Well Ain't This Interesting?!

I mentioned a few days ago that I was going to be trying my hand at the Paleo Diet. Well, I started it this week and let me tell you, this is turning into quite an adventure. I shall share. Cause I'm like that.

So let's start with the premise. And if you are reading along and you don't believe in evolution, this is totally the part where you hit the red X button. Tho it would be funny to have some non-evolution-believers reading a queer athletes blog. Hahaha. But I digress.

Theory is that humans evolved to eat a diet that is radically different than we do today. Back in the paleolithic period our cave-dwelling ancestors lived off of what they could hunt or gather. There was no agriculture, much less the industrial agriculture we've all been lulled into. While certainly people lived harsh lives and probably died early, they died of things like animal attacks, exposure to elements, getting run over by Flintstones cars and the like. In general, early humans show no evidence of the chronic diseases we are all dying from-- heart disease, cholesterol, diabetes, etc. They retained remarkably healthy physiques and are believed to have been far more immune to just the run of the mill ailments we all contend with. So this guy who appears to have trained as an ethnobiologist more than anything else, proposes this new way of eating in 2002... eating like a cave person.

Ok, so we all know that food can be broken into carbs, fat and protein, right? And calories too, but the key in this shift is more the percentages that comprise those calories. If as a modern person you follow the current convention advocated by groups like the FDA, you are eating along the following recommendation:

* 45% to 65% of calories eaten should come from carbohydrates.
* 20% to 35% of calories eaten should come from fat.
* 10% to 35% of calories eaten should come from protein.

If you are following you cave-dwelling fore-bearers, life looks a little more like this:

* 25-30% of calories eaten should come from carbohydrates.
* 40% of calories eaten should come from fat.
* 30% to 35% of calories eaten should come from protein.

Note the huge shift between carbs and protein? It's pretty dramatic. Then you look at definitions of things like carbs and fat. The traditional American diet tends towards very refined and enriched carbs (look at your labels. See the words "fortified" or "enriched?"). These tend to have a very high glycemic index-- which is basically the amount of sugar within the carb. A high number means its going to hit your blood stream a little harder and faster. Our cave-dwelling fore-bearers didn't have enriching facilities. The carbs they got were in vegetables and fruits.

There's a similar shift in fats. Basics of fat-- 3 types. Unsaturated, Saturated, Transfat. Ok, so unsaturated. This is the good stuff. This is the olive oil, the nuts, the fish. Saturated. This is where things get interesting. Typically saturated fats come from animal products-- dairy and meat. Interesting shift in modern agriculture is that animal products are now notorious for their saturated fat. Didn't used to be that way. Seems when we started tricking animals into not eating grass in favor of corn, they started getting more and more saturated fat in their content. To think that even now, "corn-fed beef" is considered an advertising slogan. Ack. Give cows grass and the saturated fat content goes way the heck down. Seriously. Lastly is transfat. This stuff is evil. It's actually now banned in some places like happy NYC. These are entirely man-made nightmare fats in things like margarine and, oh, everything, that include the words "hydrogenated." Yuck. Paleo fat is all focused on unsaturated, and at that its focused mainly on mono-unsaturated, which is the stuff that kicks up your good HDL cholesterol.

Have I lost you yet? (And to think I am not even getting into the weeds.)

Ok, so Paleo. Change around the ratios, change the types of fats and the types of carbs and kick up the protein and see what happens. Most people experience a few things when they follow this plan. First off, they get over the insulin-related highs and lows of the modern diet. No post-lunch sleepies. So energy gets a lot more regulated. Secondly, they get a lot more heart healthy and lean. These two things are big for me.

So as regimented as I am for my training, I am notoriously weak on the regimented nutrition. A few months ago when I gave up being vegetarian it was with a renewed interest in tackling that challenge. As my weight had started to come back down to something more close to my training and fighting weight, the nagging issue for me was body fat percentage. And it always has been. For someone as small as me, I have an exceptionally high body fat percentage. Because I don't eat well enough. So as of today I am 122 lbs with a 26.2% body fat. That's kinda crazy if you think about it. Here's what the American Council on Exercise publishes as general recommendations

Classification: Women (% fat) / Men (% fat)
Essential Fat: 10-12% / 2-4%
Athletes: 14-20% / 6-13%
Fitness: 21-24% / 14-17%
Acceptable: 25-31% / 18-25%
Obese: 32% plus / 25% plus

See what I mean? I am only in the acceptable range. Which if you think about the kind of stuff I am doing on a regular basis here is a little surprising. And this reads that its time to dial this in. So leaning me up a little is a good thing. Now I really don't want to lose more weight. I am kinda happy around 120. I can do 115. Anything below that is scary looking. So my goal is to add muscle while leaning up so it can offset it all and I don't have to look like Jack from A Nightmare Before Christmas. Cause that ain't hot, yo.

So now you have the back story. Let's talk about where this is. Today is technically day 2. More like 2.5 since I started at the Crossfit "Paleo Potluck" on Sunday, where a number of the other athletes who are already on this kick got together for some communal food and fun. They all started this on November 1, so they have about 2 weeks up on me. Just enough to let me know what is in store for me.

My first 2 days have been shockingly challenging. I don't get cravings, honestly. I don't hanker chocolate or sugar or salt or much of anything. So this isn't about craving. It's about withdrawal. Breaking the addiction to the standard American fare carb garbage is hard. My first day I was, admittedly, downright hostile. The thing with me, however, is that I am both appreciating the transition as being something biochemically fascinating, as I am engaged in the reaction. So I waffle between "Hey, this feels kinda funky. Isn't it cool??" and "OMG if that kid doesn't stop screaming I may break it's windpipe." It was the kind of day I could have gotten into a fist-fight and then thoroughly analyzed the biochemistry of rage thereafter. Not.good.

I also noticed I was profoundly winded. I don't get sick often but last winter I got that case of bronchitis, which was a first for me, and it was the same kind of winded. I went from running 7 miles last week to struggling up a flight of stairs. It was odd. Secondly, I noticed I was nauseous. Mostly in the afternoons. By 1 pm, I want to throw up. If I can just get over the mindset and make sure I am eating anyway, it seems to pass. But its strange. Lastly, and perhaps most strangely, my body temperature has dropped a little. I know my body well. I can tell from a mile away if I am about to get sick. It's how I avoid it. This temperature shift though has nothing to do with getting sick. At all. It's withdrawal. I can feel it.

My biggest challenge right now is hitting my ratios. Truth is that though I didn't eat so healthy, I could usually nail my percentages which I had previously modeled more on the Zone diet (40% carb, 30% protein, 30% fat). It's not a dramatic shift in percentage for me, its more in the types of each that makes it a little harder for me to work out. Here's what I am looking at after figuring in dinner for tonight:



I'm fine on the fat with the nuts and some olive oil and fish and all that, but both the protein and carb percentages are too low. I have 450 calories I haven't accounted for just to maintain my current weight. This is notoriously a problem for me... I am often under calories, but now that I am eating a lot more food just to hit calories, its getting even more challenging. While the shift in food types is something I need to physically acclimate to, the method of eating is a huge procedural change for me that I am very thrown by. To make up for some of the deficit tonight, I'm going to throw a butternut squash into the oven with some sage and see if I can't get some carbs into me. The protein... not entirely sure how to fix that right now. But its a little closer.

So day 2 paleo. I can summarize it best by saying that I am well outside my comfort zone. Phrases like "I need to throw a butternut squash into the oven" aren't typical for me. But hey... it's good to be outside my comfort zone once and a while, right?

This is long. I hit post now. More later, with love from the cave.