My 30 Day Primal Challenge Results

Well, I completed my 30 day Primal Challenge. Above you can see a picture of me 6 months ago, and a picture from today.

My goals for the 30 day challenge: Sleep longer, wake naturally, lift heavy things twice a week, moderate cardio 4-6 hrs/week, and not eat any sugar for 30 days.

My results were pretty good. I didn't sleep any longer or wake up naturally (I still need to work on that). This was really difficult because I work third shift at the hospital a couple of nights a week.

I did start lifting heavy things at least once a week and tried my best to do twice a week. I started running two miles x three days a week. I hardly ate any sugar during the month- except that I ate a TON of apple butter and biscuits last Saturday at our family apple butter making day at the farm. But it was sooo good!

So over the last 30 days I lost 7 pounds! Not bad! I'm pretty happy with that. My goal has been to lose at least 5 pounds a month- and I've definitely been losing at least that over the past 6 months. If I continue this way I'll meet my goal by Spring!

Primal Exercise

I've been trying to incorporate more primal exercise into my life. It's been difficult- I feel like I've been "sabotaged" several times. I was really enjoying using my elliptical, but it broke. I have a gym membership and teach kickboxing once a week. Afterwards, I always lift for about half an hour.

I've wanted to go to the gym more- with the thoughts, "I'll just wake up an hour and a half early and be back home in time to get ready for school," but when the alarm rings at 5am, I'm just not feeling it. I snuggle under the warm blankets and decide I'll do it tomorrow instead.

Primal fitness says that you should "lift heavy things" twice a week, sprint once a week, and do moderate cardio 4-6 hrs/week. I think I've got the lift heavy things and the sprinting. It's the moderate cardio I'm having trouble with. I don't know how to do it moderately!

I used to run a lot when I was in highschool- I loved it! Now when I try to walk, I want to run. When I run- I want to run a couple of miles. My heart rate always goes way up- and that is not moderate cardio. Then when I'm done- I'm starving and I want to eat. So I'm in this vicious cycle of not knowing how to moderately exercise. I either don't exercise at all- or I exercise too much.

I'm going to be running a 5K in two weeks, so I ran on the treadmill last night to see if I could do 5K. It felt SOOO good, but it was definitely strenuous. I was pouring sweat and really out of breath. I could feel my heart rate was sky high. I don't want to sabotage my primal plan- so how do you moderately exercise? How do you run "moderately"?