Anyone done the Whole9 30 day challenge (Paleo diet)?

Doesn’t the cream go against the whole “no dairy” part?

It looks interesting, but as a vegetarian I couldn’t do it - cutting legumes out would drastically damage my protein input without meat.

Well,
My local farmer’s market starts up tomorrow - and I do eat meat, so I think I’m going to give it a try for a week. I think the hardest part for me is the planning. I don’t really see how you could eat this way on the fly.

Of course, that’s probably a good thing.

Here’s another sample menu for you:

Breakfast: 2 egg muffin cups (basically, a frittata made in a muffin tin) with chorizo and kale.
Lunch: Burger made from about 6-8 ounces of grass-fed beef, with ramps and shiitake mushrooms, and an arugula salad with lemon vinaigrette.
Dinner: Pan-seared fish of some sort, with roasted green beans and hollandaise sauce.

I don’t generally snack. Also, panache45, I’ve found that eating this way sort of automatically limits intake. There’s only so much of these foods you can eat, because they’re all very filling. If I eat rice or bread, I’ll be hungry again in an hour, but there are times that those two egg cups last me until dinnertime.

All right, grocery shopping done. I threw out all my bread and dairy and ordered some paleo-friendly snacks. There is something about the simplicity of this that I really like. It really doesn’t get much more complicated than ‘‘meat and vegetables.’’ I got ground lamb to try a homemade stew, and I am going to force myself to learn to love sweet potatoes if it kills me. I also found a recipe for kale chips I gotta try.

So far I’m loving this change just from all the extra pantry space alone. Not only that, but this diet naturally excludes many of my husband’s 13 major food allergies (wheat, yeast, soy, dairy), so it’s quite friendly to the needs of this household.

To nobody’s surprise, I am already craving carbs. Just gonna have to hold out. I got lots of carrots and berries to help me survive the withdrawal. I’m not going to count calories because these kinds of foods tend to fill me up very quickly and I don’t anticipate much gorging.

My question is, are there any pitfalls I need to watch out for in starting high-impact cardio and strength training activity? Any specific foods that are best to eat in these cases? I always get nervous when I start to consume fewer calories. The last time I combined reduced caloric intake with exercise, I got really sick. For like, two months.

Olives, read the section on fitness on marksdailyapple.com. You don’t necessarily have to do a ton of cardio–he actually derides “chronic cardio” and suggests long walks, short sprints, and heavy lifting.

So far it’s really screwing up my appetite - all these non-grains fill me up so much that I’m way undereating, I think. I wasn’t hungry for dinner last night, so I skipped it, and this morning I had some raisins and almonds before my run, had a fine run, and went home feeling faint.

Unlike many people, I don’t experience a decreased appetite whatsoever on this diet. I think it’s because I don’t have any extra weight to lose. Eating this way (especially if you’re eating very low in total carbohydrates) mobilizes body fat like nothing else, and pulling from your fat stores can meet most of your daily caloric needs when you’re losing weight - except when you exercise, because your body isn’t used to efficiently fueling workouts mostly on fat and protein yet, and also because your muscles are glycogen-depleted from eating no starch.

Anyway it’s very much something a lot of people struggle with, especially starting out. If you’re worried about undereating or are feeling poorly/losing stamina, try to have 3 small balanced meals per day, whether you’re hungry or not.

Also keep in mind it’s normal to feel off for two weeks to a month starting out, if you’re going from an average grain-heavy diet to a grain-free, very-low-carb diet.

olives, I think it would be best to allow your body to adjust to the new diet for a while before starting any new workout regime, much less something really intense. Personally, I exercise a ton (not entirely though my own choice - I am training to be a yoga instructor, and I don’t drive a car, and I have dogs, and work on my feet), and that’s mostly why I’m not “paleo” - I need to eat a lot of calories (many from dairy), and plenty of starch, to feel my best at this activity level.

Not to rain on everyone’s parade, but these kind of restriction diets are the classic example of What Not To Do. Kudos to you if you have the power to suddenly deny yourself your favorite things and attempt a radical change in lifestyle, but the most likely outcome is a minor slip followed by a serious rebound, where you crash and consume an unbelievable amount of the restricted item. Forced scarcity does strange things to our willpower.

This is a surprisingly good writeup. My favorite section:

A diet based on moderation and small, incremental changes is much more likely to succeed.

As an aside, I’m personally glad I live an extremely active lifestyle and have a physically demanding job. I need my carbs, and have no idea how y’all go without them.

I’ve tried diets based on small incremental changes for at least a decade. For me, that is not sustainable. However, I’m glad that you have found something that works for you.

The thing is, other than sugary desserts, I’m not giving up my favorite things at all–and I’d have to give up the desserts on any diet. I don’t eat burgers for the bun. Bread, pasta, and rice are boring empty calories.

Oh no, small changes didn’t work for me at all. I went from eating oven pizzas and takeout to the exact same (day in day out) 400 calorie meal plan for six weeks, and shed a shitload of weight doing it. Now I’m more or less the picture of health and eat an extremely healthy diet.

But we’re in the minority. Most attempts at sudden, radical change, driven largely by restriction, are doomed to failure. My advice is to focus on the things you can have, and how you’re going to plan to eat more of them.

This type of eating is perceived as so extreme and/or restrictive by most people they won’t even consider attempting it. And that’s fine; but it seems to work insanely well for many people who take the plunge, enough that a lot of them stay with it for years and start preaching about it.

I didn’t even get a total body transformation (unless you count 10 lbs of flattering weight gain, and the acne I had for a decade clearing up) - I just feel so much better I can’t shut up about it… and that’s not a long-term side effect of a ‘diet’ I hear from many of the people who stick to 1600 calories per day of whatever they want, or replace two meals per day with Total cereal, or go vegan or raw-foodist. Most of them seem to feel so much worse that they have irresistible urges to ‘cheat’ and eventually go off the deep end into eating mostly junk.

A diet that encourages consumption of healthy fats and allows you to eat as much as you want of filling and flavorful meat, fish, egg, and vegetable dishes while avoiding excessive intake of processed foods, starch and sugars is hardly what I would call restrictive, but YMMV. Some people seem to get panicky if they can’t eat exactly the junk food which strikes their fancy at any moment, I can’t relate to that.

ETA: I do agree 100% that the approach to any diet or lifestyle change should be one of self-nurturing and positivity.

This is good advice and I will take it.

Day 1 went well. I didn’t do perfectly as we had to eat a meal outside the house, but I packed carrots as well as some home-made trail mix for snacks. Breakfast was an odd experience… an egg, nitrate-free bacon and strawberries. I’m still trying to figure out what else I can eat for breakfast besides eggs and bacon. I’m not used to eating so much meat. On the other hand, no grains = no sugar crashes and I can’t describe how nice that is.

It’s hard to gauge how I feel because I was outside in the sun all day yesterday, which always makes me feel crappy (I have a sun allergy.) I wasn’t terribly hungry or anything, and this morning I feel like I’ve already lost weight. I’m taking a multi-vitamin which will hopefully help me feel balanced.

I think the best part of this diet is eating all the vegetables. Vegetables do amazing things for me… I made spinach-stuffed chicken breast the other night and my husband loved it, and it gave me so much energy.

I agree that sudden changes are not typically very effective, which is why I decided to ease into this. My only rule right now is eating 80% paleo at home. I’ve made radical dietary changes before so I feel like I have a road map for success. It’s going to take a while to even figure out what I can eat. But so far, it seems to be going well.

I follow an eating plan similar to paleo. Started low carb in 2002 and its been a long evolution since then but the net result is that I eat much much better now than 9 years ago. I guess you could call it a series of incremental lifestyle changes.

Breakfast is the hardest meal for me. Sometimes eggs, sometimes I eat a serving of shredded taco meat with salsa. Sometimes I just have coffee until mid morning when I get hungry for “early lunch”.

I find I do better to focus on what I’m adding to my diet, not subtracting. I try to add veggies wherever I can. Making a quiche? throw in some broccoli and red pepper. Make a big stir fry with lots of mushrooms and spring onions, or have curry chicken with cauliflower “rice”. If I focus on “how can I incorporate more veggies in my day?” the rest falls into place.

Day 3. I absolutely cannot believe how freakin’ good I feel so far. I keep waiting for the feelings of deprivation to hit, but none yet. I found a way to make my berry green monster smoothies with almond milk and coconut oil to give it that extra ‘‘oomph’’ - a perfect filling breakfast. Last night I made lamb soup with a tomato broth, kale and some other veggies thrown in. I don’t feel overfull, I don’t feel hungry, just satisfied.

This is just by cutting out grains and dairy. I have had peas and green beans and I don’t really have an intention to stop eating those. I had a bit o’ sugar when I was offered some cookies at work, but I didn’t feel the characteristic spike or craving usually associated with sweet snacks.

I can tell I’m already losing weight - and it’s not water weight either, because I had already lost 15 pounds and maintained that loss for months. I’ve decided to keep this up for 30 days. Once my body has fully adjusted, I’ll add in some strength and cardio.

Another great thing about this diet - cheaper grocery bills. By far.

I thought I was feeling like crap because of the diet, but it turns out I’m feeling like crap because I have a sinus infection. :frowning:

Boo. :frowning: Feel better soon, Zsofia!

Or as I told my doctor last week, “Doesn’t matter that I eat skinned chicken tenders with leeks and portobellos with a green salad; nobody loses weight if they eat 3 tenders and two salads.”

Elysium, I see you’re lactose intolerant. I am very intolerant and I’ve found quite a lot of relief with these acidophilus pearls, a probiotic. I strongly suggest you try them - much cheaper on Amazon that at the grocery store too ($16 at the store gets you a month’s worth). Wheras I couldn’t previous having milk, ice cream or cheese with lactose pills (I tolerated eggs & yogurt relatively well with a lactose pill) I now can quite well. I have almond milk in my cereal because early in the morning I don’t do super well with milk. But thoughout the rest of the day I have lots of eggs and often cheese.

olives - that sounds great! I dunno the ins and outs of the diet, but have you considered stir-fry? There’s a great box of over a pound of stir fry veggies at Trader Joe’s: broccoli, carrots, onions, baby corn, water chestnuts, snap peas and other awesome stuff. Honestly it would have cost almost the same amount to put together all the veggies myself. I used a bottled sauce (low sodium). It made us 4 servings and cost $4; I cooked a few chicken tenders in with it as well.

I still eat peas and green beans too. I draw the line at edamame, though. :wink:

olives: I love to get frozen berries and blend them with coconut milk for a smoothie. Also, egg cups–take a dozen eggs beaten with 1/3 cup milk, a half-pound of whatever meat you want (bacon, chorizo, breakfast sausage, whatever) cooked and crumbled, and whatever veggies you want. Cheese if you can handle it, or skip it if you can’t. Put them in well-greased muffin tins and bake at 325 for about 28-32 minutes. This recipe makes 12 of them–I usually double it and make 24 so we can have them throughout the week. Two of them make a very filling breakfast. They freeze nicely, too.

Thanks for the recommendations, you guys! We always shop at Trader Joe so it’s good to learn of new products there.

So… Day 4, I am having trouble with severe depression. Usually a good night’s sleep does the trick, but this morning I woke up worse than I felt last night. I didn’t make it through my volunteer work today and had to leave the office. I don’t know if it’s from the diet or not - someone told me that low-carb can trigger depression in certain people. I just kinda fell off the wagon in a big way (burger, fries, chocolate shake) but I’m not giving up, just trying to get through a hard moment the best way I can. If this is diet-related I pray to Og it’s temporary because it’s been a while since I’ve felt this crappy.