Paleo Cliff

Wayne Carlson, preached a New Year's day sermon, two years ago about picking a word for the year.  I felt like God was saying the word "discipline" to me.  I picked discipline and prayed for wisdom.  Later that month, a good friend of mine, introduced me to the Game On Diet.  This started me on a journey of balance with food, exercise, and life.  The big thing with Game On Diet for me was that the carbohydrates eaten could be fruits, vegetables, and anything with the first ingredient of whole wheat.  This cut out most crackers, cookies, candy, you know, the good stuff.  The first two months, I hardly had any fruit because I wanted to have my whole wheat crackers and breads.  Fast forward, a year and half, and I am hardly having any crackers and bread, because I am craving fruit more than those things.

I thought that people that eat "crazy healthy" had to have a lot of discipline to eat that way.  I don't have that much discipline.  I actually felt better on the Game on Diet, no more carb comas.  Little Ceasar's crazy bread and cheese pizza stops me in my tracks and I have to have a little post dinner nap and struggle through the evening with ridiculously low energy.  I realized people actually feel better, when they eat healthy and that is why they continue to eat that way.  I found I feel a lot better, when I cut out the grains and dairy too. 

My coach for the Fleet feet 5k and 10k, introduced me to a Paleo diet.  Rob and I found that we had a lot of time to kill, driving to and from Palm Springs last week.  I read Robb Wolf's book, The Paleo Solution out loud to Rob.  If it is true, it is very scary on what I am doing to my body and my kid's bodies by eating an excessive amount of refined carbs.

Rob and I talked about it and decided we are going to jump off our "normal" eating  ways into this Paleo diet using Robb Wolf's thirty day diet plan.  Robb Wolf, in the book, says, (paraphrasing) worst case: you go without the foods you like for thirty day, and best case: you feel better, look better, and are healthier.

I have been praying for wisdom about this and I have been looking at Paleo critiques on various websites.  I want to make sure, that this is safe, before I drag my children into this crazy ride of ours.  I can't find anything that really holds up in regards to health.  I am a little worried about Vit D with the lack of dairy.

Rob and I both got our blood work done recently.  His blood work is consistently not so good (low good cholesterol and high bad cholesterol).  According to the book, this diet helps with this.  I am curious to see what Rob's blood work results after this 30 day diet.

Paleo is pretty much (from what I understand), meats, nuts, fruits and veggies.  No dairy, no bread, etc.  We are going to take the thirty day challenge and go from there.  Our goal is for our family to be healthy, not to follow a certain diet for the rest of our days.  The only person in our family that will not be following it completely will be Matthew.   He gets breakfast, lunch, and snacks at daycare.  I could regulate that and bring his own (which thankfully, they are completely open to that if at a later time we wanted to do that) food.  I am not going to stress about that or what they eat with their grandparents.

With regards to exercise, I will be training for my first half marathon training.  The word I picked this year, is technically a phrase, but the sentiment is the same.  "Wholehearted devotion to God".  This comes from 1 Kings 8:23b.  You keep your covenant and show unfailing love to all who walk before you in wholehearted devotion.  That is what I want to have when I look back at this year.  The ability to be able to exercise and run is an amazing gift from God.  (One, I sometimes have to remind myself of when I am running on a treadmill).  I feel like that last six months, when training for my first 5k and first 10k, these blessings have turned into idols in my life.  I want my obsession to be Christ, not healthy eating or training for a half marathon.  I want my god to be the one, true God.


I feel like God has answered my prayers ten-fold for discipline in my life.  Now, I am praying for the consistent desire to be wholeheartedly devoted to Christ.  I am praying for wisdom to know what that looks like in my life, in regards to time spent with God, time spent with family and friends, time spent on exercise and time learning how to make Paleo work for our family, etc.

1 Kings 19: 11 - 13
¹¹ The Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.”
Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. ¹² After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper.¹³ When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.Then a voice said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”