Our Coach stood at the front of the room at the whiteboard at our introductory class, checkmarking and printing and unleashing a whirling blur of information: power, output, full-body movements, paleo diet. I'd been listening earnestly till then but then my mind stalled out and refused to absorb: Diet, I thought, A fad diet and I'm not so sure about the whole Caveman premise.
I thought: I'll work out here, I like the premise of full-out, strong, short workouts and this seems right up our adrenaline-fuelled, mildly masochistic sensibilities -- but I'll keep eating what I'm eating. I've been seeing good results with the Body for Life diet, and its associated "free day", when I could inhale whatever I wanted, sans guilt.
I'd read a little bit about the Paleo Diet, but not much, and to be honest I'd cringed a bit because of all the meat. I was a vegetarian for almost 3 years, for ethical reasons upon learning about the horrors of factory farming via this book.
The thought of eating meat at every meal made me vaguely squeamish, even though I'd recently introduced meat back into my diet (grass fed, organic, free range local meat only). But I got home from our introductory Crossfit session that day and did a lot of research. I knew, when I was a vegetarian (but not a vegan) that if my argument for not eating meat was truly purely ethical, then there were some holes in my logic. Dairy cows are treated just as appallingly on factory farms, and my new brown boots weren't made of plant material. The Paleo diet, I discovered, has been deemed a fad diet like Atkins and South Beach and all the ones before it -- but it was based on some pretty common sense logic No bread, no sugar, no salt = a stronger, leaner body. And, Paleo enthusiasts argue: this diet makes you feel better. Get rid of all the sugar and starch and crap and your mind will be happier, too.
But what kind of lunatic, I wondered, would willingly give up freshly baked baguette with butter and melted sharp cheddar? Who?
***
The following week, I spied a sheet of paper on the front desk of our Crossfit gym when we arrived for our morning workout. I picked it up and looked at the Paleo food pyramid on the front page. It was a challenge: 31 days, all of March 2010. All Paleo foods, no cheating. Diarize, write how you feel, eat no dairy, no sugar, no flour. While you're at it, no potatoes and no peas (I know, no peas? But it's true.)
1st prize, as determined by the Crossfit coach team, was 6 months of free Crossfit. Crossfit is not inexpensive. I smelled a challenge.
That Friday night we went out and ate nachos with sour cream and sandwiches with delicious mayonnaise on crusty baguettes and drank Strongbow and lamented the death of all that is Joyous and Wonderful in life. And on Monday morning we woke to a choice of meat, eggs, nuts, fruits or vegetables for breakfast, lunch and dinner. And snacks. And dessert. No feta, even on our Greek salads! I wasn't sure I could do it.
***
The first day was the hardest: I'd cleaned out the fridge on Sunday and morosely offered gifts of feta cheese, bread, and delicious baked goods to my brother. So there was nothing to tempt me, but by dinnertime Monday night I was pacing the kitchen, looking for something sweet, finally settling on dates and unsweetened coconut. On Tuesday I picked a fight with Corey and informed him randomly that the Paleo Diet had extinguished my sex drive entirely. Punishment, maybe, for the torture he'd inflicted on me even though this insanity was my idea.
I thought lustfully about chocolate macadamia nut cookies and strawberry shortcake, bread with peanut butter and scones with maple icing. I began to obsess about coffee and cream and stirring in brown sugar, slowly. I even contemplated making an excuse to drive to the corner store to buy five or six secret chocolate bars. I could inhale them guiltily and awesomely, hunched away from sight in my filthy Jeep.
Corey remained calm and cool and happy with his goddamned carrots. Dude is not human.
But Wednesday morning, despite having dreams about chocolate cake all night, I woke up feeling more energized. I thought about our meals for the day and took some pleasure in planning what we could do to make things interesting and filling for our 3 meals. By Thursday I noticed that my face seemed weirdly...unpuffy, thinner -- and my stomach and arm muscles were popping more than I'd ever seen them. Corey was looking even more chiselled than usual, and he was starting to mumble madness about continuing to eat this way indefinitely.
Here's the thing that's true: the Paleo diet forces you to think about what you eat. You suddenly learn how much salt is in a can of Del Monte corn, and you are forced to go out of your way to buy fresh, because that's the only option when you're not eating salt. Pickled vegetables are out, anything in the middle aisles of the grocery store are toast. Fresh herbs become a neccessity when you can't use store bought dressing. But you begin to appreciate the wonderful flavor of fresh basil: that homemade blueberry balsamic dressing with lemon is a million times superior to anything Kraft could ever make.
We're on Day 8 now, and I would have guessed that at this point I would have been miserable and grumbling and full of regret for every agreeing to do something so insane. But - I can honestly say that my body has never felt this good. I feel whippercracker alive, I am sleeping like a log, I feel strong and I'm looking forward to my meals. We shop a lot more for our meals, but we waste almost nothing, and we've liked almost every Paleo meal we've made. I put together a blog for the challenge if you're interested.
I know many people won't be interested in doing a diet as "extreme" as this, but I urge you maybe to give it a try for a week. Or just cut out sugar, or wheat, or dairy for a while and see how you feel. I wouldn't have believed it even a month ago, but I'm now fully convinced that food has a direct correlation with everything I'm feeling, inside and out. And even if I don't continue with this Paleo diet forever, that understanding is worth the effort alone.
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