Okay, okay, I’ll be honest: I may have slipped up a little this week. Work has been crazy, so I’ve been working about six hours a day for the last week and black coffee just wasn’t cutting it for my third day in a row of getting up at 8 in the morning. So I got an energy drink, and ohhemgee I’ve never been that hyper before. My hands were shaking, I couldn’t stop talking, I was hyperproductive–then I crashed. My body was not used to that much sugar at one time. I essentially ended up with a sugar hangover: an upset stomach, very grumpy, and sloth-like lethargy. That didn’t stop me from getting one the next day though…and although I still crashed, the hyper part made work so much easier. I could tell it wasn’t the natural, good kind of energy I’ve been used to though, so after work craziness dies down I’m cutting them out.
Apart from that, however, this diet is getting easier. I’ve figured out how to plan my meals ahead of schedule so I’m not tempted to indulge inbetween classes, and it’s become a new hobby to look up recipes and see what “normal” foods I can “Paleofy.” There’s recipes for Paleo soup, Paleo pie, even Paleo pizza! I made Paleo crepes with almond flour and coconut milk yesterday, and they were good. Looking online, some blogs say that making things out of Paleo ingredients is cheating–but I disagree. I’m still eating clean, with no nasty preservatives, and they can keep their extremist no-fun no-taste-buds pizza-free version to themselves, thank you very much.
The energy drinks may have had something to do with this, but working out has become a little more challenging than it used to be. Our bodies are used to burning carbs for fuel, and since the Paleo diet essentially doesn’t have any, our bodies go through a stage where they switch over from burning carbs to burning fat for energy. Energy levels can suffer during that time as your body adjusts, so I’ve been trying to keep the end goal in sight–according to Paleo blogs, once my strength during workouts comes back, it’ll come back with a vengeance.
Finally, let me share my new favorite food with you guys: spaghetti squash! It’s so easy to make, it looks and tastes like spaghetti (with a little bit of a squashy undertone), and it’s at least a quarter of the calories of normal spaghetti. All you do is bake it for 40-60 minutes at 375 degrees, cut it in half, scoop out the seeds, then dig in. The squash comes apart in spaghetti-shaped pieces (hence the name), and if you put some spaghetti sauce on it you can’t even tell the difference. Enjoy!