I’m back.

For the past two weeks, I’ve been on active duty orders with the Texas Army National Guard training in Ft. Hood. I had pre-written articles on my blog to post automatically while I was gone to keep the information flowing, to help keep people motivated, and to hopefully encourage or inspire people to adopt a healthier lifestyle. Now, I’m back and ready to continue updating the blog and adding more information.

Before I go on, I’m sure some people are wondering what we were doing for two weeks. Well, we were doing our military jobs in the same way that we would if we were called upon by our Nation to go to war. We set up our camp, our command center, and our artillery pieces (I’m in an artillery unit). Our forward observers went out to their observation posts, and we commenced firing some big guns making big booms.

The biggest challenge for me was food. As someone who eats Paleo, the food that was served to us was typically very non-Paleo with a few exceptions. Breakfast was normally some sort of scrambled egg product (still not sure if it was real eggs or not) and sausage. I’m pretty certain the sausage had sugar in it, but I ate them anyway. Lunch was supposed to be an MRE (so unbelievably non-Paleo that I didn’t eat any) and dinner was overwhelmingly non-Paleo with a few exceptions like steak (well, over cooked meat) and potatoes and, well, yeah. That was the only exception (twice). The only other exception was fruit that we received at breakfast or dinner. Apples, oranges, pears, and bananas were always welcome. The rest of the time, I ate food I brought with me. A typical meal consisted of one RX Bar, two Epic bars, and 1/3 cup of almonds or cashews. The end result is that I was able to stay Paleo, I was able to sufficiently feed my body, and I didn’t have cravings between meals.

I was worried about gaining weight while I was in the field for two reasons: first, because I wasn’t going to be able to run three times a week as I normally like to, and second, because of the non-Paleo carb-filled food. In the end, my fears turned out to be for nothing. I lost a solid 5 lbs in the two weeks I was out there. My three consecutive weigh-ins after coming home were 162.9 lbs. I’m happy with that.

I am proud of being in the National Guard, and I’m honored to be serving with an exceptional group of fine young men and women. It was hard, it was tough, and at times, I was miserable, but I wouldn’t trade that experience for anything. I am looking forward to my next training weekend, and more time in the field. At least now I know I can survive on the food I take and my health won’t suffer for it.