Your Top 3 Challenges When Going Primal... page 3

[moonablaze]

1) the IDEA of giving up bread/pasta/cookies
2) the reality of giving up sugar (which I'm still struggling with, 6 months after cutting out grains)
3) getting my SO to stop trying to convince me to go out to eat too much

[Adrianag]

1. Accepting that Fat is good! This was a real mental re-education.

2. Reinventing breakfast from a quick " healthy" cereal or oatmeal to prepared breakfasts that are heavier than what I am used to eating. Finding substitutes for much loved toast, English muffins, waffles and pancakes.

3. Incorporating exercises , still working on this. Having hip arthrits gives me an easy but lame excuse, so to speak.

[moo]

1) Having to buy ingredients online because they are not available to me locally
2) Stress - managing overall
3) Cutting the chronic cardio because it really did seem to help relieve stress, was relieving for my mind stress but obviously was stressful for my body

Solutions
1) accept that most items won't arrive in 2 days but when they do, my recipe will be ready
2) Realizing just how bad stress is has led me to really re-think my life and the changes that need to be made FOR ME
3) Cutting cardio was only hard the first few weeks. Now I am just fine without it and enjoying playing more with my kids instead

[Joe]

1. PROBLEM : getting off the Mountain Dew
1. SOLUTION : the Primal Blueprint IS the solution. I was never able to kick my decades' long Dew habit until I reduced the rest of the carbs in my life; then it was not only possible but surprisingly easy. I finally made the connection that it wasn't a caffeine addiction, or just the special magic taste of Mountain Dew that was the problem; it was a carb addiction/dependency that wasn't obvious because I wasn't chasing sweets otherwise; just lots of pasta and 'healthy' breakfast cereals, even for dinner or an evening snack. I thought complex carbs were 'good' for me; unfortunately those insulin spikes were driving my daytime need to offset the resulting fatigue with another Dew.

2. PROBLEM : primal lunches during the work day
2. SOLUTION : more awareness and prior grocery planning required; taking advantage of opportunities to prepare an excess for dinner to allow for leftovers for lunch

[peril]

1. Getting my wife's acceptance of what I'm doing. Haven't solved this after 14 months. She's still questioning what I'm doing without listening to my answers

2. Figuring out which supplements to take and how much of each. Again, I'm still making changes to this. Read, read, think, read, ...

3. Fitting in exercise to regular routine and commitments. Have got moving slowly licked by incorporating it into my commute. I walk past the bus stop by a few kms. If I have to drive, I park a few kms away from my destination and walk the rest of the way. LHT is more difficult but am currently fitting it into weekday evenings. Sprints on weekend but weather can be a problem. Haven't sorted out wet weather sprints

[winencandy]

1. Being the mom and the only Primal person in my house.
And trying to not freak out or preach to my family for eating grains…and then having to buy the grains…
Solution – I’m waiting until I have visible results before try to ‘sell’ Primal to my family. And I've really reduced the grains I buy
2. Getting used to the idea that it is OK to eat fat.
Solution – Batty’s Blueberry Butter Balls
3. Working out. I never did before.
Solution – The Primal Blueprint Fitness ebook and Shovelglove make it possible to work out at home.

[GrokInTheFog]

By far the hardest thing for me has been learning my body's true hunger signals. I am starting to realize the extra ten pounds I have carried around for five years is because I enjoy eating so much- - and I often eat even when I'm not hungry. I am a cook, and used to plan my whole day around meals (thinking, planning, shopping). The idea of skipping one, even if I wasn't the slightest bit hungry, simply made me sad. IF'ing has helped me with this. But it's still very hard for me to wake up and not eat or go to bed without dinner, regardless of my hunger. But I also think it's been the most rewarding part of my journey.

[Bushrat]

1. Eating out. I now eat more bacon and eggs (though too much sodium is a problem), buy cheap pub steak, go to cafes and make my own orders from their sides (i.e salmon, bacon, eggs, salads, etc).

2. Chocolate. Giving up grains is easy (aside from finding takeaway that does not come between two buns). Chocolate was (and still is) very hard. Though now I suspect its nothing to do with the chocolate per se but rather a lack of magnesium.

3. Getting enough fat, especially if you may be lactose intolerant. I have trouble with some kinds of dairy, and also too much dairy. Most meat these days is lacking heavily in fat. Supermarket meat has a milimetre thick strip of fat on their steak, as compared to my favourite butcher where the fat is almost an inch thick strip. Rendering fat, going to farmers markets and good butchers (and asking for fattier meat), buying things like lamb forequarter chops, cows tongue etc are helping me get enough fat without resorting to a kg of cheese with every meal.

[Spyhop]

1) Cost. We don't eat as much beef and especially fish as we probably should, solely because of cost. A year or two ago it would have been cost prohibitive for us to give up grains at all without having a calorie deficit problem.

2) Lack of quick/easy food. I'm the cook in my family, and my husband works from home, so pre-primal I really only had to make hot cereal for breakfast, which isn't time- or thought-consuming, and make dinners, and lunches just magically took care of themselves via sandwiches or whatever. Now I have to actually cook everything we eat, and that's a lot more time and effort. Sometimes more than I have, actually- a 3-meal day is a real rarity nowadays. Man cannot live by hard-boiled eggs alone.

3) Getting together with veg friends. Dinner parties are real exercises in creativity, on both sides.

If we couldn't handle dairy/lactose, eliminating dairy would be #1 here. Thank you, northern European ancestors!

[Griff]

Exercise, exercise, and exercise. I still hate the way I feel when I work out. I just feel dirty and sweaty and ick. If I could do this without having to exercise, I'd be a lot happier.