They contained what is safe to assume was bleached white rice (rice seems to be a bit of a Paleo grey area depending on who you talk to, with some people saying it's ok as long as it's polished white rice, not chemically treated white rice or any form of brown rice) and some sort of plant oil.

I haven't counted calories, at all. In fact, I'm pretty sure that most days I would have been over my daily intake, yet I had a really good loss. I had decided at the beginning of the week to let myself eat whenever I was hungry, to make the week easier (and more likely to be successful). That seemed to work really well, as I didn't feel trapped or stressed by the changes. I had a couple of night when I was ravenous and ate more than I would normally allow myself, but for the most part I found that I stayed really satiated after a meal for a long period of time.

Today's weigh in was really positive (the first positive one in a while), and it was really motivating to see such a good loss with the changes to my eating.

Going Paleo

I've waited for a little bit to write this post on my transition into the Paleo way of eating, because I wanted to be sure that it was something that I really want to do (the diet, not the post). The Paleo (A.K.A primal, caveman, ancestral, etc.) diet was something that I became introduced to in a very superficial way when I started reading a lot of health and weight loss blogs. I definitely wrote it off as a fad diet, which was something that I just wasn't interested in, in my efforts to get healthy. I didn't really explore it or endeavor to learn much about it, for that reason.

Then, in a comment on a recent post of mine, Josh from 700 Pounds is as Bad as it Sounds (check out his blog if you haven't read it) recommended that I watch the documentary Fat Head, made by comedian Tom Naughton. In short, it's a sort of response to the documentary Super Size Me that disproves a lot of the findings from the movie. More than that, it addresses some of the misinformation that we accept to be true in the modern diet. Some of the information in the documentary was absolutely mind blowing, and seemed to be backed up by at least some science. I decided to do a bit of research about the movie and to look into whether the claims in the movie were backed up by good science.

From what I could see, it had a pretty solid foundation of research behind it, which made me more and more intrigued. I looked more into Tom Naughton, and found out that he now followed and was a big advocate for the Paleo diet. From there, my interest in the Paleo diet was kind of piqued, and I slowly began actually looking into what it was and what it was based on. I spent quite a few weeks doing a lot of online research and finding out more. What I found really made sense to me.

I like the idea of whatever diet I am going to consume being heavily supported by research. Paleo really ticks this box for me. Although I initially assumed it to be simply copying what our primal ancestors consumed, it is actually supported up by quite a significant body and research and science. There seems to be a lot of consideration for what nutritional research is saying about eating for optimal health, and from what I've seen has a big role in the culture of the Paleo community. I'm way too green to explain more about Paleo, and won't presume to know basically anything about it, so for anyone who's interested I would recommend starting with Robb Wolf's website for a really simple explanation.

So, over the last couple of weeks, I've been letting everything I've learned sink in. I've weighed up whether or not I think that Paleo is something that I want to do, given that it will mean some really extreme dietary changes. I gave it time to see if my interest went away, but it really didn't. I've been really excited by the whole idea. So, in the last week and a half, I've decided to start attempting a slow transition into trialing Paleo eating for myself.

Right now, I'm working on eating almost completely whole foods and taking out some of the most commonly avoided foods in Paleo, like grains, legumes and non-natural sugars.  I'm barely dipping my toe in and I've already felt some improvements in my energy. I've also had some negative reactions, which I'm told are normal in the early stages as the body adjusts to fueling itself with a new fuel source (i.e. proteins and fats, rather than carbohydrates).

It hasn't been easy, especially when it comes to figuring out exactly what I can eat, but I feel really good about it. I feel like, given the current evidence base (which may and probably will change), I'm doing what makes most sense for my health right now. Absolutely not just for weight loss, but for my long term physiological health. I'm approaching this trial run with what I hope is a bit of healthy skepticism, but I'm excited to see if there really are any benefits to eating the Paleo way.

Weekly Weigh-In

Blergh. Just a quick update to say I've had another crazy up and down weight week. Today my scales said I've put on two kilograms in two days... I haven't been eating badly, or doing anything different. Even if I had that swing seems a bit extreme. I have no idea what my crazy body is up to. The only cause I can think of for all of the wacky weight changes is this very persistent cold I've been fighting.

It's been hanging around for more than two weeks now, but I'm finally feeling on the mend. Hopefully this week my weight will at least be somewhat consistent. If I'm lucky I may even be able to lose a little bit of weight!