Paleodyssey

Diamond Lakes Park, Hephzibah Georgia

I am posting lightly this week as I am on the road on business in Georgia (the U.S. one, not the Caucasus one).

I find it challenging to try to stick to paleo while traveling, which I have to do fairly often for my job. I do the best I can, but many restaurants haven’t clued in to what no gluten means (my mother in law, who is also allergic to wheat, once got “you mean there’s wheat in bread?” from a waitress). They also use industrial seed oil for all kinds of stuff, which blows the inflammatory omega 6 levels way up. When I’m traveling in urban areas it’s not so bad as I can often find a Whole Foods or something similarly yuppified and find some approximation of real food. In rural areas I do the best I can and balance it out by eating clean when I get home.

I do take the opportunity to move as much as I can when I’m not working. This evening I got a chance to check out Diamond Lakes Park in Hephzibah (love the name), which seems to be part of Augusta. I only had about 45 minutes as the park closes at sundown, which comes early this time of year. While I was in work clothes, I was wearing a pair of stealth barefoot athletic shoes (Merrell Barefoot Tough Gloves) that are acceptable for casual business wear, which meant that I could do some sprints on back trails. That’s good, because I’ve been really lazy about sprints lately, so I needed it.

Hotels, unfortunately, are almost universally transitioning their “fitness centers” to having only hamster wheels cardio machines. I used to find resistance equipment and occasionally bar bell sets, but the lawyers are ruining that as they have ruined so many other parts of life. Instead I do body weight exercises in hotel rooms. I also find that get some pretty good asymmetrical workouts just lifting the desk chair or other hotel room furniture over my head, moving it from one shoulder to another, and carrying it around the room. I try to book hotels that have swimming pools. Unfortunately, my first hotel this week has an outdoor pool (too cold to be open in late November even in Georgia) and my current hotel’s indoor pool is closed for maintenance. Oh, well.

Soon I’ll do a post on self-management of eating, but that will have to wait until I am back home and have access to some of my books for reference material.