Good first week of clean Paleo

Today's Weigh-In: 207.4
Average: 207.4

Last post I mentioned starting a strict 30-day Paleo routine that I would be starting September 1st. I have indeed started, and am now just over a week in. Even after just a week I am feeling tremendous! The first few days without caffeine were rough, and I slept a lot over the weekend. What this tells me is that I was sleep-deprived, and was using caffeine and energy drinks to prop myself up, when what I really needed was good, restful sleep. After the first few days I started to feel much more energized, my brain cleared, and avoiding caffeine has become routine. To ease into this whole thing I didn't restrict myself (quantity-wise) at all the first week, just eating to fullness, and eating more fruit and nuts than I normally would. This has had a good effect on my digestion, as before I was not regular, nor did I have healthy BMs (sorry, TMI, I know), but now everything is moving through excellently. And from the information I've been consuming it looks like a healthy gut is key to a healthy life. I'd been damaging mine with alcohol, wheat, and sucralose (Splenda) and now it's beginning to heal.

But, the biggest benefit I've experienced is, by far, my increased performance in the gym. Yesterday, which was my third day working out in a row, I beat everyone in the gym on the workout, even those guys who usually destroy my times. I felt super fresh the whole time, and my recovery between the end of the WOD and the cool-down was noticeably faster than usual. Usually after a hard metcon it will take me a good 10-15 minutes to scrape myself off the floor and get moving again, but yesterday it only took about 3 or 4 minutes. Then, right after, we did 3x400m sprints, and they felt better than I can ever remember, and again my recovery between attempts was very quick.

My shoulder is healing up pretty nicely. The anti-inflammatory effect of the Paleo diet is definitely helping in this regard. I am able to do pressing movements (shoulder press, push-ups) as well as power cleans again already.  The only thing that still hurts are dips, pull-ups (if I kip too much), and I haven't even attempted muscle-ups because I know the risk of re-injuring myself is high if I try them when I'm not ready. So I'm just taking it slow, doing my mobility and rehab/prehab work, and substituting troublesome movements with ones I can do pain-free.

As you can see I haven't lost any scale weight lately, but a look in the mirror shows me at the leanest I've ever been, more so even than when I weighed 196 a few years ago. I'm beginning to see veins in my arms (which I've never had), and I've been complimented on more than one occasion about my chest and shoulders looking strong. My waist size has also dropped, to the point where some of my boardshorts I wear for working out are almost falling off, even when tied as tightly as possible. The only downside to this increased muscle is that my thighs rub together again, which makes running a pain.  I'm hoping that as I drop some more fat that will become less of an issue, but I don't know to be honest.

I know I promised more posts this month, but I've taken on the responsibility of doing daily blog posts for the gym so that may not work out as I had thought.  We'll see.