Primal Journal-deMuralist

ok, I survived the cheat and moved on, wow, I feel almost like a normal person, one who just eats and doesn't obsess about food and weight.

So the bike rider is ok, no broken bones, just a lot of internal bruising. I talked to his roommate. I made them dinner and sent it over on Tuesday.

Eating...going well. I am not doing so much tracking in the past couple of days, but am eating SANEly. Getting the veggies and protein in, passing up the starchy stuff (well except for acorn squash which is a bit high in carbs) and just getting on with life. It feels good, it would be nice if I would start getting smaller but that will come eventually (faster if I could just force myself to start the exercises).

As to tracking I like keeping track of what I eat, but trying not to obsess about the numbers. So I am adding my food in the "notes" section under each meal in my fitbit tracker. I think this is a good way to remember to eat my veggies (like grandma would say!) and stay accountable if I stray.

We have company this weekend, and then college visits next week, so I may not be online much.

Hey Chris - hope all is well. I haven't kept up as well as I usually do (2 straight weeks of travel!!!). Thinking of ya.

Hope the college visits are going well.

So far so good. He loved TCU, which I guess is good (it is an 11 hour drive away-so a bit far for my comfort-but I am keeping my mouth shut on that one)

ok, back on track yesterday after the trip.

I read a note from the author of the book/program I am following in which he stated that along with your 10+ non-starchy veggies plus between 125g and 200g of protein a day fairly evenly spaced you can decide to do EITHER natural fats OR natural sugars. This of course makes sense, you can't eat a high fat, high carb, high protein diet (lower case "d"=as in the diet I eat, not upper case "D" as in the Diet I am on) and expect to lose weight. So I am dropping sugars, which is much easier now that summer is basically over and its delectable fruits are out of season. I would say that it is also at least 80% Primal.

So I basically eat 4 times a day. I do 3 veggies each time I eat and at least 30g of protein each time I eat. I work to get different sources of the veggies (well I repeat spinach a lot, but other than that) and the proteins, so it is 10 to 12 different veggies and 4 different sources of protein. Here is what I had yesterday...

[B]1st meal[/B]: coffee with HWC, Smoothie with 1/2C egg whites, 1/2C fat free cottage cheese, 1/2C green beans, 1/2C cauliflower, 1/2C spinach (the veggies are frozen) with raspberry flavoring, a mix of sweeteners (stevia, xylitol, erythritol), 1T cocoa powder, 2T Great Lakes Gelatin, 1C unsweetened Almond Milk
[B]2nd meal:[/B]ok well this one is weird but...a bunch of celery with 2T natural peanut butter and 10 raw walnut halves.
[B]3rd meal:[/B] Smoothie with 1/2C Plain non-fat Greek yogurt, 1 scoop of zNatural Whey powder, 1C Coconut Milk, 1C strong coffee (decaf chilled), 1/2C pumpkin, 1/2C broccoli, 1/2C spinach, caramel flavor, mix of sweeteners
[B]4th meal:[/B] Grass fed ground beef sauteed in coconut oil with pico de gallo, onions, mushrooms, and served over a bed of mixed salad greens (with olive oil and vinegar) and cucumbers and topped with avocado and a T of sour cream

I choose to use non-fat sources where it doesn't make a difference in taste and they have not added sugar to make up for it so that I can add fat where I find it more flavorful. Thus I use egg whites instead of the whole egg (I do breakfast for dinner with whole eggs about once a week), I choose non-fat cottage and non-fat Greek yogurt.

I ended the evening with a cup of restful tea from Trader Joe's.

I am shooting for between 150g and 200g of protein, less than 75g of carbs, and less than 75g of fat

Quality of sleep is still an issue, although last night we had a major storm and the thunder and lightening kept waking me up.

Still not gotten on the scale, I will re-measure and weigh on the 22nd or so of December.

I'm almost glad that summer is over...and all of those lovely fruits are gone. My desire for fruit, except for an occasional apple or orange, has decreased substantially. I feel SO much better for it.

Will you share your "stuffed cabbage" soup recipe again? I know it's somewhere, but I can't seem to find it!!!

It is that time of year again! Gosh it is embarrassing how simple it is. I make a bone broth (crock pot, 2 to 3 lbs of soup bones, splash of vinegar, seasonings, about 2 days on low).

In a large soup pot, brown some ground beef (I usually do 2 pounds). Add 1 to 2 cups of broth and water to equal 4 cups of liquid (the broth is stronger if you use 3lbs of bones so if I made it with that many bones I use less in the soup). Take a large head of cabbage, chopped, add to the pot. Add 2 of the big cans (28oz each I think) of diced tomatoes juice and all. Simmer all day at least. I usually simmer all day, turn it off to let it cool over night, then simmer again the next day (this is probably a health issue, but I have been doing it for years as my grandmother before and no one has ever gotten sick). This is much better the next day.

Other things you can add...sliced zucchini and yellow squash, chopped onion, chopped celery, chopped carrots, a bag of frozen cut green beans. I usually make a batch straight up, and split it in half and add the extra veggies to one half.

I also think it is a bit low in protein (this is a huge batch of soup) so I usually throw on some leftover protein from the night before.

On top, I like to sprinkle it with about a tablespoon of a concoction I make that is 4C nutritional yeast, 4T spike, 4tsp garlic powder. This stuff keeps forever and is really good on almost any soup.

Your smoothie recipes are interesting. I have been wanting to try a smoothie with veg in it, but didn't really know where to start. Green beans sound non-threatening. :)

I am SO making this next week (no cabbage this week...and I need to make more bone broth:)). You are awesome. Thanks:)