Monday, July 23, 2012

Paleo for Triathletes

The Fonginator is back! Unfortunately I don't have any exciting training or racing news but I thought I would share with you a little experiment I will be conducting over the next few weeks.

There's been a lot of talk about the "Paleo" diet and I wanted to see for myself whether this type of eating would be suited to my training. My main goal is not weight loss but more to test energy levels, mood, recovery and seeing if the food is the right fuel for my current lifestyle. If I happen to shed a couple of kg's, that's just an added bonus.

So what is Paleo? Technically it's not a diet as such but more, a way of eating. From what I have been researching, I believe it can be sustained long term (subject to individual modification), unlike other crazy fads like Atkins. It's based on a modern version of a diet of plant and animal based food consumed during the Paelolithic era. Think hunter gatherer.

Being the Captain of Carbohydrates, I knew this was going to be tough. On a Paleo diet, you cannot consume any of the following:
Rice, pasta, noodles, couscous, quinoa (some allow it but I am not eating it) or any other refined carbohydrate, peas, potato (sweet potato is allowed in moderation), refined sugar (lollies, cakes, chocolate), dairy (which I can't eat a lot of anyway), soy and legumes. The list goes on. I am used to eating bread, rice pasta and/or noodles everyday so in order to be realistic, I set myself a goal of doing Paleo 6 days out of 7, for 4 weeks. This is what a typical day looks like:

Breakfast: 1-2 eggs, 1 cup wilted spinach, handful of cooked mushrooms. Water with lemon to drink.
Morning Tea: Home made juice in a blender consisting of 1 cup of frozen mixed berries, banana & water. Handful of nuts if still hungry.
Lunch: Tuna Salad or Salad with roasted veggies. Apple cider vinegar as dressing.
Afternoon Tea: Green Tea. If still hungry, a piece of fruit or handful of nuts.
Dinner: Beef and vegetable stew or chicken and veggie stir fry or fish and veggies or prawn stir fry.
Dessert: If I feel like I need something sweet, I will have some fruit but this is rare.
Water: Trying to drink 2L a day



Sample of my lunch last week

I survived week one relatively unscathed, mainly due to the fact that I had a major running stack at Track training with the BTC crew and had to take 10 days off exercise. I strained the AC joint in my shoulder and had some very swollen knee caps. This made Paleo slightly easier (I always find I get so hungry when I start training). But with my birthday coming up this weekend, I imagine its going to be very tough! New motto for the week: Stay Strong FONG!



The aftermath of my stack (the left picture is the skin I took off my shoulder)



I've been eating a lot more veggies than I normally would and I've had to experiment with different foods to compensate for the starchy carbohydrates I usually consumer. So on Sunday, I made a sweet potato and beef casserole from the following website: http://paleopot.com/2012/02/hungry-man-sweet-potato-casserole/. It was yum and I have heaps leftover for lunches/dinners!



(I wish mine actually looked like this, however, I stole this from the website)!


What's next? 3 more weeks of The Paleo Experiment and if it works for me, then I will continue. If not, I will learn a few things from it. I can't knock it until I try it. As far as events go, I am training for the  City to Surf, The Blackmore's Bridge Run and in, about 14 weeks, The Noosa Triathlon; they are my biggest targets for the year (plus some other smaller races for sh!ts and giggles).

Stay tuned and thanks for reading! I hope I have enough willpower this week to stick with it!