If you haven’t figured it out by now, I took a mini vacation to Denver with my best friend this past weekend to catch a 2-night stand at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park for an oddly-paired but very entertaining bill of Snoop Dogg and Dave Matthews Band. As you know, flight plans got a little gnarly on the way home. Airline gremlins who broke BOTH our initial planes (we were supposed to fly separate airlines), we’re watching you.

I had a full day to kill in Denver on Thursday, so being the paleo geek that I am, I took a chance and emailed Juli Bauer to see if it was cool it I stopped in at her gym to meet her and exhibit how much a 5,000ft change in altitude can quickly reduce a half decent crossfitter into a mediocre one at best.

For those who don’t recognize Juli by name or the photo below, you may know her by her prolific and awesome paleo blog, PaleOMG. It was the first paleo blog I stumbled upon about 2 weeks into last year’s challenge, and GAHHH I am so happy that I did. This girl keeps it real and her food doesn’t disappoint. Luckily enough for the fangirl that I am, Juli was in town and I even got to be her WOD partner. Let’s just say that in addition to being a great cook and an entertaining writer, she’s really good at this working out thing.

Meeting Juli leads me to my NEXT part of things I should have known… the interwebs are vast. Take advantage.

THINGS I WISH I KNEW BEFORE THE PALEO CHALLENGE – Part 3

EMBRACE SOCIAL MEDIA, BLOGS IN PARTICULAR.
This is not a shameless plug, this is the straight truth – blogs are your best friend. Just type paleo with whatever ingredient you have into google, and you will find a whole gamut of recipes and blogs of like-minded folks trying to eat clean while not having a bland piece of chicken and steamed broccoli for dinner every night for 2 months. Paleo cookbooks are now surfacing, so if you’d rather not splash coconut oil on your iPad while on your latest kitchen adventure, then it wouldn’t hurt to invest. Plus, the best part of blogs is that they’re usually written by relatable people who are just trying to eat good stuff and not suck at working out too, and they’re updated fairly regularly. *hides in a corner because I’m not the best at updating*

As mentioned above, my favorite blog is PaleOMG, written by Juli Bauer. She’s not afraid to eat non-paleo things and tell you about it, and she always knocks it out of the park with her recipes. I’ve only ever made one of her recipes that sucked, but it’s my fault for trying to sub ingredients and totally screwing it up. OOPS. Raspberries do not equal cherries and I just don’t like sunbutter. Lesson learned. Read her stuff and cook her food. Then email her to say hi I’m coming to Denver for a vacation and I want to drop in to WOD at your CF box and meet you because you’re awesome. Oh wait, only I do that. I’m such a creeper.

Other well-known paleo blogs include Civilized Caveman, Nom Nom Paleo and Against All Grain. Taylor Made it Paleo should also be thrown into the mix, she’s fun and likes dessert too. Clean Eating With a Dirty Mind looks delicious, but I find her ingredient lists so long that I haven’t had the patience or felt like spending the money on everything I need to make one recipe yet. Maybe I’ll make myself a paleo Reese’s “PB” cake for my birthday this year.

I also get a bunch of ideas from Instagram. Friends may think you’re a doofus for hashtagging your bacon and eggs as paleo, but as you begin to get more comfortable cooking, it’s great to see what normal people like you are doing in the kitchen to keep their eating habits clean. It helps you realize that the more well-known paleo bloggers are normal people too, and on the flip side, just because you’re a normal person doesn’t mean you can’t cook pretty and delicious food worthy of sharing with others.

If not for Juli’s recommendation THIS BURGER would not have been my amazing lunch last Thursday:

Stay tuned for (or rewind to) the other 9 topics on the list:

• DON’T BE AFRAID TO GET A HEAD START
  
• BE OPEN TO NEW FOODS
• YOUR NON-PALEO FRIENDS WILL QUESTION YOUR SANITY
• IT’S QUITE POSSIBLE YOU WON’T LOSE ANY WEIGHT
• SHOP THE PERIMETER, ACCEPT YOU’LL HAVE TO SPEND MORE TO EAT WELL
• STEP AWAY FROM THE QUINOA
• READ LABELS
• THE MAJORITY OF YOU WILL TRIP UP
• RESULTS DON’T COME IMMEDIATELY, BUT THE CARB FLU DOES