Paleo challenge stuff: suggestions and an offer

(Apologies to anyone who doesn't belong to our CrossFit gym. This post is only for gym members doing the food/lifestyle challenge that starts Monday).

Alycia and Justin did a great job last night with their presentation, but I wanted to repeat one thing they said, make a couple suggestions and also make you an offer.

The repeat thing: if you have questions, there are two ways to get them answered: (1) post to the Facebook challenge group, or (2) ask one of us directly. My email address is in that packet that you got last night. Or send me a friend request on FB and message me there. Either is fine.

The first suggestion: if your question is: "Is this item okay to eat during the challenge?" before you ask, check the list of ten things you can eat during a paleo challenge. You may (ok, you *will*) find the answer there. You may not like the answer, but it's there.

The second suggestion: unless your question is somehow personal to you, and unlikely to be a concern to anyone else, post it to the FB group before you ask one of us directly. Someone else probably has the same question. There are 100 of you (!) doing this. If you have a question about something, it is pretty likely someone else has the same question. On the other hand, if it really is something particular to you, then ask Justin, Alycia or me, and we can answer it for you.

The offer goes like this.... A number of you are going to see good results from this challenge. The tighter you are with compliance to the rules, the better results you will see (and, for what it's worth, that isn't a proportional relationship.... 80% compliance does not get you anywhere close to 80% good results), so: *if* you really do this thing right -- you don't cheat, you don't act like a six-year-old and shove sugar or grains in when the grownups aren't watching, etc -- and you get to the end of the challenge and think, "This is really effing cool, but I wonder how I could personalize paleo to meet individual goals that I have?" I will be glad to talk to you about that.

These challenges treat you all like photocopies of the same person. That's for a reason: this stuff works really well generically across the board. Pull out all the bad stuff from a person's food, add in only good stuff and great things happen. But you can tweak it really well once the challenge is over to personalize it to your individual unique snowflake self. That is when the *really* cool stuff starts. All the bad stuff isn't equally bad for everyone, and it's fun to figure out exactly what your own personal "rules" are in that regard.

Currently, I have been helping a gym member who is nearly 100% paleo but has some really specific goals in mind. I review her food logs, make suggestions, etc. I *think* she'll tell you that I am not a jerk about it. I am not the Paleo Police, and I have no interest in telling you what to do or how to eat, but I also have a huge interest in helping people who actually want help on tweaking an already good lifestyle into one that works even better. So talk to me when this challenge is done if you have those kinds of questions. Or fill a bathtub with donuts and Pabst Blue Ribbon and dive in. Your call.

(A disclaimer: I am not a professional on these topics, and I am not offering medical advice. My suggestions are limited to food or exercise recommendations that are based on a lot of reading on the subject of paleo/ancestral food. And I am specifically limiting this to people who are into paleo, but wondering how to personalize it, and maybe even push the envelope a little into technically non-paleo, but still (mostly) good-for-you, foods. I am not going to tell you how you can re-incorporate Captain Crunch into your life. I am also not going to help you manage a serious medical condition. There are professionals for that stuff).

Good luck.


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