We're coming up on the end of two weeks, and it sounds like folks are struggling.
- Tired of eggs
- Don't know what to eat for breakfast
- Fine during the day but starving at night
- Running out of ideas for snacks
- I miss bacon!
We're working to remove one vice (ya!) of bagels, blocks of cheese, muffins, coworkers candy jar, rice, and sheet cake, but replaced it with another vice (boo!) - jars of almond butter, bags of almonds, bags of baby carrots, or some type of dessert to satisfy our sweet tooth.
By doing that we're not making any gains. Remember, even though sugar might not be on the ingredients list on some products (almond butter, carrots, snap peas) - it's still in there!
Additionally, if you find yourself hitting the jar at nights end, do yourself a favor and get the jar out of the house. That isn't license to dive in knuckle deep! If you can't ration the nutty goodness, don't buy it anymore. And if you don't want to trash it, I can keep it in a lock box at my place. I have an open jar in the fridge but haven't hit it in a long time, so it's safe with me. I'm not going to assign penalties to nut butters, so you're on your own to police yourselves. However, if you have a goal to lose weight during this challenge, lay off the nuts and nut butters. Yes, they are a good source of fat, but just a smidgen on the tip of a spoon turns into half a jar in an instant and the next thing your know the jar looks like it just came out of a dishwasher, your spoon is bent, you've got a nut butter smile like Bozo painted on your face, and a belly like Norm from "Cheers". How did THAT happen?!?
So even though we're only 2 weeks into the challenge, let's use the weekend to take a look at our goals - are we losing weight, taking fish oil, getting enough sleep, eating enough protein, eating a variety of meats and veggies??
Go back to basics - meats and veggies, three square meals a day, stay hydrated, get 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep. Your small meal post-workout (carb, protein, minimal fat) is a 'bonus' meal and it's not meant to replace your breakfast or dinner. It's a little something to help you recover faster and more efficiently. Cut back on snacking. If you find you need something to bridge the gap between the main meals, eat more at your main meals. I will venture to guess that you're not filling up on veggies. Not sure? Measure out 3 cups of cooked broccoli (or other favorite vegetable), drizzle it with EVOO, and have that with a side of meat. Full? Good.
And if you need to snack, make sure you have a protein and a fat. So you're on the right track with the almond butter, but add in a couple slices of turkey. Enjoy carrots and guac? That's cool, but get some roast beef in there, too. And that holds true for all meals and not just snacks - at least a protein and a fat.
Make sense? No? Quick lesson - when you eat the carrots and guac, you're ingesting sugar (carrot) and fat (guac). Your insulin is going up with the sugar, and you need the protein (from meat) to balance it out. The fat is there for energy. Remember, we're getting away from sugar as a fuel source and moving fat.
I have my vices, too, and my weakness is the Internet. Sounds creepy, but I need to get offline and get more zz's each night. I can also put away a bag of almonds or pistachios in no time, so I'm going to adjust things these next couple of weeks and really work on getting to bed at a decent hour. I'm also nixing nuts. I would like to lose some weight and a bag of almonds every 3 days isn't helping my waistline!
If you enjoy that paleo dessert before bed and you're looking to lose weight, maybe you should rethink that and go to bed a little hungry. I'm sure you'll be tired, headachy, and grouchy for a few days to a week, but it's your body going through sugar withdrawal again. You will survive!
I'm going to make some changes.. are you?
Email me recipes if you've got 'em. We're starting to get a small collection - some that people have tried and some I've found and thought looked good - so let me know what works/what doesn't, and I'll get your notes and ideas up there.
And keep an eye out on more posts and changes to come. Some good things in the works!
2 comments:
Jen, this entry is quite timely. Just today I was thinking mutinously to myself that all this didn't really make sense - there are a thousand eating plans out there and honestly, they all have their successes. Everyone has heard of the Mediterranean diet, for example. If you've read Born to Run, you can't help but think that all those grains/corn they eat sure aren't hurting them any.
I was thinking that way because I realized the exact same thing you're saying - I've substituted a different type of binge for corn-syrup bingeing. I didn't realize that I might have been trying to get more sugar into my body, (the three Larabars earlier this week should have been a dead giveaway). If I'm bingeing on almond butter, I might as well binge on something I like better instead. Why not the ice cream diet?
But I've decided instead to really try to make this work. The Paleo diet makes as much sense as anything else out there does, and I'm really serious this time. Might as well stick to it for 35 more days.
I agree with Myra re:this posting being timely. I'm doing Ok but not feeling as...clean..I as thought I would. I wasn't feeling very headachey being without sugar, so I thought I was doing pretty good, but felt something missing. I also realized I was polishing off a jar of almond butter a week, and since I was already out and doing my shopping for the week I decided not to get anymore. It was very hard to avoid getting it while I was at the store I actually avoided the aisle the almond butter is in. I am eliminating almond butter completely for the rest of the challenge, and going to try to have only 1 piece of fruit every other day until what I have already (some apples, 2 bananas 2 oranges) is gone. Then I will go without fruit the remaining of the challenge. I do OK with nuts and allocate only 20 almonds, 4-5 pieces (usually halves) of macadamia nuts and a few (4-5) walnuts in my bag-o-nuts that I have every afternoon. This limits how much I eat and, quite honestly, helps with my food budget. I already eat a lot of veggies and a good variety, but will add more per serving at each meal.
I'm not really sick of eating anything in particular right now, but do miss bacon. Especially since I would cook the bacon first then cook my eggs in the bacon grease. Now, my eggs just don't taste the same. I did find some bacon that didn't have sugar in it but it didn't mention anything about being without nitrates, so I didn't feel comfortable getting it. Will stick with eggs and chicken for breakfast. And dinner for breakfast....isn't bad at all.
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