The Beginning – How I Discovered An Awesomely Different Way To Eat

OK, so I admit it, I’m not perfect.

What  a great way to start out a bloggy website thing where I’m positioning to talk about health, wellness, and expect at least someone to listen to me…

Well forget about that for a second and just listen because you might just learn a thing or two, or at least disagree with me enough to post an inflamatory comment in the form below.

In the past I’ve always been a big believer in the “all mighty” law of thermodynamics in relation to diet, weight loss, muscle gain, etc.

Basically the law of thermodynamics says that if you eat a bunch of food and don’t burn it off, then you’ll probably gain weight, and if you limit what you eat and exercise then you’ll probably lose weight.

You’ve heard it before… Eat less, move more. And that’s supposed to work right? And truthfully, it *does* work for many people. But there’s some serious flaws to that theory, and while it is an effective strategy, it’s really hiding something sinister behind its simplicity. And I’ll get to why that is in a minute.

Believe me, if you had told me this even 6 months ago, I wouldn’t have taken you seriously. I have even written a book, and developed a piece of software that’s entire purpose is to help people get in shape eating the foods they want to eat.  But for the people who care more about their health, wellness, and want a turbo charged way to really get in the best shape of their lives, then read on.

Before I get into the specifics of my discovery, what changed my mind? And how did it happen?

Well, I know you don’t have all day to read a long winded blog post on someone esle’s diet revelations… So I’ll keep it quick.

For many years I’ve been very into fitness and nutrition. As an extension of that I’ve gone to the gym for many years, lifted weights, did the treadmill, StairMaster, elliptical, etc.

And my goodness did it get extremely boring…

So I “rebelled” and stopped going to the gym, stopped lifting weights, and started doing some other activities, like trail running for example.

I really enjoyed running through the forest, and up challenging hills with my wife Lindsey and 2 dogs Lucky and Clover.

Although it was fun, and I still enjoy it from time to time, I missed lifting weights, and some of the social aspects of the gym.

I’d heard about a fitness program called CrossFit for years, and a friend of mine had just started, so I decided to check it out. And it kicked my butt!

I felt like I was in pretty good shape, but that was one of the hardest things I’d ever done. I had a massive headache, my lungs were burning, and my entire body felt like jelly (and that was the *first* workout.)

I took that as a personal challenge, and signed up.

And it *still* kept kicking my butt.

It kicked my butt so hard that I would literally get so nervous before a workout that it liquefied my stomach, made my heart flutter, and I’d get cold sweats just thinking about the next workout.

I didn’t want to give up, but those workouts were literally *scary*!

After some looking around, and talking with people, I realized that the people who did very well at CrossFit were eating a diet called the “Paleo Diet.”

The Paleo Diet basically means, no grains, no beans, no salt, no processed foods, no processed sugar, etc…

If you’re eating the Paleo Diet, you mainly eat nuts, seeds, fruit, vegetables, and meat.

And mainly if you’re eating the Paleo Diet, you end up eating pretty boring breakfasts, lunches, and dinners. And especially coming from the “You can eat whatever you want as long as you keep your calories under control, and your protein pretty high” I did *not* want to deal with the Paleo Diet.

But I couldn’t deny that it had some serious performance enhancing effects.

I’m not one to take a diet at face value and just blindly follow it. And when I get interested in something, I can sometimes become pretty obsessed with it.

So I went on a crazy research frenzy and poured through PubMed, clinical studies, watched lectures from professors and doctors from respected universities on the subject of nutrition and tried to relate it to the Paleo Diet.

The truth was, that I wanted the benefits from the Paleo Diet, but didn’t want to follow it perfectly. Basically, I was trying to cheat the Paleo Diet…

And I’m pretty sure after hundreds of hours of reading, watching, researching, debating, and dreaming advanced nutrition I believe I found not only a way to get the benefits of the Paleo Diet, but I believe you can even get greater health benefits from the way that I now eat.

While CrossFit is undeniably tough for me still, it’s not the same “I feel like I might literally die” feeling I used to get.

Some of the performance enhancing feelings are most likely from simply spending more time at CrossFit, but I know that my diet alterations are helping, and I also believe that I’m setting myself up for optimal helth in the future.

My family has a history of dimentia, cancer, and heart disease, and my wife’s family has a history of cancer, MS, and diabetes. I’d like to avoid these if at all possible, and I’m glad that I believe I’ve found a very real way to minimize the risk of getting these incredibly scary diseases.

We’ve even switched one of our dogs who had to have a $150 dollar a month allergy medication to this new way of eating, and she’s almost completly off of her medication.

So I’m pretty psyched about it, and I think you should be too.

Prepare for your mind to be blown in the future posts.

I’m going to share with you some seriously cool things that I believe you need to know if you want to be as healthy and happy for as long as your time lasts on this planet.

See ya!