So, I think I've mentioned already that I'm doing a nutrition challenge at my box. The challenge ends Tuesday, when we'll have pictures taken of our abdomens and judged based on visual improvements. Setting aside my feelings about this particular method of fitness evaluation *cough*, I've really enjoyed participating and noticing changes in myself over the course of 8 weeks.
The challenge began as strict Paleo/Zone for one week - no increases in fat blocks allowed. I was prescribed 10 blocks a day, and had to fill 40% of my calories with carbs without eating grains, sugar, or starch. This was, frankly, terrible. I suspect we only had to do this to make the rest of the challenge seem easy. I was starving, for one thing, in sugar withdrawal, and eating what seemed like tons of vegetables - my jaw was tired of chewing, but I was still hungry. I also dropped about 5 pounds in the first week, which was alarming as I wasn't shooting for weight loss. (In retrospect, I should have just skipped ahead to increasing my fat blocks, but I didn't think one week would be that big of a deal and I like playing by the rules!) I increased my blocks to 12 midway through the week but still felt hungry.
The second week, we added 2-3x fat in place of one block of carbs. This immediately made life much easier - less chewing, more sustenance. I was still measuring and recording everything I ate. My husband began to fall behind on washing the dishes as I was creating so many with my endless measuring cups and tupperware containers. I started feeling better and came out from the other side of the sugar withdrawal. (For me, this was a fuzzy-headed feeling that I knew from experience would go away if I had, say, a package of Starburst.)
The third week, we were supposed to aim for eating 50% of our daily carbs post-workout. I never got very good at doing this, because I work out in the evening and had a lot of trouble making it that far without hardly any carbs. My nod to this rule is eating a Larabar or a piece of fruit after most WODs. Halloween fell on this week, and there was a party coming up that I was really looking forward to. Originally, I was determined to see this thing through completely clean. But as the party approached, I realized I was going to feel like I was missing out, big time, by not being able to drink. I'd already been to a few events where everyone was drinking but me, and I found it to be a drag. I have no problem hanging out with friends while sober in general, but when everyone else is partaking, I just feel left out. I decided to bring a bottle of wine and just not worry about it for one night.
Well, the wine progressed to jello-shots and some beer, and then I was no longer capable of resisting the candy out in bowls everywhere. So I had kind of an epic cheat night. I got back on the wagon the next day, and realized that I hadn't screwed everything up by my cheat. I didn't feel great, but I also felt like I wasn't tempted by anything for awhile, having gotten it out of my system. Based on this, I started implementing a cheat day - Saturdays were fair game for anything. Eating about four times a day, I have 28 meals a week. If 25 of them are completely clean (I don't cheat at breakfast), that puts me at about 90% Paleo.
I could have kept going without cheating (or at least not more than a couple of cheat nights), but I was starting to see that I liked eating this way, and allowing cheats would allow me to turn a challenge with an end-point into a sustainable, long-term thing. I can be completely, totally strict 6 days a week without feeling deprived if I know I can do whatever I want on Saturday. And, as my cheat days have progressed, I find I don't really want to go completely crazy on Saturdays. The resulting sugar hangover is sufficiently unappealing to make me not stop at the nearest gas station and eat Hostess cupcakes (I did that very thing on my first official cheat day).
So, when the challenge ends next week, I might not look as cut or whatever as I might have if I'd stayed completely clean. But I'm in a good mental place. I have more energy, mental and physical, than I did before starting the challenge, and this more than anything is what I want to keep. If regular, controlled cheating lets me keep this up indefinitely, bring it on.
