Paleo Marine

Here’s what happened to me:

• Felt guilty. The food was DELICIOUS, but immediately I felt guilty. No big deal.
• Felt hot when trying to go to sleep. My body was not used to all the sugar, and I think it was trying to burn it off by increasing my body temperature. The entire night, I was sweating profusely and uncomfortable.
• Swelled up with water weight. I weighed about 3 lbs more the next morning. I didn’t eat 3 lbs of food, so this has to be water weight. I could definitely see pudginess over my abs which are normally pretty nice in the mornings.
• More guilt. Even though I celebrated my birthday and I was okay with it, seeing the above feels like I took a step back and let myself down. Even though it’s okay to live a little, these feelings still pop up. I make them go away with logic, but the feelings persist.

Here’s what didn’t happen to me:

• I didn’t gain 150 lbs back in a night.
• I didn’t fall off the wagon and start eating bad foods.
• I didn’t lose my motivation, determination, or perseverance.
• My clothes didn’t fit tighter. Not even a belt hole tighter.

Here is what I found after a few days:

• Weight gain was temporary and gone within a few days.
• The guilt faded along with the temporary weight gain.
• Still felt amazing that I was able to eat something so horribly bad and recover after a few days.

The takeaway from this is that it IS okay to live a little every now and then. I celebrated my 50th birthday with some bread pudding, and I didn’t explode upon contact with sugar. It was a treat, and my body did have a reaction to it, but it recovered soon enough. It was also an interesting exercise in pondering what my body went through before I adopted the Paleo Diet. The excessive carb intake was hurting my body, yet I kept dumping more and more carbs into my mouth which then worked its way through my body. If just one slice of bread pudding effected me so much, I can’t imagine what all the carbs I used to eat were doing to me.

Then again, I can imagine it. I weighed over 312 lbs and was diabetic, had high LDL cholesterol levels, fatty liver disease, nerve tingling and circulation issues in my lower extremities, and declining vision. Now, all those things are reversed and/or gone completely. I never want to go back, and remembering how it felt to be so unhealthy makes me stick to my diet. Except on my birthdays. Then I will eat cake or bread pudding even if it’s not Paleo.

This is something that puzzles me. So, people do Whole30’s for many reasons. They do it to find out if they have food allergies, and if so, then to identify which food through reintroduction. Fair enough. But most people I know do it to begin eating clean, to lose weight, or ultimately to get healthy. For people in the latter groups, I wonder what value reintroduction has.

Whole30 makes you eat basic foods that are easy to digest by the majority of people and that is nutritious. Paleo is like a less-strict Whole30, and to me, seems like a logical progression of post-Whole30 eating behavior. Reintroducing grains, dairy, and even sugar just seems counter-productive to me.

I’ve been told that my motivation, discipline, and perseverance are noteworthy and uncommon. I disagree. I believe that we all have it in us to succeed at changing our relationship with food and making good decisions to become healthier. I think many people take the easy way out and don’t want to deal with some initial discomfort or have to make decisions in the face of our society’s food norms. After all, we live in the culture of the Happy Meal and the $9.99 all-you-can-eat buffet.

Do yourself a favor: skip reintroductions (unless you are just trying to identify a food allergy). Make the natural progression from Whole30 to Paleo or keto. Or just keep eating like you did on the Whole30. There are plenty of recipes out there, and if you’ve learned anything while on your Whole30, you’ve found that clean, wholesome, natural foods are better for you, your body feels better, and you likely lost some weight. There are reasons for that: the food is good for you.

Something I have to deal with now that I’ve never dealt with before is the stress I feel after I either eat something non-Paleo, or if I eat too much. My mind is playing tricks on me and makes me think I’m literally getting fat almost immediately after eating the food. I know it’s not possible, let the fear sinks in. I know that it’s not logical, and that it’s not rational, yet it happens.

I’ve had to learn to deal with these feelings because I think they can lead to a dangerous place if left unchecked. I’ve heard people say that you can’t get anorexia if you’re a man, and I’ve learned that this is completely untrue: both men and women can suffer from this condition. I know I’m not anywhere near having it, nor can I know what it’s like to have it, but I do feel that the stress I experience after eating non-Paleo foods or eating too much could be how the condition first manifests itself.

At my birthday, I ate a lot. I even had food that wasn’t Paleo. While I know from a logical standpoint that it was okay and that I will recover from it, the next day after lunch, I began to stress a little. The stress started spiraling into fear until I did a logic check and went over my progress, my food, and my exercise. Once I went through it all, the stress melted away. Something else that helped happened as well: two healthy bowel movements. 

What the scale says is but one measure of my health, and I have to remind myself often that it is not the most important one. My clothing still feel loose, my body still feels tight, and I still feel energetic. All these things tell me that I’m doing great. Just because the scale says otherwise after not having a bowel movement for three days means nothing.

Logic wins. Reminding myself of the facts helps. Not falling into despair or getting stressed about it allows me to stay on-track and to carry on. Will my weight fluctuate? Yes. Will it fluctuate even if I am doing everything perfectly? Yes. Then why worry about it if I have a little bit of a cake or some noodles?

After a run a few weeks back, I weighed in at 161.8 lbs. That’s my lowest yet since doing my Whole30’s and going Paleo. I didn’t expect for my weight to get this low. Ever. My goal was 165 lbs, and I figured I would stop losing weight there, but it seems that my body has other plans (and I’m totally okay with that).

You see, I’m not starving myself and not depriving myself of either quantity or content of food. Sure, I eat only Paleo-friendly foods (except for a few dinners during my birthday week), but I eat until I’m full and comfortable. I eat foods that are delicious, and I am not hungry between meals, nor am I craving anything. I’m not going out of my way to actually try to lose weight. Any weight loss that is going on right now is purely organic in the sense that it is an equalization of my body mass as supported by the food and nutrients I’m eating. Exercise plays a role, but I’m not certain that it plays a huge role considering I only run three times a week.

My body is evolving, and continues to make changes as I move forward on this journey toward good health. My fitness levels are at their highest in over 20 years, and I feel great. If my body decides that I need to continue to lose weight, so be it. I just hope I don’t get too thin; I like the clothing I have now and I don’t want to have to replace everything one more time.

Today, I ran into two sides of having become a thin person.

On the one hand, I was walking and an obese person looked at me and then immediately looked down toward the ground with a look of shame on their face. This person was embarrassed by their weight. I recognize this because it used to be me. What I never knew when I was on the other side of it is that it doesn’t feel good, cool, or awesome to be the thin person in this exchange. I felt sad for them. Not because they are overweight, but because they feel that way about themselves.

I thought I was trapped forever being a heavy person, so I would feel sad, embarrassed, and envious of thin people. I thought it was just not my lot in life to be fit and healthy. I’m glad I was able to break out of that mindset and make the changes necessary to get where I am today.

The flip side of that first encounter was being told by someone else that they’ve noticed I have lost more weight and that I look more fit. It’s true; I’ve lost about 7 lbs in the past month, but I didn’t think it was that noticeable. I felt happy that someone recognized it, and it felt good in sharp contrast to how I felt earlier in the day.

Getting healthy and fit is great. I am often asked for advice, and I readily give it. I never just push it on anyone, and I surely don’t want to make anyone feel badly about themselves. Ever. That’s not what I’m about.

It’s weird. The capacity of my stomach is greatly reduced 20 months after I started my first Whole30, and I’ve worked hard to change my relationship with food, how I view food, and the reasons I eat food. Every now and then, however, I still get the urge to eat more than I need. To just gorge myself. I don’t act on these impulses, but they still happen.

They are a hold-over from 48 years of bad eating habits and not caring about what I put into my mouth. Like muscle memory for athletes, it’s a psychological rut my mind settles into every now and then. I’ve found that it mostly happens when I am bored or not doing anything in particular, and that if I occupy my mind with something, the desire to eat goes away. That’s how I know it’s not hunger or a standard craving.

I was asked today if I wanted to eat some flan, and I said no. The person offering it said, “Sometimes, you just gotta have some because it’s what you want.” I patted my belly and said, “But I want a six-pack more than I ever want flan!” We laughed, but it’s true. I have set my mind to being healthy and fit and nothing is going to get in my way if I can help it.