Friday, April 1, 2011

Day 1: Getting in touch with my inner carnivore

I have never been athletic.

I was always the kid that would be picked last in gym class.  In a zombie movie, I would be the fat girl who would have her intestines pulled through her mouth because she can't outrun decaying corpses (and I'm not talking the fast-zombie-on-crack-28-Days-Later kind, either.)

At the beginning of the year, I swore that I would lose 50 pounds in 2011.  At the time, I weighed 182 pounds.  Coincidentally, my good friend (and notorious bitch-ass) Gina -- who weighed almost exactly the same as me --  promised herself the exact same thing.  We both got our derrières moving and tried to improve our eating habits, and we both have struggled with injuries and frustrations but also had awesome "hell yes you so sexy!" chats on Facebook.

THAT BEING SAID:

My weight as of my last weigh-in: 172

Her weight as of her last weigh-in: 154















Don't get me wrong.  Gina kicks an unbelievable amount of ass, and while I am jealous, I'm also very proud of her.  (And you should totally follow her adventures on http://50lbordietrying.wordpress.com/).

I always had an aversion to exercise, and even as I've taken steps to rectify that in the past month, I haven't been seeing anywhere near the weight loss that I want because I (foolishly, perhaps) subscribed to the "eat less of food that's bad for me and I'm bound to lose weight, right?"  I mean, 1500 calories per day is 1500 calories per day, and who cares if those calories consist entirely of pizza and copious amounts of cheap wine?  Well, my gut did, apparently, because it has decided to hang around.  I even tried Weight Watchers after getting frustrated with my progress, but that only provided structure and justification for my crappy eating habits.

Gina chose to follow the Paleo diet.  For those of you who may not be familiar, the Paleo diet is based around the tenants that human digestive systems have not had enough time since the Agricultural Revolution to adapt to eating grains, legumes, etc.--and certainly not the processed shit found filling every friendly supermarket near you.  Those who follow the Paleo diet basically eat meat, fish, vegetables, fruits, nuts, and other low-carbohydrate, non-processed foods.

I thought she was a braver woman than I could ever be.  I have a deep, romantic, almost sexual relationship with carbohydrates.  My saucy gentleman friend -- I call him Papa John -- is an almost weekly liaison.  My on-and-off ladylove, Miss Sushi, still delights and surprises me with the things she is able to hide inside her white, delectable curves.  And then there's my tried-and-true standby, Mr. Pasta -- he's a constant "dinner" companion, if you know what I mean.  There are others, of course; my appetite has always been fickle and insatiable.  Some gave me more pleasure than others, and some just gave me heartburn, but damn it!  I loved each and every one of them when they were inside of me!

... Okay, moving on.

This post is beginning to run way longer than I intended, so tl;dr: I am going abstinent.  Yes, after wonderful years of hedonism, experimenting with so many different carbohydrates, I am following the example of Ms. Gina and going Paleo for thirty days.  No, this is not an April Fool's joke.  I have plenty of time to explain my motives, the benefits, and document my ridiculous withdrawals until this blog looks like something posted by Courtney Love.  A month is not so long, and I figure one of two things will happen at the end of it:

1) I will lose an offensive amount of weight, feel better about myself, and start really kicking ass in my triathlon training (which I will document in a later post, but don't feel like talking about right now because I just got my wisdom teeth out last Monday and I hurt too much to go to the gym still and WHARBLGARBL)

2) I will "meh" and return to my previous slutty omnomnoming ways.

(I am not leaving room for the possibility I will flake out in the middle of the month when I am craving food that is horribly bad for me.  If I do, I expect you all to lambaste me on my Facebook until I commit seppuku from shame.)



Thirty days.  Am I manly enough to handle the challenge?

I think we'll let my forest of chest hair decide.

 
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