Today is day 21 of the Paleo Challenge. I keep getting compliments from people and they ask me what diet I'm on. I want to stress to everyone, that weight loss should never be done by dieting. Dieting is bad for you. At least the word "diet" as we use it these days. A diet assumes a short term change in your eating habits to help you lose weight. The problem with "dieting" is that the dieter plans on going back to eating what they want when they lose the weight. Just the word brings up thoughts of starvation and unpleasant tasting food. The very idea of a diet seems to bring along with it a feeling of "I must do this very difficult and unpleasant thing for a little while to get skinny." I do not ever endorse changing your eating habits short term for a weight loss goal. You set yourself up for failure- you will gain the weight back when you resume your prior habits, your goal is to get "skinny" instead of healthy, and the emotional rollercoaster takes a toll on you. I am doing the Paleo Challenge, not because I wanted to eat like a caveman, or because I thought I would lose weight. I am doing it because when I looked at the lists of foods that you can eat, what is not allowed for the strict 30 days and the reasoning behind it seems sound to me. If I thought the challenge would have a detrimental effect on my health at all, I would not have taken the challenge. Even if I would have lost weight. I take my health much more seriously now than I ever did. I would rather be healthy and bigger than unhealthy and skinny. Skinny, it turns out, does not fix any of your problems. I've been there before, it's the same old me, in smaller clothes. I do encourage a healthy eating program for weight loss for anyone who is overweight and unhealthy, and for anyone who is too thin and unhealthy. And for anyone who looks just right, but eats unhealthy.
I plan on keeping many of the rules of the paleo diet even after the 30 days. I think it's dangerous to change to a healthy eating plan and then changing back to unhealthy. I want to use this opportunity to listen to my body and find out what it really needs. Not what all the experts say it needs, but experiment with different foods and find out if it is good for my body or not. I'm surprised at how good I feel. I thought I was eating very healthy before, but I was tired much more often and I got headaches more frequently. Even my monthly cramps don't seem to bad today. I am curious to find out what it is that I've taken out of my diet that feels so much better. I'm sure there will be things that I can add back in, but I'm wondering what was making me more sluggish. Even today, I'm stuffed up because there's a flu-like cold going around the island. Everybody is dropping out like flies, calling in sick. I have a runny nose, and that sucks, and I have a bit of a headache, but I actually don't feel all that bad. I don't feel like I need to run home and lay in bed. I could feel better, sure, but I think my immune system is busy kicking the bugs ass right now. I predict a short-term sickness, rather than being down for the count. I guess we'll see, I'll have to post whether I get real sick or not. I still haven't decided whether I am going to try to reintroduce dairy or grains first. I believe legumes/beans will be third and sugar will be the last thing. I have 9 more days to go before I begin to reintroduce, so there's time to research.
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