30 Day Paleo Challenge: Conclusion

We survived 30 days of eating according to the paleo diet.

30 days of no dairy, no grains, no legumes, no sugar, no potatoes.

We both did better than we thought we would - only cheating about four times each. Always in a situation where we were out of the house with friends or family. At home we managed to stick to the rules for the full 30 days.

I think the past 30 days were harder on Dave since he had more to give up as a self-proclaimed sugar addict. However, on the flip side, this also made him more passionate about the challenge and less likely to cheat. It was usually me who caved first.

We discovered that neither of us are really *that* committed to following a strict paleo diet, however we are both committed to following the paleo concept as part of a healthy life style. We will continue with a diet that primarily consists of lean protein and vegetables and avoids carbohydrates and processed foods but we will probably (definitely) have the occasional cupcake, cookie, sushi or cheeseburger.

Despite us thinking we had no real food sensitivities, we were both surprised how one cheat meal would make us feel so ill. I believe that milk is the culprit in my case - I have known since junior high that a large glass of milk will cause my stomach to be upset but was still shocked how violently my body reacted to a small amount of milk. Dave suspects his sensitivity is wheat which is surprising for someone who subsisted for years on white bread.

Both of us were seriously surprised how real and how horrible a "sugar hangover" can be after one small cheat.

Neither of us lost any appreciable amount of weight over the 30 days. Dave's weight has been slowly dropping over the past several months due to his CrossFit workouts and continued to do so. I managed to keep my weight constant through an extremely stressful period at work which usually would result in me gaining a couple pounds... so I guess that is an accomplishment. The bigger accomplishment was to survive the period without constantly binge eating due to the stress.

I wrote the majority of this post prior to us leaving for a week long vacation but never got around to posting it... that whole work stress thing again... We still ate relatively healthy but did allow ourselves the liberty of eating anything we wanted. On several occasions we would state how it was going to be nice to be back home so we could return to eating paleo... I guess we are more committed to paleo than either of us thought. Returning home, I found we naturally gravitate towards eating paleo in our own home. It is only when we are out of the house that we digress. I thinking with time this will change as we train ourselves to find paleo-friendly restaurant options and pack paleo-friendly foods with us when visiting. 


The scariest part is that right now I don't even have the smallest desire to bake cupcakes...

♥  Amy