Paleo Diet - Week #1 in the books

***Oops I meant to post this on Monday***

Well my first week of the Paleo diet is in the books without any major blow ups, well with exception for the planned ones. Friday night I went off diet and devoured a big @$$ burrito and then again on Sunday afternoon I had pizza over at my grandma's for lunch, but I had planned on 2 or 3 non paleo meals this week and I ended up with those 2 so I consider that a victory. To be honest the burrito and pizza tasted delicious but both left me feeling overly full and bloated later. The thing I have enjoyed most about my new eating approach is I can eat, sometimes a lot, and be full but not sick to my stomach full. If I wanted to I could easily go workout or play with my kids after eating a baked sweet potato, piece of fish and grilled chicken and spinach salad without having to wait hours for my stomach to digest. I'm feeling full and satisfied without being bloated and sick to may stomach later.

I ramped up my workouts towards the later part of the week, definitely noticed a spike in my hunger so I'm making a couple changes this week, instead of eating 3 meals consisting of 600-700 calories each and 2 snacks consisting of 200-350 calories each for my total of 2800 calories, this week I'm going to try just eating 4 meals a day of 700 calories each and see how that does.

Getting pretty excited to weigh in tomorrow, I know I shouldn't get my hopes up too much, I have to be prepared that I may not have lost any weight or even gained some weight over the last week. It would be a disappointment I won't lie, but ultimately I'm not doing this for the weight loss, but for the health benefits and to help lean my body up, I'm perfectly comfortable staying between 200-215 pounds I just would prefer to not have the extra 10-20 pounds of useless weight around my midsection and distribute that more to the rest of body as muscle that will in theory make me more efficient.

***So since I didn't post this on Monday I'll update my weigh in results here, pretty freaking excited to say that I dropped 3.6 pounds the first week. I was really nervous that I might not have lost anything so seeing any negative was good seeing 211.6 on the scale was great!

Goals for this week:
1) Continue to increase my workout load (running, biking, swimming, cross training)
2) Trim down my intake of dairy
3) Keep my non-paleo meals to 2 or less
4) Get to the gym to lift weights

Until next time...Do today what others won't, so tomorrow you can do what others can't.

Paleo Diet Day #3 - Halloween

Day 3 was by far the toughest day so far, actually the day wasn't so bad it was the night, see I didn't take into account Halloween and trick or treating with the kids when I started this diet and well let's just say my resolve and discipline was thoroughly tested last night. I am happy to report that I did not have one single piece of candy last night, I did have 3 pieces of Double Bubble gum but considering I could have easily mowed down half a dozen peanut butter cups (both my kids have a peanut allergy so all the peanut butter candy usually ends up getting eaten by yours truly) I'm happy with that.

Today will be my first real test since I finally got my lazy tail out of bed and went for a run this morning, only got 3.5 miles in, legs are still tired and sore from Spartan Race, but it will certainly ramp up my appetite a little. Over the last 3 days I have taken in roughly 2600-2900 calories which is a far cry from the 4000+ I could easily consume in one day before hand, and I haven't had any issues with being overly hungry at times. I'm still eating 5-6 times a day so that helps out and eating more meat definitely helps keep me full. Plus I'm eating large quantities of food, its just the foods I'm eating (salad, lean meat) has less calories than what I may have otherwise eaten. I think I have packed enough food for the day here is a breakdown of what's in my lunch box and what I'll most likely consume today.

Post work shake (at home) 1 c strawberries, 1/2 c blueberries, 1 c spinach, 1/3 c dry oatmeal, 2 scoops protein powder, 1 tbsp chia seeds, 1 c milk, 1 c fruit punch G2

Snack #1 Spinach salads with 1 oz grilled chicken and apple

Lunch - 1 large sweet potato,4 oz grilled chicken, 2 tbsp salsa, 3 oz tilapia and 1 container of plain Greek yogurt

Snack #2 Spinach salads with 1 oz grilled chicken and 1/4 c mixed nuts

Dinner - I will most likely have a sweet potato and either fish or chicken

I know some of the items like milk and Greek yogurt are technically allowed in a strict Paleo diet but this is part of my modification. Those items may eventually leave my diet but for now there in and okay with it.

Until next time...Do today what others won't, so tomorrow you can do what others can't.