Perfect Sabotage

Some very wise words from the Paleo Champ…

Greetings from Hong Kong!  Here’s a little something about my Paleo Diet Challenge experience.

Thanks,

Jovanni

I was pleasantly surprised when Machiko told me that I had won the Paleo Diet Challenge. I knew that I had lost a few pounds but I didn’t realize that I had done quite so well. I’d like to say that my success was a result of eight weeks of perfect, one hundred percent Paleo-approved nutrition but I’d be lying. Looking back at my food journal, I encountered bumps and missteps along the way. If anything, my winning this challenge is proof that you can do a lot of things wrong and still get good results. Which brings me to the central message of this article: Forget about being perfect.

Perfectionism is the enemy of healthy eating. I’ve suffered the tyranny of perfectionism in two different ways. First, there’s Paralysis by Perfection. Sometimes this takes the form of “I already blew today’s diet with this spoonful of ice cream so I might as well have this giant brownie as well”, or “I forgot to write down what I ate for two consecutive days so I’ll just stop logging altogether”, or “I didn’t get down to the farmers market for organic lean venison and if I buy meat at Loblaws, it won’t be hormone-free … so I’ll just order a pizza.” For many people, not having complete control over every last detail of a diet is sufficient grounds for abandoning it.

Though I’m certainly no stranger to Paralysis by Perfection, I’ve found that going in the opposite extreme is actually more problematic. If there’s one thing harder that attaining perfection, it’s maintaining it. I speak from personal experience.

Over the last ten years, my weight and body composition have fluctuated wildly. A graph of my body fat percentage would resemble a ride at Canada’s Wonderland. Strangely, I have never had a problem losing weight. My problem has been that I am too good at losing weight.

In the past when I’ve wanted to lose weight, I would learn everything there is to know about the Zone or South Beach or whatever diet and then I would follow the prescribed regimen to the letter. My adherence to the diet would be so slavishly perfect that two things would occur: (1) I would achieve tremendous results; and (2) I’d set myself up for a wicked rebound. Typically, I would set an eight- or twelve-week goal and wildly surpass it. Then, my mind and body would rebel at how oppressively strict I had been that I would eat myself back into fatness. (As good as I am at losing weight, I’m even better at putting it back on.)

So when we all started the Paleo Diet Challenge back in April, I intentionally set a few groundrules for myself: (1) It would not become an obsession; (2) I would forgive myself for straying off course; (3) SLOW AND STEADY. You wouldn’t treat a stamina WOD like it was a met con. Similarly, I wasn’t looking for an eight-week diet, I wanted a nutrition plan for the rest of my life.

So far I’ve found the Paleo to be an effective and sustainable way of eating. Besides the weight loss — I’ve dropped nearly thirty pounds and six inches off my waist since March — I have more energy, better focus, and my WOD performance has steadily improved. The food I’m eating is fresher and tastier. And as long as I remember to drink lots of water, I rarely feel hungry. (It’s amazing how often a hunger pang is actually the body saying it’s dehydrated.)

So although winning the Paleo Challenge was nice, the true victory was finding a way of eating that I could maintain over the long haul. As I write this, I am now in Hong Kong where it’s been challenging to not go crazy on rice, noodles, and soy. But the Paleo Challenge has shown me that as long as I have more good days than bad, I’ll continue on the long, winding path towards fitness.

Workout

For time:

• Recruit a few unsuspecting family members, friends, neighbours, strangers in coffee shop line-up
• Pick mode of transportation – car, bike, feet, camel
• Get Down to Moss Park Amoury
• Get your Karma on for Camp Bucko

Summer Solstice…why aren’t you here?

*Crossfit Toronto is closed today, so you might as well join us at Moss Park!