The Whats and Whys

(from Jenn)

I first started thinking about eating differently after reading an article in my USA Triathlon weekly email (I believe it was this one).  It was aimed at endurance athletes, and it talked about the benefits of switching to a paleolithic diet.  I was surprised at first to read about a low-carb diet for athletes, since you usually hear about how much these athletes rely on carbohydrates to fuel their long and intense workouts.  But I was intrigued.

After doing a little more research, I ended up buying a few books about Mark Sisson's Primal Blueprint rather than Loren Cordain's paleo diet, but the main principles of both are the same: Avoid all the highly processed crap of today's Standard American Diet (SAD) and eat like our ancient ancestors ate.  Why?  Because our bodies weren't designed to eat the crap that surrounds us today, and those things are making us fat and sick.

The Primal Blueprint is supposed to be more of a lifestyle than a diet, including several principles for exercising and general healthy living, which is one reason it appealed to me more than the paleo diet. These are the ten Primal Blueprint laws:

1. Eat plants and animals.
2. Avoid poisonous things.
3. Move frequently at a slow pace.
4. Lift heavy things.
5. Sprint once in a while.
6. Get adequate sleep.
7. Play.
8. Get adequate sunlight.
9. Avoid stupid mistakes.
10. Use your brain.

Even though I first heard about this way of eating in relation to athletic performance, I have to admit that losing weight was even more of a motivation for me.  And when we started applying some of the principles, and we felt great.  We also started watching some documentaries about healthy eating, the U.S. food industry, etc., and everything confirmed the way we'd already decided we wanted to live.  Of course, we still faced many challenges, and we frequently failed.  But more on that later.  This time, we're in it.

So, why six months?  Well, I recently read about a study in which researchers were trying to break kids of their sugar cravings.  In most cases, it took 12 to 18 months.  We weren't quite ready to commit to a year or more, but we thought six months would be a pretty good start.  At that point, we can reevaluate.  Hopefully, we'll just keep on keeping on because we're feeling so good!