Posts Tagged ‘food’
Your Choice: One Fast Food Meal or a Full Day of Meals, Snacks, and Treats?
For fun and science, I tracked my daily intake yesterday for my entire day of meals, snacks, and treats. I was quite surprised at the total calories and discovered that I really should be taking in about 1000 more calories. I already feel like I’m eating a ton of food every day. I eat steak, chicken breasts, lots of veggies, some fruit, snacks, and even have a small treat every night.
I now know that a single large-sized meal at McDonald’s is pretty close to my daily intake. So, I created this chart just to visualize the crazy comparison.
Read MorePaleo Shopping and Meal Planning
Meal planning is very helpful when you’re Paleo. Otherwise, it is too easy to get into a rut with the same old food or fall off the Paleo wagon when you’re pinched for time (I’ll just eat a bowl of cereal this one time). You should also plan to cook more than you need for a given meal, so that you have easy leftovers for lunch during the week. I’m not sure what it is about lunch, but it seems to be the most challenging meal. A lot of Paleo followers cook up big batches of food on the weekends when they have more time. I remember grilling something like 10 chicken breasts one Sunday. It was nice to just pull a pre-grilled chicken breast out of the fridge during the week for a quick meal.
Practical Paleo & Primal – How to Sustainably Eat Better to Look & Feel Better
If you follow my blog, you know that I competed in a Paleo Challenge back in January 2011 with the rest of my CrossFit box. I was pretty darn strict with myself: No sugars of any sort (even honey), no grains at all, and no dairy products of any sort. I was very happy with the results. I lost body fat, gained muscle, have more energy, enjoy clear skin, have no more stomach troubles, and just generally feel great when I eat Paleo. It is pretty amazing. My body definitely became leaner and my muscle definition increased considerably. I even got my six pack back! And my strength kept up pretty well, so I continued to see gains in my weightlifting and improvements in my CrossFit WODs. But, the biggest benefit is how I feel. I always knew that I had issues with dairy and had reduced it considerably in my diet. But now I know that I also have issues with wheat. When I finished the challenge, I had some celebration meals that weekend that included grains and dairy. Ouch. I felt lousy for 2-3 days after that. So, I’m staying Paleo and for the best reason of all: I simply feel great when I eat Paleo and avoid grains, dairy, and sugars. It’s pretty easy to avoid those foods now and I don’t feel like I’m denying myself anything. Because it doesn’t matter how good something tastes, if you feel lousy afterwards.
Are You a Parent or Do You Plan to Be?
Have you ever struggled with your weight, health, or fitness at any point in your life? If you are a parent (or plan to be one) or a teacher or anyone who has a chance to positively influence a child’s life, what are you doing right now to put them on a lifelong path of…
Read MoreHow Many Carbs Do You Need if You're a Paleo CrossFitter?
I found this article by Lyle McDonald on Bodyrecomposition.com very interesting: How Many Carbohydrates Do You Need? It’s a question that I have been asking myself a lot, since I have been following the Paleo diet and actively do CrossFit every week. I wish there was an easy answer, but there isn’t. The answer is “It Depends“. It depends on who you are, your activity level, and what you want to accomplish (e.g., weight loss, endurance running, muscle building, etc.).
I Completed the Paleo Challenge!
Well, today was the last day of my Paleo Challenge. So we took photos and measurements in CrossFit this morning. We won’t know who the winners are until next week. But, I wanted to do a quick post and share my after photo. The Paleo diet helped me bring out more definition. I lost about 4 pounds that I just couldn’t seem to gain back, but maybe that’s ok.
Celebrating 2 Years of a Fit and Healthy Lifestyle Change
It was a little over 2 years ago (Jan 2009) that I committed to a lifestyle change. I began making wiser food choices and walking and running again. About 1 year ago, I started P90X and finished it. Then about 6 months ago, I started CrossFit. 7 weeks ago I began the Paleo Challenge. Basically,…
Read MoreWho Do You Love? Tell Me… Who Do You Love?
Just seemed appropriate to talk about love on this Valentine’s Day. The song “Who Do You Love” popped into my head today on this day of love. It was originally recorded in 1956 by Bo Diddley, but I always hear the version by George Thorogood in my head when I think about it. I think this question is incredibly relevant not just on Valentine’s Day, but also when you think about the perpetual journey to health and fitness that so many of you are taking or wish you could convince yourself to take. I want you to really think about it: Who do you love? Who matters the most to you in this world? Maybe it’s your husband, wife, or significant other. Maybe it’s your children. Maybe it’s your brother or sister, or mother and father. Heck, maybe it’s yourself! That’s a good thing. Truly loving yourself means that you care enough to take care of yourself.
Jump and Pull and Push and Push to Work Your Whole Body
My CrossFit workout this morning really hit my overall body with a variety of exercises that worked the core, arms, and legs. I felt it all over! Made me also realize that my forearms were more sore than I anticipated from the 32 Kg kettleball farmers walk and hammers yesterday. I really felt it on the pull-ups and performed a bit weaker than I had hoped. Oh well. Every day can’t be the best day for a given exercise. We did this same workout back in November 2010, so I was able to compare my performance. This is so critical for your motivation!). I took 17 seconds off my time and did much better on my pull-ups this time. Now my goal for the next time I do this WOD is to do everything unbroken. No breaks!
Brewing a Heavenly Cup of Coffee to Avoid Calories and Boost Your Health
When people first begin a quest to eat and drink healthy foods, they often find that they have to give up something. For many people, it is that devil drink: soda. I talked about how to stop drinking soda in an earlier post. For others, it is that delicious coffee drink from “they who shall not be named” because they add so much sugar and fat that the drinks have about the same calories as eating a big ol’ greasy cheeseburger with all the fixin’s. Yes, you really do need to give up those coffee “dessert drinks”. Sorry. But you do not need to give up coffee and the benefits that come with it.