Thursday, September 25, 2014

Body Science


Paleo Week Four. I'm not giving up, nope. 

On the bright side, I don't crave anything, not even cheese. (Yes the earth stopped spinning for a sec)

Besides that, ugh.

So I have been all excited and powered up about this Paleo journey. I jumped in with both feet, gave away all that food I didn't need (feeling a little guilty that I was enabling other people eat that kind of food), started cooking a lot and loving it, and even started keeping my kitchen cleaner and more organized. I started walking more, going to the gym, and added strength training to my schedule. Everything was peachy, until I weighed myself this past week. I had lost four and a half more pounds, but the body composition paper said I had gained fat, and lost muscle and water. WTF?! With all of my new exercise and eating habits, how the heck did I lose muscle and gain fat??

Well. 

First, I guess I wasn't supposed to weigh in and do my body analysis on the first day of my period. Oops - that makes sense...a little. 

Second, calories. When doing Paleo, it's all about "don't count calories, don't worry about how often or when you eat, just eat when you are hungry" and of course, eat the right foods. Apparently that only means if you are eating your weight in meat and vegetables. Do you know how much natural food it takes to equal the amount you need to get through the day without crashing the moment you get home from work??? Sheesh! So, I broke ranks and started counting calories. I added up my calories from just breakfast and lunch today (and I ate a lot and was full after both meals) and I only had eaten 512 calories. 512. That's not enough to keep a kitten alive! So, I made a list of all the food I have at home that I could eat in order to catch up on my calories ( there is a magic number for my weight, weight loss goals, overall health, blah blah) and managed to squeeze in 487 more calories. So, in spite of the rules I'm gonna have to count calories for a few days to get a picture of how much more I need to eat in a day. 

Third, whatever. This week I have read so many articles about food, protein, muscles, fat, Paleo dos and don'ts, (which often conflict each other based on the source) and the science of our bodies. What I have gotten from it all is that everyone's body is different but we all have to eat certain amounts of protein and carbohydrates like it or not. There goes my "Naked and Afraid" approach.

So, my food and exercise journey is going to consist of figuring out the percentage of plant proteins (nuts) v. animal proteins (meat) v. healthy fats, plus or minus the amount of fruit servings, divided by the number of times I can't sneeze because I did too many ab crunches, times the square root of too much cardio (yes there is such a thing apparently). 

I had no idea I was signing up for Rocket Science. 

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