Tales of a 40 Year Old Salad Whore

Today is Monday. And it’s the first of the month. Most auspicious day to change one's diet all to hell and back! But first, a very important matter of business…

*get’s down on her knees*…

*shoots exasperated look at all her guy friends who instantly went there*…

*prays*…

Dear Heavenly Father….please, please, PLEASE! Pretty please, with coconut on top! Let Robb Wolf be right. Amen.

And for those who think I mock - I don’t. True, heartfelt prayer offered up!

OK. So. I work my ass off. I’ve been eating paleo for 8 months now. But with all that, I haven’t seen any more weight loss and I haven’t seen any strength gains. If anything, I’ve seen strength losses. I got my pull ups, I lost my pull ups. How frickin’ frustrating is that!? Now, I know there are multiple contributing factors. First, I tripled the number of classes I was teaching at globo’s starting in January, while still trying to maintain CF and Kettlebells (and I tried to throw some P90X in there too, because there’s some good stuff in there! ). Can you say overtraining? I’ve been called on it before, and though I try my hardest, it keeps rearing its ugly head. But I solved it! I started my catering business back up and something had to go while I got everything situated. Couldn’t be anything income producing, so there went my CF. and Kettlebells. *Sigh* But I did use my first profits to get all those pretty toys in my garage.
******************And though I used them on my own,as well as the kettlebells that were added also, I totally missed my CF family. So that’s just not going to work for me. So I can fit two mornings a week Crossfit in at the box itself, and can throw some WoDs in at home to fill in the gaps. But the point is, my activity level got a bit more sane this last month. So we’re working on the overtraining issue. Stress was a huge issue last month too, but I’m getting that under control. Which leaves my diet…


How can you improve on paleo? I’ve been eating paleo for 8 months now and, overall, am pretty darn strict. My cheats are dark chocolate (daily. sometimes twice daily.), coffee (one cup a day, but in the interest of honesty, it’s a damn big cup!), alcohol (hard liquor…usually rum or jack. About once a week. Is there a better alcohol to cheat with?). That’s all. Oh wait…and that sinfully orgasmic Pomegranate Raspberry dressing that Ken makes. Damn Ken! Just saying. But back to the question at hand…how to improve Paleo, besides the obvious cutting back on cheats. Personally, I’m going to try to dial in my macronutrients, not just indiscriminately eating. I’m honestly going to keep my coffee and my alcohol and my dark chocolate (I’ll drop that one to an ounce a day) because I’m human. If these changes don’t really kick in, then I’ll look at my small handful of cheats. But only then. At least the dressing won’t be a problem any longer, because I’m apparently now a converted salad slut…but I’m getting ahead of myself.

So I head over to Robb Wolfs’ site to do some research. And it was definitely my lucky day, because there was an entire post where he gives the macro breakdown for a 150 pound woman, with my activity level, looking to lean down. Hey! I’m that women too! Frickin’ exactly! Talk about having my information spoon fed to me! (is information paleo?) So, knowing that the numbers may have to be tweaked and personalized, I guiltlessly bogarted everything on that post. It’s as good a place as any to start!

So starting today, I’m going for 1950 calories *gulp* broken down as follows: 150 grams protein (600 calories), 50 grams carbs (200 calories), and 127 grams fat (1150 calories). Uhm….*GULP!* This is where that prayer comes in!

Really?! That’s a 31:10:59 breakdown. That scares the shit out of me! I’ve been doing about 75 grams fat a day…and it was hard for me to get it up there. My breakdown has been roughly 30:40:30. This is a huge tweak! After losing 200 pounds and being restricted to 12 -15 grams of fat for the years it took me to do that, it’s a huge mental leap to start upping your fats so drastically. But I understood the science and reasoning behind it and did it. Now I have to apparently do it again. But it’s still scary!

******************And apparently one can be a carb whore even if she’s eating mostly vegetables – which up to today has been the mainstay of my diet. So changes are a’coming!

First thing I did was load the Chron-o-meter software to my laptop. I’ve used it before and love it! You input your weight and the macro breakdown you’re aiming for and it keeps track of it all for you. Right down to your daily allowances of vitamins and minerals too! Way cool! And free! Awesome! It has a huge, existing database of foods, and you just add the specific stuff as you go. After about a week or two, you’ve compiled your own specific database and it gets less arduous to enter your meals.

And when I entered in my breakfast and pre- and post- WoD snacks, I instantly saw that my percentages were seriously off already. So to get everything back on track, lunch today was 4 oz chicken breast and 4 oz of avocado. No veggies for me! Will definitely forgo the fruit in the morning from now on, so I can get some veggies back! And I’ll have to get some different fat sources. Almonds are getting old. Started cooking with the coconut oil again this weekend, so that’ll help. And just discovered the existence of coconut butter as an alternative to almond butter, so am going to get some of that too. I really need to plant an avocado tree!

So…goals for March. Make a schedule that allows for CF, along with teaching, without killing myself. Stick to these new macro breakdown for at least a month to see what happens (except if I start gaining weight, all bets are off! I can take staying at the same weight while my body adjusts, but gaining will totally fuck with my head!). Try to minimize the stress as much as possible…get 8 hours a sleep a night. So totally do-able, right?! It’s my own personal 30 day challenge!