Low Carb Blues/Flu

I try to eat a fairly Paleo/Primal diet. But, I have my weaknesses that don't fit into these eating modes, three of them in particular:

High quality bread

Potatoes, especially mashed potatoes

Beer

Recently, I've stopped drinking all alcohol, so the beer hasn't been a problem. But, there has still been bread and potatoes. Amazingly, ice cream isn't a problem. I like it, but I don't have much of a sweet tooth. I do eat some dark chocolate on occasion, but controlling how much chocolate I eat is not a problem. Desserts are a take it or leave thing for me. In a nice restaurant, I'd rather finish a nice meal with a cheese course and some Port than a sweet dessert. Of course, the Port has sugar in it, and any bread or crackers with the cheese have carbs as well. And cheese is OK for some people under the Primal umbrella, but not for the Paleo types.

So, now that my brother challenged me to lose some weight with him, I simply stopped eating bread and potatoes. Many low-carb eaters have a rough transition when eliminating carbohydrates, and it's often called the low carb flu. It tends to last a week or two, depending on how many carbs you were eating and how hard you try to exercise.

Last night at CrossFit, I just felt lethargic. We started with some mobility work and then some medball work. After that, ten minutes of rope jumping, which went pretty well. I can't do double-unders yet, but I'm working on doing streaks - trying to be consistent enough to do 100 reps without screwing up. Last night, I did that a couple times in 10 minutes of work.

Then some bar hangs with knees up or in an "L" position to stress the ab. And then the main WOD was as follows:

7 minutes, as many reps as possible

3 thrusters

3 pull-ups

6 thrusters

6 pull-ups

9 thrusters

9 pull-ups

....

I think the pattern is pretty obvious there. I thought I would get pretty far through the round of 15, given my weight of 65 pounds for thrusters and band-assisted pull-ups. As it turned out, I felt exhausted and only got through the round of 12, and never even started the round of 15. I think I had the lowest rep total in the class.

Within a week, I'm sure I'll be feeling better and I'll be able to exercise better on low carbs, which will hopefully get the fat burning going.

When I start bike commuting next week, this is how I hope my typical weekday will go:

5:00 a.m. - wake up, cup of coffee

5:30 - 3 mile walk or run

6:30 - breakfast, shower

7:00 - On my bike for the half hour ride to work

8:00 - Ready to work

5:00 - Leave work by bike to go to CrossFit - about 5 miles

5:45-7:00 - CrossFit

7:15-7:45 - Easy bike ride to my rented room.

8:00 - Shower, dinner, sleep

Repeat.

On the weekends, I hope to do longer runs with my wife, and then start hiking in the mountains once the trails are clear.

But, plans mean nothing without fastidious execution.