Fighting the Temptation

The morning spread at my Seminar all three days...

This Paleo Challenge is definitely a challenge for me. When I am able to prepare my own food and eat it when I plan on eating, I have no problems sticking to paleo foods. The biggest challenge comes from having to figure out what to eat in a bind. Well, scratch that, the biggest challenge is not giving in to the temptation of all the foods I used to love (and still do). For example this week, I have been attending a seminar at the Hilton for the past two days and tomorrow as well. For breakfast they have the above along with all your favorite fruit juices. Fortunately, I had eaten a full breakfast and I was not hungry so I stuck to two cups of black coffee. Don't get me wrong, I was still tempted to have one of those delicious looking donuts but I stood strong, both days so far.

Lunch Tuesday was good cause they had chicken breasts and some mixed veggies that I could eat while most of the others chowed down on huge plates of lasagna and other pastas. Then to top it off they had delicous looking cake and cookies for desert. Still standing strong, I kept it to the fruit tray sitting next to the other deserts. Lunch today, was not as good. They had sandwiches and some broccoli salad. I took three sandwiches and ate the meat, lettuce and tomatoes only. Not very filling but if I took anymore sandwiches that might not look good to my managers. So I ended up having more of the broccoli salad and again some fruit for desert.

Still, the worst part of the whole food situation is the afternoon snacks. To help keep people awake they had cookies, candy bars, and all types of chips including my favorite kettle cooked jalapeno. Plus all the free pop you could drink all day long. Yet I stood strong and only had water and munched on some almonds I had in my car. But today I was ultra sleepy so I took a 5 hour energy shot to get me through the rest of the afternoon.

So I am proud of myself thus far (minus the wedding I went to on Saturday) because I have stuck to the paleo diet pretty well. One problem I have run in to is getting really sleepy in the afternoons but Ricky said I need to eat more, especially fats and throw in a little more protein. I am trying to do that so we shall see if that helps. I am also taking quite a bit of fish oil, 6 teaspoons a day of Carlson Labs liquid. I haven't seen a lot of changes in my performance yet but I am hoping next week will prove otherwise. I haven't been tracking my weight really cause the goal of this challenge is to see how your body composition changes of the course of the 7 weeks. However, I feel like I have lost some weight already and I feel great throughout most of the day.

Sorry for the lopng rambling post this time around. I have a lot to talk about and not a lot of time to write it all down. Perhaps I can try to post more often so I can get more of my thoughts down on paper.

Oh, one final thought. My copy of The Primal Blueprint came in the mail yesterday and I am excited to get to reading it, which is what I am going to do now.... see you next time.

Paleo Challenge

Mmmmm, Delicious!

Hey guys! Miss me? It's been a long time since I have written on this blog but I want to get back to it for a couple of reasons. First, we are doing a Paleo Challenge at CrossFit Omaha for the next 7 weeks and I want to track my progress and discuss how the diet affects me and how eating certain things make me feel. I also want to get back to writing on here because writing forces me to think more and to articulate my thoughts so that other people can understand them.

As I said, we started a 50 day Paleo Challenge at CrossFit Omaha. There are about 30 to 40 of us participating and the goal is not to lose weight or to restrict what you want to eat. The goal really is to promote healthy eating habits. The reward of developing these habits is the ability to change your body composition to what you want it to be, whether that be losing fat, adding muscle, or whatever. The challenge only required two things from the participants: pictures and food logs. Each of us was required to take a before shot of our front, side and back at the beginning and we will have to do the same after the 50 days. We are also required to submit a food log to a yahoo group each week. That's it. We can eat and drink whatever we want just as long as we document it. The goal, though, is basically to only eat food that a cave man could have eaten. This means no processed anything, no artificial sweeteners, no grains, no dairy. That may sound pretty limiting, and I thought the same, but I am learning all new things to eat already. I may not crave the spinach salads that I have for lunch and I my mouth doesn't water when I think about steamed broccoli but I am learning to like these foods. And I can feel a difference in how I feel.

The hardest part is going to be giving up alcohol and I can tell you right now that I won't be able to give it up 100%. I have a wedding to go to on Saturday and I have my 3rd annual NFL draft party on April 22nd that I will have a few during. Besides that, I am going to try my hardest to abstain from any booze at all. I may falter, but hopefully not much and then jump right back on the Paleo wagon.

As for my blog, I plan on posting my progress with the diet as well as any good food ideas I stumble across. I also want to try to document how I feel when I eat healthy and when I falter. I am hoping that my performance during CrossFit workouts gets much better. And finally, when its all said and done, I hope the pictures tell a story of a successful undertaking.

Wish me luck!!