Obligatory forum Introduce yourself thread

Hi everyone. I've been lurking on this website for at least a month or so now. I've cut grains and refined sugars back gradually over the past 3-4 years just based on my personal experience with them.

Your location:NYC

Age (If you want):24

How Primal are you: 80-90%...

Do you consume dairy: Some cheese; also some non-fat frozen yogurt on carb refeed days.

Do you drink coffee or tea: both. I drink green tea daily.

Motivator for switching to Primal: History of type-2 diabetes/blood pressure/etc. problems in my family, vanity, and a natural curiosity with all things biochemistry (my majors in college were biochem and chemical engineering).

Favorite exercise: dancing, closely followed by some strength training + walking.

Favorite Primal food: Lamb. I was raised eating lots of it growing up in Xinjiang. I've got lovely childhood memories of lamb kebabs seasoned with cumin/red pepper and roasted over the open fire.

Best part about being Primal: Less carb crashes. I also LOVE the side benefit of being way more creative in the kitchen and learning to cook some of my favorite Xinjiang/Chinese dishes. After just a month of primalizing my food I've already come up with so many more recipes than I've ever come up with since living on my own. I've found that Asian food is really easy to primalize as opposed to American/Italian food...so PB has also helped me get in touch with my cultural cuisine.

Worst part about being Primal: More expensive grocery bill on a law student budget.

Hello everyone! This is my first day and I feel like I am at the bottom of a HUGE mountain and looking up at the top. I am scared and excited and hopeful that I will make it to the top! I have about 50 lbs to lose and I cannot wait to feel more energetic and healthy! I am so happy that there are so many fantastic resources and that I have found this blog to help me with my journey. Anyone else starting this awesome lifestyle change today?

Hi everyone. Delighted to find this blog and forum about a month ago, which is remarkably similar to the overall lifestyle and approach, including functional food and fueling, that I've gradually evolved for myself over several decades of instinctively grokking (yeah, I'm a mutant / alien / mistaken zygote - take your pick) my way through all of the noise, fads, junk data and bad science. Imagine that: listening to the wisdom of the body. What a concept!

I'm grateful for Mark's advice here and the valuable contributions of many, all of which is assisting me in further refining my approach daily, without stress or undue struggle. I never took much interest in HPLC/Atkins-like approach because the focus for me wasn't weight loss, but rather health, energy, performance, quality of life and disease prevention have been more my focus. But now I've been sponging up everything I can find on ketogenic diets and ketosis [I]precisely for those very reasons[/I]. Ordered books and blood ketone meter, delivery pending. I am 12 days into taking a more refined KD approach; it only took about three days to document frank ketosis by urine dipstick and I'm enjoying increased mental clarity and physical energy, sleeping like a baby and incidentally have peed out four pounds of fat.

Looking forward to continuous learning, experiments, exchange and sharing here with you.

Name: Empress Prime-Eva

Location: northern California

Age (If you want): Four million year old woman (ok, ageless)

How Primal are you?: primordially primeval, since beginningless beginning

Do you consume dairy: some yogurt, kefir, butter/ghee, cheese, on and off.

Strictly gluten-free, which cured a host of mysterious symptoms.

Do you drink coffee or tea: a quart of finest Japanese matcha daily is my mainstay; I occasionally enjoy pu-erh tuo cha, darjeeling, and various fine black and white teas as well as rooibos and herbal tisanes; (never coffee).

Motivation: optimum health, performance, energy, mental clarity and balance, longevity with quality of life and disease prevention. Minimize suffering and maximize joy ~ for all.

Favorite exercise: hot yoga and hiking hilly Redwood forest trails; warm sunshine.

Favorite Primal food: organic grass-fed filet mignon, black and blue, with roasted Brussels sprouts

Best part about being Primal: increased mental clarity and sharpness; the joy of self-care; peeing out fat; discovery and direct self-confirmation that we're naturally evolved with ketolytic metabolism that confers many advantages; the joy of sharing this with others.

Worst part about being Primal: Going to a lot of funerals when you outlive everybody your age?

Hi, I am LPC. I have been Paleo for the past year and I didn't even know it! I just knew that grains, sugar and I didn't agree. I got rid of milk as well. I still enjoy cheese, and I feel so much better. I stumbled on the Primal Cookbook when I was looking for recipes that were grain and sugar free.

A little background: My parents owned a bakery for 50 years. I grew up in the back of it...literally. My playpen was there. I had inhaled the flour dust when the mixers started up, I was often elbow deep in frosting, and as I grew up, we had the freshest baked bread, made with whole grains and the freshest ingredients. We also had cookies, pastries, cakes and all the other stuff you would find in a bakery.

I was very active as a teen and I was always a little chubby, but not overly so.

Unfortunately, life happens, children are born, life gets busy and my life becomes more sedentary, and continues to be more sluggish as I gain weight. I was 215 pounds, was popping antacids and my doctor wanted me to go on cholesterol meds. I didn't want to take that step, so I started doing low-carb. I stopped eating grains and milk. I felt so much better! If I "indulged" in any breads/sweets I would get horrible heart burn. So I learned to do without. I found that low-carb was just not working in my life very well. I just couldn't understand why limiting fruits would be a good idea. I started adding fruits and didn't worry about the sugar in fruits.

Well, 1 year later I am down 68 pounds and my cholesterol has gone back to normal levels.

As I said, I just found the Primal program and find it exactly how I have been living (except the exercise part). Now that I have lost so much weight, and the pressure is off my feet, I can tackle the exercise part. I just bought a pair of Ice Skates so I can "play" at the ice rink. I used to skate when I was young. I am looking for a fencing club that I can join so I can have fun stabbing people! :rolleyes:

I work at a local community college so I have access to the track. I just did my first set of Grok Sprints!

Your location: Lincoln, NE

Age (If you want): 35

How Primal are you: Just starting on Monday! I did 2 rounds of HCG... not perfectly.. but my LIW was 116.8. I have jumped back up to 125 lbs and I love the thought of going Primal to control my eating! I am also thinking about doing the Leptin Reset along with Primal. I am very excited to start!

Do you consume dairy: Some cheese here and there, actually quite a bit of cream cheese, but that is about it for dairy.

Do you drink coffee or tea: Live for black coffee....

Motivator for switching to Primal: Health! Love the foods , need to stay away from carbs- want to stay healthy and live long for my kids!

Favorite exercise: Kettlebells

Favorite Primal food: I love nut butter ( hoping some are going to fit in)... otherwise STEAK!

Best part about being Primal: Staying fit!

Worst part about being Primal: I LOVE BREAD, and cereal! EEKS

OH! And I have yet to really read the primal blueprint... I have only skimmed.. but I now carry it in my purse, I am determined to have it read by the end of next week!

Your location:

Age (If you want): 47

[U][U]How Primal are you:[/U][/U]: Not completely.. Lean Meat; Veggies; Small amounts of fruit; Low fat dairy (Yogurt); some nuts, olives, and the occasional Avacado. Still have a serving-spoonfull of rice, potatoes if they are in soup at a restaurant, sweet potato. If I am just about to exercise, I will eat a couple of pieces of toast with butter because it burns off according to my glucometer. I am starting to walk a few hours a week - get sunshine - 8 hours of sleep, and I've always walked barefoot lol!

Do you consume dairy: Yogurt

Do you drink coffee or tea: rarley (a few times a month with half and half)

Motivator for switching to Primal: I have lost 40 lbs in approx 4 months going lower carb (283 down to 240) Would like to lose 50 more (190 goal weight) ... however I didn't discover this website until a couple of months ago, which convinced me to quit eating junk food, fast food, hydrogenated oils, ice cream, cake, candy etc...

Favorite exercise: Fast walking (naturally a fast walker, but I don't 'power walk') Helps me clear my head and relieves stress big time. Thats my 'lots of moving slow' exercise. Might get a bike on craigslist and do that once or twice a week too.

Favorite Primal food: Big Ass salad with roasted chicken breast for lunch!

Best part about being Primal: Weight loss and increased energy.

Worst part about being Primal: Realizing that when I need to maintain my weight, from what I calculate - I will have to eat alot more carbs. Trying to find lists of low GI - high calorie carbs to start working back into my diet. Unfortunately, I was just diagnosed T2 diabetic and I function lots better with about 100-120 grams of carb - mostly from veggies. When I work in more carbs (even sweet potatoes arborial grains etc..), though my post eating numbers seem ok, my fasting starts to creep up. My liver dumps glucose at night worse when I eat more carbs - the fewer I eat, after a few days my fasting gets 10 points or so less. Trying to calculate at 6' 4" and 190 lbs - even exercising modestly I will need about 2800+ calories a day!! Further my kidneys are not doing super well from the diabetes and I was having fatty liver problems before I started to lose weight. Weight loss will help both of those things - but I probably won't want to go over 100-150 g's of protein (probably closer to 100 g's) That accounts for about 800-900 cals from carbs and protein .. how much fat can I eat- even monounsaturated- and still be healthy (probably not 200 g's) Oh well I am eating lots of veggies, fruit, nuts, a couple of pieces of lean meat, yogurt, some cheese etcc.. and no junk food at all. I think this is a much better way of life. I'll deal with weight maintenance later.

Hello, I'm Matt!


[B]Your location: [/B]Seattle, Washington, U.S.

[B]Age (If you want): [/B]31

[B]How Primal are you: [/B]I'm still working my way toward it. I probably eat too many vegetables. No more grains, and when I have sugar it's the "occasional treat" of dark chocolate. I'm trying to keep the protein down to 60-70g per day as per the suggestion in Primal Body, Primal Mind. But it's easy to eat lots of meat. :) The whole "saturated fat is good!" thing is still weird for me, but I'm cooking with coconut oil, ghee, palm oil, bacon fat, duck fat... I'm sensitive to dairy and eggs, and I should probably eat more fish.

[B]Do you consume dairy: [/B]Only ghee, at the moment. I'm trying to repair my GI health, so maybe I can do A2 cow dairy, or goat/sheep dairy soon!

[B]Do you drink coffee or tea: [/B]I live in Seattle, and I grew up in Portland. Coffee just kind of happens! But I have reduced the amount to the occasional treat, and stick to tea for the most part.

[B]Motivator for switching to Primal: [/B]I've been overweight my whole life. I lost 70+ pounds doing a cleanse, adjusting my food choices, and finally doing the hCG thing. I fluctuate between 202 and 207 right now, and I'd like to... look good naked. I'm still pretty flabby, since I lost all that weight pretty quickly, so building some upper body size could hopefully help elasticity. And I responded really well to dumping grains and sugar, so I decided to go the rest of the way to Paleo/Primal.

[B]Favorite exercise: [/B]Hmm. I'm not very fond of exercise. Does walking count? I feel like my legs are overdeveloped compared to my upper body, just because of carrying around all that extra weight for my whole life. I've never done a standard pull-up, so that's one to work toward.

[B]Favorite Primal food: [/B]That Pulled Pork recipe from the PB Cookbook, in the crockpot, with ground Lapsang Souchong (sp?) tea to add smokiness.

[B]Best part about being Primal: [/B]Bacon is delicious.

[B]Worst part about being Primal: [/B]It's a lonely road for me, even though I don't know if I'm quite there yet. Certainly haven't been exercising enough (did my first sprints the other day!), and I probably need to become better at detecting my satiety. Also, my partner is still eating the SAD. Hopefully we can both be primal together soon!

[QUOTE=Anonymous;280]In other forums I've been a member of in the past - at least for small communities - there's been a 'introduce yourself' thread with some questions that people can answer. I know that there are people reading this forum that are fully primal, partially primal, and are considering it. I thought that I'd put some questions together to cover these things just to get an idea of who's out there.


The Questions:


Your location: Lufkin Texas

Age (If you want): 49

How Primal are you: 95%

Do you consume dairy: no

Do you drink coffee or tea: yes all day long.

Motivator for switching to Primal: BECUASE it works!!!

Favorite exercise: walking with my wife

Favorite Primal food: steak

Best part about being Primal: no aches and pains anymore, brain fog is gone, losing fat by the pound and feeling like I'm in my 20s again.

Worst part about being Primal:[/QUOTE] that I didn't find this 30 years ago.

Name: [B]Joe[/B]

Your location: [B]Delaware, USA[/B]

Age (If you want): [B]29[/B]

How Primal are you: [B]Roughly 80-85%[/B]

Do you consume dairy: [B]Mooooooooooooo[/B]

Do you drink coffee or tea: [B]I have coffee in my arteries[/B]

Motivator for switching to Primal: [B]Was tired of being a hefty zilch [/B]

Favorite exercise: [B]Standing overhead barbell press, but I'm also liking the once a week sprints (as per Grok Prime)[/B]

Favorite Primal food: [B]Eggs any style fried in coconut oil[/B]

Best part about being Primal: [B]The uber-manly feeling of being a fat burning animal[/B]

Worst part about being Primal: [B][SIZE=4]NO PIZZA[/SIZE][SIZE=1] until cheat day[/SIZE][/B]

hello, I am a 54 yr old woman in kansas
i dont exactly know what primal is yet
yes, i consume dairy and coffee - together
favorite exercise is walking and running

i am exploring the concept of not eating wheat
and wondering if i could actually cut back on sugar

i have always believed whole grains are good for you
and have rejected and argued about high fat diets
seriously, how can the atkins people say pork rinds are healthier than a fruit?

i am 5'6" and weigh about 155
i would like to lose my belly fat
i think the only way i will accomplish that is to cut out sugars and probably the wheat...

i am interested to find out how others eat on a normal day to day basis
for example
what do you eat for heaven sake?
i dont know if i can live on just protein and fat
of course i know vegetables are good for you
but man cannot live on vegetables alone,right?

looking forward to learning how people live

have been reading michael pollan
in defense of food

better stop for now
trying to learn the basics of this site....

carolyn