Paleo Day 16: More Butt Dragging

While I’m not thoroughly exhausted, the perpetual yawning throughout the day got old really quick.  I think I nailed down what it was, the next question is if I want to fix it or not.

The crux of the issue, I believe, is the much lower carbohydrate intake than what I’m used to during the day.  If I look at my carb intake over time I am averaging something like 250 to over 300 grams of carbs a day.  I did end today at the lower end of that, just over 250 grams, but up until dinner time I was on a much lower carb level than I’m used to.  I’m wondering if my system just needs to adapt to this, perhaps with a little less fruit consumption at night.

The morning breakfast was atypical.  It was originally going to be a huge kale salad, but instead I ate my afternoon snack for my breakfast and made the salad my afternoon snack.  So my breakfast consisted of munching on pumpkin seeds, various nuts, dates and carrots.  That held me over so well that it was after 12:30 by the time I even noticed I might be hungry.  Lunch was going to be sashimi and rice-free sushi, however the restaurant seemed to have some confusion on the ability to make a roll without rice.  I did get to educate them on the existence of coconut aminos.  They were genuinely intrigued about the product, which I told them they can easily buy in bulk online.  I did get a rainbow roll, which has relatively little rice, and some sashimi on the side.

I didn’t find that meal especially filling, so by 2:30 I was ready to tear into the big salad I brought.  A generous helping of kale, cabbage, carrots, tomatoes and mushrooms covered in a good splash of olive oil, vinegar and lemon juice made for some relatively hearty eating for a snack.  I had decided to not add any salt and pepper to the mix.  I find that salt is one of the things I really like in a salad, so maybe I’ll change that up next time.  That good amount of food I had hoped would power me through my workout, but instead it didn’t even dent the yawning that started even before lunch.

I yawned my way through the afternoon and all the meetings.  I yawned my way home.  I let myself talk myself out of my weight routine.  Then I talked myself out of the entire going to the gym idea.  I was just dog beat, so I went out to the store to grab sushi for my partner.  My dinner was going to be the leftover spaghetti squash but the original plan was for me to pick up sushi on my way back from the gym.  I actually ended up getting sushi at the local Wegmans and on the way out bought some kombucha to start working on getting my gut back to normal after my antibiotics doses.

As soon as I sipped the kombucha I started feeling more wired.  I was really pounding the drink down during my drive.  Since kombucha is fermented a lot of the sugar is eaten up by the yeast.  That means a 20 ounce kombucha is 70 calories, of which I only drink about 80% since I don’t want to drink the sediment on the bottom.  At that point I realized that I probably needed to distribute my sugar a bit differently through the day.

I still ate my pretty carb heavy meal of spaghetti squash and tomato sauce.  I had a skinny rainbow roll, no rice this time, on the side rather than trying to find a meat to add to my dish.  I also had a bowlful, but less than usual, of cherries as well as some almond butter at the end of the night.   I washed that all down with this turmeric and ginger hot drink that I have started drinking.  I hope to write more on that later.

So the upshot is that it looks like I need to start analyzing how my body is reacting to the carbs I’m putting in and how they are distributed as well as looking at how to get more calcium into my diet since I’m still chronically falling short on that one mineral.