As promised folks, I’ve finally come through: Below are links to download the medical results from my 30-day stint on the Paleo diet.

I’m still working on the final write up. I want it to be thorough, and well written for a change, so I’m taking my time getting it posted. But as a little teaser, I figured I’d release the blood work for your enjoyment/apathy.

As you can see, my bio-indicators stayed mostly the same (they weren’t bad to begin with), but overall cholesterol dropped a little bit. I’ll try to do some ‘splainin in the final write-up about what some of the numbers mean, but feel free to do your own research. You’ll also notice that on the report itself there is some explanation of what particular numbers mean as far as general indicators of cardiovascular disease risk as well as insulin insensitivity.

Pre-diet blood test:

Post-diet blood test:

I know, I know. I haven’t posted the Paleo wrap-up like I promised. It’s coming, I promise.

I’m currently at a fitness blogging conference trying to get my learn on so I can better serve you people in the future. Please forgive the silence, I’m not a blogging superstar like everyone else here, who all seem to be able to tweeter and facebookify every minute of their existence in a humorous and engaging way, all while writing a couple articles every day…..I’ve got a lot to learn.

Here’s proof that I’m here:

Post-Paleo goodness is coming….Soonish.

High five!….. Somebody? Anybody? Ah screw you guys, I’ll just high five myself.

Monday of this week marked the end of my inaugural Whole 30, which is a very strict implementation of the Paleo diet, and I pulled it off without a single cheat or hiccup.

It’s probably a good thing, because I think I was starting to get a little too crazy about the food I eat. In fact, there were multiple occasions where I woke up from a “nightmare” in which I’d unwittingly eaten something non-Paleo, or even had a beer without thinking about it…. Seriously it happened at least 3 times.

I don’t want to recover the same ground for those of you who’ve already read the previous posts, so if you’re just jumping in here, I’d recommend going back to the beginning for a better explanation of what exactly the plan and purpose was of my past 30 days….Okay, it actually ended up being 32, but who’s counting (me).

I wanted to post this earlier this week, but there were so many things that needed to be done after work: such as drink beer with friends, socialize, and start laying patio stones for my post-paleo palooza… I’m all about palooza’s around here.

By the way, if anybody wants to come help with this today, it’s one of those jobs that you look at and think, “Oh this is no big deal, probably take an hour or two….”

Damn you.... damn you all.

Time budgeting fail.

Anyway, this post isn’t about my inability to properly manage my time, or sequester your help. I want to give you the final scale and body fat numbers, as well as the “after”pictures from Monday. Before on the left, after on the right.

Obviously after just 30 days, you’re not going to see a huge difference, but I can tell that my back has leaned out. Anyway, as for the numbers….

DAY 32 on the Paleo diet: 178lbs @ 7.8% body fat

I’ll admit, I was a little disappointed in this. Not that a drop of almost 2% body fat and 8.5lbs in one month isn’t good, but 10 days ago I was at 7.3% body fat. Not sure what to attribute the gain in fat to, but I’ve got a couple theories based of my years of experience, wisdom, training, etc…Wait, I have none of these. Well here’s what I’m guessing anyway:

• Having dropped shed weight so quickly over the first 3 weeks, my body got wise and decided it didn’t want to starve to death and started to hold onto fat
• Fruit. I’ll admit that I ate more fruit over the last week and a half of the diet than I had the first 3 weeks. Fruit is “legal” on Paleo, but shouldn’t be eaten in large quantities, and I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t eat a ton of blueberries, blackberries, and strawberries in the past 10 days. However, berries are low on the Glycemic Index compared to other fruits, so I figured eating a large amount of them wouldn’t be an issue. Maybe I was wrong?

Regardless, I’m quite happy with the results and my strength has only increased if anything while on the diet.

Last night at the gym, I maxed out on the weighted pull up at 100lbs. Most I’ve ever done. Feel good about that.

So what’s the plan now? Well I’m still waiting to get my blood work back from the doc, so until I see those results I’m going to eat relatively Paleo, but not be quite as strict. I’ve already had a little bit of bread (which I regretted afterwards) and of course I’ve had some beer/wine.

Just wanted to give you a final update on the journey and assure you that I made it through. After I get the blood work, I’ll do a real wrap up and give my overall impressions and take aways from it all.

Okay, I’ve literally only laid 7 of the 50 patio bricks, and that took my something like 2 hours, so I need to get to work…. Later peeps.

I was a little worried that, since I’d been dropping so much weigh to the Paleo diet, that my strength would drop thus slowing down my achieving my 3 goals. Thankfully, monday of last week, something awesome happened. Observe.

Flailing like a baby bird with a broken wing or no. The weight was lifted.

The clean was by far the most frustrating lift I’ve ever done, and my form is still terrible, but I’m pretty sure it’s kind of like throwing a baseball: you can learn how to do it in 5 minutes, but could spend your whole lifetime trying to perfect it.

Anyway, goal 2 of 3 is in the bag. Now for that damned front squat, which is going to be rough.

Ah yes, the pantry. The absolute least Paleo approved part of my kitchen. You’ve got crackers, flour, muffin mix, popcorn, hot chocolate mix, the list goes on. So basically, grain, grain, sugar mixed with grain, grain and some disgusting oils, and purified then liquefied sugar. Awesome. One of my favorite quotes from The Paleo Solution in reference to making prepartions to go Paleo is, “Stack the cards in your favor. Bag up all your crap food, take it to your local shelter and, I guess inadvertently, contribute to the death of the homeless.” While that may sound harsh, I’m pretty sure muffins are more nutritious and healthy than crack, so I don’t feel all that bad about it. So purge I did.

After clearing this bad boy out, it was near empty. The only thing I was able to salvage was smoked sea salt and some 3 year old rosemary.

You know what that means. Time to go shoppiiiiiiiiing! …I hate shopping. Unless it’s for something awesome, and going shopping for dry goods isn’t my idea of awesome, but it was necessary.

When I think of what goes in the pantry, I think of things that will last for at least a month or two just sitting there without technology or human intervention. If I’m sticking to that paradigm, and buying only Paleo and Whole 30 clean foods, then that basically gives me a short list of things that I can put in my pantry:

• Spices
• Oils
• Nuts
• ….And I guess dried fruit and meat, but I haven’t invested in any of these and don’t plan on it. I prefer the fresh version of both.

Alright, list compiled, off I went.

First stop, spices.  As a single guy, I think it’s pretty normal to think that there are 2 spices in this world: salt and pepper. Man have I been missing out.

Let's talk about sex? I think not. Let's talk about NAIR.... Use it.

Having compiled a laundry list of different spices to get from The Paleo Cookbook, I headed down to our local bazaar known as Carytown to unload more cash on powder, flakes, and leaves than any man has before me. There’s a nice little shop called “Penzey’s Spices” there, and the kind women working were nice enough to hook me up despite the impending closing time (I was the jerk who strolled in 5 minutes before they close and proclaimed, “I need the 20+ spices on this list and I have no idea what they look like or how to pronounce them”). Observe:

Some of these things I’d never even heard of, but recipe’s on my list call for them, and I’m not much for deviating from recipes unless I know what I’m doing… and I don’t.

Next up was Ellwood Thompson’s, our neighborhood favorite local and natural food market, to pick up all the oils and nuts that were necessary. Ellwood’s has a great “buy in bulk” bin system, kind of like they used to have back in the day at Giant Foods when I was a kid. I used to love those things. I wonder why they got rid of them…. maybe because little kids like me with boogers and who knows what else on their fingers were always sticking their hands into the barrels to sift the through the contents just for giggles.

Stupid kids. Always ruining things.

Well as you can see, the folks at Ellwood’s got wise, and made some booger proof bins so I felt pretty safe that the nuts I bought are all 100% Paleo approved and clean.

I picked up the following. All in raw (unsalted, no-oil, just straight nut) form:

• Almonds
• Walnuts
• Pecans
• Brazil Nuts
• Hazelnuts

Then in the oils I picked up:

• Extra Virgin Olive Oil (Costco actually)
• Red Pepper Infused EVOO (Kroger)
• Coconut Oil (This stuff is delicious by the spoonful. Haven’t actually cooked with it, but have inserted it directly into my pie-hole on multiple occassions)
• Avocado Oil
• Walnut Oil

As you can see, I went on a bit of a spending spree. Financially, it hurt. I don’t expect everyone to do that, and honestly, in retrospect, I don’t think you really have to. I started writing this post about a week and a half ago, and I was gung-ho about having all the tools to go grape-nuts on this diet, but as I finish writing this I’m over 3 weeks in, and I can tell you that more than half of the spices, nuts, and oils have gone entirely unused (especially the spices). I’ll give you a few things that I’d 100% recommend having around for general cooking purposes, but the others I’d hold off on and just pick up on an “as needed” basis. Keep in mind that I’m more of a southwestern style kind of cook, so this spice list reflects that.

In the spice category:

• Sea salt
• Black pepper
• Chili Powder
• Cumin
• Garlic Powder
• Paprika
• Cinnamon

Nuts:

• Almonds
• Walnuts
• Pecans

…. I haven’t been cooking as much with the nuts, but I like to eat them raw and sometimes throw them on top of a salad. These 3 are pretty versatile.

Oil:

• Extra Virgin Olive Oil – The king of oils in my book. Use it for most everything.

…. I haven’t even opened the Avocado or Walnut yet, though I’m sure I’ll give a couple recipes a try with it. The Coconut Oil is great for satiating a sweet tooth, which I did several times the first week or so, but I no longer have much of a craving for sweets (Other than berries, which rock my world).

I’m sure there are those who will take umbrage to my list, as if I somehow slighted their favorite spice (Where the hell is Turmeric you SOB!?), but I’m just trying to save you people some money out of the gate.

Anyway, last thing to go is my fridge. It’s ugly, and it’s full of non-Paleo approved junk… Some of which is probably 5 months old and spawning new ecosystems.

Alternate caption: Because “Paprika and Corianduh” is just stupid.