According to the good people at Whole9 Life, the first week of a dietary shift from the Western diet to a Paleo diet is the most difficult. Day one is glorious – you’ll scoot through life making responsible food choices exactly as they are provided, work out diligently, drink more water than necessary and probably head to bed earlier than you have since you were in middle school. You expect to wake up the next morning feeling bright-eyed and cheery… but you don’t. Despite having ten or more hours of sleep under your belt, day two dawns and you’re just. plain. tired. You feel hungover – even though you went to bed without a beer for the first time in two weeks. The day wears on and you suffer through headaches, fatigue, tummy aches and general malaise. What the heck, you think, This diet is NOT changing my life for the better. In fact, it’s making everything worse! Still, you stick with it in hopes that tomorrow will be a better day. A couple days later, you wake up exactly where I woke up today: Day Four. You’re not tired. You don’t have a headache. You feel… rejuvenated. FINALLY! you exclaim, Paleo eating is finally helping me live a better life! You waltz out of your bedroom, ready to hug your puppy and take him for a nice, long walk. He greets you exactly as he always does, spinning in circles and wiggling like a worm. He is so excited to see you – it’s the best moment of his life. Suddenly, you are hit with a rush of annoyance and anger and irritation - why won’t he STOP wiggling!?! Why is he so happy all the damn time?!?!? What is wrong with this creature and why can’t he just leave me alone!??! Welcome to the next two days of your life, in which your nerves have cracked and literally everything is more than a little annoying.
This pretty much sums up everything that I have experienced in the past four days. Perhaps it’s because my body is still healing from Sunday’s marathon, but the first week of my return to a Paleo diet has been physical torture. My stomach is constantly fighting me, my body refuses to heal post-workout like it typically does, my appetite is in-and-out-and-up-and-down and I feel more than a little bi-polar. I woke up this morning in such a foul mood that I almost let Blaze loose into the wild of Queen Anne when he licked my hands to say good morning. I’ve been dying for a Bulleit-manhattan-on-the-rocks-with-an-orange-twist since noon. I’m no longer fatigued, so have tried to spend as much time as possible enjoying Seattle’s last day of nice weather for a few months… but am constantly passing by bars that I’d like dive straight into. I returned to running on Tuesday and CrossFit on Wednesday, spending my time at the gym focusing on recovery from Sunday. The short runs I’ve been on (2 and 4 miles) went much better than anticipated, but my feet still feel like cement bricks so they’ve been punctuated by blocks of walking. CrossFit, as always, was amazing but put a huge emphasis on lower-body work during the anaerobic portion so I’m hobbling around a bit today.
Good God, Brooke, is anything going well right now?? As a matter of fact: YES. Similarly to other Paleo challenges, I haven’t been able to get enough water this week and my stomach is constantly growling (cutting out traditional carbohydrates knocks out a large number of calories that I have to remind myself to consume). Unlike other Paleo challenges, I am not having as difficult of a time making Good Food choices – I haven’t slipped once and really have no desire to eat anything that isn’t Paleo. Also on my side is the fact that this will pass, and soon. By the time Saturday rolls around, I will feel as normal as it’s possible for me to feel.
At this point, I know that the Paleo lifestyle is the best way of eating for me. I knew going back on a hard-core Paleo bender would be accompanied by some mild-to-severe side-effects. I know that they’re going to go away. I can’t wait until they do.
