stuffed bell peppersPaleo has been around for quite awhile and I’ve tried it a few times to see how it has reacted to my body. It was first mentioned to me by Jon Crowell and after some literature I realized that I grew up mostly on Paleo. This was very fascinating to me because I realized that my diet, when I grew up in Dominica, involved many of the tubers, fruits, vegetables, and livestock mentioned in many books on Paleo. My grandparents always wondered why I couldn’t gain weight but each time I visited my parents in St. Croix (I was even skinnier when I returned). When I finally moved to the Virgin Islands to live with my parents during my teens and my diet changed slightly but we still had many of the Paleo foods with non-paleo ones now-and-then. I remained lean.

Years later, when I lived with John, my first employer, and his wife. The diet was different including breads and pastas which helped me gain about 17 pounds before heading out to college (believe me, I needed those 17 pounds).

In college I didn’t have any restrictions but I still ate lots of vegetables and fruits or tried anything close enough to what I grew up on—we are normally habitual. After I graduated, I kept not having restrictions but with age, of course your body changes. I started filling out abit (healthily of course). However, that gave me grounds to pay attention. I started running a great deal and working out but I noted that I wouldn’t look the same.

When I tried Paleo for a month in 2012, I lost 14 lbs that I didn’t know that I had and started looking leaner. I went off it for a few months and revisited it again and realized that I had even more energy. The breads that were restricted on the diet did make me lethargic when I returned to them so I decided to restrict them.

These days I keep to mostly Paleo and allow myself cheats. I thought it was fair to my body because I’m not allergic to anything and if I’m craving a cookie, or a milkshake, I’m going to have one. It’s funny that I look at photos from earlier in the year when I wasn’t on Paleo and watched photos from my races where I started looking “plumper” and “squishy.” However, as soon as I went back for a couple weeks people were already worried that I looked too lean and one friend begged me not to lose weight. I laughed at this because I’m not starving myself and it’s great how my body reacts so fast to a diet that it loves (which also allows me to have some wine now and then).

The point is to find something that works for you and that’s what I did. I didn’t use Paleo for weightloss but I wanted to see if I could be an optimal athlete. So hopefully this entry will be resourceful to you if you’d like to try:

Book Resources:
The Paleo Diet for Athletes: The Ancient Nutritional Formula for Peak Athletic Performance — absolutely loved this one and it shows how to use non paleo foods for peak performance as well.
The Paleo Cookbook: 300 Delicious Paleo Diet Recipes delicious recipes!
The Paleo Diet Revised: Lose Weight and Get Healthy by Eating the Foods You Were Designed to Eat

Online Resources:
Mark’s Daily Apple
Nom Nom Paleo

There are lots of literature online about Paleo and some people are more strict than others but again, the point is to find a balance that works for you. There are a few rules that many people follow and some find too much.

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