Let the Games Begin

Thas a whole lotta meat.

First up, the meatathalon!

So it's FINALLY time to actually start the Paleo Diet and...what? You doubted me, didn't you? I am hurt.

Ron and I braved the P Street Whole Foods on Sunday afternoon and stocked up. I think the guy at the meat counter was a little weirded out- it's awkward to have to keep asking a stranger for little more of that sweet, spicy sausage- but I have a feeling we are going to be gooood friends by the end of this. 


One metric that is going to be important is how expensive the diet is- I spent $150 on groceries- steep even for Whole Foods. I bought (probably more than) enough to make breakfast and lunch for both of us from Monday-Friday, as well as dinner for 4 nights.

Of that total, $65 was for meat:

• $25 for chicken sausage for lunches and chorizo for breakfast (sweet, spicy sausage!)
• $20 for 1.25 pound of flank steak
• $20 for 2 lbs of grassfed sirloin tips. 

Grass-fed beef is the gold standard- besides the fact that the cows were fed their natural diet (grass) instead of corn, it indicates that the cows were pasture raised and not kept in barns, so hopefully they were happy cows before they became dinner. The sirloin is likely pretty tough, but Ron is going to throw it in the sous vide so it should be fine.

Before we did out grocery shopping, we figured out our menu for the week:

• Breakfast: Chorizo and sweet potato egg casserole
• Lunch: Chicken sausages and big mixed salad with lettuce, bell peppers, tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers and hearts of palm; lemon and olive oil dressing
• Dinner: Steak, avocado and tomato salad, sweet potatoes (Sun-Thurs)
• Snacks: Hard boiled eggs, fruit, nuts

I'll do a review of that recipe tomorrow- the website it's from is a great resource for Paleo recipes and meal plans.

Today marks the end of a week of collecting my "baseline" data as well. A full review of FitBit is definitely in order, but short answer is, if you're interested in this stuff, it's a great tool and definitely worth the investment. (My original post about the FitBit is here).

I was heartened to find that even on my relatively inactive days, I met the standard wisdom recommended activity level. As a by-product of living in the city, Ron and I both end up walking 10,000 steps a day without any extra effort. On the days we got runs in, it was even higher.

The picture below is a screen grab of my FitBit dashboard.

This shot shows only my activity for the past week- there are similar graphs for calories consumed vs. burned (you can enter your meals into a food journal on the site or through an app on your phone), hours slept, and body weight and fat. 

The good news- I walked at least 10,000 steps a day every day for the past week, and climbed LOTS of stairs- not surprising since I live in a rowhouse and usually have to go back upstairs half a dozen times every morning to get the things I've forgotten. 

The bad news- I spent a whopping 81.5% of my time sedentary- that's nauseating! 

But  I sleep about 7 hours a day and work about 9 hours a day (OMG this is turning into a Shakespearean tragedy! One horror after the next!), which means right off the bat I'm sedentary 67% of the time; I think I'm going to make a goal for myself of reducing my sedentary time to no more than 75%- that still sounds atrocious to me, but I can't see a way around sleeping or working- all suggestions welcome.