Paleo Marine

After completing our third Whole30, I stopped losing weight again. It’s okay, though. The weight stopped at between 163 and 165 lbs, and that makes me happy. That’s a full 10-12 lbs below the max weight for my height according to Army standards (and USMC standards), and it is a comfortable size for me. I say comfortable size, because my body fat percentage is very low, and all that weight is 100% Grade A PaleoMarine.

Sometimes, it’s a little sad that I can’t seem to lose any extra weight, but I have to remind myself that I met my final goal of 165 lbs and then some, so anything more at this point is bonus weight loss and extra. On top of that, if my body wants or needs to lose the weight, it will. I don’t eat anything with refined sugar, added sugar, grains, beans, soy, or dairy, so the nutrition I get is pretty basic but adequate. I eat enough to be full at each meal, but I don’t count calories. I know when enough is enough through nearly two years of monitoring my weight closely (sometimes even more than once a day), and the amount I’m eating now is the right amount for my body and allows me to have enough energy and to feel full after I eat and between meals.

I see some people struggle to lose 10 lbs for months or years, and they are unhappy. Perhaps, their bodies have reached a happy point where nutrition and fitness are enough. We need to learn to accept certain things about our bodies. You can be healthy and not stick thin. I am a healthy 163.8 lbs, and any less, I may end up looking ill. I don’t want that.

Those are the two things we need: food and nutrients. The body doesn’t know where those calories are coming from. It just cares that it gets them. Why do I mention this? Because there are those who believe that a “Well-balanced diet with foods representing all the food groups is necessary for a healthy, complete diet.” They couldn’t be more wrong.

What is important is that we give our bodies food that contain calories to fuel us and nutrients that aid in the maintenance of metabolism. That’s why it’s so important to eat quality food that is nutrient-rich. Calorie dense foods tend to be poorer quality foods overall and even contain anti-nutrients (grains).

When we eat good, clean food, our bodies extract the nutrients through a complex process that takes energy. That energy comes from the very food it’s digesting (or from the food you ate prior to this meal). The more complex that food is for the body to break down, the fewer net calories you will get, which means you will not store as much. Some food storage is necessary for the periods between meals, but when we eat calorie dense foods and foods that are very easy for the body to digest, more of it gets stored as the body can’t use the energy fast enough. This leads to weight gain. In my case, I ate so much carb-heavy food that I got a condition called Fatty Liver Disease. My body was literally having to turn the sugar into fat so fast that the fat gummed up my liver. Fortunately, this has been reversed, and I now have a healthy liver.

FOOD:  Any nutritious substance that is consumed in order to maintain and sustain life and growth and to repair and furnish energy.

NUTRIENT: A substance that provides nourishment essential for growth and the maintenance of metabolism and life.

The food groups? Marketing made up back in the 70’s to get people to eat a more varied diet to boost purchasing of foods that the government was subsidizing. It literally has no bearing on how healthy a diet is. All that matters is that you eat foods that are clean and nutrient-rich.

I’ve tried to lose weight and get healthy many times before I was successful at it. I tried different methods, different diets, and even different fitness and exercise plans only to come up short each time and, to my horror, end up gaining it all back and then some! After years of trying, I began feeling defeated and hopeless. It wasn’t until my cousin got through to me and told me about Whole30 and Paleo. I was so beat down by feeling tired, embarassed by my appearance, and fear for my mortality that I figured what the hell; might as well give this a go since it worked for her. It changed my life.

Why did Whole30 and Paleo work when all the other diets failed? It comes down to a number of reasons, first and foremost of which is my dedication to sticking with it, but not in the way you’re thinking, though. I truly believe that when people set out to change their diets and to start an exercise plan, they do it with the same amount of dedication and motivation I had when I started. They truly want to make changes, and to even start any program takes a level of motivation those who don’t even try don’t have. The problem is that once they get started, they start facing some challenges that are truly difficult to get past and are way beyond what they thought they were getting into. Some of these things include:

• Exercising too hard, too soon results in pain and sore muscles. Taking it easier and allowing the body to heal between workouts is a much better way to get into an exercise plan. Someone going from sedentary lifestyle to a 5 or 6 day a week workout schedule is asking for lots of pain, discomfort, and possibly (hell, even likely) injuries that will keep them from being able to continue.
• Palate fatigue which comes from eating a very limited selection of food. I know people who were hugely successful eating chicken breast and salad for every meal. Every. Single. Meal. I couldn’t do that. After a few days, I’d be going crazy. I need variety in the food I eat, and that food also needs to be filling, something that salad just doesn’t do for me.
• Bad diet plans that concentrate on limiting calories instead of limiting bad sources of excessive calories. Sugar addiction is where a lot of our obesity problems come from, and any diet that avoids or doesn’t address it is already going to make it more difficult to succeed due to the continued cravings one will experience.

When I look back at my previous attempts to get healthy, lose weight, and get fit, they all ended with exasperation. I felt that I had done the work, I was following the rules, and each time, I ended up defeated. I wouldn’t see the results I was looking for based upon the effort I was putting in, or I felt so bad, that it just wasn’t worth the discomfort. Heck, we want to get healthy not ust to weigh a certain amount, but because we want to feel better. When I was feeling far worse than any time before I started these diets or programs, why would I want to continue? Humans seek comfort; living in constant discomfort goes against the very grain of our existence.

That’s why Whole30 was so important to both Sherry and me. It allowed us to change our lifestyle by eating clean foods with a transition period that had discomfort, but it was well-documented and up-front. We knew, based on all the information, that this discomfort period would be short and that when we got past it, we would feel amazing. The great part was that the information we read was correct; we felt amazing! THIS was what healthy eating was all about! Even if we didn’t lose weight, we FELT BETTER.

Then, a crazy thing happened. I started losing weight. A lot of weight. Once we we completed our Whole30 and transitioned into Paleo, that trend continued at a steady rate for another 10 months. In all, I lost 110 lbs in 12 months. Since then, I’ve lost another 40 lbs, but that involved a lot of running as well.

Why didn’t Calories In/Calories Out (CICO) work? Because not all calories are created equal. 100 calories of apple is a lot different than 100 calories of a donut. Our bodies process them differently, use or store the energy differently, and the net calories after digestion are very different, not to mention the additional nutrients the apple has over the donut. Trying to live CICO was difficult for me because I never felt satisfied with the number of calories I was supposed to be eating. It was also very easy to overeat on CICO, and I’m pretty sure I overate all the time.

Adkins and South Beach: tried them both. They were bland and limiting in a way that kept me from being excited about food, and never got me past the cravings. Regardless of what I ate, I found myself wanting snacks between meals. I was in a constant state of hunger, and it’s one of the prime motivators of human activity: acquire food. That’s why it’s one of the strongest feelings we can experience. Food equals survival. If you can get rid of the cravings, you allow yourself to be free from centering your life around eating and making food something that merely fuels you instead.

Exercise for weight loss? I tried that, too. There are some who are able to push themselves to physical discomfort day in and day out, for weeks or months at a time. Physical activity burns calories, and yes, you can burn a lot through some strenuous exercise, but when you’re obese, that’s both dangerous and difficult. Obese people eat a lot of calories to keep from feeling hungry, and that number of calories is hard to make a dent in through exercise alone. I never was able to quite break the proper ratio of calories eaten/calories burned through exercise alone. I know many people who continue trying to do this, and watching them fail year after year is heartbreaking. I think they are amazing for sticking with exercise for so long without the results they are looking for, but with a diet change, they could see so much improvement in a very little period of time.

Mistakes were made. I’ve learned from them, and I hope to inform others of my experiences so that they can avoid making the same mistakes and find success in getting healthy, losing weight, and getting fit. It doesn’t take any programs, products, pills, powders, patches, shakes, or crazy exercise regimens. All it takes is clean eating, cutting out some foods that are hyper nutritious and detrimental to our health, and a reasonable amount of movement three times a week. That’s all I’ve done, and I’ve lost 150 lbs in a year and a half. 

I’m in maintenance mode on my weight which means that I am still sticking to the Paleo Diet, but every now and then, I have decided that it’s okay for me to eat non-Paleo food. I only make the exceptions in the following situations (and even then, I try to make the most Paleo-friendly choice I can):

• Special events
• Professional settings
• Night out with friends
• Holidays

The reason I don’t do it more often, however, is because of how my body responds to non-Paleo foods now. When I eat something with wheat or dairy, my stomach ties itself up in knots, I get really gassy, and the pain just isn’t worth it. Besides, the vast majority of my favorite foods are either Paleo or have Paleo analogues that are easy enough to find or can be made.

What maintenance doesn’t mean to me is eating lots of non-Paleo food in smaller portions. I am not reintroducing anything non-Paleo into my diet for consumption on a regular basis. I’ve learned a lot about food and my body in the last two years, and I’ve found that my body is very amenable to the Paleo Diet. I feel energized, youthful, and I don’t gain weight. I always feel full after meals, and I never have cravings between meals. The only non-Paleo food I ever really get hungry for every now and then is chocolate. Fortunately, I like bittersweet chocolate, so eating 80% chocolate is fine for me (which many Paleo people say is Paleo-ish enough).

I’m not done with Paleo. I will never be done with it. I’ve found a diet that my body does well with, and that is psychologically sustainable and ecologically and ethically friendly. If anything, having reached maintenance mode has only further strengthened my love of the Paleo Diet. It got me to where I am today in terms of health and fitness, and I never want to go back to the life I lived before. This is too much fun!

Happiness is something we all experience, but what may surprise you is that the feeling is the same regardless of who you are, where you are, or how you became happy. Whether you are a millionaire or a homeless beggar on the street, we all experience the same feeling of happiness regardless of the source. Perhaps the millionaire feels happiness when his investments make an amazing return for him while the beggar feels happiness when someone hands him a handful of pesos that allows him to get a place to spend the night, a warm shower, and food in his stomach. That feeling: happiness. It is the same regardless of who you are, where you’re from, and your circumstance in life. There is no better happiness because you have more money, or a poorer happiness. It’s the same feeling.

I feel happiness every time I see myself in the mirror, step on the scale, or put on a pair of pants that would have been laughably small for me two years ago. Trying on trousers at the store and finding it difficult to find a pair that fit because I’m thinner than the average man also makes me happy. I’m in the same size pants as I wore when I was a LCpl in the Marines.

I felt happiness when I was overweight; sure. It was for different reasons, but I felt it then, too. Only now, I feel it because of successes in my diet and fitness. Every time I hit 100+ push ups? Happy. At or under 165 lbs? Happy. Look in the mirror and see a healthy man? Happy.

Is it automatic? Not at all. Losing weight, in and of itself, did not change my perspective. Other aspects of my life did not change: work is work, responsibilities are still there, and the bills keep rolling in. Losing weight because you want to find happiness may not be the best goal because you really need to figure out what it is that is making you unhappy and perhaps try to fix that instead. However, it’s it’s your health that is making you unhappy, losing weight and getting healthy will help.

Happiness is not being beautiful, rich, or successful. There are plenty of beautiful, rich, and successful people who are unhappy. The trick is to find what brings you happiness and pursue those things. If you’re goal oriented, set attainable goals. If you think that the mere fact of losing weight will change your life, you are in for a disappointment. Losing weight can help make it easier to change certain aspects of your life, but surprisingly, not much else. Just because I’m 150 lbs lighter doesn’t make my resume any better. It doesn’t inflate my paychecks, nor did it bring me any amazing opportunities. It did allow me to begin running, and I now am competing against myself by working toward increasing my pace and distance running. I find happiness in successes there, but just losing weight didn’t make me a runner. It gave me the opportunity to start running.

Happiness is not a permanent state. It’s something we feel every now and then in those fleeting moments between everything else. It’s impossible to be in a constant state of happiness, although there are times when we can feel contented and happiness can last a while; it’s just not a permanent state. It’s also possible to be happy about things. That’s why memories of happy times are so powerful. They have the ability to allow us to relive a happy moment or time.

I’m happy now. I am happy a lot lately, and losing weight has been a big part of that, but it’s not the main source of it. I have found happiness in many aspects of my life that being healthy and fit have allowed me to experience. Find your happiness and make it happen.

Warning: This topic may be a little too much information for some people, yet it’s a question I’m asked regularly. I figure if people have the guts to ask, there may be many more who don’t yet are curious. Don’t read further if you’re squeamish.

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Paleo Poop. Pooping on Paleo. Pooping with Paleo. Paleo and Poop and You. I thought of many different titles, but settled on The Scoop on Poop. Like I said in my warning above, this is a topic I’m asked about regularly, and I see it discussed from time to time on Paleo related forums. So, without much further ado, here’s my take on it.

You don’t poop as often on Paleo. Some say this is due to your gut biome not getting the right nutrients or some other spin on that. I’ve taken probiotics and other products in an attempt to make myself more regular, and none of them worked. Why? Because my body is operating very efficiently and it rids itself of biowaste when it is ready. There are many reasons for this.

Decreased volume of food intake. I eat about 1/4 of the amount of food I used to eat, and that’s being generous. I used to eat so much food that I cringe thinking about trying to eat one meal’s worth of food throughout an entire day now. I don’t think I could do it! With the reduced volume is a reduced rate of waste.

Increased quality of food. The food I eat now is cleaner, more natural, and whole. It takes the body longer to digest, and it takes more energy for my body to digest. This makes it stick around a little longer than the bad foods did. This, coupled with the decreased volume, make for very dense biowaste. Also, the higher quality of the food, the more of it is digested which reduces what is released as waste. Meat is a good example. People who eat a lot of meat don’t tend to create as much waste as those who eat grains. Vegetables create a little more waste, but not a lot more.

Fiber helps things. Truly, it does. I eat more veggies or add fruit to my diet if things are alarmingly slow. Fish oil has helped me, too. When all else fails, I go out for some Greek food, and something about it gets me going within an hour.

Slower frequency of bowel movements is a normal thing when you’re on Paleo. It’s not something to worry about. There’s nothing that says you need to poop once or more a day. As long as your poop is healthy looking (I will leave it to you to Google that), you are most likely fine.