Get back to basics with paleo

By Dave Murray

Edi­tor Toledo Blade

Paleo.

For the Cross­fit among us, you know what that means. For the rest, we’re talk­ing the paleo diet — short for the pale­olithic diet, as in the cave­man diet, Stone Age diet, or hunter-gatherer diet. I don’t do well on diets because I never stick to them, so I think of it as the paleo lifestyle.

This is not some cult, but more what our moth­ers always told us as kids: eat your veg­gies, stay away from sweets, and get out of the house and do something.

The “do some­thing” for me was to join a Cross­fit gym down­town and meet Todd Ovall, who taught me to live a health­ier life. After almost two years this isn’t a fad for me, more like an addic­tion. Todd says I’m addicted to iron, as in front squats, power cleans, and dead lifts.

What I’m actu­ally get­ting bet­ter at is pull-ups, push-ups, sit-ups, and the 500-meter row, which I can bang out in 1 minute, 47 sec­onds. My high school gym teacher would be amazed. I was an asth­matic kid and couldn’t run 100 yards with­out wheez­ing. I ran 3,300 meters a week ago in 400-meter stints doing as many pull-ups as pos­si­ble in between runs.

But back to what I eat, which is what the paleo diet or any diet is about. I thought when I joined the Cross­fit gym on Sum­mit Street the hard part would be weight lift­ing. That’s hard, but chang­ing what I eat was so much harder. Todd harped on pro­tein with each meal, elim­i­nat­ing sugar and gluten from our diets, and eat­ing our veggies.

I dove into exer­cise, but didn’t take a seri­ous look at what I was eat­ing. That changed slowly, but has now stuck. I try to start the day with pro­tein, usu­ally a baked egg/bacon/cheese casse­role I make on the week­end and eat morn­ings through­out the week.

Lunch is salad and meat, usu­ally chicken; din­ner is meat or fish with veg­eta­bles, and maybe a potato or rice. We’re sup­posed to keep starch down to once a day. Healthy snacks are what keep me away from the bad stuff. I keep a jar of almonds on my desk, plus car­rots, oranges, and apples.

I know there are nat­ural sug­ars in fruit, but the sug­ars that are my down­fall are sit­ting around the office most days. I’m blessed — or cursed — with work­ing with some great bak­ers, includ­ing Blade Food Edi­tor Dan Neman. Dan and my office mates love to bring into the office brown­ies, cook­ies, pies, and all man­ner of sugar formed into tempt­ing treats.

For me it’s sim­ple. If I eat one, I eat at least three or four more. So the smart thing to do is not to eat the first one. I’m not always smart. And my guilty plea­sure when I’m stressed is three chili dogs, hold the onions, at the Coney Island across from The Blade. Plus, I couldn’t sur­vive with­out cof­fee, lots of it.

Let’s get real, if cave­men had access to coney dogs, brown­ies, and cof­fee they’d chow down. Who knows what that would have done to human evolution.

If you think Cross­fit is only for young, in-shape peo­ple you’re wrong. I just turned 57 and have never been in bet­ter shape. After I wrote about my first year at Cross­fit last year, Doug and Susan Doherty joined the gym, along with Skip Gaynor and Judy Stone — all 60 and above.

“I knew we would die if we didn’t do some­thing,” said Susan, 62. Doug, 73, who was 226 pounds when he began eat­ing paleo, lost 33 pounds in the first six months and has kept it off. His doc­tor told him his last blood test was so good he could stop tak­ing statins to lower cholesterol.

Susan, who lost 30 pounds, cred­its the paleo diet. “We cut out bread and grains and try to eat grass-fed beef,” she said. “We eat a lot of lean meat and sal­ads, and more veg­eta­bles. I don’t feel deprived in any way. You feel sated with­out feel­ing stuffed.”

Skip, 60, is prag­matic about what he’s got­ten out of his new morn­ing rou­tine. “Sta­mina and strength, and it makes it a whole lot eas­ier to do your daily activ­i­ties. Plus, within two to three weeks we were stand­ing straighter.”

The paleo lifestyle helped me go from 180 pounds when I joined the gym in March, 2010, to 165 pounds. And I’ve kept the weight off.

Diet and exer­cise go together. I’ve found if I don’t eat paleo, I don’t do as well at the gym. I don’t have as much power, endurance, or sta­mina. It’s pretty basic; if you eat bet­ter you feel bet­ter, and for me push-ups, pull-ups, and front squats are much better.

Con­tact Dave Mur­ray at: dmurray@theblade.com or 419–724-6069.

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