Paleo + training for 10k

AttackThePoster

Is this a good/bad idea? I've never attempted a strict diet like this before but am intrigued by this one. Problem is that I'm not a big lover of meat and would rarely eat red meat. Eat a good bit of fish and a little bit of chicken but that's it.

Also, are latte's out the window?

cmyk

Though I've never really run any sort of distance, I've been doing a fair amount of reading on paleo lately and thinking of going back to it.

What are the reasons you want to go paleo? For endurance athletes I think it takes a bit of tweaking to get your carb levels right before and re-fuelling correctly after the event.

This may help though, I believe this tips towards the endurance athlete...
http://www.thepaleodiet.com/paleo_books/forathletes.shtml

corkcomp

if you dont really like meat and are training for a 10K then paleo is not the correct diet for you, IMO

AttackThePoster

cmyk - Reasons? Just want a change. I always find these things interesting and am sort of sick of eating the same stuff every day (pasta/rice/potatoes etc). Might also be a good way to learn about new foods. I might love it, I might hate it, but I'm sure I'll take something new from it which is all good. I'm just training for myself btw, not for an actual event (if that makes any difference). I bought a Paleo Diet book off amazon recently but not the athletes one (I'm sure there's not a whole lot of difference between the two, or is there?).

corkcomp - It's not that I don't like meat, it's more of a case that I just don't find myself eating much of it. This diet will obviously require me to eat more than normal but that might be a good thing in itself.

Barry.Oglesby

I think paleo is grand but like a lot of diets of it's ilk, it's pretty unsustainable. If you're planning on running 10k, then it is certainly not the diet for you although hardcore paleo-ites will tell you that you can run a marathon on some brocolli and a tuna steak.

It has it's good points and bad points- good would be it's promotion of protein as the mainstay of the diet (but this means meat). Bad would be it's pseudoscientific approach to many of it's failings, notably in this case it's suitablility for endurance athletes. It's also quite difficult to sustain the level of eating and discipline to cook advance meals when real life continues to get in the way as it often does. If you're going to have a go at it, I would recommend finding a reasonable butchers or meat wholesalers where you can get high quality meat.

columok

Baz,

Surely its relatively easy to hop in to M&S and get some preroast chicken and a bag of salad veggies?

Spread out over a few days its cheaper than a SPAR chicken fillet roll!

AttackThePoster

Thanks Barry.

Hmm, is it worth the hassle trying it out for a 3 or 4 week trial period? I'd like to run 10k in a decent-ish time by the summer so I'm not sure if it's ideal preparation to be messy about with my diet.

If not, what diet would you recommend for losing some bf and good for this type of training?

Thanks in advance.

Barry.Oglesby

columok wrote: »

Baz,

Surely its relatively easy to hop in to M&S and get some preroast chicken and a bag of salad veggies?

Spread out over a few days its cheaper than a SPAR chicken fillet roll!

Insanely boring, and when you're feeding more than one person, not sustainable either. I live pretty close to everything and I find it hard to shop once per week, never mind twice or three times, which, if you're going the pre-cooked route, is what you need to do.
Anyway, if you want paleo advice, a deep chest freezer is the way to go.

Anyway I'm not anti-paleo per se, I just find it unsustainable for my lifestyle and some of the anti-agri propoganda that goes along with it is just plain stupid and betrays the diet's origins in the anti agri-business realm.

If you want to shift bf and run a decent time then I'd cycle my carb intake to match my training. I'd sooner go out for a run feeling fresh and ready than starved and sluggish.

columok

Baz, myself and other half have been eating paleo for a few weeks now and both like our food and cooking. We've been getting great results from roasting meat on giant bed of vegetables. Veggies are cheap and can be bulk bought as can meat which is obviously pinchier on the wallet. The m and s chicken thing was only to illustrate that you can do this with convenience food for the same as buying a sandwich. Yeah its more challenging defo. I would argue that paleo is a counterpoint to bulk filler crop manufacture propaganda thats been drilled into us for years.

AttackThePoster

Thanks guys.

Would Quorn products be 'allowed' in a diet like this?