My Honest Paleo Experience + Well Fed Weeknights Giveaway!

You want to know my 100% HONEST take on this whole Paleo thing?

Maybe you could care less about me and are wondering where this giveaway thingy is. If that’s you, feel free to scroll down to the bottom–I won’t be offended 🙂

Background

I always heard about the Paleo diet–aka the caveman diet, aka something my CrossFit friends did.

Then my husband joined a 6 week CrossFit challenge this past August–and we went Paleo.

I was at a time in my life when I just wasn’t feeling all that great. The previous summer I embarked on my second post-pregnancy comeback that culminated in a 3:42 marathon—my body felt efficient. I was running 3 days a week and eating ‘healthy’, and following a loose 80/20 rule.

This summer, with no concrete goal, I was a little lost.

I had never been one to follow anything with actual rules–training plans, diets, etc, but I clearly needed some structure to get back on track. So it was clear that the CrossFit challenge was a perfect fit and the perfect time for husband AND me.

The month of August commenced our journey of getting our $#&t together, physically speaking…and I developed some pretty strong opinions about this whole Paleo thing along the way.  I did my research, finally took the time to learn what the heck Whole30 was, and we stuck to it strict for a month. 

People often ask me about what the benefits are, but I feel like I lose people very quickly–usually at the part about no grains. 

Experience

I decided to break it down here into different categories to really outline how going Paleo has affected my life–because that’s all people really want to know. All of these areas are intertwined, so there is overlapping, but these are the main areas of my life where I felt the most noticeable difference.

Energy

Eating Paleo took that blanket of blah and lifted off. Even waking at 5am, I am typically able to pop up our of bed and start my day.

Weight

Within about 2 weeks, I lost about 5 pounds–that last 5 pounds. And this is coming from someone who did not set out to lose weight. It just shows how much unnecessary bloat my body was carrying around. No other combo of diet and exercise ever really got me down to this weight range consistently (and almost effortlessly), like following a Paleo lifestyle has. And to be clear, it’s not about the number–its about how I feel in my skin.

Skin

Speaking of skin, I don’t usually talk beauty and makeup and all that stuff around here, but I’ve considered myself to have ‘problem’ skin my whole life. Not horrible, but enough to disrupt my confidence and be on my mind way too much. After that 2 week range where I lost the 5 pounds, I happened to catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and noticed my skin was not just clear, but smooth–dare I say glowing? I don’t really consider it a problem anymore, and for some reason never even thought about the connection between gluten and skin problems.

Mood

This one is simple–when you fuel yourself with good quality, delicious food, you will feel better. When you feel better, you are better. When you are better, you are happy!

Now, I did not do this by myself. The two books that were my ‘bibles’ were,  It Starts With Food, by Dallas and Melissa Hartwig, and Well Fed, by Melissa Joulwan. I learned so much more than I ever intended to during this challenge–and it’s been eye opening. This leads me to something exciting–the release of Well Fed Weeknights. This edition is the essential ‘how to’ cookbook that gets that delicious Paleo fuel into your belly in 45 minutes.

Melissa Joulwan’s Well Fed was an integral part of my Paleo journey. Her books are so much more than recipes–let’s face it, you can get tons of recipes on the internet. But her books are a learning experience. She guides you through setting up your life to make the meals a logical outcome. That must be part of the reason why she offers such a generous sneak peak into the book by giving everyone sample recipes right here. She’s so confident you will love them–she wants you to learn–she wants to share her love of the Paleo lifestyle with everyone.

So when Melissa was so kind enough to send me an advance copy to review AND one to give away, I was thrilled. Thrilled that I would have the opportunity to share such a valued resource with my readers as well.

Let’s recap how it works:

1- Check out her sample recipes right here

2- You can pre-order your own copy right here

3- Enter my giveaway anyway, cause free stuff is awesome 🙂 To enter, just sign up for my Paleo only newsletter! You’ll get only my best tips and absolutely favorite recipes. It’s really a win-win 😉

You have until Monday night 10/17 to enter the giveaway, but of course I would love to have you join my tribe anytime! I’ll be sure to send you all the freebies I can get my hands on!

What do you know about Paleo or Whole 30?

Every give it a try?

Thanks for visiting our Wild Workout Wednesday link up!  Each week I link up with Annmarie from The Fit Foodie Mama, Jen from Pretty Little Grub, and Nicole at Fitful Focus to bring you workout ideas, motivation, inspiration and recipes to try. Join us for a wild workout each week by reading along or grab the button and link up if you have a fitness or healthy living post to share!

Linkup below if you have a workout, fitness find or healthy recipe to share! Just make sure to link back or grab the badge and we will make sure to spread the inspiration around 🙂

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