My 30 day Paleo experience

Ok then here we go. First of all I should say that I did this as an experiment in sports performance and to see if I had any food allergies. Overall I wasn't expecting to see a massive change in body composition as I'm already lean, but I was really interested to see how going Paleo would affect my energy levels while I was training.

Paleo in a nutshell:

The Paleo diet is the healthiest way you can eat because it is the ONLY nutritional approach that works with your genetics to help you stay lean, strong and energetic! Research in biology, biochemistry, Ophthalmology, Dermatology and many other disciplines indicate it is our modern diet, full of refined foods, trans fats and sugar, that is at the root of degenerative diseases such as obesity, cancer, diabetes, heart disease, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, depression and infertility. – Robb Wolf

Eat meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch and no sugar. - Greg Glassman

Greg also says "Keep food intake to levels that will support exercise but not body fat" I think this part was the hardest to achieve. 

My thoughts are that as an athlete you need to be consuming carbs, and I know the paleo diet is not a low carb diet or does not have to be, but since I started I have not been able to get over 150g of quality carbs a day (and thats with having two bananas post workout and eating sweet potatoes twice a day). So, when people say that Paleo is restrictive, they are right, but I think that's part of why it's so good. 

These are the benefits of the Paleo diet:

Stable Blood Sugar  -- While I could not test for this, I'm sure this would have been the case for me.

Burnt off stored fat -- I did not have much fat in the first place but I have a little less now. If you have a lot of body fat going Paleo will definitely help you loose it. 

Clearer skin and better teeth -- My skin is visibly clearer which I started to notice around the beginning of week 3, and my teeth are whiter due to only having one cup of coffee post workout if I felt I've needed it... I've only had two cups of coffee in the 30 days, I was buzzing my tits off lol.

Reduced allergies -- I was finding after re-feeding or having high carb days using pasta or oats I would get stomach cramps, but then again if I ate a pizza I would be fine. I do miss my whole milk and worry about not getting enough calcium, which is why I added 200g of organic Greek yoghurt back in around the start of week. I suppose I won't know if having pasta or gluten will affect me until I have some - not something I'm in a hurry to try.

Balanced energy throughout the day -- Yes, big tick in the box here, I've felt more alert during the day and had lots of energy.

Improved sleep pattern -- I'm undecided on this; before my 30 days come 2200 I would be getting tired but these past few weeks I have still been wide awake - in fact I was practising hand stands last night at 2300 and bounced out of bed at 0555 to take the dogs out. So if anything I'm sleeping less but I don't feel tired, which may become a problem later down the line.

More efficient workouts -- This was the big one for me as performance is always paramount (one of the reasons I loved intermittent fasting was that I hardly lost any strength while in a calorie deficit). I have manged to make improvements in my crossfit WODs and have made significant strength gains in the gym with an average of 1800 kcals a day. I think that's quite impressive. I hadn't lifted heavy for a good 3 months, and went to the gym and boshed out 5x5 squats with 90kg (which is near enough 1.5 x body weight). I felt I had more in the tank, so I  then bench pressed 100kg for 5x5 - ha ha defo no more in the tank!

I'm going to continue to adopt aspects of the paleo diet; I can't see me eating pasta unless its a cheat meal, I will keep the dairy to a minimum but I will be getting some raw milk for calcium, I love raw milk! I will also try and keep the gluten out of my diet. Meat and nuts for breakfast is a keeper :D

If you have toyed with the idea of going paleo, it's worth it. I think an athlete of whatever level could adjust to living a paleo lifestyle. The lesson I learnt over the whole month is that the majority of people on the paleo diet are not actually fully paleo, and the ones who are are constantly trying to cheat the system by cooking some kind of sweet treat or smoothie. To the full paleo cavemen and women, I take my hat off to you; it's a narrow road with very little room to manoeuvre, fair play to you.

Hope you can take something away from this, I have learnt a lot about food in this 30 days, along with a few new recipes ...hmm sweet potato protein brownies!

some recent pictures of my current condition

Barbell Benny 

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