Spring 14 Paleo Challenge, Week 1

Sunday, 3/23
Breakfast -
4oz meatloaf (grass fed hamburger, gluten free bread crumbs, chopped onions and celery) with homemade sauce (ketchup with chipotle peppers added)
8oz glass of "attitude cleanse" veggie juice (beets, ginger, cayenne, assorted veggies) from Alive Juice Bar
2tsp (6g of fat) organic almond butter

Lunch
4oz meatloaf
2 cups blueberries
1 tsp almond butter

Snack
2oz summer sausage
1 tsp almond butter
8oz veggie juice

Dinner
5oz meatloaf
80g sweet potato, raw, sliced
2tsp almond butter
4oz veggie juice

Monday, 3/24
Breakfast
3 egg scramble with onions and peppers, 3 slices bacon

Lunch
Spinach salad with peppers, pickled onions, balsamic vinaigrette and 4oz Salmon

Snack
Nugo Organic bar

Dinner
6-7 chicken skewers (1oz each?)
2tsp almond butter
1 cup blueberries

Tuesday, 3/25
Breakfast
3 egg scramble with onions and peppers, 2 slices bacon
2 tsp Almond butter

Side note: First time I have used the second hole in my belt for a while!

Lunch
Spinach salad with peppers, pickled onions, sheep feta, eggs, balsamic vinaigrette, and 4oz salmon on top

Snack
Nugo Organic bar

Dinner
5oz chicken bratwurst with 1-2 tsp of mayo
Homemade sweet potato chips (unknown qty)

Wednesday, 3/26
Breakfast
3 egg scramble with onions and peppers, 3 slices bacon

Snack
Nugo Organic bar

Lunch
Steak Salad at cuoco

Snack
Nugo Organic bar

Dinner
~6oz ribeye steak
Salad with balsamic and sheep feta
1/3 hot dog
2 tsp almond butter

Muscle up transition practice after dinner!

Thursday, 3/27
Breakfast
3 egg scramble with onions and peppers, 3 slices bacon

Snack
Nugo Organic bar

Lunch
Salad

Snack
Nugo Organic Bar

Workout with Zack -- handstand practice and hammy stretching!

Dinner 

6oz grassfed beef burger, light BBQ sauce

2 slices bacon
1 tbsp (14g fat) of coconut oil

Friday, 3/28
Breakfast
3 egg scramble, 3 slices of bacon "the usual"

Snack
Nugo Organic bar

Lunch
Spinach salad, added a little kale this time along with my usual toppings.

Snack
4oz organic beef jerky

Dinner
Steak with sheep feta, spinach and spices rolled inside it
Cauliflower and Sweet potato dish of some sort
10 almonds
asparagus/leeks/pine nuts/bacon bits dish of some sort

After dinner snack
~2oz summer sausage and 1/2 cup blueberries

Saturday, 3/29

Crossfit homework (muscle up, ring rows and dips practice) plus Dave's mobility class

Brunch

3 egg "el diablo" omelet at Hale's, with goat cheese and veggies

7 slices of bacon

Snack
1/2 cup of blueberries
2oz or so of summer sausage
6 almonds
4oz organic beef jerky

Dinner
Leftovers from last night
3tsp almond butter
1/2 cup blueberries

Sunday, 3/30
Munched throughout the day...
20 almonds, 3 tsp almond butter, 4-6 oz of summer sausage, 4oz beef jerky, 3 cups blueberries
6oz reheated steak

Dinner
Eggs, chicken sausage, kale scramble
2tsp almond butter

Pre-Paleo Challenge Spring 2014 (v7)

Started the Paleo Challenge today, but have been cleaning up my diet for the last week in preparation. Returned from a week of vacation and then a week of out of town corporate meetings, to find my weight at a Crossfit-era record high of 193. My allergies were acting up so much that for a week I couldn't sleep due to nasal congestion and itchy eyes. I was taking my prescription nasal spray and eye drops, plus Zyrtec, plus benadryl to sleep. And I would still wake up with itchy, inflamed eyes.

For the last week, I've been trying to be pretty strict Paleo -- no Gluten for sure, minimum Dairy (I even stopped putting whip cream on my blueberries). My allergies have cleared up, although not sure whether that's because it was really tree pollen, or because I've cleaned up the diet. I do know that the summer that I was very strict Paleo (2011), I didn't once use any allergy medication for the first time since I was five years old.

Nancy took my "before" picture at the gym on Friday night, and we take the after pictures on May 24th, after 7 weeks.

Trying to get lots of protein

Wednesday, 12/8 -- Day 2
This morning i weighed about 184 lbs. This seems like as good a weight at any to start my own personal paleo challenge. It's the same weight I was at beginning the first paleo challenge in the spring. I started the day with about three oz of summer sausage [13g protein], a bowl of blueberries and a Steve's Ironman Paleokit [35g protein, 27g carb]. I have the bad feeling that I'm gonna have to cut back on the fructose from the Paleo kits and the blueberries.  Fortunately, or unfortunately, I'm out of paleo kits for now. So I'll not be getting the carbs from that anymore. I'll have to replace the protein with the powder I ordered from Amazon yesterday (should be here tomorrow with Prime shipping!)

Lunchtime was a burger, no bun [28g of protein] and some fries (booo!) Fries are high Glycemic index, but at least gluten and dairy free.

I had a 70% cocoa chocolate bar to get through the afternoon, and another third of a loaf of summer sausage for 13g protein.

At the barking dog, I got a 10 oz hamburger! [70g protein]. The tally for the day is not sooo bad:

13+13+28+35+70 = 159g.

I also had three glasses of wine, which should be ok (?). I think that they may have been 8oz pours, because I didn't feel so hot this morning.

Thursday
I woke up early this morning after my several glasses of wine last night and was able to convince myself to go down to the Crossfit for the 7am class. It was "Squat day" in the Wendler 5-3-1 program, and I was on the 5/3/1+ week, so finished with 12 reps at 103kg. Not so bad! Next week I'll move my theoretical 1rep max up to 125kg or 130kg and start the cycle again. If you're interested in getting strong, and/or curious about what the 5-3-1 program is, check out this link: http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/sports_body_training_performance/how_to_build_pure_strength

Post-workout breakfast is 2.5oz of summer sausage [about 11g protein] and a bowl of blueberries, no whip cream. I'm out of the Paleo Kits and deciding whether to order some more. I think I will, although before I do that, I want to figure out if I'm going to try to cut out berries in order to cut down on fructose carbs. I should get my vegetable protein powder today from Amazon which will replace the protein I was getting from the Paleo kits if my stomach can handle it!

Hmm, just decided that I would get the Grass fed Just Jerky from Steve's. 28g of protein, no carbies. I ordered a 25 pack for about $6/pack.

Lunch consisted of two 4oz patties of Grass fed beef burger [56g protein], hold the bun, hold the bacon, hold the cheese. they also gave me french fries. I have some cognitive dissonance around fries. They are gluten-free, but high GI and probably have about 70g of carbs. I should probably find some other veggie carbs.

Dinner - a 1/2 pound steak [56g protein] and a little bit of salad. Had to forego the cheesy bits that Jen had added to the salad. For "dessert," I had my first shake with the new veggie protein powder [23g protein]. It has all kinds of stuff in it - chlorophyll, spirulina, algae, and rice, pea and hemp protein! Didn't taste bad, but hard to mix up, even with the little mixey thing that we have. May have to use the blender in the future.

Total protein for the day:
11+56+56+23=146g protein.  A little low.

Friday
This morning I was up and at-em for the 12 days of Crossfit at our box. Like the song, you do 12 rounds of stuff, each one adding one more thing onto it. It was a brutal 40 minute WOD.  I had Ribose-D in water before the workout, and afterwards I had 2.75oz of summer sausage [11g protein] and some carrots. Also, I had one scoop of Veggie protein in about 8oz of water [11g protein], which affected my stomach less than the two scoops I had last night. I will probably try to have one scoop in the morning and one at night.

For lunch, I had a double burger and fries again [56g protein]. I forgot to get the seasonal veggie medley until it was too late, so I got them dang ol' carby fries. So I'm only at 78g protein so far. I'm not too worried because tonight is potluck at the gym, and Dave usually makes copious amounts of chicken sausages, so I can probably put down close to 100g of protein from those!

Starting again, but not as part of the Paleo challenge

It's about six weeks after the Paleo challenge, and I'm up to 184 lbs. That's up 22 lbs from my minimum weight back in June while I was training for the half marathon. It's not all bad, as I've been working on putting on some muscle. Unfortunately, it's not clear how much of the additional weight is fat and how much is muscle.

But...I have learned some stuff over the past six weeks. My goal since the middle of the paleo challenge was to put on muscle. From reading the blogs, I learned that I had to eat an enormous amount of protein along with lifting in order to put on muscle. So I bought some protein powder, whey based, and started drinking a lot of milk. One morning I put two servings of protein powder (22g protein x2) in a 16oz glass of milk (8g of protein x2), and I learned what people meant by "my stomach didn't handle it well.  They mean you get gas. Lots of gas. So I ruled out dairy as a source of protein, which also ruled out my atkins bars, which has 20g of protein each, but this was mostly from whey as well.

I then went to get a food allergy test, as suggested by Duncan at the gym. I went to my doctor who did an "IGE" test. I never actually saw the doc. The nurse took my blood and called me with the test results, which said basically that I wasn't allergic to anything.  I was telling a friend about this, and he suggested I go to his naturopath doctor. Long story short, I did. She did the IGG food allergy test, and it turns out I'm allergic to lots of stuff! Including pretty much all dairy (except sheep and goat's milk), gluten of course, beef and lamb came out high, as well as almonds, garlic, and some beans. After getting this I scheduled an appt with her to review the results. In the two weeks before the appt, I figured that I'd be on the kale juice only diet once we met. It turned out not so bad. She said I can still eat meat, but I should completely cut out gluten and dairy, and cut out eggs, beans, and garlic and almonds for the first month. Strange, that's the paleo diet - no gluten, beans and dairy! Go figure.

In addition, she has given me a ton of supplements to take -- Seriphos (to sleep better), which lowers cortisol levels, multi-vitamin, mega-dose (5000IU) of D3, sublingual DHEA to promote the breakdown into different testosterones, Taurine (I was low on taurine, which is an essential protein (Amino acid?). That's about it. My medicine shelf looks like a geriatric!
So today, I started on my new gluten and dairy-free diet. For breakfast, I had about a third of a loaf (about 3 oz) of beef summer sausage [13g of protein], along with a bowl of blueberries with no whip cream :(. For lunch, I had a double burger at the work cafe, with no bun and no cheese. [about 56g of protein?] I just read on the net that 1oz of beef is about 7g of protein. I also had some fries. I know these are bad carbs, but since they don't have gluten or dairy, I ate them. I had a 70% cocoa chocolate bar in the afternoon. No bad stuff, but some un needed sugar. For dinner, I had an 8oz steak, and about 3/4 of my wife's steak, so 14x7g = 98g! of protein. Now I'm finishing a big bowl of blueberries for dessert (still no whip cream). Jen made vegetables for dinner, but they were cooked in garlic butter, which I realized too late is dairy, so I passed on this.  So I made it through the first day with no dairy or gluten! And total protein intake was:

Breakfast 13g
Lunch 56g
Dinner 98g
Total = 167g!

That's almost what I need, which is 1g for every pound I weigh. So good start for the first day. I also ordered http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001EOKYHK/ref=ox_ya_os_product, which is a plant-based vegan protein powder, made of pea, rice and hemp protein, plus "barley grass, barley juice, spirulina, wheat grass, chlorella, alfalfa, red beet root, broccoli, and chlorophyll." It does have some xylitol, so I hope it is just a small amount and won't give me gas. We will see. This has like 23g of protein per serving.

Unfortunately, I skipped the gym today because my shoulder has been sore. I am hoping getting the gluten out and adding more protein will help reduce the chance of injury! Again, we will see.