Or maybe I do? Depends on who you are and what your definition is I guess.

We define it around here as “bullsh*ting”, and that’s not what I’m going for here. I’ve been reading up and trying to write a post on what exactly my blood work numbers all mean from my 30 days of strict Paleo (which ended almost 2 months ago, which really makes me feel like a slacker), but I started to realize that I don’t really know what I’m talking about.

This pretty much sums up my knowledge of cholesterol

So I went ahead and scheduled another doctor appointment to sit down with my doc and have a chat about what all these numbers really mean, why some rose and some fell, and what exactly I should takeaway from all of it.

Again, to emphasize what I’ve said before, I’m not an expert on most anything at this point. I’ve learned a ton over the past year or so, but it’s one of those things where the more you learn, the more  you realize how little you actually know. Having said that, I’d rather not be a blogger who runs around snowballing people just for giggles.

So the good news? I’ll finally finish up the Paleo wrap-up, and have all my information based off of the reading I’ve done, and more importantly, the opinion of a medical professional who’s livelihood is dependent upon keeping me alive.

I guess there’s really no bad news to follow that up with…. Awesome.

MMmmmmmm. Protein bars. Who doesn’t enjoy the taste of cardboard soaked in stale, solidified corn syrup? I’m not saying I’ve never had one that I didn’t like, but the enjoyment was usually contingent upon me being hungry enough to eat my own young (which I don’t have).

So needless to say, I was a bit skeptical when representatives for Promax Nutrition contacted me about writing a review for their line of low sugar protein bars. But, I mean, hey, just the fact that somebody wanted me to write something about anything made me pretty excited. So I said “abso-friggin-lutely!”

Several days later I received a little cardboard 6-shooter loaded with these bad boys:

Well the packaging certainly makes them look delicious, but pretty packaging is easy to come by, so I figured I’d go ahead and pop one open and settle this thing…

I ended up eating 2.

Yeah, as far as flavor, I can say with a clear conscious that I thoroughly enjoyed both the Chocolate Fudge and the Peanut Butter Chocolate bars. The texture was good on both, but I’d say the chocolate one really took the gold with its brownie-textured center.

However, just to make sure my judgment wasn’t clouded by the sweet, sweet taste of selling out the very first chance I got, I had a friend of mine try the bars as well. She has her own blog which focuses primarily on food, so I figured if anybody had the ability to discern between good and disgusting it would be her. She came to the same conclusion: These bars are very good, and border on delicious.

With the biggest question (how does it taste) out of the way, the 2^nd most important question is “what’s in it”?

A short list: 18g of protein, only 9g of sugar, and a whopping 14g of fiber (read: keeps you full longer). Plus, instead of making this thing out of gobs of corn syrup, they use soluble corn fiber. Granted, I’m not a big corn proponent these days considering my newfound faith in Paleo, but when in comparison to corn syrup it sounds like this stuff is much, much easier for the human body to handle than corn syrup. A little excerpt from the Promax folks explaining exactly what this stuff is all about:

“The soluble corn fiber used in Promax LS is a natural fiber that is well tolerated, has a low glycemic response, and is used to replace sweeteners such as corn syrup or sugar, with only half of the calories.

Soluble corn fiber is also an excellent source of dietary fiber and offers the health benefit of being prebiotic. A prebiotic feeds and stimulates the growth and metabolism of good bacteria aiding digestion and supporting the body’s immune system.”

Considering this is coming from the folks who make the bars, I was hesitant to swallow this (mwahah, great pun), but I checked around a little and the claim of lower glycemic and insulin response seems to check out (Reuters). I can also tell you that after eating a couple of these, I didn’t have any of the sugar jitters or crash feeling that I’ve experienced before on other energy bars that rhyme with FlowerStar…. Or TowerCar… or… whatever.

Please keep in mind these are not Whole 30 or Paleo approved… at all. However, if you’re going to cheat and pick up a quick protein and calorie fix, I think this would be a much better cheat option than other much more sugar laden (and disgusting tasting) protein bars out there. No lie, these bars are very good tasting, and if you’re somebody who’s got a tendency to break down and buy a candy bar or something similar, I can highly recommend having one of these bad boys around to come to the semi-rescue.

Now at this point, you might be asking yourself: why would Promax want a hack like Luke Rhodes to write something about their bars?…. I take offense to that, but quite frankly I wondered the same thing.

Well, the people over at Promax Nutrition are currently holding a contest, and as much as it pains me to spread the word and thus increase my competition, that’s part of my deal with them: spread the word on their contest called, “I AM THE NEXT DOER: The Promax Build Your Own Ad Contest”

Basically, Promax is looking for awesome people like you and myself who are out there getting after it, and if you’re the lucky jerk who wins, you get a whole lot of awesome:

• Get featured in the 2012 Promax campaign
• Receive a years supply of Promax Nutrition bars
• A 6 day adventure tip to Kauai, Hawaii.

….Damn, I really don’t even want to tell you guys this, but if one of you do enter the contest and do win, promise me one thing: you’ll take me with you to Hawaii. Deal? By reading this sentence you legally agree to take me with you – DONE.

Okay, so to enter, roll on over to Promax Nutrition’s Facebook Page and follow the instructions. It’s a piece of cake, and you better damn well believe I’m going to enter too… If that’s allowed… Shoot, I’ll have to check if that’s allowed. Either way, I’m going with you if you win, so you enter too: GET IT, GET IT.

FTC Disclosure: As crazy as this sounds, I was actually given a small amount of money to write this review of Promax Nutrition’s LS bars. I know, I know, I was amazed too. Regardless of this fact, all opinions and statements in this article are my own unless otherwise noted. Like I always say, integrity precedes Yokehood… Alright, I only said that once, and it was in jest, but I mean it this time.

Alright, now that everyone’s caught up hopefully, I’ll lay out the subjective “results” of how going 100% Paleo made me feel.

Energy Levels – Steady

This was not a problem for me. Others have complained of little to no energy during the initial stages of the diet however, and I’m going to assume that those who do probably have a very sugary carbohydrate heavy diet to begin with, and their bodies react negatively to the sudden lack of sugar/crack that used to coarse through their veins on a regular basis. This is not an expert opinion by any means, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express over the past weekend… Okay, maybe it was a Marriot… And maybe I actually slept in my car in the parking deck of the hotel, but now we’re just splitting hairs.

Another change I noticed, is in how I felt immediately after eating meals; even huge meals. Rather than the lethargic, somebody please give me a red bull and swift kick in the groin to keep me awake, feeling that I used to get after most meals, I felt great. Energy levels stayed steady, and food never felt like a rock in my gut.

I tell ya, that energy spike and subsequent crash was something that I did not miss in the slightest. Feeling great all day can be addictive.

I’m sure a good bit of this had to do with the food, but I also have to give credit to getting more….

Sleep

Something that I would guess a lot people don’t focus on enough in relation to “Paleo” is the sleep aspect. I felt awesome during/after my 30 days, and I’m pretty sure I can chalk a lot of that up to getting ~8 hours of sleep a night.

In The Paleo Solution, much is made of the different hormones in the body that affect energy release, energy storage, stress, etc. One in particular that I’m guessing was finally brought to a healthy place for me was Cortisol. Apparently, Cortisol levels should be at their highest in the morning when we wake, and their lowest at night when we’re about to go to sleep. This would make sense, since why would we want to release energy for use, and be amped up, when we’re trying to fall asleep? For many people, this just isn’t the case though, including myself: Cortisol being present in miniscule levels in the morning, and the mind and heart racing at night when you’re trying to fall asleep. I imagine people like that, and like myself, would describe themselves as night owls….. /party animals.

Obviously, this is all just a guess, but most of my life I haven’t been what you’d call a “morning person”. You can probably tell from some of the pictures I’ve taken in the morning over the past year. I usually look miserable, and if I don’t, I look euphoric because I’m still asleep and dreaming….most likely of koala’s reenacting my favorite episode of Friends (I’ve had Australia on the brain lately, okay).

Oh koala Jennifer Aniston... You're so ridiculous

Well I’m happy to report, after the first couple weeks of going to bed at 9, and waking up at 5, I actually started to wake up feeling pretty energized and excited about being alive. Which is a big change from the suicidal thoughts I used to have on a Monday morning when the alarm went off.

Mood – Motivated

The more I think about this, and now analyzing how I feel since I’ve fallen off the wagon a little bit with my schedule, I’m fairly certain the sleep had just as much, if not more, to do with this than the food.

Sure the food kept me energized, but energized doesn’t necessarily equate to having a healthy, happy, and motivated mood. I think the sleep coupled with the level energy, helped me maintain that “let’s get after it” feeling…. Still trying to figure out what “it” is, but when I find it, it’s so on.

Strength – Steady

I feel pretty confident saying that my strength continued to grow while on the diet. Some of this may be due to just having more balanced hormone levels in my body, or more sleep, and thus a better, more positive attitude in the gym; or maybe it was the steady energy levels that helped keep me going through the workouts.

Whatever the case may be, I hit my clean goal while on the diet, and pushed my PR in front squat up significantly. All of the other lifts either saw growth or at the very least stayed relatively the same.

So even though I was dropping weight, I wasn’t dropping weights. Get it!?!?

Next up? I’ll talk a little more about the hard numbers… people like myself put a lot more stock in numbers than how did it make you “feel”?… Bah, feelings. Those are for girls…. And maybe me when I’m watching Wall-E… Or the Fox and the Hound (but that’s where I draw the line…. Okay, maybe Aladdin too when they free the genie-Okay, enough!)

Hopefully I’ll wrap this thing up next post. Stay tuned…

I’ve started writing this “wrap up” for my 30 day Paleo challenge several times, and each time I’ve scrapped it because it sounded either too impersonal, too sales-y, or just stupid. Then I remembered that first and foremost, this blog is supposed to be fun for me to write. So then I scrapped what I had and just went for it… You’re welcome.

I’m going to do a little recapping and a quick Paleo primer, so for those of you who’ve followed me all along the way, well….

1. I love you. We should hang out sometime. I’ll even buy you a beer. Yes, that’s right, I’ve got a Coors Light with your name all over it… It may be slightly warm from sitting in the trunk of my car for several months.
2. You might want to skip or skim this first part, and forgive me if I use some of the same material. I can only be so creative (and even then, not very).

Alright, I’m going to start from the beginning…

My come to Paleo moment

I’m not sure how or why, but somehow or another I stumbled across the website for The Whole 9…. Actually, now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure I got there via Melissa Urban’s blog which she eventually discontinued to focus on The Whole 9.

Anyway, I was probably Googleing “hot crossfit chicks” or something useful like that, and somehow or another ended up at whole9life.com and just started poking around. That’s when I found their challenge known as “The Whole 30”, and was first introduced to the term “Paleo” in reference to diet.  The Whole 30 is a very well formulated, documented, and supported plan for a strict 30 day Paleo diet challenge. It looked intense, it looked challenging, and they made it sound awesome. (Thanks again to Dallas and Melissa for putting this out there for the world for free.)

So all the positives that they talked about sounded great, but you know me, I had to get more details on if/why this diet was healthy and a good idea.

What “Paleo” is

So now that the “Whole 30” had whetted my appetite, I started to do some research, and quickly found Robb Wolf’s book The Paleo Solution. I like to have as much information as possible before diving into something that sounds so crazy, so I picked it up and flew right through it.

random

I’ll try to sum up the book, and why the diet and lifestyle that it recommends is good for you, me, and grandmas everywhere, in a couple short sentences: Our ancient ancestors ate meat, veggies, fruit, nuts, and berries, and when they weren’t being eaten by piranhas or ravaged by rabid wombats, they were all around healthier than we are today. They had very little to no signs of cancer, diabetes, or many of the auto-immunity problems we face today. Therefore, we should go back to eating as they did, and not consume the dairy, grains, and excess sugar that they never had in their diets, and which causes all kinds of inflammation in our bodies… Oh, we should also sleep more. The end.

Obviously, that paragraph chock full of run on sentences doesn’t do the book justice, but luckily it’s cheap, so if you’re interested you can get it from Amazon for something like $10-15.  I’ve already bought several copies, and even given one out as a birthday present (still not sure if the recipient was all that excited about it, but whatever).

Where did Paleo come from

While there have been several different researchers, doctors, and various quacks that have promoted a Paleolithic diet in the past few decades, as far as bringing it to the masses it seems that Dr. Loren Cordain is the guy. He’s written a few books on the subject, and has his own site dedicated strictly to Paleo.

I would liken Cordain to the “God” of Paleo. YAWEH, if you will. He seems kind of stern, doesn’t seem to have much of a sense of humor, but he brought the Paleo diet to the mainstream, and was the Emperor to Robb Wolf’s Darth Vader (meaning, he mentored Robb)… So you best respect. Maybe that’s not a real fair description, since I haven’t read his main book (got his cookbook…not funny), but it’s just the perception I get.

Robb Wolf, then, is like the Jesus Christ of Paleo. You’d want to hang with this guy and drink a beer with him… After which he’d probably make you feel bad about drinking said beer. But then he’d forgive you, you’d both laugh about it, and he’d firmly shake your hand and on his way out the door he’d heal your grandma of rheumatoid arthritis for giggles.

Oh, and for those of you who know your Paleo celebs, I guess that makes Mark Sisson the… Muhammad? I don’t know.

So there you have a little background info from my perspective on Paleo…Okay, so maybe the title is a little misleading. I know that had little to nothing to do with my own “results”, but bear with me here. I may or may not be turning into a Paleo-vangelist, so I wanted to get you through Genesis in 2 minutes flat.

Next part will be my thoughts on the effects that 30 days of strict adherence to the Paleo diet and lifestyle had on me.

Slowly, but surely, this site is starting to look legit… I’m hoping I can fool people into taking me seriously.

Thanks to all who voted! This ended up being the runaway favorite, so I figured give the people what they want.

Hopefully in the next few weeks the actual redesign will come together, and I can start incorporating this bad boy.

It’s come to my attention that the pictures below don’t render properly. However, if you click the “Vote Now” button, it should take you to a page with all the designs for your viewing pleasure

Okay, so you’re probably wondering why there hasn’t been as much production coming out of TheYoking.com as of late. I promise, I’m devoted as ever, and cranking away at my Paleo write-up, which will quite obviously need to be whittled down from the 10 pages of single-spaced glory that it currently is (and mind you it’s not done yet). Pretty sure I’m going to end up breaking that sucker up into a few parts and make a series out of it.

Anyway, quit whining. I’m asking for your help, and all you seem to be able to think about is yourself and your desire for Paleo goodness.

Part of the reason the posts haven’t been flowing like wine, is that I’m trying to kick things up into high gear here, and part of that definitely includes a site redesign. I went to a fitness blogging conference a couple weeks ago, and all that talk about branding, marketing, etc. got me all excited.

So with that said, I’ve been spending a good amount of time working on how I want this bad boy to look, because let’s be honest… Yeah, look around. It currently looks like sh*t.

SO HERE’S WHERE YOU CAN HELP: I’ve opened up a contract for a logo, and while I’ve already got my favorite, I’d like to get some feedback from friends, family, and you loyal fan…. Yes, that wasn’t plural on purpose.

So if you look below, you have the ability to vote on your favorite design: please vote!… I may not agree with you, but if there’s an overwhelming majority that loves a particular design, I may just throw my own opinion and ego to the side, and go with what you folks like.

….Or I might not. Whatever.

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