Well, after 6 years of being vegetarian, one of which was spent vegan, my family and I have decided to take a hard 180 and have converted to the Paleo AIP (Autoimmune Protocol) diet.
We made the switch about a month ago due to a years worth of strong encouragement from my daughter’s doctor and even more from my previous doctor (who I stopped seeing partly because she was such a jerk about me being veg). So in an effort to fully maximize our health, we are all in Paleo AIP. I had my doctor run a full panel of my blood levels, so I’ll be tracking any changes there. I’ve also been taking a weekly read of my weight and body fat metrics using an Omeron Body Metrics scale.
So far, after a month, I have to say I feel like I have more energy, and my CrossFit performance seems to be improved. I’ve lost 4 pounds as well as decreased body fat slightly. Which is surprising since my calories have gone way up and my fat consumption is through the roof compared to what it had been.
What is Paleo AIP? Paleo AIP is a subset of the Paleo diet designed to heal and seal a gut that has been having issues. We think my issues come from a history of too many grains and especially wheat (which we gave up just about 2 years ago). The diet itself means no grains, no nuts, no nightshades, no beans, and no seeds. I can’t explain how hard it has been to give up cashews and jalapenos.
My CrossFit Level 1 Cert was actually very helpful for me in this transition. They discuss nutrition a lot in the class, and they make a fairly strong case for a Paleo like diet. So trying to drive motivation from potentially increasing my strength and overall fitness is something I’ve been focused on during this transition. Whether or not I’m picking up gains from a placebo effect remains to be seen, however there is a lot of personal data on this for me.
I had plateaued a bit on some things, and my BeyondTheWhiteboard.com level has been holding strong in the low 30s for some time. So we’ll see if that gets moving. It jumped 2 points this last week, thanks in large part to my Murph PR :)
More to come on this for sure. Now it’s time to get back to my bacon…