I've had several people post in various places on Facebook asking about this journey so I wanted to address those questions here in case someone else had similar questions.
Where did you find this diet?
Erin: I'd heard people talking about the Paleo diet in passing a lot in the past 6-8 months, but always assumed it was the same as eating raw. It's not. Everything is cooked (unless you live and breathe for veggie sticks, like Chad). Everything I've learned has just been searching for "Paleo diet" or "Paleo lifestyle" on Google. I will continue to share my favorite sites for info and recipes in the column to the right. So far there's only one, but I'll be updating and adding more in the next day or so, so check back for that.
How do you feel now that you've changed your eating habits?
Erin: I'm still only in Day 3, but I do feel less bloated. When I smack my tummy I only feel hard fat, not jiggly water-fat, so that's improvement (though not flattering to write about myself). The first day I kind of felt like I had a belly full of cardboard. I've read all the articles saying that carbs are hard for your stomach to digest, but I've gotta say, I seem to be having a harder time digesting all the fruits/veggies/meat I'm eating. That said, I'm not exhausted anymore halfway through the day (that doesn't hit till about 9 pm now). And I did cheat just a little bit yesterday (I took my friend Julia out to lunch for her birthday, so there was Tollhouse Pie involved) and I felt like crap after. So after only 3 days my body is clearly loving the non-processed diet, and really showing the effects of eating junk.
Chad: Regarding energy, I am a little more tired than usual in the middle of the day, most likely due to the lack of the 3-5 (large) cups of coffee I drink. This morning I felt pretty good, energy wise. I'm still an ornery bastard when I wake up, but I didn't feel like a slug this morning.
Have you lost or gained any weight?
Erin: We're only 3 days in, and I promised myself I wasn't going to watch the scale. I was only going to check my weight weekly. But Chad stepped on the scale this morning and has already lost 6 lbs. so I couldn't stand not knowing when he's already had such a drastic loss - I've already lost 4 lbs.! I wouldn't attribute this to the diet 100%, I think a lot of it is all the water we've been drinking, but some of it is probably the diet too. I'll be more excited at the end of the first 4 weeks when I check my measurements to see if there's a difference there.
Are you always hungry? Are you snacking all day?
Erin: The first day was tough for me, but I think that's cause I missed lunch. But as a general rule, on this diet I'm much more content to eat my 3 meals a day and have that be it. I'm not sure if that's because I'm sated or if it's because it's such a hassle to find snacks cause my usual go-tos are usually of the boxed or bagged variety, but either way, there's much less snacking. I'm not always hungry at all. I do THINK about food a lot, but I think that's more because I want all the stuff I can't have.
Chad: The urge to snack depends on what I eat. If I am eating more vegetables, I tend to want more food. If I get a good fill of protein, I feel more full. Either way, I don't mind, because I can snack as much as I want, as long as it is healthy stuff (viva la carrot sticks!).
Do you have to make something different for the kids?
Erin: Cody and Logan completely rejected my Paleo Spaghetti nightmare. I don't blame them. I was tempted to reject it myself. The Goulash was alright - Cody ate it, and Logan ate it after we told him he wasn't getting anything else. Logan is a VERY picky eater, so it's hard to judge how much of his complaints are because he actually doesn't like something, or because we're not serving him Chef Boyardee. We've still been giving them cereal for breakfast, and Cody eats lunch at school and Logan usually has something Chef Boyardee (boy loves his meatballs), but to even that out our goal is for them to eat what we're eating at dinner, whether we're on the Paleo diet or not.
Are you having issues with portion size?
Erin: YES! So far that's my biggest battle. I think the problem is the lack of starch. Last night I kept looking at my plate (Paleo Hungarian Goulash) and thinking "my plate isn't full. How will this fill me up?" I think I'm going to have to try harder to compensate for the missing starch with double portions of veggies. Of course, another bunch of asparagus costs more than a box of rice or a potato, so that may be a little straining financially, but we'll see how it goes.
Are you having any problems yet?
Erin: I haven't had any real problems, just a few minor difficulties. The first is cost. Produce is expensive, and as I touched on above, having to replace starch (which runs pretty cheap) with more produce, it's adding a little bit to our grocery spending. The other issue is just a personal thing - I have several allergies (nuts, fish, shellfish). Many meal plans I've found include recipes for fish, or require you to cook with nut oils. So there's obviously a whole chunk of recipes I'm missing out on, so that makes it hard for me to find things to cook since I'm limited by both the diet AND my food restrictions.
How are you doing with coffee withdrawals?
Chad: Ugh...the coffee withdrawal has been tough. I've had bad headaches the past couple days, but it is not that bad today. I am drinking tea to supplement caffeine, but I miss the taste of coffee more than anything.
Are you using My Fitness Pal?
Erin: I had issues getting that app to run on my phone, so I use something different but very similar: My Net Diary. It tracks your calories (includes a barcode scanner!), exercise, weight, water intake, and measurements. It's a free app for iPhones (not sure about Androids) and I highly recommend it.
If you have any more questions, please post in the comments! I'd love to address them in a later post.
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