This stuff works -- 24 days in.

It's day 24 of my primal eating challenge, and I don't want to say

that it has been "easy," because that makes me sound smug about it and

I really don't want to sound that way because I am fully aware of some

of the absolutely nightmarish sugar and grain addictions that some

people confront as a part of these challenges. It's not quite kicking

heroin, but it can be a very big deal.

But for me it's been, at worst, moderately annoying at times. The only

things I have repeatedly passed up on that I would normally consume

are booze, dark chocolate and pre-workout protein powder (no, not

together...heh) ; oh, and I suppose the odd black bean here and there.

In other words, I really don't eat gluten anyway. This primal-eating

journey of mine has been a long slow burn that started last year,

rather than a turn-on-a-dime reversal of long-entrenched bad habits

just for the challenge.

It was also spectaularly well-timed, coming just after I got home from

two weeks in Germany with Jamie where we ate and drank gluten-y things

that we never would otherwise.

So what have I learned? A lot, actually.

Despite spending some of the challenge battling with (and fighting

off) a sinus infection/cold that normally would have had me way down

and out, I feel really effing good being this uber-clean about my

eating. My energy levels are higher and I need less caffeine than

usual to get through a day. I think my immune system is doing really

well, because I know a lot of people who got hit pretty hard with this

cold. I didn't.

I also learned that while dairy is often a great source of good fat

for me, when it is grassfed, I need to stay away from it altogether if

trying to battle a cold. As soon as I made that switch mid-challenge,

the evil cold-induced snot began to dissipate.

My Raynaud's, as I told you already, appears to be gone. When I drink

post-challenge, I need to be smart about it and do it in ways that

don't make it a giant insulin spike, which will trigger Raynaud's

again. I also need to see how that goes, and be realistic in my future

evaluation of whether resuming alcohol intake, even through "smart"

drinking, means the return of Raynaud's anyway. If so, some tough

choices may have to be made.

Likewise -- and this is one I haven't discussed here in a while -- a

lifetime of sometimes-on/sometimes-off acid reflux (GERD) seems to

have gone completely by the wayside as well. I hadn't been taking

Prevacid for much of the time since I went primal last year, just some

occasional antacids, but, in the three months prior to the challenge,

I had re-experienced some GERD and so I restarted the Prevacid, with

little effect, so I added a nighttime Zantac. Then, when I mentioned

it to my doc at a September physical, he had suggested trying *just*

the Zantac, since it is just an antacid rather than a full-on

proton-pump inhibitor (PPI). That did the trick, even amidst the beery

goodness of Deutschland. But then, when I started this challenge, I

skipped some Zantac, and found I didn't even need that. Apparently,

all that stuff about reevaluating alcohol in regards to Raynaud's

applies to GERD too.

I also learned some super-micro/tweak-ish things about eating. I

mentioned at one point that fruit ingested immediately pre-workout

causes the glycolytic demands of the workout to kickstart your liver

to use fructose as an energy source. That's good, and it works well.

While I miss my pre-workout protein shakes, I think that if I revisit

them post-challenge, I am going to keep eating fruit pre-workout as

well. I also am not going to eat much of it otherwise. I already knew

that fruits and veggies are not interchangeable, but I learned it

again this month. If I eat too much fruit in a setting other than

immediately pre-workout, it moderately spikes my insulin. That's bad

news, and it makes me crazy.

I also learned that good carbs like sweet potatoes and even

occasionally white rice are good for me all the time. Yeah, they are a

righteous bump toward recovery if ingested in the hour post-workout,

but for a guy like me, who is lean enough and doesn't want to lose

weight. I could eat 'em at nearly every meal and feel great. In fact,

I think I feel better when I do.

Additionally, I became aware of a strong preference I have for

grassfed ruminants (beef and lamb) over other meat sources. Yeah, pork

is delicious and I definitely eat some of it, and salmon is awesome if

wild-caught, but I don't think I ate chicken once yet during the

challenge, and I haven't missed it. Sure, I'll eat it sometimes, but a

steady intake of grassfed beef and, especially, lamb has me flying

high.

In the gym, I haven't been a rockstar lately, even by my own meager

standards, but I blame that on my cold hanging around just enough to

screw with my sleep. I've been fine, just not PRing alll over the

place. Hell, but even with the beginnings of a cold, I nearly PR'd my

"Helen" time (one effing second!!) and I have come close in some other

workouts, just nothing spectacular. But let's be serious, no one ever

used the word "spectacular" to describe my typical gym performance, so

even the ability to hang on through a cold with decent workouts has

been a really good thing, and a direct result of good eating. I am

curious to see how my post-challenge time comes in on a gym-specific

benchmark workout that we are all doing on November 14.

All in all, this challenge has been a very very good thing so far. I

have a week to go and am hoping for some more positive revelations in

that time. Let's go.

30-day paleo challenges are stupid.... sometimes

I swear that I am not looking right at you when I say this. You may feel guilty about it, but I definitely don't have any specific person in mind. I just hear it a lot -- at the gym, on the FB, even on tweets. It goes something like this:

"Thinking about starting a 30-day paleo challenge. Been eating soooooo badly lately and need to get it together. Who's in?"

And then a few months later, the same people say the same thing, and then again and again.

And every time, I think: dude, really?

Paleo challenges are really genuinely good things ....once. They properly show a person who is skeptical about paleo, who is often metabolically deranged and generally off the rails of eating well, how it's done right. The idea is that you finish the challenge and keep going with it -- not necessarily as strictly as during the 30 days, but the plan is pretty clearly to allow you to develop a way to eat for life, not to act like it's the effing cookie diet, for godsakes, and do it for as short a time as possible and then return to the old ways.

Sustainability is the key. Once you go through that 30 days, you learn what food "works" for you and what doesn't. After the challenge is done, you put together a plan of how you're going to eat from there on out. Dairy? Maybe... Depends on how you handle it when you add it back in. A non-gluten grain like white rice? Maybe... Depends on whether you tolerate it well and whether your body comp is where you want it to be. Some booze? Same deal.

But gluten-containing crap? Vegetable/seed oils? Pringles? Hot Pockets? 24 individually wrapped slices of Kraft American singles "processed cheese food?"

No. Those are gone. Out of here. History. If you are eating them regularly, you fell off the paleo boat and are drowning again. And you also apparently forgot just how amazing you felt when your food intake was cleaned up. Those one-rep-max PRs that just kept coming during the challenge? Gone.

And yeah, duh.... You are going to have those moments -- the ones where the tiramisu leaps into your mouth straight from the plate without even asking permission (or at least that's your story and you're sticking to it). But I am not talking about those once-every-now-and-then occurrences. Those are easy. Fess up to those cheats and get back on the horse. I'm focused on every day.... How are you eating Sunday through Saturday? If someone averaged out your food intake, are you eating like a paleo/primal person, or are you instead eating cheesesteaks, pizza, donuts and bagels on a regular basis and swearing that you'll get it together in time for the next 30-day paleo challenge?

See, it's just not a diet. The worst word on the cover of Robb Wolf's otherwise genius tome is "diet." That's because "diet" connotes "temporary." A "diet" is not something you do as a lifestyle change, but as some sort of passing austerity measure that could never ever last. Just envision eating those "cookies" for life. Gack.

And I know... This all sounds so harsh and judgmental. We all have our slip-ups. You may even have a more-than-occasional one and "need" a challenge to get back in line, and I get that. But remember: it's what you do *after* the challenge that matters. Anyone with barely more than a shred of fortitude can eat paleo/primal for 30 days. The ones who actually achieve something long-lasting are the ones who take what was learned during the challenge and craft a plan from there on out, not just lapse back into old ways and wait for the next challenge.

Get off the rollercoaster. Make the next paleo/primal challenge your last one.



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A list of some paleo/primal resources

Our CrossFit gym did a nutrition seminar today as a lead-in to a gym-wide 30-day paleo challenge that pretty much mirrors my own 30-day primal challenge that I started last Sunday. Truth be told, I never would have started my challenge without the inspiration to do so from the trainers at CrossFit Aspire, so thanks for giving me the idea. I'm a week into this and I feel really really good.

As a payback for the good idea, and since paleo/primal is a new idea for some of you, I figured it might be helpful to point you in the direction of a bunch of paleo/primal-friendly sites that I visit pretty often. These aren't in any particular order, and, man, are there a lot more out there than just these. But every one of them has given me a good idea, or sometimes a whole lot of good ideas, whether it's a recipe, or a thought that maybe I should (or shouldn't) be eating a particular food. Some are wonkier/geekier/science-heavier and some not so much. And, undoubtedly, you will find some more to your liking than others. You'll also quickly learn that paleo/primal has a lot of different practitioners with slightly different ideas of how to go about all this. What all these sites have in common, however, is a commitment -- on their own terms -- to healthy living while feeling, looking and performing great.

So here goes:

Mark's Daily Apple -- by the author of "The Primal Blueprint" book. A good combination of recipes and advice, and, unlike some of these sites, always with a message that's delivered in a positive, non-doctrinaire way.

Robb Wolf -- Robb wrote "The Paleo Solution," which is, for my money, the one book you should read about paleo before any other. His podcast is great -- funny, self-effacing banter between him and strength coach Greg Everett and full of great info about the whys and wherefores of paleo/primal. The website is a little geekier/dorkier and, well, a little clumsy in its layout. Read the book. Listen to the podcasts. Once you do that, the site will make more sense. The FAQ is particularly great.

Whole9 (aka Whole30) -- Melissa and Dallas Hartwig provide great advice, great recipes and probably the purest, strictest and least alcohol/caffeine-friendly environment in the paleo world. I think this site is *perfect* for a strict challenge. They don't put up with any "this is haaaard" whining, and their advice is nutritionally spot-on. Once you are out of the confines of a strict challenge, you might find them to be The No-Fun Police to some extent, but I think they are probably just really nice, smart people who don't view their job as justifying your (or my) boozing or excess coffee consumption. I'd rather invite Robb Wolf and his Nor-Cal margaritas to a party, though.

Dr. Kurt Harris -- The site is a little archaic/haphazard. It has a weird, made-up name and its author  even disappeared (in a posting sense) for a few months, but somewhere beneath the not-very-glossy exterior is a passionate advocate of primal living who backs up his eating habits with good scientific reasons for what he does. As you delve into the site, you'll find his take on primal eating is a little different than the others  -- less emphasis on vegetables and macronutrients than many. But it's a worthy addition to your paleo/primal reading/surfing list.

Free the Animal -- Don't even think about going here if opinionated/not-very-politically-correct postings get you riled up. The author does not give a damn what you think of him, his site or his way of life. He will express his opinion without regard to anyone's feelings or sensitivity. But when he gets going on a righteous paleo/primal bender it is a thing of beauty. He laughs at vegans and openly insults soy-bomb vegetarians. But I love him most of the time -- maybe because he's a guy about my age who, like me, feels like he stumbled on the freakin' grail in terms of the way to eat and live and can't help but tell people about it. Lots of good stuff here, but not for the sensitive.

Gnolls.org -- This is the home of J. Stanton, author of a paleo/primal-based novel called "The Gnoll Credo" about a scientist who takes up with a tribe of primitives. I have the book on order and likely will review it here after I read it, but, whether or not the book is great (and I have heard nothing but praise for it), the website is a thorough, fascinating look into the science and day-to-day ins and outs of paleo eating. I have just scratched the surface of this one recently, but it's going to get a lot more of my attention in the coming weeks and months.

Cave Girl Eats -- A great recipe/paleo-health site run by a member of CrossFit Tribe in Pennsauken, NJ.

Steve's Original -- Speaking of CrossFit Tribe, one of the owners, Steve Liberati, runs this site dedicated to selling you paleo food that also benefits kids in need. The paleo kits, with jerky, nuts and fruit, are so delicious that I can't begin to tell you how much better they are than any jerky/fruit/nut concoction you might try to put together at home. Plus they benefit a great cause. Get some. And if you're a CrossFit Aspire member, you can get some at CFA.

Smart. Sexy. Paleo -- A blog run by an Aussie who is muddling her way through paleo/primal just like you and me, which is why I like it. It's real life by someone trying to look, feel and perform better.

Everyday Paleo -- So many great recipes by one of the trainers at Robb Wolf's gym. She's also way into being a mom, which I can't say makes me read the "how to make your kids' lunches paleo" articles because my kids are way past that stage, but if you are trying to feed kids paleo food, I can't imagine a better site. And the recipes are great whether you are feeding a family or just yourself.

Dr. Chris Kresser -- Warning: possible science-y overload at this site. Probably not the place to go when you first begin, but a great resource once you get really into it.

 And, not wanting to overload you with info, I think I'll stop there for the moment. Enjoy the web surfing, and i like to think that one or more of those sites will become a place you regularly visit for paleo/primal info.

The 30-day Primal Eating Challenge

I've told you before about the way I eat: meat, veggies, fruit, good fats. Other than a little bit of white rice here and there, I don't eat any grains. It's usually called something like "paleo," and, when modified (as I do) to include some full-fat dairy, the going terminology seems to be "primal."

But you know how it is....a lot of us try to eat well, but sometimes we stray a bit. And then sometimes we do things like go on really cool vacations, and there's a little more alcohol in our lives than usual, and well....let's just say that my gym's decision to encourage all its members to do a 30-day clean-eating challenge is well-timed. Of late, particularly on a recent two-week jaunt to Germany (during Oktoberfest fercryinoutloud) I ate a bunch of things I usually don't -- bready things, beery things, more beery things, more bready things. We just got back from Germany two days ago and I am still a little sluggish to say the least.

So anyway, the gym version of the challenge starts next Saturday, but I decided to accelerate the schedule and start my 30 days right now.

Today.

So here are the rules: no grains, no legumes, no dairy, no alcohol. Eat meat, fish, eggs, veggies, fruit and good fat (almonds, avocado, etc.) Eat real food. No sugar. No processed crap. Those are the "paleo" rules. But here's the catch: if I follow those rules exactly as written, I will lose weight. I don't need to lose weight. I just want to clean up the minor mess from the minor dietary detours that I have taken in the last month or so. Really....I don't want to lose more weight. I have done that already. So here are my modifications, which morph this into a "primal" challenge,instead of a paleo one. All the above rules apply, except:
1. White rice is okay in small doses. It's just pure starch, and doesn't have the inflammatory properties of other grains (including brown rice). Simply put, for someone not trying to lose weight, a little white rice is harmless. And, like sweet potatoes (and white potatoes too, for that matter), white rice is a good source of clean post-workout, non-gluten-containing carbs.
2. Heavy cream, full-fat cheese and butter are okay as long as they are from grassfed sources. If they come from grassfed cows, those items contain wonderful omega-3 fats. You know...just like salmon. Again, this rule applies only if you are not trying to lose weight. And have I made it clear that I do not want to lose any more weight?

Honestly, this is not going to be tough. OK, I'll miss alcohol, but, otherwise, I already eat this way *almost* all the time. But the gastronomic detours of vacation have left me craving a cleaner diet. So, as I said, the gym challenge is well-timed and, to keep myself fully on the straight and narrow (and maybe offer a little encouragement to others who are doing the same challenge) I am going to blog the whole damn thing here. My plan is that if it goes down my pie hole in the next 30 days, you're going to read about it here.

So let's go.







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Some links back to old stuff of mine that might be helpful to a paleo newbie

Our gym is going to embark on a 30-day paleo challenge in late May. I thought it might be helpful to anyone starting that challenge if you had a link to some articles I have written about that subject. So, here you go. At the end of the challenge, I will do another post with links to various post-challenge thoughts, which, really, is where the fun begins....

"Shouldn't" versus "Don't"

Things about paleo that (maybe) no one told you

She makes a really good point; don't get too clever with paleo before you can handle it

How to start eating paleo

Stepping outside the comfort zone with food

The only thing that ever works for me when it comes to stress management

Sleep, stress and the whole damn ball of wax

Peanut butter and paleo

Squats and deadlifts rule

80/20 paleo sounds pretty lame to me

From sweet to deranged (your choice)

30-day paleo challenges are fun, but then what?

Ten things. That's it.

How in the hell am I gonna do this? Welcome to the challenge.

Q: Can I half-ass this paleo thing? A: Maybe! (For a little while)

The snack question
Zen and the art of sleep maintenance (a.k.a. 30 days to better sleep)

30-day paleo challenges are stupid.... sometimes

And finally, back in the fall of 2011, I logged all the food that I ate during a 30-day primal challenge. Note, I was eating dairy. Remove the dairy, and you have a paleo challenge. This link is to a search on my blog for "primal eating challenge." It will take you to all those food logs plus a few other posts that happen to come up on that search.

Good luck. Have fun.


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Why would I want to do a paleo challenge?

Our CrossFit gym is going to have a gym-wide 30-day good-health challenge coming up soon. I don't think they have come up with a name for it yet, but it is a pretty cool endeavor, encompassing not just the standard-issue paleo challenge/Whole 30, but an emphasis on stress-reduction, good sleep and smart exercise as well.

That latter stuff I covered pretty recently in this post, but the food angle of a paleo challenge is something I haven't talked about in a while.

Why in the hell would you ever want to do one of these things? I will try and answer that for you, and, maybe, give you an inkling of where your paleo challenge is intended to get you.

Let's start with what it is *not*.

There are, you may recall, ten things that are cool to eat/drink during a paleo challenge, but the goal of this challenge is *not* to mindlessly restrict you to those ten things forever.

I think it is a popular misconception that paleo is a blanket/one-size-fits-all sort of bootcamp-ish exercise. It's not. There are as many permutations to the twists and turns of paleo/primal eating as you choose to insert. Remember, I eat paleo/primal and I eat whatever I want.

But the 30 days of a paleo challenge *are* fairly restrictive, and they are that way for a good reason. The goal is to achieve three things :

1. Detox you by removing all the most common sources of gut irritation from your food. It may be that only *some* of the "no" list of grains, legumes, dairy, shitty seed oils, etc. really bothers you, but, right now, we can't be sure which are really bad for you and which aren't. So we are going to remove them all, and let you detox from whichever ones are a problem.

2. Feed you spectacularly well while you are detoxing. That list of ten things that you can eat is so loaded with animal protein, good carbs and good fats that your body will be doing figurative somersaults and leaps of joy at its nutritional density. All the while the bad stuff is being kept away, the good stuff in those ten things is going to supercharge you.

3. The most important thing of all: let you figure out how to take charge of your food and make it work best for your lifestyle for the rest of your life.

See, I think the coolest realization of paleo -- and maybe simultaneously the scariest too -- is that no one is in control of your health but you. Most of modern medicine is geared towards writing you prescriptions and sending you home to eat whatever you want while you take pills to mask symptoms. The responsibility to eat your way to good health is on you. A paleo challenge is your gateway to figuring that out.

Once your 30 days of clean food is up, your body should be in a pretty great place, simultaneously detoxed and supercharged. You *could* choose to just keep eating that way with 100% perfect compliance, but, chances are, you won't. Very few paleo challengers approach day 31 on out as perfectly as they did the challenge days. Instead, you probably will occasionally go off-road a bit. But there are reasonable ways to do that and bounce back pretty well, and there are ways to do it and end up sick and miserable. Figuring out the difference is a pretty cool thing.

An example: I *love* ice cream, and, unlike liquid dairy, it doesn't completely wreck me digestively, so, while I don't eat it often, occasionally I indulge. What I learned from the paleo challenge was, first of all, that liquid dairy is bad news for me -- whenever I try to reinsert it into my life, I get either digestive issues, major snot buildup in my sinuses, or both -- and, secondly, that if I want to eat ice cream, it works a lot better for me as a part of an otherwise-clean carb reboot, either post-workout or the night before a tough workout day. That is a very cool thing to have learned. It means I can, every so often, make a small spectacle of myself with, say, Coffee Coffee Buzz Buzz Buzz and suffer only minor consequences if I time the creamy caffeine party properly.

And you may figure out something similar with booze or cheese or whatever the non-paleo treat of your choice is. Or you may decide that a strategy like carb backloading or
skipping or delaying breakfast is the thing for you.

In fact, you probably will be able to create a pretty awesome/personalized "Shouldn't versus Don't" list.

A paleo challenge is all about empowering you with the tools to take charge of your own health. Use it that way, and, if you do, following all those rules for 30 days will have a lot more purpose, and, I hope, not seem so onerous. It's not a mindless exercise in ascetic deprivation; it's a very mindful attempt to get you to figure out what works for you for your whole life, so you can have fun *and* feel great for a really long time.







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So you think you want to do a 30-day "paleo challenge," huh? Here's a suggestion.

You have seen the headlines lately: 30-day paleo challenges like the Whole 30 are getting really popular.

And you are thinking about trying it.

Good for you. I think there is a huge value in staying super squeaky-clean with your food for 30 days. When you emerge from that month, you feel great. Then you can then do a little tinkering (emphasis on "a little") over the next few months to figure out how you really want to eat for the long haul -- continuing to feel great, but probably departing somewhat from the super-strict template of the challenge in ways that work for you.

You may recall that one of my favorite phrases is: "I eat whatever I want." For me, that means eating in a way that makes me feel good day-to-day. So, yeah, I'm almost entirely paleo. All my meals start with animal protein, a lot of vegetables, good fats and maybe some fruit. But I also eat a little bit of full-fat dairy and enjoy a non-gluten alcoholic beverage, and every so often (a few times a month) I even eat things like white rice, beans or corn. What I don't ever eat are horrible vegetable oils, soy, grains (other than that occasional white rice) or processed foods. The key for me is not ascetic perfection; it's eating extremely well in a non-inflammatory and sustainable way. So I buy very high-quality animal protein, almost as high-quality vegetables and fruits and try not to ever regret food choices.

And, as a result, I feel good.... Really good.

I assume that's also why you are thinking about doing a Whole 30 or some other similar paleo challenge: you want to ditch the bad food and feel good. For good. Not just for 30 days.

So let me make a suggestion that flies in the face of our "Here! Now!" instantaneous-gratification world: if you want it to last, take your time with the change.

There may be a few tough folks out there who can credibly and sustainably shift overnight from a Standard American Diet (SAD) of Pringles, pizza, KFC and beer to full-on paleo for 30 days, and then comfortably loosen things up ever-so-slightly thereafter to a still-non-inflammatory/non-SAD way of eating that they sustain from there on out.

But those people are really rare.

I'm finding that the most successful paleo transitions over the long haul generally happen a lot more slowly. Conversely, an awful lot of people who do a 100% full-on high dive into paleo straight from SAD-ville end up leaving the paleo way of life just as quickly. They torture the living beejeezus out of themselves by going all-in right away, spend 30 days in that frazzled state, and then party like rock stars once the 30 days are over.

That approach is kind of the exact opposite of "sustainable." In fact, it just sort of sounds like a "diet." And diets suck. And fail.

So what about that 30-day challenge? Didn't I say there was a huge value in it? Yeah I did, but I think that value is best realized when you are really ready for it.

Everyone's different, and every individual is going to have a different struggle with a transition to paleo, but for many of us the biggest hurdle is to stop eating grains. So, a long time ago I did an article called "How to Start Eating Paleo." The point of that one? Take a step-by-step approach. Ditch grains first -- completely. Then, when you are fully comfortable with that change, get rid of something else, like legumes, or dairy, and piece-by-piece over the next few months you will get where you need to be.

Because, yeah, where you want to end up is with 30 clean days, like a Whole 30, after which you can customize paleo to fit your own individual needs. But if you high-dive your way into a Whole 30, I worry that you may leave the program on as dramatic and precipitous of an exit ramp.

Remember, the point of paleo is successfully and sustainably improving your whole freaking life by permanently bettering all of your food choices. A Whole 30 or other 30-day challenge is a nice way to seal the deal on that kind of permanent change, but it probably is more than you can handle right off the bat if yesterday (and all the days before) you were eating like complete crap. If you want your shift to a non-inflammatory/paleo/primal lifestyle to actually last, consider tackling the individual aspects of "getting to" a clean 30 days over a period of time that really works for you.

And that rarely starts by diving headfirst into a 30-day paleo challenge. Work your way into it. Then do that clean 30 days when you're really ready. Not when your friends or your gym tells you to -- when you are really ready for it.

Primal eating challenge, day 8

One of the things I love about eating this way is that you can eat a *lot* of food. If you stick with real food, no grains, etc., it is really tough to gain weight. This was the first day of the challenge that I didn't really snack at all, and didn't need to -- because I ate so damn much food at mealtime.

I won't call it anything as formal as "breakfast" because it was not formal at all, but in my first hour of being awake today I ate: a blueberry Larabar, a piece of that Wegmans black-pepper salami that we started in on last night, a bowl full of heated-up blueberries and plantains (cooked last night in a pan with grassfed butter and cinnamon), three-eggs/bacon/broccoli/asparagus/guacamole done all together in a skillet in a way that would make your typical Denny's weep in envy, and coffee with heavy cream. *That*, my friends, is quality eating. And it was just the first meal of the day.

Lunch: a big bowl full of the liver/beef/veggies mix from the other night, topped with a dollop of guacamole.

Played volleyball all afternoon at our place and then fed all the players with salad and sausages and sausages and sausages. I think I ate six of e'em: one chorizo, two sweet Italian, three hot Italian. Afterwards I feasted on some frozen peaches and cherries from Wegmans heated up with plantains and topped with just a bit of heavy cream. Amazing.

One other interesting fact from today: only one cup of coffee. I can't tell you the last time *that* happened. The power of primal living and a day of volleyball? Could be. Could be.




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Primal eating challenge, day 6

Last night after band practice: ate a banana and some almonds when I got home.

Today is a rest day from all forms of activity. I need it. Band practice kicks the crap out of my upper body.

Breakfast: three eggs scrambled with broccoli and bacon, plus a bit of Dubliner (grassfed) cheese. Originality is not my forte when I am in a rush to get out the door to an appointment. Coffee with heavy cream too.

One lemon Larabar. I usually don't get hungry between breakfast and lunch, but I think breakfast was too light on meat, hence the Larabar.

Black iced coffee from Saxby's. I could have been "that guy" who asks for the heavy-cream stash from behind the counter, but it wouldn't have been grassfed, so I passed on that.

A small nutritional tangent: by and large, I agree with Dr. Kurt Harris that heavy cream is an item for which it is slightly less important for it to come from grassfed sources. The reason? Most of us use so little of it that if the omega 3 to 6 ratio is less than optimal (i.e., too high in the 6s) it's not really a big deal. But for the sake of the challenge, I went all orthodox/hardcore and passed up the hc this time. This month, all my cheese, cream and butter comes from grassfed sources only.

Lunch (on the road): there's a Wegmans near where I had to go this morning, so I stopped in and bought seven ounces of already-packaged, grassfed roast beef and some olives and tomatoes at the "Mediterranean bar," and that was lunch. This lunch was a bit light in the carb department, I suppose, but nicely represented on the protein and good-fat side of things. Wegmans is awesome.

Got home from work and ate a few almonds and some grassfed cheese. Then decided I was still hungry so I had some frozen peaches microwaved to melt 'em a little. In light of breakfast today, I guess that snack might be a bit much on the cheese front, but it's Friday, in the middle of a primal challenge. The fact that there won't be any alcoholic beverages imbibed tonight is still a nutritional improvement from the typical Friday. So really, what's a little extra (really good) cheese, hmmm?

Dinner: grassfed steaks and asparagus on the grill. Shocker: I used some guacamole to liven things up. And then I had some blueberries for dessert.



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"The Garage"

We have a workout at our CrossFit gym called "The Garage." The name is an homage to the humble residential-one-car-garage beginnings of the business, which is now in a *much* larger commercial space that the owners moved to last January. (And now, things are going so well there that a move to an even larger space is in the works).

So when the owners put together a "benchmark" workout -- one that tests movements and strength across a wide range of modalities, including bodyweight and barbell work -- and they needed a name for it, I suggested "The Garage." It seemed right, and it stuck. It goes like this:

3 rounds for time of:

10 pullups
10 front squats
10 burpees


So, right at the beginning of our 30-day primal eating challenge, we did that workout. And now that the challenge is over, we just did it again. I was a little skeptical that I would see big results on this workout. I was already eating mostly clean when I started all this. How good could it get?

Pretty good, apparently. I went in this morning, ass dragging from a brand-new (dammit) cold/cough combo and still beat my old time of 5:58 (with 115-lb front squats) with a new mark of 5:04.

Nice. Here's to clean eating.


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Clean mass gain

Yeah, you can hate me now. I am the rare 49-year-old male who is thin and annoyed about weighing *less* than I want to. Boo-fucking-hoo, eh?

CrossFit and primal eating have been really good to me, but I am 6'3" and weighed, at the end of the eating challenge that I just finished, around 172 pounds. I want to put some more weight on, specifically in the form of muscle. I am decently strong for my weight, but not spectacular: my current one-rep deadlift is 365 pounds for example. But I would be a hell of a lot stronger with ten extra pounds of muscle on me.

So it's time for what Dallas over at Whole9 calls a "clean mass gain." Translated that means: "eating primal food, but in a way that fools your satiety sensor so you eat *more* good food than you need and gain some weight."

The best time to really pile on the food is post-workout. So for the last three days, I have probably eaten 1500 calories for *breakfast* each day.

It's been awesome. Well, OK, breakfast has been awesome. I feel *amazing* after breakfast and the feeling lasts for hours....

....and hours and hours. Generally it is about six hours until I am hungry again.

Which is great, except for the weight-gain part of the deal. And since "the deal" is about weight gain, well, this is all a bit of a failure. I may never eat a snack again, though.

I think coconut milk may be the key to fooling myself. (But, oh, the line between "fine" and "where's the Imodium?" is so fine with coconut milk). So I need to dial up my coconut-milk intake, apparently. I may even have to get brave enough to try this monster, courtesy of Dallas Hartwig:

1-13.5 oz. can of coconut milk – 720 calories
2 avocado – 450 calories
1 banana – 105 calories
1 pint of frozen blackberries – 260 calories
1 bunch watercress or spinach – 12 calories
3 carrots – 120 calories
6 eggs – 360 calories
Throw it all in (feel free to mix and match your ingredients). Blend. Slurp straight from the blender.

Total estimated calories: 2,027

I think may start with a half serving. Pray for me.


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Primal eating challenge, day 19.

If somehow this particular post is the first one of my 30-day-challenge posts that you are reading, fergodsakes start with another one. Today was, from a paleo/nutritional perspective, a little, er, carb-heavy. You'd swear I deadlifted.

We'll blame those sweet potatoes and apples. Jesus, they were delicious.

Breakfast: just a few sweet potatoes/apples followed by eggs scrambled with leftover paleo meatloaf, broccoli and spinach. Coffee. Black.

I was working from home today. Damn sweet potatoes began their snacky siren song at about 10:30 a.m. Now, I knew enough not just to eat a crapload of carbs by themselves, so I tossed in some paleo meatloaf. We will call that Snack #1.

Lunch: That Amazing Lamb, once again, over greens.

Took a short break from work and beat the hell out of the drum kit.

This made me hungry. Do you hear that? Calling me from the fridge?

Snack#2: exactly the same as Snack #1.

Dinner: the sad end of That Amazing Lamb, mixed with some paleo meatloaf (really), with spinach, and reheated all together in a skillet, with, just to relive last night, a fried egg dropped on top. Then, just to make sure I ate enough carbs today to kill the average person, I had some frozen peaches, heated up in the microwave.

The good part about today: no actual cheating on the challenge occurred, but I am going to try not to replicate this level of fruit/carb intake for a while.

The better part about today: Robb Effing Wolf tweeted my Raynaud's post. Really. Nice, huh?







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Weirdness abounds

For a very long time, I have had what I will call a frequent, but not excessive, relationship with alcohol. I am a pretty dependable one-or-two-drink-a-day guy. Come home from work, get dinner going, crack open a beer, or, since I have gone paleo/primal and ditched the gluten, maybe wine, whisky or hard cider (Strongbow seems to beat all the other ciders, FWIW).

But then I did this primal eating challenge. Not a drop of booze or processed crap went into my gaping maw for a month.

And now booze isn't moving me much at all.

Yeah, on Friday night when I was out with friends, celebrating the awesomeness of, well, everything, a few Magner's hard ciders went down pretty well. But at home in the week since ending the challenge, I have had a little Highland Park one night, some Laphroaig another and two glasses of red wine last night. My reaction: ppbbttffftt (an unimpressive noise, trust me on this one).

What the hell?

It really just made me sleepy and sluggish. The nights when I didn't drink, I got shit done. I was a TCB machine. The others? Not so much.

I mean.... This *should* lead to a simple reaction of: "Maybe I shouldn't drink at home on weeknights." But somehow it is more complicated than that. There are years of patterned behavior to un-learn. Apparently my taste buds -- and, particularly, my metabolism -- have unlearned booze pretty quickly, but the brain is not so smart or logical.

Brain v. taste buds. It'll be an epic throwdown, I'm sure. Updates to follow.

This is fucking bizarre.



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Primal eating challenge, day 2

5:30 a.m., pre-workout: frozen cherries and almond butter, heated up in microwave.

Breakfast: three eggs, leftover sausage, broccoli, guacamole.

Lunch (on the road): bigass Chipotle salad with carnitas, salsa, guacamole, onions, peppers, lettuce and white rice.

1 cherry Larabar.

Dinner: Thai coconut-milk/curry beef and spinach. (Beef cooked for 12 hours in crock pot with 1 can coconut milk and 1 small jar of red curry paste).

Beverages over the course of day: coffee (both black and with heavy cream), water, seltzer.

Currently in crock pot overnight: sweet potatoes, peeled and sliced, in the leftover beefy coconut milk/curry sauce.

Just cooked in the oven: sweet potatoes and apples. Note to self: use cooking apples next time. These ones kind of melted. Whatever.

Postscript: I couldn't resist....20 minutes after getting those sweet potatoes and apples out of the oven, I dove in and had a few. Not the best eating plan to jam in carbs just before bed like that. The score: deliciousness (but still within the parameters of the challenge) 1 - good sense 0.

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Primal eating challenge, day 28

Today I drove down to CrossFit OTG to watch a competition they were holding there. Lots of impressive performances by amazing athletes. It was really inspiring stuff. It reminded me of the very first time I learned about CrossFit -- at an in-house competition at CrossFit 215 in Philly back in early 2010. That one inspired me to try CrossFit. A little less than two years later and I am a dedicated crossfitter, and have been eating paleo/primal for over a year. Cool stuff.

So what about the food?

Breakfast: eggs, andouille sausage, and broccoli, plus black coffee. Oh...some blueberries and almond butter too. In figured lunch might be a long way away, so the extra fat of the almond butter was a welcome addition to breakfast to help keep me full.

Had a Larabar at about 11:30 a.m.

Lunch, when I got home from the competition: coconut-milk/blueberry/peach smoothies made in a blender, followed by two grassfed burgers with grassfed cheese, over salad greens.

More black coffee.

Dinner: an amazing collection of paleo food at a paleo potluck dinner. I had chili, pulled pork, coconut-curry beef, homemade Larabars, pumpkin pie (no sugar/sweetener!), sausage meatballs wrapped around olives, endive and other veggies, squash....it was incredible.


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Primal eating challenge, day 7

Before the gym (a little more food than the usual pre-gym routine because we had a nutrition seminar at 9 a.m. and then the workout at 10, so I stuffed this in about 8 a.m....can't be getting hungry, y'know): fairly large bowl of coconut-curry sweet potatoes mixed with the liver/beef/veggies concoction from the other night and with one fried egg dropped on top of it all.

Eating so much pre-gym was a really good plan today. We got back from the gym over three hours later because there was such a boatload of people there for the nutrition seminar that the post-seminar workout was run in heats. Anyway...it was shortly after noon that I ate again, but we will call it breakfast: two eggs, a bunch of leftover grassfed ground beef and veggies from a few nights back and a righteous beautiful pile of coconut-milk sweet potatoes.

I love eating like this.

Lunch never quite happened. I was out mowing the lawn and took a break to stuff in my very first Steve's Original Paleo Kit. Wow. It's the best damn jerky I ever tasted combined with nuts and dried fruit in a way that I do not think I could replicate in my own kitchen. It was incredible and the large one was the perfect big-ass protein/fat snack.

Waiting for dinner to cook, I had some outrageous high-end black-pepper salami from Wegmans and a little grassfed cheese. Then it was yellowfin tuna and asparagus on the grill for dinner, followed by some peaches and cherries with a little heavy cream to make it fatty and awesome.




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Primal eating challenge, day 30

5:30 a.m., pre-workout: frozen cherries, heated in microwave, plus coconut milk. Wow.

PRd my three-rep front squat at CrossFit today, even though the rep scheme was 3x3, meaning I did that weight for three sets of three. Nice. Plus we had a bodyweight-only metcon thereafter, and I love those.

Breakfast: as I noted in another post, I didn't eat eggs today for the first time in I don't know when....well over a year, and it might be more than two years. I ate curried ground beef and cauliflower that I cooked last night, plus plantains with a little more coconut milk.

Then I had more of the curried beef/cauliflower, plus a little guacamole, for lunch.

DD black coffee, medium.

Lunch was early and dinner was late, so I ate a paleokit on the way home from work. Nice. Jerky, dried fruit and nuts.

Dinner: more of the curried beef and cauliflower with the added glory of broccoli. Had a few blueberries, but not many. Trying to stay away from fruit except pre-workout.

And that, folks, is the food-filled end of a 30-day challenge.

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Halloween workout and the primal eating challenge, day 21

Today was our annual Halloween workout at CrossFit Aspire. The one day a year they tell you to dress like an idiot. I complied, quite willingly. It was easy: dreadlock wig/cap and a Bad Brains t-shirt. Ridiculous, but I loved it.











As for the workout, it was a blast:

Weighted Pullups in sets of 5 were the strength component (I got sets of five with 47 pounds in a weight vest that I was wearing, but when I went for 57 pounds, I only got a set of three...next time) followed by a partner WOD! I love team WODs. And somehow, they let Jamie and me be a team. What we lack in strength in our 49-year-old bods, we make up for with ace planning. This was the workout:

10 Rounds – no setting the KB down
10 KB Swings
10 Goblet Squats
10 Burpees
10 Jumping Lunges

Your partner had to hold the kettlebell while you did the burpees and lunges (or vice versa). We just each took a round and alternated. Boom. It was fun, and more tiring than it may look.

Oh, and we all looked awesome.







This all prompted a lot of eating today.

Pre-workout: black coffee and a bowl of sweet potatoes and apples.

Post workout immediately: 16 ounces of Vita Coco coconut water. Nice.

Breakfast: More black coffee and then eggs, last night's lamb/veggies and bacon.

Snack while watching Nebraska take Michigan State to the woodshed in college football: almonds and a little grassfed cheese (my first dairy in days...feeling a lot better).

Lunch: more of last night's lamb/veggies, over greens with guacamole.

Some Morning Thunder tea, then some herbal tea while cooking. Missing a good Saturday night while-cooking drink, I am.

Dinner: Whole Foods chorizo with green peppers and spinach. And sauerkraut. I love sauerkraut, and it is so good for your digestion. This was the super clean stuff from Whole Foods. Some frozen blueberries too, heated up in microwave.

Three weeks down.

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Primal eating challenge, day 5

No exercise this morning. we have band practice tonight. Two hours of drumming is exercise enough for today.

Breakfast: bacon/broccoli/spinach/eggs scrambled. A little guac mixed in. Coffee with heavy cream.

Drank black coffee and a bottle of water at a meeting this morning while others jammed bagels and donuts into their mouths.

Lunch: last night's dinner (grass fed ground beef, veggies, spices), plus some of those coconut-milk sweet potatoes, all over greens with guacamole. One apple.

Dinner: liver, ground beef and chipped beef (about a pound of each), all grassfed, cooked in a frying pan with cumin and chipotle plus onions and red peppers, and, yes, a little guacamole. Lots of leftovers. I keep reading about the importance of eating offal sometimes if you want to get the full range of nutrients from your grassfed cow. It's good this way mixed with the beef -- keeps the liver-y stank down to a minimum, and is yet another opportunity to get some guacamole into my life.

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Primal eating challenge, day 10

Day 10! Wow. How'd that happen?

I am posting this at 9 a.m., post-breakfast, in anticipation of what I plan to eat.... Planning is everything. If there is more, or a change, I will add it later, but I am going full-throttle in multiple directions all day today until way into the evening, so now is the only time I will have to blog it.

5:30 a.m, pre-workout: bowl of almond butter and frozen blueberries heated in microwave. So good. Coffee with heavy cream.

Breakfast: I get home from my favorite CrossFit workout ("Helen") to find Jamie has made breakfast. Nice. Bacon with eggs and broccoli done in the bacon fat. Really nice. More coffee. More heavy cream. More awesomeness.

Lunch: no one else here will eat liver, so I am still making my way through this liver/beef/veggie combo, over greens with guacamole. Obviously, I am capable of eating the same thing over and over (guacamole, anyone?) but, I have to admit, I am getting a wee bit tired of this particular liver-y blend.

Dinner: Chipotle salad with guacamole (No! Say it isn't so!), a meat to be chosen at the time, maybe even double meat (mmmmm, double meat), ok definitely double meat, salsa, onions and peppers.

Sometime this afternoon, I am sure I will have some coffee. Black.

Postscript: this all happened as planned, except, starving after this morning's CrossFit workout, and having eaten too little meat at breakfast, I tore into a Steve's Original Paleo Kit (size:large) at 10:45 a.m. Wowzers. I wasn't hungry for lunch until 2 p.m. Oh, and the meat to be chosen at a later time at Chipotle was: barbacoa. Double size. Double awesome.





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