Staging For Paleo Start

Yes, there is a lot going on but I’m really looking forward to getting back on track with the experiment.  The first thing to do is get my baselines.  I had originally planned for this to happen on the quarters of each year.  Obviously that’s now shifted a month.  It’s certainly not the end of the world, but maybe I’ll change the durations so I can get back on phase later.  As for right now, the big things I need to have are my baseline monthly body measurements, my baseline physical fitness metrics and maybe some starting pictures.

The Memorial Day weekend is going to be a pretty busy one, although not all fun in the sun.  A lot of work is really what’s on my plate, and what will be on my physical plate will probably not be the best foods in the world.  I’ll still get the opportunity to do some outdoor running, even on the beach.  That’s the highlight of my weekend.  Monday is the day I’m going to start my fitness tests.  As I talked about in this article, I’m going to be doing the standard U.S. Air Force fitness test, a maximum pull up test and a 10 minute run calibration that I do on my own.  I found out my gym is now doing VO2Max testing as well, so if I find my testing mask I will probably end up testing that as well.  Because the USAF test has a built in run to it, I have to split my run tests up into multiple days.  I’ll probably just do it the next day before I do weights.  Technically I should do weights before the run, but I want to get a more accurate test.

The purpose of the test is to see if I am maintaining or increasing fitness through a testing phase.  A lot of this has nothing to do with diet.  A lot of it has to do with actually getting my butt working out.  It therefore is a question of if I’m able to maintain or improve fitness over those months and if the diet helped or hurt in that regard.  For example, if I’m trying to work out and feeling completely wiped out each time and my tests get worse, that could be an indication that there is an element to the diet that is not working for me.  However if I’m powering through workouts and making tremendous gains with shorter recovery times that could be a sign that there is a part of the diet that is really working for me.

If this was a rigorous experiment I would be holding my physical fitness routine relatively constant over the entire testing time, and I would have come into this with a baseline fitness level that matches the level of exercise I would be doing throughout.  That way I wouldn’t have to try to figure out which benefits or problems are the result of diet versus lifestyle.  However this isn’t a rigorous laboratory experiment.  This is about real world personal testing.  The whole point is how does a person, me in this case, figure out which diet and lifestyle choices work best for themselves.

Beyond the tests, I need to get my blood work done as well.  I already have the prescription from the doctor for the blood tests so I just need to get my butt there early in the week at a time that is convenient.  Body measurements and photos are an at home thing, so I can do that at a time of my convenience, but it will probably be early in the week as well.  My body has been through a bunch of stress the last couple of months, between the life events, seasonal allergies and starting up training again.  It has shown in my weight substantially, despite keeping my eating in check somewhat, but I wonder how it will show up elsewhere.