Darn You Paleo!

Five weeks ago, I started a challenge at Crossfit called "The Game". This was a points based game where you would earn points for eating 100% paleo everyday, exercising at least 10 minutes a day, drinking half of your body weight in ounces everyday, doing at least 10 minutes of mobility a day, sleeping at least seven hours a night, taking fish oil supplements daily, and finally communicating with your team and one opponent per day. So, if you have been reading my ramblings for a long time, you might remember that I love these types of competitions. The only difference is that this time, I made a very concerted effort to not go to crazy town, I don't mean to toot my own horn but for those of you have seen me do these competitions know that this is HUGE. I did NOT become the Mayor of Crazy Town!!! As much as I love getting insanely competitive, the side of me that comes out is not a pretty one and not one that I want my family to deal with again.

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Now about "The Game", it started with a baseline WOD was a 15 minute AMRAP (as many rounds as possible) which consisted of a 200m run, 10 burpees, 20 ab mat sit ups and 30 squats.  The day of the baseline I got 2 rounds, and 27 reps (the run does not count towards the rep count). It wasn't great but it was a starting point, and we all have to start somewhere. I love AMRAP workouts because I am guaranteed to not be the last person finished, a huge feat in my world.

We then had to eat 100% paleo for 5 weeks, accruing fines and losing points for any infractions. What this means no grains, sugar, dairy, legumes and no happiness. The first few days of the challenge were tough, I am sure that the headaches and discomfort I felt were unreal; detoxing from sugar and junk was a LOT harder than I thought it would be. Needless to say, for the first week or so, I was a ray of freaking sunshine, and a total joy to be around. I also may or may not have cried when I drank my first cup of black coffee, I'm telling you the detoxing was ROUGH. I obviously survived, so it wasn't all gloom and doom, and as soon as I started feeling better, the plan was a lot easier to get through. I'll be honest, it was tough at first because it required more planning than I cared for but after a while, it became part of daily life. Things like going out to lunch with friends have required a little more planning but it has all been fairly workable. The biggest obstacle was planning for the trip to Disney for the Princess Half Marathon weekend, but even that was workable. I only went off plan a few times, and even then it wasn't all awful. Plus, darn it if I didn't feel great after the initial crappy sugar detox. I think that feeling as well as I did was a surprise because I was sort of hoping that I wouldn't feel as well as I have been and that I could just write off the paleo lifestyle. Damn it paleo, you proved me wrong!

So, the challenge is now over and my team didn't win, but it's not the end of the world, although I sulked like a baby on Friday night. I didn't go to Crazy Town during the challenge but I still suck at losing and to be honest I was disappointed in myself a little for not having done better overall. I will say that when we did "The Game" WOD, I did manage to get a complete 3 rounds and finished on the run portion, and that is less than a week after the 19.3 mile Glass Slipper Challenge. After the WOD, I had promised to take Bella to eat pizza, because she's had to eat paleo-ish through out this challenge. I'll be honest, because my team lost and I was being a whiney baby, I ate way more pizza than necessary on Friday night, and it made me feel like crap. That crappy feeling did not stop me from eating crap on Saturday too, and now, I am feeling like garbage. It's like a hangover without the alcohol consumption, this is NO FUN at all. I guess there is something to this paleo lifestyle, and I'll be sticking with it because I like the way I feel on it. The only thing I need to work on now, is keeping my portions under control, because sadly, you cannot eat all the things all of the time. DARN YOU PALEO!!!