Paleo

Tomorrow will be a week since I started Paleo, the caveman diet.  I can honestly say that I have used more will power this past week than I think in my entire life. As I think back on hard things in my life things come to mind like passing a certain class in college, my mission, labor.  But what I have done this past week is a different kind of hard.  Not because it's the HARDEST thing I've ever done in my life but because it requires a different focus and commitment every minute for a foodie like myself.

The idea behind Paleo is that you can eat anything the cavemen ate, and nothing more. According to the diet, this means all fruits and most veggies minus heavy starches like corn and potatoes.  Nuts yes but peanuts no because they're considered a legume... so no legumes.  Also, no dairy, sugar or grains.  So yeah.. fruits, vegetables, nuts and meat.  That's it.  And people.  We did this cold turkey.  Over the weekend we kind of bantered the idea back and forth.  We both were feeling like we wanted to lose weight in a very effective yet healthy way and Jered has a friend who had a lot of success with this.  Monday morning I woke up and decided today is the day I start Paleo.. and Jered was in.

So, I went from eating tons of carbs, yogurt, chocolate and any other yummy food you can think of in semi moderation to eating none of it.  But the point of this post isn't to complain about how awful this week has been... because it has been pretty awful.  It is to comment on how good this has been for me.

As I think about my life, there is no area in which I exercise complete control, no place have perfect discipline.  The house is clean most but not all the time, I exercise most but not all the time, I'm patient and kind and all that most but not all the time.  But this is something that I can do perfectly.  I can completely control the natural [wo]man inside me who is screaming for chocolate or some delicious bread or just a can of beans for heaven's sake.

Every morning I wake up feeling energized and ready for the day.  Every night by dinner time I am begging Jered to cheat just a little bit.  Just one handful of m&ms.. anything!  What I didn't know when I started this, however, was what amazing will power Jered has.  Seriously the guy won't budge no matter how rational I try and make cheating a little.  In short, I would have given up on day 1 without his encouragement.  But then, every night when I lay down in my bed, I'm proud of myself for getting through another day.  For not putting one m&m in my mouth even when he wasn't looking or one crumb of bread.  As much as we are in this together it also a personal decision I am making to be strong.  And it has surprisingly taught me a lot about myself; I feel like if I can do this I can do other hard things.  Things like waking up early and exercising, training for a race and who knows what else.

In a way, it has taught me about the gospel of Jesus Christ.  We are given these bodies that in their natural state are lazy, glutenous and selfish.  I want to use this lesson I am learning through this 30 days cleanse of Paleo (who knows what will happen after that but one thing I will say is there is no way I'm never eating cheesecake or chocolate or bread again..yum.. ok moving on) to overcome one tiny portion of the natural man and then hopefully use that new found confidence to exercise the same will in other less than perfect parts of my life.

One week down three to go... wish me luck!!