The Christmas and New Year celebrations are over and now I am back to my as-clean-as-possible Paleo diet & lifestyle. This week I’m low on the carbs, no tubers, lots of protein and daily exercise in the form of my January Kettlebell Swing Challenge.
Tomorrow night I have the first social event of the year – a meal out with friends. I simply can’t bring myself to go off-diet this soon into the New Year and so even though I said I’d always cheat if I was going to eat out, this time I have given my partner strict instructions to choose a restaurant at which I can eat Steak & Salad! I’ll let you know how that goes!
Carbs & Sugar Really DO Cause Cravings!
One thing I noticed over the New Year celebrations in particular is the effect of carbs / sugar on cravings and ‘willpower’. I’ve been saying for weeks how I was finding the transition to Paleo pretty easy because I am not craving non-paleo foods such as bread, pasta, sugary stuff etc and now I know that this lack of cravings is not psychological. We stayed with friends on New Years Eve and most of the following day. These friends are unaware that I have changed my diet and so served up exactly the kinds of foods I would have always gleefully indulged in. Dinner was pasta with some bread on the side – I skipped the bread but that turned out to be short lived.
I found that rumbling hunger and carb cravings quickly rushing back. What used to be normality for me now felt really noticeable and pretty uncomfortable. I found myself gorging on peanuts just to stave away the hunger and that only worked for a little while. Before the evening was out I’d eaten a load of chocolate and bread. I had a mild stomach ache most of the evening and I was also incredibly tired and had a headache which was not alleviated with pain pills. I realy struggled to stay awake until the Midnight count down! The next morning I woke up very hungry, shaky and with the headache still there. Luckily I had brought with me some fresh cherries and a small bag of seeds and nuts. This kept me going for the 3 hours or so until a high carb breakfast of pancakes served with lemon & sugar!
This did not fill me up but I turned down the offer of toast after breakfast and decided to wait until lunch which I knew was a Turkey dinner. Even though dinner had a lot of non-paleo stuff, the large portion of turkey was most welcome and I felt immediately better and finally shifted the headache that had been plaguing me since the previous evening. In the evening I came home and found a left-over beef dinner in the freezer and ate that followed by some fruit & cheese.
I started today with my pure paleo breakfast – a non-dairy smoothie followed a couple of hours later by devilled eggs & bacon. I feel good today – no headache, no tiredness, no cravings! Ahhh, I cannot emphasise enough how much better I feel eating this way!
Kettlebell Swings Done and Then Some!
Today is the first day of my January challenge I set myself. I vowed to do 50 swings a day for 30 consecutive days to total 1500 in the month of January. As I neared my 50 for today I realised it would only be a very slight challenge and as I am only on day 1 and expect to get fitter and stronger over the next 50 days I’ve decided to go for 2000 instead. So I performed 67 swings and shall do the same for all other days! I think I will also need to buy the next weight kettlebell pretty soon! :-)
I wish everyone reading this a happy & healthy 2012!
The post 2012 Starts Here and Kettlebell Swing Challenge Increased! appeared first on Caroline Middlebrook (v3).
