Day 2

Last night I forced myself to get 8 hours of sleep.  This was good in the sense that I was well rested yet bad because I totally slacked on some of the other things I should have been doing.  This culminated in me needing to put in some extra hours at the office today.  Life is all about tradeoffs.

So far I have to say that breakfasts are the easy part of the diet and dinner is the hardest.  Before the challenge started we stocked up on tons of Paleo food at Costco.  It was there that I found my new best friend: Chef Bruce Aidells Chicken & Apple Sausage.  Man this stuff tastes great for breakfast.  A little bit sweet and very filling.  It is also all natural and has neither MSG nor nitrates.  I paired this with some left over avocado and an orange and I was fueled up.  I cooked an extra link at breakfast time so that I could take it to snack on during the day.  Around 11AM I was feeling hungry so I ate the sausage and some carrot sticks. 

I was a bit rushed in the morning so I decided to go with leftovers for lunch.  Since I was nonplussed by the fajita recipe and I really enjoyed the cabbage from the previous day, I thought I'd try the leftover chicken and peppers on a bed of cabbage instead of red leaf lettuce.  While this trick did add some nice crunch to the meal, it did little to improve the taste.  Ah well...all part of the experiment.  Later in the day I snacked on a handful of almonds and a granny smith apple.  I still had a bit of a headache today, but two cups of green tea seemed to help with that.

Since I didn't get home from the office until nearly 8PM and I wanted to: spend some time with the baby, clean the kitchen, go for a 5+ mile run and eat a meal all while still getting to bed at a reasonable time something had to give. In the end we decided to ditch our plans of a complex dinner and just toss together some nice quick omelets.  I ended up having a 2 egg omelet with spinach and ham.  For dessert we had some strawberries.

Annabelle enjoying some Paleo dinner

At 8:30PM I set out for a run.  I was dearly missing the 50 degree temperatures that we have been seeing as it was clear and cold outside.  I ran 5.25 miles that consisted of a warm-up, 5x800m intervals, and a cool-down.  After the run I had half of a protein shake which brings me to where I am right now...writing this blog entry.

Metrics
I've decided to record the metrics every 3 days so that local deviations from the general trends can be more easily ignored...that and I'm too lazy to record them all every day.  Instead, let me present you with a before picture of me in my skivvies.  Hey, if the folks on The Biggest Loser are ballsy enough to do this, so can I.  So here is a picture of me on Day 1 of the challenge.  I'm not in a horrible place, but I woundn't mind whittling down those love handles a bit - especially if it makes me a faster runner. 

Do my nipples look uneven?

Exercise
No Crossfit today - I'll see the gym tomorrow evening
Ran 1mi warm-up + 5x800m intervals with 400m jogging cool-down between intervals + 1200m cool-down. (5.25mi total)

Food Journal
Breakfast: 2 links Chicken & Apple Sausage (all natural/nitrate free)
                1/4 avocado (left over from last night)
                1 orange
AM Snack: 1 link Chicken & Apple Sausage
                  Carrot Sticks
Lunch: Left over chicken fajita mixed with cabbage
PM Snack: Apple
                 Almonds
Dinner: Ham and Spinach Omelet
Post Run: 1/2 Protein Shake