Ok, day three of my first really strict Paleo month.  Although, I’m sitting here thinking, “There’s probably a line between strict and super-strict, huh?”  Eggs are a little Paleo iffy, as is  coffee, and I’m having both this morning. So, yeah, strict.  But not yet super-strict.  But strict is good.  Better than sort of strict (I notice my gradient for Paleo allegiance is growing as I go — fake Paleo, half-Paleo, mostly Paleo, pretty strict Paleo, strict Paleo, super-strict Paleo, platinum-strict Paleo, God’s Own Strictness Level of Paleo Allegiance Diet).

My focus for this first week is super-low carbs.  Still taking a probiotic to feed intestinal bacteria, and eating plenty of vegs to get soluble/insoluble fiber, but going a week basically no-carb.  Mostly because I was stuck around 195 and couldn’t figure out why.  I had dumped dark chocolate for awhile, because I had gotten to where I was eating it like a starving monkey in a banana factory (do they have banana factories?  probably not).  And I was already completely off beer (seriously, there are like ten Blue Moons in my fridge, lonely, sentenced to a life in the crisper, until some beer-friendly friend pops over).  So, what was left that was keeping me a 195-er?

Uh, probably the sweet potatoes.  The sweet potatoes were probably the thing.  Because I really like them.  And they were the last clearly sweet thing in my diet.  And I knew I was eating too much of them, but I didn’t want to face that fact.  Until, finally, I did.  I got out the scale-io and weighed one of those suckers, and it was well over 500 grams.  And I was eating at least one, and getting more toward two, per day.  With cinnamon, cocoanut oil, a little Tony Chachere’s seasoning (ie., red salt), and often some grass-fed butter.  So, uh, yeah… that’s a lot of carbs, lot of sugar, and lot of calories.

But it’s so goooooood.  And the soluble fiber.  And, and…

And I have to leash the sweet potato puppy.   They were clearly getting too powerful.  I was thinking about that taste a lot — that sugary, cinnamon-y, oil-softened taste — and getting pinged with all sorts of strong sugar cravings randomly throughout the day.  So as I continue to root out the last soldiers of Oldtrition in my diet (they’re in there, like WW II Japanese soldiers hiding in the caves of Okinawa), I realized I don’t need to give up sweet potatoes forever, but I definitely need to up my control over their control of me.

So, day three.  Sans sweet po’s.  And the sugar cravings have completely subsided.

And roll on I do.