Final Paleo Thoughts

So if you happen to be looking for my last post, which used to be my PIB AMFAT Essay, well... you won't find it, I deleted it.  Why?  Well, new evidence and experiences have come to light.  First of all, most of the essay, was true, but I'll admit it was slightly embellished as I wanted to win the challenge.  My new experience is that since switching back to cycling (and no Crossfit) I've found that Paleo alone doesn't cut it.  So what does this mean?  Actually, I've been bewildered since trying to figure it out.  So first let me clarify this point:

 

"Strict paleo is not adequate for endurance sports"

 

 

There just isn't enough carbs in strict paleo, I suppose it's possible I wasn't doing it right, but let's face it, the definition of what's paleo and what isn't paleo is a very blurry line.  One point I want to make about the PIB system is that as the name suggests, it's designed for Crossfit, and actually if that's all your doing for fitness, then it's a great system.  The key is the 4:1 carbohydrate to protein shake, all those carbs make up for the lack of extra carbs in the paleo diet.  So if you're contemplating whether or not to try the system, I would say go for it, you'll learn a lot about nutrition.  Especially if you're a cross-fitter, but if you're an endurance athlete, then I would advise that you proceed with caution.  Paleo is great nutritional plan, but the lack of carbs will cost you in performance, big time! 

 

I'm not really going to get into much detail on this, but here's what I've found works.

 

1.  Paleo really just amounts to EAT WHOLEFOOD (no processed foods, no fake additives)

2.  The key to losing weight on pale, you're not going to like this but its:  NO SUGAR !!!!!

3.  The PIB system keeps your performance up by prescribing the shakes after WOD's, works great for Crossfit

4.  If you're an endurance athlete, then I suggest stay GLUTEN FREE and ADD RICE back in for carbs, also add in any of the other grains, I suggest minimal corn, but you can make your own mind up on that.

 

So where should you get your info for my suggestion of #4, your go to book is " Feed Zone Cookbook" and "Feed Zone Portables"  by Dr Allen Lim and Biju Thomas.  Awesome selection of recipes and great on the bike food.

 

Essentially, these books promote, whole foods too, same concept just geared toward endurance cycling.  Besides the books, you'll also want to start using the hydration mixes by Skratch Labs, which is also Dr. Allen Lim's company, the ultimate food and nutrition combo!

 

My conclusion is you have to decide what you want to do for fitness, but your diet has to be tailored to it and capable of supporting it.  Lastly, I'll say that if your trying to just lose weight, then keep battling, I'm not sure there is any easy plan, other than staying consistent with the battle and continuing to improve your nutrition everyday.

Lastly, I'll note that I came in as one of the 3 runner's up in the AMFAT Challenge!  Scored me a hundred bucks and a free pair of custom Reebok Nanos!  Super cool.

I chose black toes to hide the scuff marks and then a red, white, blue America theme:

 

 

 

AMFAT Challenge Week 12

Continuing the story from week 10...

So I just recovered from being sick, The Open was finished and this weekend was the first local Mountain bike race, and better yet the weather was going to be nice.  The weather actually turned out to be the best day we've had so far this month!

Since I need time in on the bike, I decided I would race the Marathon category, which is a 4 to 4.5 hour race, in total I ended up riding 5 hours, with a practice/warm-up lap.  Overall my performance was good, I rode harder than I thought I would be able to for 3 hours and then for the last 1.5 my legs cramped up and I went into survival mode just to keep moving, not a great finish, but I was glad to find out what my legs could do and where I was at for the year.  I was actually really happy with how I performed.
Sadly I revereted back to sugar gel packs and drinks for this race, I do have Paleo recipes to replace these, but I just wasn't organized enough to get everything ready this week.  I will be posting in the future as I switch to all Paleo nutrition on-the-bike!

I expected to be hungry after the race, but my hunger was uncontrollable!  I'm talking ridiculously uncontrollable.  I would eat until I was full, then an hour later I would eat until I was full again and so on, I did this for several days and it was frustrating because I knew I was overeating, but why, and how come I couldn't stop? 

Despite gaining weight by the day, the good part is that this pattern is identical to what happened after the indoor tri, (although much more severe) Wow! I'm an engineer and it's a good thing being able to identify a repeatable pattern, especially when you have somewhere you can go to help identify and fix it:  I immediately went to the PIB VIP group on Facebook and posted this problem.

I got some good responses, and even more awesome I got a direct response from Justin via video blog, he had been getting a lot of endurance questions recently, and with my question, he decided it was time to post a capture-all response.

To put it simply, I wasn't eating enough carbs, seems way too simple, but there was no way I would have been able to identify this myself.  It was now about 4 days after the race and I was still suffering the constant eating, although perhaps a bit less frequently, so I decided I would go home and eat some carbs, better late than never.  Here's the response I posted to the group after doing so:

I don't think I need to say anymore!  Only real bummer is that I wish I could have identified this issue the week after the Indoor Triathlon.  Then I could have made a lot more progress in the second half of the challenge.  Now I'm only days away from the end of the challenge, my performance has flat lined and I've gained back a couple pounds.  Even with the anti-progress, I'm still way ahead of where I was at for the start of the challenge, but I really wanted to post some amazing results and win this thing!

That's the competitor in me speaking, stepping back and looking at the big picture, this discovery is monumental!  "revolutionary" as I quoted above, this unlocks my future potential and looking at the long term, I now have all the puzzle pieces figured out to apply the PIB system to Endurance Cycling which is my primary sport/hobby/passion!   Sure I would like to have won the AMFAT challenge (and who knows maybe I still will), but this knowledge is a far bigger prize! 

Just for the sake of arguement, lets say I hadn't figured this out and did win the challenge, that actually would have been really bad, a great short term battle won for sure, but I would have lost the war...  In that scenario I would never have even known I had lost the war.  That is what makes this discovery so great, it was something that I didn't even know I needed to figure out!

So for the rest of week (after eating lots more carbs), I was feeling better by the day, but was I still drained for my benchmark WOD's, so they are nothing to get excited about for performance gains. Well, actually I've made a lot of performance gains, but they are just not apparent in the benchmarks.   So stay tuned, I'll be posting my final essay for the Competition soon!

The essay I wrote is like a term paper, quite a few pages, graphs, pictures, and lots of pictures (yes, before and after photos)!

AMFAT Challenge Week 10 and Week 11

I'm clumping these two weeks together because this is the timeframe where things didn't go so well.  Just like in the movies, where the hero has to be down on his luck and have reached the bottom before he can rise up to the challenge and succeed.   Well, this was that dark time period for me...

As the Crossfit Open continued on, I never felt I performed as good as 13.1, in fact everything was off, I was tired, and in the back of mind mind I knew something was wrong...  I ended up trying to catch up on a few other things in week 10 and in doing so I stayed up later than usual, and because I was tired I skipped a few workouts, not to mention that the weather outside has not been cooperating at all... 

Week 11 is when things really got bad, after running myself down for the past week I ended up sick over the weekend...  SICK ??!!!  WTF?  I'm Indestructable!  How can this happen?  I wasn't super sick, but my nose ran constantly and my energy levels were depleted.   I din't miss any work and after 2 days I started feeling better everyday, but it was Wednesday before I got back to the Box for a WOD, not to mention I hadn't swam, biked, or ran since Saturday... 

Being sick for awhile, I had a lot of time to think about what might be going on and really I just couldn't place it what was happening?  I had pretty much decided I was overtrained and then next week the tide changed and major breakthrough's were discovered!!!   So hurry up and get to my next blog to continue the next dramatic installment of My Paleo Lifestyle.