Today’s workout concluded my first four weeks of Crossfit and paleo. While I haven’t been blogging throughout the past month, I have continued going to the gym 3x a week and mainly sticking with paleo (recipes below).
One interesting thing has happened throughout my month of Crossfit/paleo: I gained weight. The first week, I lost 4lbs. That’s pretty typical of every other time I’ve restarted paleo, and weight loss generally continues until I hit about 115lbs. This time, I started gaining weight in the 2nd week and I now weigh a pound more than I did when I started. However, my stomach is flatter, my clothes fit better, and I feel stronger than I ever have before.
After an initial freakout, I did some research and found that it’s typical to gain weight while fat is being lost and muscle’s being built (articles explaining why are here, here, and here). Long story short, working out is causing me to build muscle while eating clean foods has caused fat loss, resulting in a denser but still smaller body.
This experience has made me reconsider how I view health. In the past, I considered myself successful if I lost weight. Now, I can see that weight is less important than being strong and fit. Next week, I’ll do my “test out” of the Crossfit program to measure progress and will share the results via blog.
Now, on to the paleo part. I’d give myself a “B-” on the clean eating part of this challenge. I haven’t obsessed about it like I have in the past. For example, I’m not carrying Tupperware full of vegetables and almond butter around this time, and I have had beers with friends on the weekends. It’s been a lot easier to stick with it most of the time simply because I don’t want to negate my workouts with empty calories and terrible food.
Here are a couple of fall-inspired paleo recipes that I’ve really enjoyed:
Slow Cooker Pineapple Pork Curry
Prep to table: 6 hours
Ingredients
1 package pork tenderloins
1 cup chopped pineapple
1 can coconut milk
1-2 jalapeno peppers, sliced
Garam masala spices to taste
Place pork, jalapeno peppers, spices, and pineapple in the slow cooker. Set to high heat, and cook for ~3 hours.
Drain most of the liquid from the slow cooker, then add coconut milk. Set to low heat, and cook for another ~3 hours.
When I made this recipe, I didn’t drain the liquid before adding coconut milk and ended up with a spicy pork stew. It was still awesome.
Pumpkin Pie Smoothie
Prep to table: 10 min
1 cup pure pumpkin puree
1 cup almond milk
1 banana
Nutmeg, cinnamon, ground cloves to taste
Blend it all in a blender. Drink it. PUMPKIN EVERYTHING.
Janeesa Hollingshead 