A revolutionary thing happened to me a week or so ago. The Old Curmudgeon (for new readers, this is how I refer to my boyfriend, as he's a whole 4 months older than me and a lot more curmudgeon-y) mentioned once again that when he'd had to lose weight for the military he ate nothing but chicken and salad and lost 60 lbs. in a fairly short period of time.
As I said, he'd mentioned it before, but I guess I was ready to listen this time. Both the Old Curmudgeon and I had been driven to seek medical attention within the last month or so (me for an injury at work, him for dental work) and the truth was not pretty - my blood pressure is excellent as always, but I've gained 30 lbs in the last 12 months. His blood pressure is borderline high and he's gained 27 lbs in the last 12 months. Clearly we are doing something wrong (though obviously we are fat and happy and comfortable in our relationship).
I wanted to radically shake up the way we're eating around here, not just for our sake but also for the sake of the Chamaco (my 11-soon-to-be-12 year old son). And I've watched an awful lot of documentaries on Netflix lately that have convinced me that something is very wrong with how we eat in America. Sugar consumption has skyrocketed in the average American diet and most of the things we eat are full of chemicals that neither you nor I can pronounce. Most of the documentaries I watched were promoting veganism or vegetarianism, but I knew that was not going to fly in my house.
I'd heard of what's being called the "paleolithic diet" or "paleo diet" before... essentially only eating things that would have been available to our caveman ancestors. Nothing processed, just normal food... primarily vegetables with some meat and fruit thrown in. And somewhere in my googling I stumbled upon NerdFitness.com. They have a very engaging article explaining why what we eat now is making us fat, and why grain products and dairy are not as fantastic as the USDA would like you to believe. Also, the approach taken and their tagline "level up your life" appealed to my inner nerd... I was never an RPG gamer, despite the best efforts of my ex-husband and the Chamaco, but I have enough Star Trek and other geekery in my past to earn me some nerd cred. So I thought, what the heck, I'll give it a try.
The very next day (which happened to be Monday), I ate mostly vegetables (a little fruit) during the day and we had meat and vegetables at dinner. I also made myself walk a mile on my lunch break. Tuesday I did the same, including the walk. Repeat performance Wednesday and Thursday. I noticed by Tuesday that my energy levels were higher. By Friday, the mile walk which had seemed kinda far on Monday seemed like it took about five minutes. Also I weighed myself Friday morning. 6 lbs gone. Nearly a third of what took me a year to gain, gone in one week.
Obviously there's something to this, so I've decided to commit to a month and see where I am at that point. I have never gone a month without pasta in my life. Actually, I'm not sure I've ever gone a week without pasta in my life until now.
For week two, I'll be adding in something I found on NerdFitness called "The Angry Birds Workout", which is designed to shatter that "I don't have time to work out" notion. Also, I like the measurable performance goals and the idea of beating levels, because I'm just nerdy enough even though I'm not a gamer. (Anyone interested in this can look it up here: http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2011/03/10/angry-birds-workout-plan/). I'm also gradually stepping down the amount of Diet Coke I consume... I'd love to just give it up cold turkey, but I know from past experience that this leads to about 4 days of intense headaches followed my me just drinking Diet Coke again to make it stop. I'm going to keep doing the walks at lunchtime because it gets me out of the office.
I'm also very interested in pursuing the notion of a "playout". A playout, for those of you not in the know, is what your kids do when you turn them loose at a park... they run, they climb, they crawl, they swing... they get all kinds of exercise, but they think they're playing. I taught preschool for a number of years and I am not above joining children on playground equipment. But an adult playout can take place wherever you are, provided you have sturdy furniture and patient neighbors. :-) I have neither of those things, so we'll probably just walk down to the park.
I'll try to update about week two progress next Sunday. During the week I'll probably post about other things unless I feel particularly moved to talk about something significant.
Onward to Level 2!
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