Paleo, the Unabridged Edition

Forgive me as I navel gaze into my diet for the past 30 days. If you don't want the ridiculously long day-by-day version, feel free to jump to the bottom for an overall recap. 

Day 1: Keep asking myself about almost every food, is this paleo? Are pita chips paleo? Is mustard paleo? Is oatmeal paleo? Are cupcakes paleo? Is wine paleo? Is the baked goods section as a whole in Hannaford's paleo? I am driving myself a little insane. Some answers are more obvious than others, and the answer 95% of the time is no. Which means I can't eat it. Bummer. No chips for me.

Day 2: Still transitioning. The things that weren't paleo yesterday, still aren't today. Still a bummer.

Day 3: Currently craving: a bagel. Ate this for breakfast instead (yum). Baked this banana bread recipe in the afternoon, which was a major paleo fail-eo (HA!! *knee slap*). Mainly because I added in almond butter and maple syrup (why? I don't remember) and figured that it would just, you know, work. But baking is science, and I am no chemist.

No idea.

Result: majorly soggy bread despite cooking 10+ extra minutes. I ate a slice of it anyway out of sheer spite. It was bad.

I'm finding that I get much fuller much quicker than usual on paleo. I still get a bit hungry throughout the day per usual (before lunch, after a run, etc), but after eating a meal I'm like daaaang, really full stomach. So far this is the only noticeable difference.

Day 4: The discovery of Larabars. Complete game changer.

Day 5: I went to a lunch event for work, and elected for the turkey instead of stuffed shells (+1). But then they served chocolate cake and I ate half a slice (-1, but +1 for self-restraint to not eat it all). It was delicious (+1). Overall, a positive experience.

Day 6: Down to 145.4. I've been stuck at 147 for two weeks, so it's nice to see the scale move. I don't know if this is a result of eating paleo, or just because I've been pretty on track the past week. Time will tell. Currently craving: quesadillas.

Day 7: Didn't sleep much the previous night due to feeling nauseous. Not a fun combo. Today I went pretty far off paleo in an attempt to settle my stomach - ate some pasta, had a buffalo chicken quesadilla and some fro-yo. Sounds random, but it was what my stomach was craving and I thought it would make it feel better, but it definitely didn't... but meat/veggies/nuts/fruit sounded horrible at the time, so there you have it.

Day 8: 25% of the way there! Still nauseous but feeling better. Stayed paleo today.

Day 9: Stomach is back to normal and I'm currently not craving anything significant. Cool.

Day 10: Decided that Hershey's dark chocolate is paleo. Right?

Day 11: Made meatballs. I'd give em an 8 out of 10.

Day 12: Had a completely random and very inconvenient gum infection that required some minor emergency surgery. What the heck, body. I won't go into details because believe me, you don't want them. Smoothies galore. Also, the antibiotics they gave me can cause an overgrowth of C. diff (wonderful), and my dentist basically told me in no uncertain terms to eat yogurt for the live cultures. Choosing between staying paleo and warding off rampant terrible bacteria is a pretty easy decision. So, yogurt every day for a while. Also, ate some pasta salad using one side of my mouth because I was feeling bad for myself. Boohoo.

Day 13: More smoothies. More yogurt. So I guess I'm eating "Primal" now, not paleo? What's next, Feral? Savage? The Bloodthirsty diet? Let's get on that wagon, why don't we. Whatever we want to call it, I'm eating paleo plus dairy. Take that, C. diff!!

Day 14: The before: my sister-in-law and brother had stomach bugs this weekend. Of course I thought it would be a great time to visit. The after: I threw up 5 times overnight. You see day 12? Add in day 14 on top of that and YOU'RE GONNA HAVE A BAD TIME.

I am also sick to death of stomach bugs. I've had three this winter season. RIDICULOUS. That means I'm immune for life, right?

Day 15: Recovery. Ate a little of this, little of that. Mostly water, yogurt, bananas.

Day 16: Feeling 100% better. FINALLY. Made cauliflower crust pizza, and it came out much better than I thought it would! Mainly because I used a lot of cheese, as toppings and in the crust. I don't think I would have been as enthused if there was a lack of cheese.

Also, decided that Hershey's milk chocolate is paleo. .....right? (wrong) 

Day 17: Chaperoned a field trip for work. Free lunch = Boloco chicken burritos: high on deliciousness, low on paleo. Also went to my first bootcamp today! I was completely starving after so I threw together the quickest, strangest paleo dinner: sauteed mushrooms, a sausage link, and avocado. Inhaled it.

Day 18: I went out with some friends who were asking me how paleo was going. My response was 1. it's pretty alright, 2. I've noticed no earth-shattering changes, and 3. I really miss pizza/pasta/gluten/cookies/etc. I'm going to stick it out for the next 12 days but as of right now, I don't forsee myself continuing with it (at least as I have) after 30 days.

Speaking of hardcore, I'm actually not, since I had some tostitos & salsa and a piece of oreo peanut butter pie with ice cream when I got home. WHOOPS!

Day 19: A continuation of non-paleo foods. I had a pretty epic hill workout today, followed by a burger + fries/onion rings, and some fro-yo and a beer or two. Decidedly NOT paleo.

Day 20: Back on the caveman wagon. Steak + potatoes + broccoli for dinner.

Day 21: Meatloaf! Very proud of myself because I threw this together with no recipe. Ground bison meat, ground chicken sausage, 1 egg and 1 egg white, onions, worcestershire sauce, garlic, tomato paste, almond flour, and some bbq sauce and seasoning. It came out really good - better than expected. Dust ya shoulders off.

Day 22: Small run-in with a bit of chicken pot pie, but otherwise a mostly paleo day. Leftover meatloaf. Yum.

Day 23: ONE WEEK TO GO. Currently craving: a sandwich.

This sandwich. Droooooooool

Days 24, 25, 26, 27: Pretty much the most epic long weekend ever. Highlights included PAX East (home of some major quality cosplay, although alas I did not dress up), karaoke (sang some country), sushi dinner (terrified our server by bringing almost twice the number of people we had originally reserved for), having both our cell phones die and then realizing my car was towed (NOT FUN), hanging out with good friends (old and new), drinking champagne (yum), and eating pretty much whatever I wanted (chocolate covered almonds, chips and hummus, pizza!, and sour patch kid popsicles, of all things). And I didn't work out once.

This is completely the opposite of what I had originally anticipated my weekend being:

But I had an absolute blast and life goes on, as it always does.

Day 28: Back to healthy eating and paleo!

Day 29: Aaaand I'm pretty over it. I went grocery shopping today and in anticipation of The Final Day of Paleo I was so excited to buy things I couldn't buy before. Hummus! Veggie burgers! Sandwich bread! Granola bars!

Day 30: Last day! I celebrated by eating a sandwich for lunch. Whoops.

OVERALL: My impression of the paleo diet is "not bad, but not impressed."

Ehhhhh? Ehhhh...

I would say I was about 70% paleo, 30% not. Even that may be a generous estimate. This wasn't my original intent, but it's how it happened. Days 7-15 were rough all around due to random illness. I've met my sick quota for the year and it's only April, thank you very much. Throughout the month I ate a lot of things that weren't strictly paleo: chocolate, froyo, pasta, red wine, cheese, yogurt, protein powder, etc. And towards the end I really started to get lax about sticking with it.

Will I continue with paleo? The short answer is no. There were days that I was just fed up with it and didn't want to think about getting a burger sans bun, or struggling over whether or not to have one tortilla chip (just have it already). And sometimes you just gotta have some fro-yo.

FROYO, YOLO

I also wasn't a fan of labeling some foods as off-limits or bad, or on a certain "can't-have" or "can-have" list. I felt like my cravings were even more extreme once I put them on the bad list, which sort of backfired for me. And I felt no major differences eating paleo. Granted, I didn't stick with it 100% by a long shot, but that's life.

However, I will take some things from it - for instance, I loved that I minimized my processed food intake. Not one lean cuisine to be seen! It made me search for alternate, healthier snacks and dinner ideas. I also liked eating more veggies and protein, along with a LOT more healthy fats. I don't think I'm going to give up eating avocado most days, and I'm willing to sacrifice some grains for that to not throw my calorie count through the roof. Paleo showed me that fat is not necessarily a bad thing. Yay! That being said, there were a more than a couple days in there where I logged over 50% of my calories coming from fat. Whoops.

It might help if I stop eating almond butter straight from the jar.

Weight change: Negligible, probably due to an excessive amount of the two above pics. In fact, I'm pretty much the same as I started, if not even a bit higher. Color me (un)surprised: looking back on the days, this makes sense considering how many weekends I went a bit overboard. And I didn't go into this thinking it was a weight loss plan (calories are calories whether you eat meat and veggies, or pasta and cookies), although it would have been nice to see the scale move a bit more. That said, there are a number of factors at play: I've been gaining muscle (yay), and I was sick a lot this month (boo), I ate everything this past weekend (yum), and other weekends as well. All things to consider. Also: froyo. Have I mentioned froyo? Definitely a major player this month.


And so. Paleo experiment: 100% complete. Verdict: Meh. I will wonder no more!

And now I'm off to eat another sandwich.