Oh haaaaaiiii. What’s up peeps. Been a while, and it’s well past time for an update.

The ascribed title is a bit of an unfortunate pun, but it seemed appropriate for the occasion: rekindling the bloggin’ flame aaaaand rejacking my foot up. Bad.

But I’m skipping quite a bit since the last time I posted, so let’s rewind….

I did the SoCal Tough Mudder in March. It was badass, and I managed to finish in 2:45, which I feel like isn’t too bad for a guy who’s only run, at most, 7 miles at any one time.

Proof that I did it. Believe it or not I was even more excited at the finish.

After getting back from SoCal, with a nice week and a half vacation and ragefest behind me, I got back into the swing of lifting heavy things. My buddy Drew and I took on a program known as the “603 PTP” which was thrown together by the same people who put together the Whole 30. Whole 30 worked well for me, so I figured I’d give this puppy a shot as well.

It was hard.

603 PTP was a deadlift and overhead press centric program, which I liked because while it focused on building raw strength, but it also mixed in a lot of metabolic conditioning along with it. During the course of the program, I got my deadlift back up to #400, and improved my strict overhead press from #145 to #165. Not too bad for a 37 day program!

As is my norm, I like to decompress and celebrate a little bit after completing a program or reaching a goal, so I did a week or two of moderate lifting with the plan to start another self-composed program that mimicked the 603 PTP, but with a different focus and some other tweaks added by myself and Drew.

But theeeeen this happened…

This is what happens when your friends convince you to play ultimate Frisbee  after drinking 6 or 7 beers.

I initially thought I’d sprained it pretty bad. Ran around for another minute…. Then hobbled for another minute. Then stood there. Then sat down. Then drank another beer, then played a game of beerpong,…

Finally, after getting loads of what was most likely highly legitimate medical advice from folks around me, such as “I was premed, it’s just sprained” and “bro, you should just drink more”, I decided that the adult decision to make was to stop having fun and tend to the wounds.

Luckily, Patient First was just a couple blocks away, so I headed over there and was quickly told that what I had incurred was a “significant” break. As you can probably imagine, that put a large poop on my party.

Turned out it was bad enough that I needed surgery, and had to have a plate and a couple pins put in there.

Over the two months of brokenness that ensued, I did a few half-assed upper body workouts and a lot of feeling sorry for myself. Luckily, I got it together enough to work on the one thing I was fully able to: my nutrition.

So that means I did another Whole 30, 100% legit, no cheats. Felt pretty great and while I may not have been killing it in the gym, I felt pretty good about killing it come feeding time.

So now we’re here… Present day. Back to 100% as far as I can tell, with a slightly larger left foot, and a few pains here and there. Running again, squatting, deadlifting, and all the other goodness I’ve missed.

Tomorrow morning another 603 PTP begins. Drew got hurt before he finished the first round, so he’s hungry to give it another shot, and I’m happy to have a lifting partner to compete with and to motivate me…

That being said, I need to get to sleep asap. Game time is 6AM, so the alarm goes off at 4:45. I’m out peeps!

Yesterday marked roughly the halfway point of our Whole 30 journey, so I thought it’d be a good idea for us to weigh in and take vitals. I was pretty sure I’d be dropping weight, considering the way my body looked, and the fact that many of my clothes have been fitting strangely. Sure enough, we’ve both lost close to 5lbs over the course of the last 2 weeks!

Sarah – 155lbs @ 21.4% body fat
Luke – 175.5lbs @ 6.9% body fat

How have we been feeling? Not too bad. Some mood issues on both sides I’d say, but all in all good.

However, considering how fast I’ve been losing weight, I’ve put the possibility on the table of me not completing the rest of this Whole 30 with complete rigidity. Why? Because I don’t want to look like a pre-pubescent girl, that’s why! I feel that is my right.

I’m going to weigh in again this coming Monday before making the final decision on that. Even if I decide not to stick to the guidelines, I’m still going to be eating all my Whole 30 approved meals, but I’ll just add in other, more calorie dense, non-Paleo foods to bump up my total calorie intake. I’m all about being a lean machine, but I don’t like the idea of losing muscle. I worked too hard for it over the past 10-12 months to waste it all.

But don’t worry… Even if I don’t completely stick with the program, Sarah has assured me that as long as I still cook and eat what she’s eating, she’ll stick to it like a champ… The other law she set down was that I couldn’t talk to her about what it was that I was eating.

I can see this going something a little like this…

I let Sarah in the front door. She walks in with a smile, and a bag full of veggies for what we’re about to cook…

Sarah: Oh my God, you won’t believe it. Avocados are only 69 cents at Kroger right now.
Me: Praise Baby Jesus, this is most joyous news.
Sarah: I knew you’d be excited, so I went ahea-….what is that on your neck?
Me: *quickly slapping at neck* What? Nothing. Must be shaving cream. Man I hate when I forget to wash off the shaving cream! It’s probabl-
Sarah: Wait, is that ice cream!?… Have-…have you been cheating on me!?
Me: WHAT!?…NO!…no, no way, never… Well. I mean, I thought we had an open Whole 30 relationship?

Cue tears and yelling…

But we’ll see. I don’t want to cut back on the lifting or cardio, because that kind of defeats the purpose I think. I’ll update you on that here shortly.

But in closing, how about some food porn from the previous couple weeks (with links to recipes where applicable. Just click the picture)…

So this quick post is to fulfill a request made by a couple of female readers (Jess & Sio) that my partner in crime for this go of the Whole 30 post her stats. Surprisingly enough, I didn’t have to twist her arm as much as I thought I would, and she was happy to share her numbers with me (and thus with you…don’t worry I told her I was going to put this on here).

But first a little bio…

Sarah is a 24-yr. old student working on receiving her doctorate at MCV… and she is a recovering P90x-aholic.

Or was.

I say was because, just as she was beginning to stop using some of the stupid, yet mildly entertaining, catch phrases of the cult leader Tony Horton, and speak and act like a normal human being… she relapsed. The sad truth of it is, not only did she relapse, but she fell into an even worse drug: the cardio-intensive spin-off from P90x known as “Insanity”.

All jokes aside, having seen some of the Insanity series, it looks 100% legit as a vehicle to making you a cardio-machine, and Sarah is currently a little over halfway through the 60-day program.

Previous to the Whole 30, Sarah has been eating relatively “healthy” by most standards. While she will sometimes eat Paleo-compliant meals, sugar, grain, and dairy have all been a large part of her diet up until this point.

Enter pure Paleo goodness from October 31st until Thanksgiving to rock her world. As I stated above, she was kind enough to agree to share her stats to let you know how the Paleo-ness affects a physically active female. So here you go:

At the beginning of the Whole 30: 160lbs @ 21.8% body fat (very healthy levels for a female)

I’m just as interested as you to see how her body reacts to the naturally low carb diet, and I know she’s super stoked. We’ll keep you posted as things progress.

I figure you guys have had enough time off from me babbling on about Paleo this and Paleo that…. So I don’t feel bad telling you that I’m doing another Whole 30. Yes, the super strict Paleo eating guidelines that I did back in April/May of this year, and I plan on telling you all about it…. again.

However, there are a few things this time around that will be a little different:

1. Technically, it’s going to be a Whole 4-2+25

I feel like I’ve got to be honest here. It’s not a hard and fast “Whole 30”…. Halloween is one weekend on which I will not concede the alcohol. I’m sorry, but if I’m going to dress up like a jackass (and I will, and like it), I will be drinking accordingly.

Other than the alcohol this Halloween weekend, I will be eating (and not drinking) exactly as dictated by the Whole 30 guidelines.

2. More carbs

Last time around most days I consumed very low amounts of carbs, and while it worked well for me the first time, I’m trying to take a different approach to this whole “strict” Paleo thing. I’ve been reading a really interesting book called The Perfect Health Diet that promotes the average person eating roughly 150g (600 calories) to maintain the necessary glucose levels in your body. While I’m not done with the book yet, it’s been an awesome read, and I’m thinking come spring I may try to do a month of the Perfect Health Diet (basically Paleo with some modifications) with all the blood work like I’ve done for Paleo and GOMAD before.

As far as quick and dirty book review/recommendations go, I’d still recommend The Paleo Solution
if you’re trying to get the basics of Paleo down (and why it’s good for your body). But if you really like to dig down and know about how the things that you eat affect your body, and why you should/shouldn’t eat certain things, ratios of macronutrients, etc… I’d definitely recommend Perfect Health Diet

Anyway, I digress… More carbs = more sweet potatoes. Done.

3. More cardio

On my previous Whole 30, my basic routine was 3 days a week of lifting for strength; and that’s it… Nothing else.

This time my routine is much, much more cardio intensive (which isn’t hard since I wasnt doing any), plus I’m still lifting 2-3 days a week on top. So we’re talking 5-6 days of working out compared to 3, and many more calories being burned.

4. Less weight available for the losing

You know how I do. I like to weigh in and get some hard numbers before doing anything like this, and while I may not be going balls to the wall and getting blood work this time, I made sure to weigh myself and take body fat measurements with the fatinator-5000 so I can see some numbers to prove the results.

Weighed in at 180.2lbs, which wasn’t really a surprise: my body loves to sit at that weight like a fat kid at Cici’s. However my loosely Paleo eating habits seem to have been paying off, keeping my body fat at a very good 7.6%.

What I’m interested in seeing, is where my body fat goes this time around. Last time I started just a little below 10% and dropped down almost 2% to settle a little under 8. So if I’m starting at 8, and with the cardio, will I end up… dead? That’s not the level of cut I was envisioning.

Anyway, it will be interesting to see how my body responds this time.

5. Partner in crime

I’ve suckered somebody into doing this thing with me. Now I can share cooking duties, shopping, expand my recipe base, and just have more fun and support. She’s someone who’s just as determined as I am, and one of those “if I say I’m going to do it, then I’ll do it” people, so I’m happy to have someone with the same mindset along for the journey this time around.

So let’s do this thing!…. Again… ish.

I haven’t done a foodish post in a while, or at least it feels like it’s been a while, so I thought I’d share something for peeps who are either doing Paleo and looking to try something new, or considering it and don’t know what to cook on day 1.

Anyway, you’ll be amazed to hear that I’ve come up with a recipe that actually tastes like food. Sure, I may have pulled a few ideas from other peeps, but the overall idea is mine and I feel pretty good about that whenever I eat it….Yeah, that’s right, I’m getting all domestic up in here. Mr. Mom 2 casting call, here I come (No but seriously, it’s called “being an adult and taking care of your own damn self”… I’m still working on it). Below is what the final product should look likeish:

Look awesome? Of course it does. It was awesome. I call it Luke’s egg and asparagus sandwich. So here’s what you’ll need…

Ingredients:

• 4 grass-fed beef hamburgers (sometimes I hand-roll these badboys, but often I buy them pre-hamburgerfied)
• Asparagus… we’ll say a pound, since I have no idea.
• Eggs
• Coconut Oil
• Olive Oil
• Sea salt
• Black pepper

OPTIONAL:

• Cumin
• Red Chili Powder
• Cinnamon
• Paprika
• Cayenne Pepper

I’d start with the asparagus:

Put a couple of tablespoonsish, I guess, of coconut oil into a skillet, and heat that sucka’ on medium. Break off the bottom of the asparagus (….stalks?) by hand, and then throw the good part into the skillet/pan/whatever with the coconut oil (if you’re unsure which part is “the good part”, then you’ve made a huge mistake in attempting this endeavor. Immediately abort mission and call your local Chinese restaurant or Papa John’s). At this point, I’d sprinkle on some salt and pepper. I heat them on medium for a good 5-10 minutes, and then I drop it down low like Beyonce and put a lid on it for about 10 minutes… When the 10 minutes is up, your asparagus is done. (depending on how you like your asparagus)

While that asparagus is doing it’s thing, the hamburgers are a piece of cake:
All the “optional” spices listed I like to sprinkle onto both sides of the burgers, but if you’ve only got salt and pepper, just give a generous dusting of that, and you can still pull this off. So yeah, put some olive oil into a cast iron skillet (if you’re a man about it) and set it on medium. Once this comes up to heat, throw the burgers in there, and cook them to your desired temperature. Pull the burgers out, but don’t turn off the oven or remove the skillet. Time for the magic….

Scrape up all the black crap that’s in the pan from the burgers and bring it to the middle of your pan. Now take 2 eggs, that’s right, one for every two burgers, and break them over the crispy black crap in the middle of the pan, and scramble them up… This shouldn’t take long at all, since the pan is already nice and hot.

Now, using the hamburgers as buns (I know, it’s genius and I wish I could take credit for it, but I can’t) divide the scrambled eggs onto two burgers, split up the asparagus and put on top of the eggs, and then top all THAT off with the other 2 burgers and… Voila! Paleo-palooza 2011 just happened in your mouth. BOOM.

Thank me later. I’m hungry after writing that, time to go grub…. OH, and make sure you turn off the stove. That’s huge.

If you’ve been following this for any length of time in the past few months, or even just took a random look a post or two, you’d know that for a while there I was pretty Paleo-centric: Paleo this, Paleo that, blah blah blah.

Well I’m still eating fairly clean by Paleo standards, with a few things that I wasn’t eating before that I’ve incorporated back into my diet without any visible negative side effects (it’s embarrassing to admint, but Kaola Crisp is my jam… Look if there isn’t a maze or cartoons on the back, chances are I don’t like it. But hey, it’s gluten free).

Anyway, now that I’m stabilizing my diet and getting into the long-haul Paleo groove, I’m looking for the next thing to try. Not that I’m going to walk away from my current diet, but I’m interested in a couple other things that I’ve read about in regards to the Paleo-style of eating:

• Intermittent fasting
• Clean weight gain

What do you think about me giving either one of those a solid 30-day strict, blood tests before/after, weight/bodyfat measurements throughout, theyoking.com-style college try? I’d stlil be eating Paleo-friendly foods, but the amount or timing would be strictly regulated (depending on which one I was doing). I’ll write more about each in the future, and am open to suggestions for other things to try, but the above two are diet strategies that I’ve read a bit about and am highly intrigued by.

Like I said, I’ll come back to this again in the future, but just wanted to get some initial thoughts on it if anybody has any….

Oh, yesterday’s workout posted below. I think coach must’ve missed me over the weekend, because he poured on the leg work. It was a good workout, and felt great both during and after:

• Roll out/warmup
• Power snatch – 3×5 @ 105lbs
  –superset with–
  High box jumps – 3×5
• Back squats
  • 1×5 @ 135lbs
  • 1×5 @ 185lbs
  • 1×5 @ 210lbs
  • 3×5 @ 250lbs


Weird picture. I look like one of the those poor chumps in the photos from "The Ring"... No weird phone calls yet. Just telemarketers, dammit.

• Trap-bar deadlifts – 5×8 @ 275lbs.
• One-legged Romanian Deadlift – 3×8 @ 35lb kettlebell
  –superset with–
  Hanging leg raises w/ pause – 3×6

I’m pretty excited about this post, because it finally brings to a close my Paleo write up. I’m not real sure what my hang-up has been with this…. I think my recent stalling on the front squat in the gym has brought my motivation down a few notches.

No more of that though. Time to finish this thing and move on.

So as I stated in my last post, I didn’t feel quite right simply regurgitating things I just read on Wikipedia acting like I knew exactly what I was talking about, so I scheduled an appointment with my doc and we had a nice little conversation about my blood tests and what exactly my takeaways should be from this.

In The Paleo Solution Robb Wolf busts a few chops when it comes to doctors, but I have to say my doctor does not at all fall into that mold. She was actually very supportive of my trying out the Paleo diet, and said she herself was very interested in seeing where things went with the bio-makers.

When we sat down and talked about it this past Thursday, she shed some light on a few things, but there is also some confusion still out there that I don’t think can be answered unless more thorough studies are done, and realistically none of that seems really worth the time or money.

According to doc, overall, my blood work came back better. She was particularly impressed and happy with my LDL-P score dropping over 300 points. Evidently LDL-P is a better, more accurate marker than LDL-C, and I’ve read a thing or two out there that seems to corroborate this.

There were a few oddities though: even though all markers came back as healthy, many things moved a little in the wrong direction: HDL dropped, triglycerides rose, and small LDL-P (the bad LDL particles) rose by over 50% which is opposite of what is desired, and what supposedly should happen while on Paleo. However, doc didn’t seem too worried by any of that and said that everything was still in the very good range for most everything (said my triglycerides were so low it practically blew her mind). She suggested I come back in after 6 months or so and run the tests again to see if things start to balance out.

Alright, so I have PDF’s you can download to view the actual blood tests (before, after), but I also wanted to break everything down into a table for comparison:

	Pre	Post	Difference
Total Cholesterol	213	199	-14
LDL-C	130	130	0
HDL-C	77	62	-15
Triglycerides	29	34	5
Non-HDL	136	137	1
LDL-P	1495	1154	-341	http://www.lipid.org/newcommunity/groups/orca/topic/–2010-07-05.htm
HDL-P	34.6	33.4	-1.2
Small LDL-P	243	372	129
LDL Size	21.6	21.4	-0.2
LP-IR Score (Insulin Resistance)	8	15	7	I’m considering putting in a prayer with Jesus Christ (a question for Robb Wolf) to see what his thoughts are on the relevency of this test. My doctor didn’t seem all that worried about it, and she said even though my score almost doubled, that it’s still so low that I shouldn’t be worried about it.
Glucose	78	92	14
BUN	21	17	-4
Creatinine	1.13	1.09	-0.04
eGFR	89	93	4
BUN/Creatinine Ratio	19	16	-3
Sodium	137	143	6
Potassium	4.4	4.6	0.2
Chloride	98	103	5
Carbon Dioxide	24	25	1
Calcium	10	9.6	-0.4
Protein Total	7.1	6.9	-0.2
Albumin	5	4.8	-0.2
Globulin	2.1	2.1	0
A/G Ratio	2.4	2.3	-0.1
Bilirubin	0.6	0.5	-0.1
Alkaline Phosphatase	63	70	7
AST	24	22	-2
ALT (IU/L)	18	18	0
Hemoglobin A1c (%)	5.6	5.7	0.1
TSH (uIU/mL)	2.39	2.75	0.36
C-Reactive Protein (mg/L)	0.1	0.11	0.01

 

As far as health, the blood work is obviously the most important thing to look at, but as far as what most people actually care about (ie – losing weight, looking good), the Paleo diet definitely made some big plays for me.

Overall I lost 8lbs., going from 186 to 178, and my body fat dropped from 9.6% to 7.8%. Not bad at all for someone who ate as much as he wanted, whenever he wanted. An interesting thing as well, is that I seemed to lose much of the weight from that “spare tire” region. On my body, fat tends to collect on my lower back especially, and if you look at the pictures it seems that that is where most of it came off from.

Hey, I won’t complain.

So where do I go from here, now that the Whole 30/Paleo challenge is over? Well considering it’s been 2 months since the end of that, I’ve noticed that while my eating habits have definitely slackened up a bit, that when I buy food from the grocery store and cook, I’m still cooking almost 100% Paleo (and even Whole 30) approved recipes. It really is a piece of cake to cook and eat good food after you get into the habit of doing it, and that was really what the Whole 30 was all about: creating better, smarter, cooking and eating habits.

Now where the problem comes in is when you’re out and about on the town. That’s still a battle for me, and one which I have yet to figure out how to win. There are obviously better choices: like picking the gluten-free bread over the gluten-deluxe, but it’s still hard to say no to certain things when you start to make exceptions…. Like milkshakes. Especially the ones at Crossroads…. Damn I love those. (NOTE: I recommend going to the one in Forest Hill. Somehow, I always get served by the same guy at the one at VCU, and he always has this look on his face that says, “If I didn’t need this job, and it wouldn’t take away my freedom, I’d probably murder you”)

Anyway, I may try to do another Whole 30 sometime in the near future. I absolutely notice a difference in the way I feel when I’m not eating properly, and not getting enough sleep.

Overall my Paleo challenge did great things for my body, mind, motivation, and brought me into a more regimented (read effective) lifestyle. I hope to get back to that, and while it might not be as super strict as it was for those 30 days, I’d like to get myself to a happy medium that I can maintain over the long haul.

NEXT UP: something awesome that I’m excited about. I’m tired of talking about front squats and Paleo all the time, so now I’ll have something else to add to the mix… Be on the lookout.

 

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.

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.

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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.