Primal Journal - Knifegill page 3

[honeybuns]

I'm pretty darn good. I am trying to right the wrongs I did over the holidays and slowly but surely things are returning to how they had been. I have learned that I need to up my protein and eat even if I am not hungry. I wasn't getting near the calories I needed for my activity level and nothing was changing. DH got a fantastic report from his cardiologist after a year of eating this way. His arteries are COMPLETELY normal! No sign of the plaque that caused his heart attack seven years ago.

Oh, darn. What man is going to dislike being told he can eat all the bacon and meat he wants?

[Knifegill]

I know. What would you do if a doctor handed you a prescription for bacon? :nilly:

Glad to hear about your husband's arteries! I'm undoing 25 years of macaroni & cheese and kool-aid, so I can use all the encouragement I get.

Of all the major improvements I've made in the last few months of tweaking, it's a tie between eating one meal a day and having upped protein to about a pound a day.

Super excited to have done one-armed chin-ups , and now with better and better form!

Only supps are still vitamin D, occasionally molasses and baking soda to fight cramps, and magnesium pills which I probably don't need, but take when I know I might need the extra shove into sleepsville.

Gathering stinging nettle instead of buying spinach has become amazing. Superior flavor, nutrition and it's free. And I eat whatever else I find out there, like berries!

Eating a pound of liver once a week and feel amazing for two to three days every time I do. Lots of eggs, ground beef, duck, lamb neck, fish, avocados, coconut milk (in smaller containers than I used to drink!) and similar. Yeah, most weeks I'm breaking the 50 dollar mark, but I've also cornered the best deals in town and shop 'em all in a straight line.

Canned fish are cheapest at Big Lots.
Coconut milk and purple sweet potatoes are cheapest at the Ukraine market.
Weird meats and other veggies can be had at the Pacific Market on 4th and 99 in Everett.
Avocados, frozen salmon, canned fish, and more are at the Grocery Outlet.
Meat and green apples are at Trader Joe's
Central Market has crazy good deals on duck hindquarters and lamb neck, and more.
The Sno-isle Co-op has DUCK EGGS and they are AMAZING. Worth the money!

And I make my own kombucha now.

[honeybuns]

When we were kids Mom would have us wade barefoot in the pond looking for duck eggs with our toes. Now that I think of it, maybe it was just her way of keeping us occupied! No matter. I love duck eggs and our Natural Foods store has them. I was talking to a lady there who was allergic to chicken eggs but could eat duck eggs no problem.

I LOVE Grocery Outlet! The sorts of things you and I purchase are not what their general clientele are buying so we don't have much competition for the good stuff. I scored Organic Valley pastured butter but did not think to scoop it all up and tuck it in the freezer. My bad.

If my hubs can undo 66 years of high sugar consumption then you'll do just fine. The big shocker for me was when he was drinking unsweetened tea the other day. He now weighs less than he did in the Air Force and just under what he weighed in high school. All with minimal exercise. You'll do just fine.

I thought about his cholesterol numbers and thought "but his arteries are clear, what do the numbers really matter"?

Sunny today (YAY!) so I am off to have a great time in the very prized Northwest sunshine.

[Knifegill]

Night shifter, here. Taking a long nap in the backyard.

[Knifegill]

Oh, look. I DID start a journal...

Things are still great. Lately I've been eating a lot more bacon, just discovered pastured chicken at Central Market, and have definitely been slacking on greens. Still eating liver at least once a week, and heart, and gobs of coconut milk, coconut oil, and tallow, and bone broth. Supplementing mg again, and potassium and vitamin D. Been bicycling a lot more, hoping to raise my lactic acid tolerance so I can do a real weighted squat without beckoning the cramps. Weight still in the good zone, right about 170-175 depending on water weight, etc. Using lots of cumin, turmeric and black pepper on my steaks and eggs. Avocados are apparently going extince or something because prices just doubled and the quality is way lower. Not giving them up, though. Just eating fewer per week.

Schedule has changed, so my old routine isn't happening the way I'd like. I'm not carb cycling with regularity, just intuitively. And still mostly eating once a day, sometimes coconut milk or some kombucha for a boost later. Brewing lots of kombucha for awhile now, still has not had any noticeable effect on my overall health, except for better digestion. I just like the fizziness!

Had some pizza and mexican food a few days back and I looked pregnant. My stomach popped out and was hard to the touch. Stayed that was for two days. Back to normal now, but a solid reminder of what I'm not missing.

[Crabbcakes]

Gathering stinging nettle instead of buying spinach has become amazing. Superior flavor, nutrition and it's free. And I eat whatever else I find out there, like berries!

(snipped)

Canned fish are cheapest at Big Lots.
Coconut milk and purple sweet potatoes are cheapest at the Ukraine market.
Weird meats and other veggies can be had at the Pacific Market on 4th and 99 in Everett.
Avocados, frozen salmon, canned fish, and more are at the Grocery Outlet.
Meat and green apples are at Trader Joe's
Central Market has crazy good deals on duck hindquarters and lamb neck, and more.
The Sno-isle Co-op has DUCK EGGS and they are AMAZING. Worth the money!

Hello Knifegill!

I am having an informative and entertaining time reading your shopping adventures. You shop like I do, and I thought I was the only one to get pastured butter here, local eggs there, canned sardines in the other place, produce at the local farm stand, raid the local salvage grocery... I have six to feed (hubby, myself, and four girls ages 9, 11, 13, 15) and we have a tighter budget too. The budget part stinks, tho. I wouldn't spend $500/week if I had it on food (because I could make my crew Primally happy on less), but a little wiggle room would be a nice Christmas present in the "I wanna buy a whole grass-fed steer" department. On the other hand, if I am adult about it and not whiney, being on a budget makes you more adventurous and creative about where to forage for food, and we have found some doozies of deals and new sources of Primalness.

We own 25 acres of wooded land - I think it is about time I really start gathering greens and stuff in the wild. My mom gathers stinging nettle, too. I have just been too chicken to try it - the "stinging" part of the name and all... (yeah, I need to get over myself) and I am usually decently adventurous.

Hope your next days go well - I will be checking back!

[Knifegill]

Life is busy with moving and there is some stress about the things I still have to do around the house.

I ate some free pizza at work. Three slices of the factory oil pie, the poison of poisons: Alfy's. I need to look up the ingredients for myself so I know how nasty it really is. It tastes like bad seed oils and preservatives, yet when I see it, the Ninja Turtle bell goes off and my insides turn to butterflies - conditioned to feel joy and happiness at the sight of pizza. I need to cut that tie, to rewrite my visceral response to seeing pizza.

My two remaining vices are still free pizza and chocolate anything. Little sampler chocolates, chocolate ice cream - as long as I don't see corn in the ingredients I tend to take a few bites - ad possibly a few more bites. It's rare, though.

Now enjoying a nice marbled chuck steak, 100% baking chocolate, BP coffee and half a cup of blueberries - melted by my desk lamp because we already moved the microwave to the new house.

Spinach still gives me the squirts. I just don't think my guts will ever get good at digesting leaves.

No bone broth today, ran out of veggies to cook. It's grocery time.

Pizza might have knocked me out of ketosis, but I'm still into it and I know it's just a matter of days before I'm back in the groove.

[JudyCr]

Moving is always stressful, but enjoy as much as you can, it will all get done in time as you're settling in.
Consider the pizza and chocolate a celebration of your new home; how's your pond doing?

[Knifegill]

The pond has evaporated down pretty far. But, thankfully, a blue heron is picking off the goldfish. Invasive buggers.

[Crabbcakes]

I ate some free pizza at work. Three slices of the factory oil pie, the poison of poisons: Alfy's. I need to look up the ingredients for myself so I know how nasty it really is. It tastes like bad seed oils and preservatives, yet when I see it, the Ninja Turtle bell goes off and my insides turn to butterflies - conditioned to feel joy and happiness at the sight of pizza. I need to cut that tie, to rewrite my visceral response to seeing pizza.

Hey Knifegill! For what it is worth: years ago, when I was on my Tony Robbins kick, I bought and read some of his books. In one of them he talks a lot about Neuro-Linguistic Programming. In one of his videos he talks about how he used the techniques of NLP to win the battle against his own pizza demon. It might be worth looking into. He wanted pizza out of his life because he was convinced that Natural Hygiene was the way to go.

Now that I remembered that, perhaps I will look into that again as an aid in my own food battles.