Category: Scoop

Do you want to give yourself the best chance to succeed with weight loss, fitness, and better health? Then do what I did: read a lot. Seriously. The more research you can do, the better chance you have for success because you give yourself as much information as necessary to get past any stumbling or roadblocks you may encounter.

Many times, when people I know who have adopted the Paleo diet and failed tell me it’s because they couldn’t quite follow the plan or had really bad cravings. They didn’t know how to proceed. That’s where the reading comes in. Often times, it’s the rules that get you. What rules do I mean? Well, specifically the types of food you can and cannot eat.

Before we did our first Whole30, Sherry and I did a lot of reading. We try to find out as much information as we could, and to make ourselves as familiar as possible with what we could and could not eat. We found a bunch of recipes, and we learned which foods we already ate that we could continue eating and continue to be Whole30 compliant. We also read about what to expect, including things like the first week flu-like symptoms. This allowed us to know what to expect, so that when we encountered or experienced these things, they didn’t come as a surprise. We had a strategy, and we knew how to overcome these difficulties.

People mistakenly think that the results that Sherry and I experienced are not normal, and that somehow, we got lucky. Nothing could be further from the truth. What we did, anyone can do. All it takes is following the rules, and sticking to the plan. No cheating, no sabotage, and no taking a break from eating right. It’s important to note, that my weight loss for the first year, 110 pounds, all came without exercise. Anyone can do what we did, regardless of physical ability. As long as you have the power to put things into your mouth and feed yourself, then you have everything you need to eat right.

Give yourself the best chance for success in losing weight and reaching better health. Do the research. There is a lot of free information available to you on the web, libraries, or for purchase at your local bookstores. The more information you arm yourself with prior to taking on a new lifestyle through a new diet, the better chance you have for success.

Why did I go Paleo when there are so many other low-carb/high-fat diets out there? For Sherry and I, it seemed like the natural progression from Whole30. Once we completed our first Whole30, we felt like we had learned a lot about food and how our bodies react to them, and we felt so much better than before, that we wanted to adopt a diet that was similar to Whole30 but a little less restrictive.

Where Whole30 asks you to avoid foods I call analogues, or those that are made with grain but can be made with other foods to make them Paleo-compliant, Sherry and I wanted to have a little more flexibility in eating the occasional Paleo dessert, or perhaps eat a pizza or some bread (both Paleo, of course).

What makes food Paleo? If you can make a bread without grain flour, for instance, and use almond flour, casava flour, coconut flour, etc, that makes it Paleo. Sherry has made many different foods for us like pizza, waffles, pancakes, breads, and even fudge that are all Paleo-compliant.

While Paleo-compliant doesn’t always mean we can just go nuts and eat dessert every night, it does give us peace of mind that we’re eating foods made from whole, natural ingredients that are good for us. We try not to overdo it, and limit our consumption of things like Paleo chocolate chip cookies (which are, in my honest opinion, at least as good if not better than the real thing!).

I also have found that it’s been easy to find food that is Paleo compliant at restaurants when we go out, and friends have had an easy time making foods that are Paleo compliant for us when necessary.

Finally, it just feels right. It makes sense, and it has helped Sherry and I stay thin and healthy. It allows us to feel good in the mornings, to get good sleep, and to maintain our weight. Oh, and there are literally millions of amazing recipes available online for delicious and filling healthy foods.

I no longer drink anything sweetened. Not even artificially. I have heard people say it’s okay to use honey or stevia in drinks, but from everything I’ve read, sweetened drinks affect the brain regardless of whether the sweetener is sugar or artificial. That means while it’s better to imbibe drinks without sugar, imbibing sweet drinks will still cause cravings.

That’s horrible to me, and I don’t even want to risk it.

I cut out sweet drinks back in September of 2015 with my first Whole30. Aside from the rare alcoholic beverage or hot cocoa in Spain while on vacation, I’ve stuck with unsweetened tea, coffee, and plain ol’ water. I have been known to drink my tea with lemon, and I have also put sliced cucumber in my water in the summertime, but that’s it. Nothing more.

I will admit that coffee still doesn’t taste nearly as awesome to me as it did when I used creamer and sugar, but I’m learning to appreciate the light and medium blends. They are quite flavorful, and some have a natural sweetness to them that is really quite amazing.

As for teas, there are many that are delicious, and I have had an easier time adopting unsweetened tea. I have it at lunch and dinner, and sometimes before bed.

Sweetened drinks are something I definitely miss, but I will not allow myself to have due to the negative impact it has on the brain and the cravings they bring about. It’s just not worth it to me.

Here it is. The final day of our Whole30. I hoped to have a lot more weight loss than I did, but I can’t say I’m unhappy: the 10 lbs lost in the first two weeks were the only weight loss I experienced. That’s okay; my clothes all fit better. I’ll take that anyday. I will work on my weight somehow.

Otherwise, I feel great. Lots of energy, good sleep, and I got over the flu in three days versus the week everyone else is taking to get over it. I’ll take that as a win!

My final Whole30 meals were:

Breakfast: No surprises here: the pork, apple, and egg casserole. No fruit or veggies because I forgot. Seriously, this morning I intended to have a few pieces of cantaloupe, but I forgot.

Lunch: A wonderfully tasty Tikka Masala that Sherry made in the Instantpot. It was yummy!!!

Dinner: I’ve mentioned before how much I love Sherry’s Chorizo and Bacon-wrapped Meatloaf? Well, that’s what I decided to wrap this Whole30 up with. It was very filling, delicious, and satisfying.

I fight with my weight sometimes. I want to weigh under 160 lbs, but it hasn’t happened since I was about 20. I am pretty fit at about 12%  body fat (according to measurements; admittedly, not determined by immersion), but I weight a lot for my size. People are always surprised I’m as heavy as I am.

Try as I do, 165 lbs seems to be about my lowest without starving, and my weight typically hovers between 168 and 170 lbs regardless of how hard I work out, how well I eat, etc. It’s maddening, but it’s also something I’ve had to learn that isn’t going to change unless I were to make drastic and unhealthy changes that I’m unwilling to undertake.

I have to be content with a low bodyfat percentage, with being able to fit into the same size clothes as I did when I was 19, and feeling much more energetic and youthful. I have to be happy that I can run 3x a week, that I am in the National Guard, and that I am healthier than most 50 year old men. I have to take solace in the fact that eating well allows my body to be healthier, and in turn, may give me a longer life. It may help me avoid some health problems I was headed right into.

They call those NSV’s, or Non Scale Victories. I have to focus on those now as the scale pretty much has stopped giving me any sort of victory. I still weigh myself daily because I monitor my weight due to Army requirements, but I more closely monitor how I feel in my clothing, how well it fits, and how energetic I feel. Those, to me, are more important feedback data points than the scale. I have felt amazing and my rings are falling off my fingers all while the scale says my weight is up. PHEW! I spit on you, scale!

Don’t use the scale as your only measure of success. Use it as one of many, and try to find other matrices by which to measure your health and success in your healthy lifestyle. In so doing, you will find yourself much happier and less stressed out about progress or the lack thereof.

I added the ability for people to support this site through Patreon. This can be done via one-time donation, or a subscription.

I have no plans for any private or subscriber content, and I never will. I hate paywalls, and nothing turns me off from a site faster than having to pay for an article. Therefore, this site, and all its content, will remain free of cost for everyone.

What I am doing, however, is asking that if you find value in what I’m writing, if I inspire you, or if I help motivate you, consider supporting the site. I do this for free, but it does cost money to keep up. From the custom domain to the web hosting, it all adds up. If I can get enough supporters, I’d love to be able to do contests and giveaways. My ultimate dream would be to be able to do this full-time and write more than one or two articles a day. Perhaps produce better videos, talk to others who have used Whole30 and Paleo to get healthy and lose weight, and to offer more information.

In the end, it’s up to you. I will not be offended if you don’t support the site financially. Just leave a comment every now and then to let me know if what I’m doing here is helping you. In the end, that’s what I’m really after: getting the word out about healthy lifestyle through diet.

How long do you actually enjoy eating a meal or dish? Really think about this for a moment. How long can you savor a dish? For me, it’s probably 10-15 minutes, tops. And that’s if I’m eating very slowly.

Now, you typically eat three meals a day. That’s 45 minutes of gratification and savoring.

Forty-five minutes.

The rest of your day is spent doing other things. Walking, sitting, working, reading, cooking, etc. The rest of the day, you aren’t eating. You are doing the stuff in-between meals that we call, “Life.” I had to make a conscious decision in September 2015 that I valued that time in-between the meals more than I valued the meals themselves. It’s not that I wanted to eat bland food; I didn’t. But I didn’t want to sacrifice my in-between meals time for very short-term and short-lived gratification. Said another way, it seemed ridiculous to me that I would feel tired and be so overweight and unfit all the time just so I can enjoy eating pizza, bread, or pasta for very small parts of my day.

As good as those foods are, they aren’t worth the bad I felt the rest of the time.

And therein lies the crux of the matter for me. Such a little bit of pleasure isn’t worth the huge amount of pain, no matter how good the food is.

Think about what is more important to you: what you eat, or how you feel the entire rest of your day.

So, this one starts off different, because Day 27 of this Whole30 started with me being sick. It looks like I’ve got the flu. Sore throat, headache, achy muscles, low energy, and sleeping 18 hours.

This made my diet very strange today.

Breakfast: Two eggs sunny-side up and three slices of sugar/salt-free bacon. So far, so good, right? Now it gets weird.

Comfort Food: Cantaloupe. For some reason, eating cantaloupe makes me feel better when I’m sick, whether it’s a cold, a flu, or a stomach flu. Today was no different, and I ate an entire medium cantaloupe. I figured I could use the fiber, anyway.

Lunch: Slow cooker chicken with mushrooms and broccoli. This is one of the meals Sherry made for us last week that we had in the refrigerator. It was tasty!

Snack: For some reason, I feel hungry a lot. I think it’s because my body is fighting this flu, and it’s using up a lot more energy. Oh, and I have a fever, too. So I had two hand fulls of cashews.

Dinner: Sherry made us a slow-cooker pork with Whole30 barbecue sauce, onions, and apples that she served with some baked sweet potato cubes. It was really good. I ended up eating the leftover apple and onions.

Sometimes, we slip. We fall. We get behind.

Sometimes, we need help. We need someone to pick us up. We need someone to bring us back to the fold.

Sometimes, we need to be motivated. We need to be reminded of what’s important. We need to be told we’re doing a good job and someone is there to support us.

We are all, afterall, human.

I get my motivation from a few different sources at different times. Sometimes, that strength comes from within, from that burning desire inside of me that refuses to fail and wants to succeed. I have to admit that part of that motivation comes from having failed before and never wanting to fail at weight loss again. I never wanted to have to say that I tried and couldn’t do it. Other times, my motivation comes from my wife who supports me in every way, loves me, and sacrifices for me. When I told her I needed her help to do this, she accepted. Sometimes, I’m motivated by the people who read my blog and comment or email me. I feel like I can’t let them down, either. Ultimately, I am motivated by my love of my family. I don’t want them to have to deal with burying me early due to a weight-related ailment. I want to give myself the best chance of sticking around as long as possible for them.

Look to people you love, people you trust; friends and family. Look to your spiritual advisor, minister, priest, rabbi, or shaman. Look to people you admire, or to people who have walked the path you are on before. Look to them for motivation, for inspiration, and for some words of strength to get you back to where you need to be.

Once you realize that your new, healthy lifestyle is 90% mental and 10% actual eating, it gets easier to tackle. Food doesn’t materialize in your mouth; you have to put it there. It takes discipline to ignore cravings, but with strength and motivation, you can get past cravings and live a life that consists of normal meals without the hunger in between. Without that overwhelming desire to eat and eat and eat.

I got a decent amount of sleep but that meant I woke up a little later than usual. For this reason, while I had the same breakfast, it was reduced in portion. I didn’t realize that this would be a mistake.

Breakfast: Pork, apple, and egg casserole, but a little smaller than usual. The thinking was that we’d be eating lunch at normal time, so I could get back “On schedule” with Sherry.

Lunch: Lunch happened about three hours later than planned which meant I was very hungry. I split a Larabar with Sherry at around noon, and we ate our late lunch at around 3 pm. I started with a side salad with oil and vinegar and then I ate a filet of Red Snapper with lump crab on top which was served with asparagus. It was delicious, but not very filling. I don’t know if it was because I had waited so long to eat, but I was still hungry. After lunch, we went and had some coffee at which time Sherry and I both split another Larabar.

Dinner: This is where I gets really weird. We decided not to eat a regular dinner since our lunch was so late in the day, so Sherry and I had some cashews. I had about 6 oz of lightly salted cashews that I ate while drinking some coffee. It filled me up and allowed me to go the rest of the day without eating or without being hungry.

This was a very weird day of eating, and this is not recommended as it is not Whole30. It was a weird day that, while I ate all Whole30 compliant meals, it wasn’t standard by any stretch of the imagination. I will be back on a normal meal schedule tomorrow, I hope!