Endurance athlete adopting the Paleo Diet. Tell me about your anecdotal experiences?

January 3, 2011 8:17 AM

Endurance athlete adopting the Paleo Diet. Tell me about your anecdotal experiences?

I'm an endurance athlete, 30 year old female. To give you my scope of sport, in 2010 I did 4 (sub-4:00 hour) marathons, two sprint triathlons, a 1/2 century bike ride, and a myriad of other smaller races sprinkled in there. I typically do around a 40-60 mile running week.

In 2011, I am doing 6 marathons and my first Half Ironman (in September!). I know I need to really give my diet an overhaul and would like to shed some excess fat and pounds. After doing tons of reading and research, I picked up a copy of Joe Friel's Paleo Diet for Athletes. It makes a lot of sense to me, and I think after doing more thinking and further research, I'd like to adopt this lifestyle.

I've been on the diet since last week and things have been going well, although I did bonk on a run yesterday. According to Joe Friel, when he first adopted the diet he felt horrible for the first 3 weeks and was then fine. I'm fully expecting the same. I've done 60 mile weeks for several months on a low carb diet before and it was crappy, and was eventually fine. This was actually to address some stomach issues in the past, and it worked well.

So, I guess my question is about anecdotal experiences with the Paleo diet. Anyone here try it? Did it get better? How long did it take? Any tips on speeding this introductory period along? My goal is to clean up my diet, address my stomach sensitivity (which I think will help with the omission of dairy and grains), build muscle and lose several pounds, hopefully fat.

posted by floweredfish to Health & Fitness (13 answers total)

Ed Does Life is the blog of a mostly paleo marathoner and CrossFit enthusiast. You can read up and/or drop him a line!

Answering the latter half of your questions regarding your goals, I'd just ask: can you really lose weight on any diet when you're working out as much as you are? What I mean is, unless you're overeating already, I'd think you're already burning all of calories you're taking in to provide energy for your runs and workouts. As I am sure you know, the only way to *lose* weight is to create a caloric deficit by taking in fewer calories, burning more, or both. I can't see how an endurance athlete could operate with a caloric deficit unless you are currently taking in more calories than you need, but if that's the case, then to lose weight, you're looking more at an amount-of-food issue rather than a kind-of-food issue (broadly speaking--if your diet is about to shift from high in animal fat and simple carbs to high in lean proteins and veggies, then kind of food will of course matter to some extent)!

That said, in order to build muscle and lose weight/fat, you should consider incorporating strength training or intensifying it if you already do it. Especially if you're already doing tons of aerobic/cardiovascular workouts that are endurance based (rather than speed based), I don't think you'll see that much of a difference in fat lose, muscle building or body composition without incorporating strength training (unless you're taking in more calories than you need, in which case, you just need to eat less!).

Best of luck!
posted by Rudy Gerner at 10:04 AM on January 3, 2011

The thing about paleo itself is that it's not a diet in the counting-calories, lose-20-pounds-in-6-weeks sort of thing. You could totally eat yourself round as a beach ball and still be "paleo." But cutting out processed food and a couple of common sources of food sensitivity, and eating lots of vegetables and high-quality protein is not really a bad idea at all. (I have only done it for brief stints but man, it makes me feel GREAT. And then I go out to a restaurant and it all falls down.)

So how it makes you feel and whether you lose weight on it or not is going to have a lot more to do with quantities and macronutrient ratios than paleo itself. If you are following an actual diet plan, maybe you could post it and some of your stats? Because just "paleo" isn't enough information to really say anything useful.
posted by restless_nomad at 10:22 AM on January 3, 2011

I re-tooled my diet in April 2010 in a manner parallel to paleo diet. I kept a small amount of dairy--yogurt and cheese--but I am probably the most paleo person I know. The two biggest changes:

1.) almost all processed grains out. I still eat around a slice of bread every two days, but that is all the processed grain I eat. Prior to April 2010 grains were at the base of my food pyramid just like the American Dietetic Association Handbook says.

2.) the biggest serving of any item (mass and volume) I have daily is a plate of frozen veggies at lunch. I almost never ate a meal like this before April 2010. Right now one of the highlights of my day is choosing which sack in my freezer to pour from today.

I do not know if this is crucial to the chemistry of the diet, but I find it a psycho benefit to include a serving of raw fruit and a serving of raw nuts at every meal. This diet is serving me very well all around, with the sole small exception that when the subject comes up in public, people often think I am pretty odd. I try to avoid talk about my diet with friends and family.
posted by bukvich at 10:36 AM on January 3, 2011

I forgot to include my daily workouts are principally endurance focus.
posted by bukvich at 10:37 AM on January 3, 2011

Response by poster: @bukvich: Great - thanks so far! What about the actual "adjusting" to the diet? did you experience any pitfalls/weird feelings/etc? I'm just still hung up on bonking on that run yesterday. I'm going for an easy 8 miler after work today to see how I feel.

@restless_nomad -

Here's a sample of what I've eaten so far today...not sure what else you need?

Breakfast:
8oz black coffee
1 egg scrambled with about 1-2oz ground bison with onions (leftovers from last night's dinner) - no oils used.

Snack:
~300 calories raw almonds/raw pecans/raw cashews and a blood orange

Lunch:
3oz grilled chicken breast with brussel sprouts and arugula
1 sandwhich baggie of grapes
15 raw almonds

Pre-run snack: Banana

Not sure what I'm doing for dinner yet. I have more leftover chicken with brussel sprouts and salad stuff...I also have some leftover spaghetti squash that I steamed yesterday with freshly chopped garlic and ginger. I've also got some watermelon...
posted by floweredfish at 11:02 AM on January 3, 2011

How many calories are you shooting for? How much do you weigh? Do you have any idea what your body fat percentage is? (What you've posted looks like what I remember of my attempt at 1200 cal days, which might be perfectly fine if you're really tiny or might be wildly undereating. I'd guess the latter, particularly if you're running 40-60 miles a week.)
posted by restless_nomad at 11:10 AM on January 3, 2011

My experience: 20+ years as a runner, triathlete, bike racer; started eating zone in 2009 and switched to paleo (with some dairy) in 2010. In 2010 I was mostly running: trail racing and road racing up to half marathon. Two folks I know also went paleo -- a female triathlete, and a male runner (who was racing up to marathon distance). I've also watched about 20 additional people at my gym try paleo (though none of those folks are endurance athletes). Synthesizing our collective experience, here is what I would pass on to you.

1. It seems pretty universal that people feel bad for the first two to three weeks if they do a 100% paleo cutover on their diet.

2. As restless_nomad pointed out, paleo doesn't prescribe a mix of fat/carbs/protein or calories, so you can eat paleo and end up gaining or losing weight. However, everyone I've seen try paleo ends up in the same place (assuming they don't fall off the wagon): they are so focused on lean meat and veggies, their carb intake drops below 100g a day, or even under 50g, and they end up leaning out (even more than they already are). (I should note here that I subscribe to the Gary Taubes/"Good Calories, Bad Calories" worldview that composition of your calories plays a big role in fat gain/loss). So the first anecdote is, you aren't going to be getting enough carbs to sustain your endurance training and are likely to experience some unpleasant bonking on long training runs or long rides. This is something that all three of us experienced multiple times in 2010. There are two fixes here. One, doing a little carb loading ahead of your long workouts (something like sweet potatoes are good for this). Two, keep a food log and try to be aware of how many calories and carbs you are actually getting so you can correlate the bonking and head it off. This second one is hard to do but worthwhile, especially as you are trying to get your new diet dialed in.

3. Related to 2: if you aren't pretty handy in the kitchen, it is easy to fall into the trap of eating paleoish with stuff like Lara Bars or overdoing it on nuts and seeds. The food log helps keep you honest there.

4. I gave up on trying to do anything specifically paleo on race day. I've always had good luck with gels and energy drinks, to I'll bring gels with me and also take energy drinks and bananas off the tables. Which is pretty much what I've always done. Likewise, when I'm doing long runs or rides, I want my stomach to be acclimated, so I'll use gels and drinks there, too.

Eating paleo is a huge hassle, but after a year of it, I'm convinced that I am recovering faster, sleeping better, and generally healthier. I'm 44, so I don't really expect to get PRs anymore at races, but in a trail half marathon in 2010, I beat my 2009 time by 12 minutes and also PRed at the 10K distance, beating my old PR by 2 min 50 secs. Good luck with your races in 2011!
posted by kovacs at 11:18 AM on January 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: @kovacs - thanks so much. This helps a lot! It feels better to know that there's an end in sight to this general feeling of crappiness right now. I'll also have to work on the pre-run fueling too.

I'm 5'9" and weigh 149 pounds but have a small frame. I'd like to get down to 130 because I think that was my optimal race weight (I was there last year). I haven't been paying too much attention to overall calories currently - I guess I've been paying more attention to not feeling hungry and not letting the stresses of a new diet get to me.
posted by floweredfish at 11:30 AM on January 3, 2011

You may find some useful info at the PaNu blog.

My only other advice is to keep your goals focused. You write:

My goal is to clean up my diet, address my stomach sensitivity (which I think will help with the omission of dairy and grains), build muscle and lose several pounds, hopefully fat. ... I'm 5'9" and weigh 149 pounds but have a small frame. I'd like to get down to 130

That's mostly well and good, but I can just about guarantee that a woman trying to go from 149 to 130 lbs. while running 40-60 miles/week is not going to be building any muscle.
posted by Anatoly Pisarenko at 12:43 PM on January 3, 2011

You might want to check out Nell Stephenson's blog. She and her husband are endurance athletes who eat a very strict paleo diet so there's some good info for you there.

I must agree with Anatoly P. above that you are going to have trouble building muscle if you continue with such a high training volume. If building muscle is a priority for you, I'd take the time now to chart out your races and training for the rest of the year, and carve out a solid block of time (a few months) when you're willing to experiment with running many fewer miles per week while dedicating more time to focused strength training.

Going from 130 to 149 lb in less than a year sounds really extreme to me -- did you have any major changes in your health or lifestyle that caused a 19 lb gain? Wild swings like that aren't healthy for anyone whether they're down or up so definitely examine what factors led to that change and how you can avoid or mitigate that going forward.
posted by telegraph at 12:51 PM on January 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Based on the fact that you're 5'9, 150 lbs, AND doing all of that cardio every week... if what you posted is representative of your typical daily food intake, I don't think you are eating enough. Plus I second the opinions that you should add strength training to your regimen. Sounds like you are doing a ton of cardio and not eating enough so your body thinks it is starving and thus conserving fat. Do more strength training and eat more and the fat will come off (it sounds counterintuitive, I know).

A good program to follow is the StrongLifts 5x5 or hell just pick up Starting Strength.
posted by buckaroo_benzai at 8:24 PM on January 3, 2011

StrongLifts 5x5 kind of sucks now, you would do better with the older version (makes the accessory exercises mandatory, includes inverted rows instead of barbell rows) or with one of these programs. Programs with power cleans are probably not a good choice for beginners.

Switching to paleo wasn't so rough for me, except because it was on the tail end of my low-carb experiment which sucked the energy out of me and had some cognitive side-effects as I was getting used to it. I lift using the old StrongLifts program.

You'll want to obtain a copy of the Starting Strength book regardless, as it contains excellent descriptions and instructions for all the lifts you'll be doing in any decent program.

Finally, I have to plug my favorite paleo-ish blog, Whole Health Source. I can't say enough good things about this guy - his rational approach, thorough explanations, clear logic, and links to the original sources make it my first stop when reading about health topics.
posted by Earl the Polliwog at 9:03 PM on January 3, 2011

Although I do still use dairy - the breve latte is such a convenient breakfast...

I have read a little on endurance runners going very low carb, and their bodies become so efficient at burning fat that they can still get good performance without glycogen - and then if they load up on it for a race, they really get a boost. I have no personal experience with this, however.
posted by Earl the Polliwog at 9:11 PM on January 3, 2011