The Results Are In! Paleo Week 1 Review

From cartoonstock.com

I was talking to a friend about this blog this weekend, and about FitBit and all of the tracking and measuring I'm doing. He summarized it as "data-driven decision making", which is exactly right. 

So, it's time to review the data from Week 1 of Paleo. Care to join me as I geek out?

Weight: -1.5 lbs. 

I'm certainly not going to complain about a loss like this in a week- it's good progress. However, for the first week of a new diet, it's not, like, awesome. Typically the first week is a big loss, and then it slows down. 

Bodyfat: +0.1%

This function on the scale seems a little wonky to me- it fluctuates pretty widely from day to day. 

The scale measures your body fat by sending (a completely unnoticeable) electric current through one foot and measuring the time it takes to travel through the body and out the other foot. Electricity moves through water much more easily than it does through fat, so the longer it takes to electrocute you, the fatter you are. Cheers! 

Because of this, how hydrated you are can have a huge impact on the number that shows up on a day to day basis. It is going to take a couple of weeks to see a meaningful result. 

Activity:

Avg. Calories Burned/Day: 2642 (+184)
Avg. Step/Day: 12,460 (+659) 

Time Spent Sedentary: 78.9% (-1.2%)

Miles Run: 9 (+3)

These results were a bit of a mixed bag. It was a tough week at work, so I didn't take my mid-day excursions that I normally do- which made it harder to decrease my sedentary time than I'd hoped.

However, I was a little more "exercise" active this week- got in one extra run, and the FitBit is really motivational. Ron and I have both found ourselves monitoring the tally through the day and making an effort to get to 10,000 steps. 

New thing to add to the list of things that make Pippa nervous: Ron or I marching back and forth in the hallway upstairs before we go to bed, trying to get the last couple hundred steps in.

I wrote earlier in the week about my terrible Wednesday run. I am happy to report that that seems to have been a one-off- I had a great run Sunday. Nevertheless, I'm cutting myself a little slack and allowing 3 servings a day of fruit (aka, carbs). It's just too gorgeous right now not to.

Seriously, why would you even try to resist?
From amandakayphotog at redbubble.com

Calories: 1426/day (-702)

Too much of a good thing can be sort of ridiculous.

So, this is the big find of the week. I ate waaaay fewer calories per day than I did last week. This was not deliberate.

Some days I just didn't feel that great. I figured out this week that I need to find some non-red meat ways of getting the protein in. To that end, I'm going to try a Paleo-friendly granola recipe this week for breakfast  instead of the chorizo and sweet potato casserole, which was KILLING me. And Whole Foods was having a sale on Friday on salmon, so I stocked up on that and will have some throughout the week.

Also, as I mentioned previously, protein really is extremely filling. I have always heard that, and passed it off as hype, because I don't find it very satisfying on its own. After a Paleo meal, even though I'm not hungry, I don't feel "full". I've learned, though, to wait about 20 minutes and see if the unsatisfied feeling has passed- and it usually has. 

Math Facts: 

You know. Because math is nerdy.

The calories in/calories out school of thought says that, to lose 1 pound of body weight, you have to create a deficit of 3,500 calories- whether through diet, or exercise, or a combination of both.

(Cals In - Cals Out)  = +/-Weight 

           3500

This week, my equation looks like this:
Calories In = 1426 x 7 = 9982
Calories Out = 2642 x 7 = 18494

(9982 -18494) = - 2.4 lbs

       3500

So, why didn't  I lose 2.4 pounds? A bunch of possible explanations, including;

• I'm underestimating how much I'm eating (certainly possible, although probably not doing so massively)
• FitBit is overestimating how much I'm burning (also definitely possible)
• I am retaining some water weight (also very possible- because of salt intake or, perversely, dehydration)

Livability:

I presented earlier a scale I devised for measuring how livable each of these diets is. Early findings are promising for Paleo.

Will Ron eat it?

Yes, and pretty happily. He'd be a meatitarian if he could, so this diet fits right in. Like me, he's struggling a bit with cravings, but I think overall he's finding it manageable. His best quote of the week, while we were eating (and mostly enjoying) a dinner of chicken and broccoli tossed in pesto? "You know what would go great with this? Pasta."

Is it weird?

Not too weird. Because there's no dairy allowed, some people drink or eat a lot of coconut milk or almond milk, but I'd mostly rather just skip it altogether. (Also, how is almond milk less processed than regular milk?) But overall, we're pretty much eating what we'd normally eat, just in different proportions.

Will it make me a social pariah?

This week I tested Paleo at one brunch and one lunch out, and at a friend's engagement party. Paleo is pretty restaurant friendly- at lunch, I had a kale salad and modified it only by adding salmon. At brunch, I had grilled trout, scrambled eggs, and switched the hash browns out for some asparagus. Easy peasy. 

The engagement party required a little pre-planning, so Ron and I ate at home before we went, and then were able to avoid nibbling too much at the party, although there were a number of things (veggies, fruit, cantaloupe wrapped in prosciutto) that would have been Paleo-friendly if we'd been hungry. The only thing off limits was the booze, but it was so hot out that neither of us minded just sticking to water. 

The Big Cheat

So, the Paleo Diet book that I read advises that, even for the strictest Paleo adherents, you allow yourself one "cheat" meal a week, so that you don't get all depressed and drive yourself insane with cravings. I saved my freebee up for Sunday night, and I made the MOST of it at my mom's house. Thanks Mom! 

The Menu
Crabs (about 8)

Corn on the cob

Slice of bread with butter

Tomatoes with buffala mozzarella

Cherry Garcia ice cream

Chocolate chip cookie

2 beers

Man, don't you just looooove summer?