Paleo and Me

Essentially the setup for paleo and me goes back to when I was in high school, when I was 16. Back then I was carrying around a good bit of fat, and around then I started making modifications to my diet in order to try to lose some of it. I also started lifting, but back then I didn't know that much about lifting, let alone lifting to lose fat. Off to college, and I was still trying to lose the fat, I was still lifting, but I also happened to enjoy the drinking scene there, and it turns out beer isn't a good weight loss aid when coupled with a cafeteria-style food supply, and I subsequently gained some more weight. All this while I was using the “calories in – calories out” theory to try to lose weight, and often times my meals would be rather carbohydrate heavy, the thought being that I could more carbohydrates, than I could of fat, and therefore feel fuller.

Anyway, sophomore year of college I kind of got serious about losing fat, and stumbled across Tim Ferris' “Slow Carb” diet, and did that for pretty much a year. I got smaller, although I'm pretty sure that was mostly muscle mass. Come junior year I joined up with a friend getting ready for a body-building competition, and changed my diet to a heavily controlled structured eating plan. In order to get ready for the “cutting” phase, I went into a “bulking” phase, and gained 20 or so pounds. At the end of the spring semester, I managed to lose around 27 pounds, so I managed a net loss of fat, and I also looked a little more muscular, which wasn't a bad thing.

That fall (the fall of 2009), I went off to Germany for a year of study abroad, and I was pretty much on my own for training and nutrition wise. I still was weighing out my food, but I was controlling how much carbs I ate, which were kept around 150, although it was primarily from dairy, with some post-work grains thrown in for good measure. Sometime during the winter of '09/'10 I noticed that when I would eat my grain serving, I would feel uncomfortably full, and I decided to cut out grains from my diet. Probably a month or so later I came across Mark's Daily Apple when I was reading StrongLifts, and started reading his blog. I was rather surprised about how everything was fitting in, it all made sense, and that I was almost eating paleo already. When I came back to the US in August of 2010, I went full paleo, since I could source grass-fed meat, and I have been eating paleo since.

I still drink beer with friends, although I keep it to one or two a night, any more and I have some digestive issues the next morning. As of now, I consider myself lacto-paleo, since I've added kefir, cheese, and heavy cream back into my diet. I've notice a little more of a mucous problem in my nose, but it's not that bad, and I've decided I can live with it. I also really like eating steak with cheese on it, and I also found grass-fed cheese recently, so I'm excited.

My diet changed over these years, but primarily my philosophy on food and mainstream culture changed too. I'll blog on this later.