Paleo Reboot with Fast-5 Fasting

Something Had to Change to Prepare me

Three days ago I began another 30 day Paleo challenge. This time I'm upping my game to include Fast-5 Fasting. I completed my previous 30 day Paleo challenge in January of 2014 with amazing results. I lost 15lbs, yes, but the most miraculous thing was that my aching joints no longer ached -- this, without exercising regularly. I was floored. And then I blew it and started eating ice cream again. Frozen yogurt actually. Kemps to be exact.

I then began working at a job I loved and that simultaneously took over my life. I was solely responsible for all of our customers and I worked 14-16 hour days and several hours each weekend. There were times I pulled all-nighters to finish projects because I didn't have time during the day while constantly interacting with customers. I got used to it. It became normal for me. But it was at the expense of everything else, including my health.

Something had to change. Ultimately I left my job and started my own coaching business which freed up time and energy to take notice of my life and make some changes. I made several attempts, backed by great motivational energy, only to watch each fizzle quickly. I tried being accountable and muscled through my commitments only to backslide immediately. "Why was I doing this to myself?" I wondered.

It was only when I began working on healing myself through a modality called Somatic Experiencing that I began to feel an internal shift. It wasn't miraculously causing me not to overeat or choose poorly -- that had become a habit -- but it gave me the strength and energy I needed to change that habit. I felt like a sculpture, where pieces of my protective, but outdated self, were dropping off and I began feeling more alive. It sparked hope that I could not only control my actions but actually transform who I was so I no longer sabotaged my health. I was so moved by this that I immediately signed up for a 3-year certification in Somatic Experiencing and now use it extensively in my coaching, but that's a different story and you can read more about that on my website (launching soon - I will retroactively update this post).

The reason I bring this backstory up is because food was actually serving and protecting me, and I was trying to get rid of it. That's why I was failing. Deep down I didn't want to be rid of it. Food had become my coping mechanism and I wasn't respecting the work it was doing for me. With the healing I had begun and continue to do, I am now ready to remove it as a coping strategy. This is important. If anyone reads this and gets a burst of motivation to do this challenge it's important you know what your body reaches for when it feels unsafe, stressed, threatened, angry, lonely, anxious, tired, overworked, excited, etc. If it's food and you don't have an alternate, you may not be ready to complete this challenge. And that's okay.

I feel able to complete this challenge because of the healing I've already done and will continue to do, a rediscovery of reading for fun -- one of my new coping mechanisms -- and watching a lot of TV shows. I look at the three of those things and realize that last one is not healthy for me, but I also am wise enough to know I still need it. Maybe a future challenge, when I'm ready, will be to give up TV for a month. Whoops, my chest just got tight at the thought...

Now, let's get into the details...

My Plan

I know myself -- I am most successful in completing something if I'm curious and strict. I like knowing that I have yet to learn what I will notice when doing a strict challenge. I like challenges to be black and white. No wiggle room. No cheat days. No "close enough". If I have wiggle room, it will cause me to spiral down. A cheat day will turn into a cheat year. Wiggle room taints the results for me. 

My plan is to be strictly paleo and to eat within one 5-hour window each day and go to bed at 10pm (asleep by 10:30). I am combining paleo with a program called Fast-5 Fasting. This is the only area where I'm giving myself some leeway. I will aim for 3pm - 8pm but know that social engagements may dictate I start earlier. In each case, I will keep it to 5 hours. 

I may make mistakes. I imagine there may be times when I revert back to using food as a way to quell anxiety. I may give in and have breakfast. I may go out with friends and stay out until, gulp, 11pm! I will forgive these mistakes and move on. Any correlations will be included as part of my findings as I did in 2014. This time in addition to weight, I am tracking mood and skin. I may also dabble in measuring my body but that just feels like work so probably not.

Why Blog?

A lot of people will set out on a health journey and blog to be accountable. I have found that being accountable to other people doesn't work for me. It actually just adds to my stress and shame and ultimately makes me more prone to fail. However, I love data analysis and am thrilled when I can help someone else be inspired. I get excited when I think about sharing my results at the end of this 30 days and that is why I'm publishing a blog. Keeping a blog helps me keep my reasons at the forefront. I may write daily, I may write weekly or something in between. I hope you enjoy!

What I've noticed so far

As I said, today is the morning of day 3.

• I've lost 5.1lbs or 18% of my total weight loss goal of 28 pounds. Weight loss always happens super quickly for me in the first 2 weeks of a strict program. 
• I've had a very faint headache on and off for the entire 3 days. I gave up caffeine in 2014, sort of. I almost never drink caffeinated coffee. I also gave up all beverages but water or soda water and only had soda when I went out to eat. But in the last 6 months or so I started drinking diet soda in bursts until there was a danger of it becoming a habit. Most soda has caffeine. I think I am going through withdrawal. It is not nearly as bad as what I went through in 2014. OMG!
• I was mellow and slightly moody on day 1. It also coincided with a somatic experiencing session I had where a lot of anger surfaced. Then I had to have about 10 conversations with myself about why I was not going to get a decaf coffee with sugar-free vanilla and cream from McDonald's. I finally was able to convince myself the rib-eye steaks and asparagus Bryan was cooking for us later would be my focus. It worked each of the 10 times I tried to justify having a coffee or the insides of the breakfast sandwich (no bread, but sausage is soooo processed). 
• On day 2 my mood was calm and good.
• I have noticed I'm tired at night. This is a good thing. 
• I am proud of myself. :) This is the best part so far and what I need most. 

Do You Recognize Your Poop?

Hey Cave Clan (too silly?)

I came home from work feeling so happy today! Let's review:

• I was stuck behind a slow car for most of the commute and as soon as it moved, I sped up for about 500 feet until a giant wide load trailer pulled out in front of me. The commute sucked.
• I walked into the office 10 minutes late to the wonderful aroma of coffee. Meh.
• I had 7 back to back meetings from 10 to 5 (I'm including lunch) so I stayed until about 7:30 to finish up some things. 
• I had to stop at the grocery store to grab some chicken to cook because I didn't plan ahead and defrost any. 
• My car didn't drive up to me like I wanted it to. When I left the building I had to walk to IT.

Most other days I'd be annoyed. Today I wasn't. I didn't even get home until 8:20 or so and still enjoyed cooking my dinner, telling Bryan about my day, eating my dinner, watching a little TV, and snuggling with Bryan. And now, I'm writing my blog. I'm in a great mood. Is it from eating Paleo? Who knows? I'll see if this becomes a trend. 

A few updates:

Food: We made tacos last night and they were SOOOO delicious. We used this recipe from The Fittest Fat Phat Girl's site to make the taco seasoning. What a great name. I wish I'd thought of it. Then we made homemade guacamole: Mash up two avocados and add homemade pico de gallo, sprinkle a little cumin and salt and YUM! Bryan makes the best pico by dicing red onions, tomatoes, jalapenos, garlic, lime juice and cumin. It is TO DIE FOR! We use it standalone, in the guac and to cook with eggs. Addictive, I tell you. Oh, but don't worry, we didn't use tacos, we used iceberg lettuce. With the first bite we noticed the lettuce overpowered it so we sprinkled hot sauce on it and BOOM (not BAM!) it made it perfect. 

Headache: I woke up with no headache so I was pretty psyched about that. Today was my first day back in the office since I started and I was looking forward to a headache free day. Well, it didn't last long. By 10ish I started to feel it and I had it all day. Excedrin rescued me. Hey, I know there's caffeine in it, but I gotta work! The good news is that it was much milder than the other days. I was chatting with a couple of my coworkers about Paleo and giving up caffeine and one of them told me it took his wife 3 weeks to get it completely out of her system. Strangely enough, that comforts me. 

Slept pretty well last night except for when Kitty woke me up at 5:45am. I went back to sleep until my alarm went off with no issues. I seem to be falling asleep faster because I don't really remember it. You know how you wake up and you're like "Oh! It's morning" rather than "Uh, I was up until 1am last night!"? It's nice. 

Poop: I took a picture to show you all. Just kidding. I did find this poop link though. Do you recognize YOUR poop? BTW, the inner workings do seem to be getting better but it's early yet. Taking probiotics and magnesium daily. 

Finally, my weight: I decided to go naked because ensuring the clothes are the same weight is not easy when you have to leave the house and go to work like an adult. The first 5 days I was pretty much wearing leggings and a t-shirt, which, btw, doubles as my pjs. Soon it will triple as workout gear. So I estimate I've lost 4-5lbs so far but can't be sure so we'll officially start counting down today: Since I DO have a goal weight I know that I Have 20.3lbs to go. Tomorrow I hope I land below 20lbs. Maybe I should start a betting pool.

PS: Sorry for the misleading title. I bet you looked though. ;-)

Time to get my quality sleep now. Night night Readers. 

Going Through Withdrawal

Hey Readers,

Going forward these will be small notes but I'm packing in 5 days into one post so please forgive the length.

I thought I was starting Paleo but it turns out the biggest change so far has been the increase in a mild headache, face-ache and weird body pains. You might think that's enough to argue it's a bad thing, this Paleo, but I also feel better. Huh. How do I feel better if I have a headache every day? I don't know really, I feel more clear headed and awake. It's quite hard to quantify, actually so I'll just go day by day:

JAN 1 (Day 1)

My birthday was December 19th and for my gift, Bryan agreed to enthusiastically do Paleo with me. Yay! It's so much easier knowing that he won't make something I can't have, that he thinks I can, and ask if I want it. That leads to me feeling torn between eating the way I need to and rejecting his offer. But better than that, I get to go on this journey with my favorite person.

Day 1 surprised me because I was HUNGRY all day. We ate eggs, bacon, pork, zucchini, cauliflower with a few other flavorings like garlic, tomato, spices. I ate probably every 2 hours and that was me resisting. Historically this type of eating keeps me sated so I sort of panicked silently.

In terms of giving up things, the hardest part was drinking water instead of Crystal light or coffee. mmmm coffee. Some of you might be wondering why I won't drink Crystal Light or even black coffee. I'll summarize what I am and not doing at the end and why.

JAN 2

I woke up with a headache assuming it was due to the heat automatically turning on while I was still sleeping. I decided to see if it'd go away on its own. Because the day before I was unusually hungry I did a little reading and found it could be that I wasn't eating enough fat and protein, in that order so I added turkey ham to the eggs, had the rest of the pork dish and cooked 12 breakfast sausages for snacking that night. Plus we added some almonds and cashews.

My headache didn't go away so I took excedrin (which has caffeine) in the afternoon and by evening it was gone. Hmmm.

JAN 3

The headache was there again this morning and that's when I realized I must be going through caffeine withdrawal. Truth be told I got kind of excited! If I'm going through withdrawal it means caffeine was noticeably affecting my body (good or bad). You see, I sleep like sh*t and I never believed it was caffeine related because when I have coffee, I don't seem to "feel" anything. I don't drink it to wake up, I drink it as a part of my routine and it's an emotional thing. This headache gave me hope that the whole idea of being as strict as I can might have benefits I don't even know I need. Yay!

More good news: I am not feeling as hungry.

JAN 4

This was a good day. Yeah, I woke up with my face aching, and took more excedrin, but today I felt really full after eating breakfast and lunch. For dinner I had a bunch of almonds because I wasn't hungry enough to cook anything. I did notice, however, that I didn't feel as good after eating them so I think a) I over did it and b) I'll stop eating nuts for the remainder of the days just in case. I can always have more in month two to see if I noticed any sensitivity.

When going to sleep I did notice some weird body aches in my legs and hips. I'll keep an eye on that.

JAN 5

Woke up with a headache and took ibuprofen instead of excedrin. Why? Because I want to eliminate caffeine. I'm happy to report that it worked and I'm headache free. Normally ibuprofen doesn't touch my normal headaches so this is interesting.

Summary of pros:

1. Feel more clear headed and awake during awake hours
2. Sated by meals and hunger signals are for true hunger, not cravings.
3. Only had one craving for coffee and it's gone away.
4. I prefer water now and drink it readily.
5. I think I'm sleeping better but it's unclear since I still get woken up by kitties. Too soon to tell.
6. I've lost 1.5lbs according to the scale, but I think that will be better tracked over a longer period of time. That could easily be normal fluctuation.
7. Oh yeah, and I haven't had any heart palpitations. Yup, I was having some weird fluttering in spurts. Too soon to tell, but so far none.

Summary of cons;

1. Headache every day due to caffeine withdrawal.
2. A little constipated but strangely less so than normal. 

What I'm doing;

• Eating meats: Beef, pork, chicken, fish. Although grass fed meat would be ideal it's not very practical or budget friendly. Plus it overwhelms me and makes me want to stop until it's perfect. So in the meantime I'm doing some research so when it becomes more important for me to try I know where to go. 
• Meat that's not grass fed or organic is not the best is because they aren't usually free to roam naturally (read: caged or confined), there are hormones, steroids, preservatives in the food, pesticides that are used to grow the food and some of the foods are GMOs (haven't done enough research on this one to have a strong opinion). These all accumulate in the fat of the meat.
• NOT eating or drinking dairy, not even cheddar cheese!
• It turns out any dairy messes with your digestion and cause inflammation. It's possible that the effects are so minor that I may not notice what they are until I go without for this trial of 31 days. I'm willing to do that. 
• NOT eating any grains
• I happen to know they cause problems for me despite the two extensive allergy tests coming up with zero allergies. I stumbled across this realization when I first went on Atkins 15 years ago and FINALLY stopped getting daily hives on my FACE! Ugh. So this is proof that doctors don't know everything. 
• NOT eating legumes (including peanuts)
• This was news to me but apparently they can cause digestive problems and they can prevent nutrition absorption. This is a case where I'm willing to see what happens so I'm giving them up. 
• NOT drinking coffee or anything with artificial sweetener.
• There's a chance coffee is not helping me in the sleep or weight loss department so I'm kicking it to see what happens. 
• Drinking seltzer water with lemon or lime juice as a treat.
• I shouldn't be doing this because lime juice has preservatives - I found this out after I'd consumed 3 or 4 delightful glasses. Then I panicked. Then I relaxed. I'm going to limit it to only when I crave it so it doesn't become a habit. 
• Taking probiotics - healthy bacteria that aids in digestion and can help counter constipation. I'm also planning to get some prebiotics which are food for probiotics. They seem harder to find.
• Taking Magnesium which should help with sleeping and constipation. 

Exercise is important but I'm focusing on this so I don't end up either overwhelming myself or failing to meet my standards and giving up altogether. 

I weigh myself once a morning with clothes on, before eating, after tinkling (as my mom would say). I want to lose 25lbs so I write down how much more I have to lose each day. This is not me obsessing about weight, rather it's one of the only easily attained metrics. I could have gone to my doctor and gotten all sorts of blood work done, but I would never have started. And plus, I'm a lucky person because I almost never have anything out of whack from those tests. I'm virtually indestructible. 

;-)

The Day Has Come

Finally, I really and truly want to give up all of my bad habits. I didn't think that day would ever come to be honest. I mean, the thought of living a life where I chose to live a lifestyle that's healthy in a holistic way and not piecemeal? Well, I knew deep down I wasn't really committed to THAT. We'll call that the 80/20 Suz - only 80% committed. But something clicked in my last month and I can only attribute it to time. It is simply the time for me where I truly want to live my life in such a way that I can maximize my potential and well being. I'm ready.

That led me to the foundation of feeling great which is physical health, which led me to exploring the Paleo lifestyle. I knew already that it was likely a very good way for me to eat because since 1999 I've been loosely following a high protein/fat, low carb way of eating (not counting the last 2 years of course!). However, I feel like that way of eating was 80/20 and left out an important part which is how my body feels. Let me explain: I felt great in terms of my strength, power and how I looked, but I still slept like crap, my memory wasn't as sharp, and I wasn't always feeling very great or grateful about my life - we'll call it melancholy. On top of it, I always had digestive issues where I was perpetually constipated. Yup, I went there. 

So then my 80/20 Suz flipped to 20/80 Suz and you can imagine where things went: I gained 25lbs, virtually stopped working out, started eating pizza and just generally gave up. I had aches in my knees, lower back and feet and got sick more often. And this was all happening while I was in the best relationship of my life! I didn't want this anymore so I started reading a book about Paleo by Robb Wolf. I was hooked. I'm no expert so I won't go into specifics because this isn't what the blog is about, but I will tell you that the logic and science that is behind Paleo makes total sense to me. 

The general idea is that if you eat animals, veggies and fruits that were here before the agricultural revolution, our bodies will work at their peak. Remember how we learned in school how the Agricultural and Industrial (and now Technology) revolutions dramatically changed how people live and the environments? Prior to agriculture people were likely nomadic and hunting and gathering so they were exercising, eating anmials and eating veggies and fruits naturally available. They were doing this for thousands of years and the human body became perfect for this (natural selection). What happens when agriculture is introduced is that suddenly the human body is adapting but the evolution doesn't necessarily catch up so this results in health problems. Add processed food into the mix and it just gets worse. 

So I'm doing this because I want to:

• Get back to a healthy weight
• Which will motivate me to keep going and start working out again
• Sleep soundly and feel well rested
• Sharpen my mind
• Improve my mood and gratitude for life
• Have more energy
• Improve my self-love

Now onto the results thus far...