Wellington, New Zealand (continued)

After nine months on the road with our eating habits in the gutter (think: Oreos and Snickers), we desperately needed an intense intervention.  The Canadian couple we met in Thailand planted an idea in our heads (thanks Ken and Crystal) and by the time we reached New Zealand we were ready to put it to the test.  NZ seemed an ideal location for our lifestyle experiment.  We knew the campervan would provide us ability to cook our own meals and the grocery stores would be stocked with the quality ingredients we required.  So what have we ACTUALLY been doing in Wellington for three weeks?

Part 1: Eating “Paleo.”  Some might call it a fad diet, but after 30 days of eating this way, we are feeling healthy and are joining the Paleo bandwagon (as in Paleolithic... or eating what our ancestors ate... apparently they did not know that Snickers really satisfies - we had a lot to learn).  We were skeptical at first too.  For the official scientific version, you can check out the book “The Paleo Solution” by Robb Wolf.  The abbreviated version is this: we have cut the following from our diet: grains, dairy, processed sugars and legumes (beans).  What we have kept are: meat/fish, vegetables, fruits, and nuts/oils.  Oh yeah, and lots of eggs (sidenote: it is freaking us out that eggs are not refrigerated here).  

Sounds extreme, we know.  It surprisingly has been straightforward because we controlled what we ate by cooking our own meals.  Since our fridge is so tiny, we have been frequenting the grocery store about 4x/week ... p.s. new lingo: “trundler park”.   

Ken’s biggest craving when we started eating this way?  Crunchie bars.  Yes, those delicious honeycomb chocolate bars.  (Thanks to Ken’s stepdad Roy for hiding the chocolates in the freezer and only selectively allowing them into Ken’s hands when he was a child).  My biggest craving?  Ice cream.  (Thanks to my grandpa Gutknecht for giving me unlimited bowls of ice cream as a child.  Yes, he had a freezer stocked with 20+ flavors of ice cream).  Thankfully as a replacement, our favorite “bad” foods are back en vogue: bacon, avocados, cashew and macadamia nuts.

Our results: Ken’s back problems are gone (who knew diet influenced back pain?), which has improved his sleep (he would always wake up to stretch his back).  We are both feeling higher energy levels (instead of swings of high and low) and we are not hungry between meals.  My hair is growing faster than ever and we have both lost a few kilos (yeah, we weighed ourselves on the scales at the NZ-equivalent of Target).  Plus, Ken’s memory has improved from non-existent to mediocre... some things just can’t be fixed :)           

Part 2: Joining a Crossfit gym.  We were fortunate enough to find the best gym in Wellington: Mad Crossfit.  The first ten days of our challenge we did our best to exercise on our own (running, hiking, doing basic stretching exercises) but we quickly realized we needed to enlist professional expertise to fix our technique.  Donna, the owner of the gym, welcomed us into the gym for a six session introduction course.  

Being campervanning nomads, this was awesome because Donna didn’t require us to join the gym.  In our one-on-one sessions with our trainer Lou, we learned basic workout techniques and had a blast in the process (picture me trying to do pull ups and Ken inventing his very own “leaping burpee” exercise).  The gym had such a supportive vibe that we decided to stay in Wellington for an extra week, delaying our trip to the south island.  So while we only intended to stay for three days, we ended up lingering for three weeks!  The Crossfit International competition is in LA this summer so we can’t wait to meet up with the Wellington crew there.  (Until then, we will be practicing how “to skull” liquor... yeah, that’s Kiwi for “pound it!”)

Our results: While we are not exactly gym rats now, our form is better (well my rowing technique couldn’t get worse, could it Donna?), we’re feeling stronger (Ken is an amateur rope climber now), and we’re stoked to use what we learned at Mad Crossfit on the rest our journey.