Nutrition challenges are hard, even for me. Although I’ve been following a primarily Paleo style diet for the past five years or so, I do consume minimal servings of dairy and grains in my weekly diet. For the past three weeks I’ve been participating in a Paleo nutrition challenge with my sister’s gym and this go around has been a little on the rough side. For whatever reason, my body had a really difficult time adjusting to a full Paleo diet. My energy levels felt really low and my workouts felt harder than usual.
Perhaps I should also rewind and give a little backstory to the weeks leading up to this challenge. I moved out of my house and put all of my belongings in storage, packed up my car and headed to Atlanta to hang with my sister for the month. Talk about a load of stress! During the week of the move I barely ate, worked out like a fiend (I had to soak up all I could at my home gym!) and had a glass of wine or two every night. There was NO surprise that once I got settled in Georgia and started to actually eat again my body freaked out. Oh did I mention that I also started incredibly hard programming at her gym too? A total recipe for disaster.
The first week not only did I have my rear handed to me during my workouts, I also cut out any of those carbs that would have floated me through the day after a morning of brutal training. I should also mention that this was the week that I did a hero workout and a tribute WOD at the gym. If you’re unfamiliar with Crossfit, hero/tribute WODS are done in honor of fallen soldiers or victims of horrific events. They’re both mentally and physically very difficult. After both I felt tired and hangry most of the day. Although my meals really didn’t change too terribly much, I could tell that there was a lack of carbs in my diet. On a positive note, I was back into the kitchen and cooking up some of my favorite go to weeknight meals!
Week two was much of the same lethargy; my morning workouts were extremely difficult and I just didn’t feel like I had the juice to push as hard as I could. Despite all of this, I stuck with the challenge. Why? Well, because I knew from experience that the first two weeks of a Paleo diet are terrible and once they passed the result would be worth it. Sure enough, at the end of the second week I did a few baseline test out’s for lifts and to my amazement, I beat my old records by at least 10lbs! What?!? I don’t know about you, but that is enough proof to keep up with the challenge. I also didn’t feel as desperate when it came to cheat day in the second week. Also surprisingly enough, I was not missing my daily glass of wine.
As I am now finishing up the third week of this challenge, I am noticing the difference in my body. My waist is down an inch and a half and I look noticeably leaner. Weight is not so much of a concern to me although my performance is. I’ve been making progress slowly but surely during my workouts and it’s enough to motivate me to go another week or two with this challenge. I will be traveling again during this time frame and also starting at a new gym! So many changes again in a very short amount of time, but at least I know that with a clean diet, my body will be able to handle the stress. I’ll be less likely to reach for my favorite stress snacks and keep my energy levels up naturally. Overall, I’m very pleased with the results of the Paleo challenge and look forward to doing it again in a few weeks before the Holiday season commences!
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