Background

I’ve had an ongoing curiosity about the impact of diet, exercise, and sleep on my mood and energy level. I first heard of the Paleo diet a few years ago when I was attending Quantified Self and similar meetups. Browsing through the Everyday Paleo cookbook at Costco reminded me of the diet and triggered my decision to run a 30-day self experiment.

Hypothesis

Eating a Paleo diet for 30 days will improve my mood.

Method

Beginning September 2nd, I began eating a Paleo diet. Most of my meals were home cooked recipes from the Everyday Paleo cookbook. When eating out, I did my best to choose Paleo-friendly menu items.

I measured my mood on Moodscope. Prior to the experiment I measured my mood every 2-6 days. During the experiment I measured my mood every day, typically in the evening after dinner.

I periodically weighed myself on the Withings scale first thing in the morning.

Results

1. My baseline mood improved from roughly 35% to 55%.  In addition, the variation in my mood has significantly decreased.
2. My weight has dropped from 163 lbs. to 151 lbs. and my body fat has dropped from 17% to 14%.
3. Today, my dental hygienist told me that my gums looked really healthy—not puffy like they have in previous visits.
4. My wedding ring is much looser.

Discussion

In Everyday Paleo, the author recommended trying the Paleo diet for 30 days and then deciding whether to continue eating Paleo if you feel more alive and energetic. If not, you can always go back to eating the way you were before.  Well, there’s no question that I feel better. I’m especially glad that I diligently measured my mood every day—looking at the graph is much more compelling than simply explaining how I remember feeling.

Unlike many individuals that try diets, my goal had nothing to do with weight loss—losing a little weight (and body fat) was a pleasant surprise. What surprises me is that I have lost weight simply by changing what I eat, not how much I eat. Not once during the 30 days did I withhold myself from eating as much as a wanted.

While I’m absolutely satisfied with the results, I will admit that this required an extraordinary amount of effort and will power. Since this was my idea, I took on the responsibility of cooking for the entire month (typically my wife and I alternate cooking every week).  Rather than eating a bowl of cereal and yogurt every morning, I would make something on the weekends that I could warm up during the week, such as a frittata and gluten-free muffins.

Eating out was also a challenge. I’m very fortunate to live in San Francisco where many restaurants are known for serving fresh, local ingredients.

After completing this 30-day experiment, I’m convinced that eating a Paleo diet is healthier and significantly improves my mood. The challenge I now face is deciding how much effort to invest in continuing to eat Paleo. The question I ask myself is, why did this work? More specifically, what food did I eliminate from my diet that has the most impact? Was it the dairy? Gluten? Legumes? Sugar? Or was it that the foods that took the place of these ingredients were simply more nutrient dense? Or could this all be placebo effect?

Next Steps

I plan to continue to eating Paleo when I have the choice. When I make exceptions, I’ll see how I feel and start deciding what foods I need to avoid.

I want to make it as easy as possible for an individual to identify the smallest behavioral change with the greatest potential to improve a health metric that she cares most about. I am working on clarifying my vision for how to do this and will follow up in another blog post.