cave girl

Some people show stress by eating less and staying up all night worrying about stuff. I'm one of the lucky ones who eats a lot and takes plenty of naps. But a couple of months ago when my children started playing with my arm fat, "Cool! look at it wiggle!" and my daughter told me it looked like I had a new baby growing in my tummy (we call it "Six"), I freaked out. This led to signing up on impulse for CrossFit bootcamp, which meets three mornings a week at the crack of dawn and totally kicks my butt.

The CrossFit folks, as it turns out, have a lot to say about what you eat. I've started something called the zone/paleo diet, which makes me want to wear loin cloths and carry a big club everywhere. I am soooo paleolithic. Seriously, paleo is based on some idea of what the hunter/gatherers ate, which just sort of cracks me up. Because, you know, those people were so healthy and had such great life spans and everything. And the Zone is all about portions (turns out, no big surprise here, that I was eating a. too little food and b. all the wrong stuff). It reminds me a little of that fad diet based on your blood type, which I just know is total bunk. People swear by it, but let's be honest, people will swear by anything. People are idiots. I'm an idiot.

Which brings me to this: Joining scares me. And also this: Being left out scares me. The mental gymnastics I put myself through over this conundrum are truly entertaining:

"Wow, my coach is incredibly fit and happy and healthy, and she swears by zone/paleo as being pretty much essential to the whole deal, there must be something to it, I mean just look at her. I want to be like that."

"This whole thing feels like a cult. She's so enthusiastic about it! Enthusiasm freaks me out. I'll never give up pasta, anyway."

Okay, the truth is I think zone/paleo is probably just what I need to break the hold that spaghetti has on my life, not to mention to get back into the clothes I was wearing a year ago (I miss you, jeans!). And sure, CrossFit is a little cult-y. For what it's worth, though, salmon and spinach are okay by me, and I haven't met a single CrossFit participant or coach who wasn't perfectly delightful.

Can I make a lifetime commitment to eating my food in blocks and banishing sugar? Maybe not so much. But for now, anyway, pass the (diet) Kool-Aid.