I’ve been eating Paleo for two months now.  I’ve was eating low carb for a month before that.  In these three months I have lost half of the weight I want to lose.  My weight loss is 10% of my starting body weight.  I am quite happy with these results.  However, for the past two weeks I have been stalled.  Since I’d like to reduce my body weight by an additional 11% of its current weight, I decided it was time to scrutinize what I have been doing and see if there is anywhere that improvements can be made.

I have been eating an unweighed, unmeasured Paleo-style diet.  Weighing, measuring, counting macronutrients and recording them is not something I want to do on a regular basis.  It’s very tedious.  Still, it can be useful to do this from time to time to see where things are in comparison to the desired plan.

I used a food journaling program called Paleo Track to journal a typical day.  Paleo Track is nice because it evaluates the diet entered based on the Paleo principles, rather than comparing the food eaten against the “ideal” of the USDA My Plate.  The charts featured in this post are copied from my Paleo Track food journal.

Here’s a chart of my macronutrients for last Friday.  The first thing that I noticed is that my protein intake is under my target for this macronutrient.  I am trying to fall into a range between the Mark Sisson recommendation of 1 gram protein per pound of lean body weight and the Robb Wolf suggestion of 1 gram protein per pound of body weight.  That would put me at 110-135 grams of protein.

I have also been trying to keep the carbs under 50 grams per day.  My total of 79 grams still falls into the Mark Sisson weight loss sweet spot of 50-100 grams, but I’m definitely getting some carb creep.

I decided to focus on hitting the daily protein target.  I am using the USDA Nutrient database to look up my protein items and adjusting them upward until I am in the desired range.  I bumped the protein up by adding 2 oz. of salmon to my omelet filling and doubling the size of my protein portions at lunch and dinner.  Here’s how my numbers looked yesterday.

I’m going to focus on the protein intake for the next two weeks and see how this affects my weight and energy levels.  I’ll keep you posted on the results.