Obligatory forum Introduce yourself thread page 144

[seaclam]

Your location: Pasadena,CA

Age (If you want): 49 (I know big 50 around the corner)

How Primal are you: 95% since 1/1

Do you consume dairy: No

Do you drink coffee or tea: Yes, in the morning

Motivator for switching to Primal: Sick of the crashes and cravings. Never being full. Bad example to my daughters.

Favorite exercise: Walking

Favorite Primal food: Any meat and nuts

Best part about being Primal: Not sure yet

Worst part about being: No sweets or pasta

[ms_beeblebrox]

Your location: Tallahassee, Florida

Age (If you want): 23

How Primal are you: I'm in the very first weeks of being Primal, so I'm still learning.

Do you consume dairy: Yes

Do you drink coffee or tea: Both, but I limit my coffee to one cup a day; and drink as much green tea as I want.

Motivator for switching to Primal: I've been reading this site for several months now, and my workouts have naturally shifted towards being primal. So, I decided to give the eating a shot as well. It's not that difficult, considering I was already eating a high protein/lower carb diet. I really have tried multiple ways of eating in order to find optimal health and optimal performance, so I want to try Primal as the logic of this diet makes perfect sense to me.

Favorite exercise: I'm a big fan of both squats and pushups right now, but my favorites change depending on my routine.

Favorite Primal food: Avocado

Best part about being Primal: My skin is glowing, and belly bloat is reducing, even a week into being Primal.

Worst part about being Primal: So far, the limited amount of carbs means I have less energy. Likely, I should up my fat, and just wait out the low energy period. I'm sure that my body will adapt quickly.

[Remmy]

Hi to everyone!

Your location: Kranj, Slovenia

Age (If you want): 22 in few days

How Primal are you: Quite liberal. Dairy products daily. Potatoes, yams and even rice occasionally.

Do you consume dairy: Aha.

Do you drink coffee or tea: Both, I include a bit of raw milk mostly in coffee.

Motivator for switching to Primal: In my young years I played football (european of course very seriously, but had I lot of injuries and my body was taking too much damage. I had to stop at the age of 18 and my dreams of pro carier went into the air. I started picking up weight (how tipical) and two years ago I started running and exercising and also have started to eat whole foods. Been quite low carb for few months (trying to loose the last kilos of fat) eliminating almost all grains except of oats. Find out paleo and primal diets a about a month ago. During the holidays I ate ridicoulus amounts of carbs (mostly grains and sweets) I felt like a pile of shite. Primal-ish since then.

Favorite exercise: Running, mountaineering.

Favorite Primal food: Eggs (tons of them)

[Kitty D]

Your location: Venice, CA (orig. from NYC)

Age (If you want): 38 (female)

How Primal are you: I just started, so I'm figuring out what works for me; don't know what number or percentage to say. The goal is to be as primal as possible, without triggering an obsession about being "perfect" that interferes with my life. Certainly no grains or refined carbohydrates or processed foods. 1 1/2 tsp sugar/day in my giant cup of morning coffee (am going to work on cutting that down). Small amounts of dairy, and I will try to limit fruits and nuts because I am looking to drop a lot of weight. I've been getting grass fed beef, organic, and antibiotic-free foods as much as possible.

Do you consume dairy: In my coffee, yes. Switched to organic heavy whipping cream, and it is delicious! It feels so decadent... I also like to grate some raw goat cheese on my vegetables.

Do you drink coffee or tea: I have no interest in ever giving up coffee!! But I switched to decaf, and it's organic.

Motivator for switching to Primal: Several reasons... I looked into this at my doctor's urging, because my B12 levels were in a scary low place, and she's been encouraging me to add grass fed beef to my diet. Prior to this switch I hadn't eaten meat in years. I was vegan, vegetarian, raw, etc. The other reasons are losing weight, and eating in such a way that I can work on responding to my body's natural hunger/satiety cues. Eating refined, processed foods masked those cues. I have a lifelong history with eating disorders (bulimia, exercise bulimia) and food/exercise obsession. Eating primal so far keeps my brain quieter and calmer. The anxiety is better, the fog lifts, the depression is a little more manageable. I figured these are all things that would help me get healthier - not jut physically, but mentally/emotionally, as well.

My biggest challenge is that I'm an emotional eater.

Favorite exercise: Walking by the beach, strength training, learning how to roller skate.

Favorite Primal food: The zucchini latkes - I found the recipe on this website. SO good!!

Best part about being Primal: So far, since this is VERY new, the best part is that my brain is much less foggy. And I can't believe my body is craving meat!

Worst part about being Primal: Not having sweets. I can live without bread and rice, but I love cookies and ice cream! The other worst part right now is "panic" that this will be yet another "diet" that doesn't work... eating meat and fat is scary. Not working out until I hurt myself (I used to literally do it until I broke bones) - I don't trust that it will work.

[Megan.Eng]

Adventurous soul, hopefully turning my health around. I DO want to live a healthy life.


The Questions:


Your location: Sacramento, CA

Age (If you want): 21

How Primal are you: I've read the book, and I haven't had grains in 2 days? So I'm barely getting my bare feet wet, I would say.

Do you consume dairy: Yes.

Do you drink coffee or tea: Coffee occasionally, tea I love. Herbal, green, black. My fiance is Chinese so tea is very abundant at his home.

Motivator for switching to Primal: I was diagnosed with Type II diabetes, but I don't see how taking putting "system override" pills into your body can make your system work any better.

Favorite exercise: The general moving frequently at a slow pace. I like to go on walks with my almost-father-in-law, taking my puppy (even though he's two, he's still a puppy to me) for walks, meander around the mall even though I never buy anything... But the best part is the occasional sprint. I used to be all for the chronic cardio, so this was a nice switch to me. Fiance and I are trying new exercises as we continue to read the forums.

Favorite Primal food: Meat. Red meat, to be precise. The Diabetes diet my doctor told me about was "chicken mostly, lean cuts, red meat is high in cholesterol so that's bad." I was diagnosed about a month ago, so I had really been craving steaks. When I told her about Primal Blueprint, she was a little reluctant, but I was very adamant about changing things. I've watched my mom progress from pills to shots because she doesn't care about her diet.

Best part about being Primal: Being healthy.

Worst part about being Primal: I love to bake. That's what all my friends ask for during the holidays. Never does anyone tell me, "I'd like a new....". It's always "BAKE ME THIS." My pumpkin muffins will probably me my downfall.

[Rud3d0g]

Your location: Denver, CO

Age (If you want): 37

How Primal are you: 80% - plan on tightening up this year though

Do you consume dairy: Cheese and butter only

Do you drink coffee or tea: Yes - black on both - cut off coffee at least 8 hours before bed though.

Motivator for switching to Primal: High blood pressure - 4 months in and I'm off the meds. Type II diabetic(handy for turning down desserts) - also under control now

Favorite exercise: Squat followed closely by dead lift

Favorite Primal food:Red Meat

Best part about being Primal:Red Meat. High protein content of diet fits in with my power lifting quite well and the saturated fat is good for natural testosterone production. Fitness - already do 7 miles of foot patrols a shift at work and I love the go all out sprinting instead of boring steady state cardio for conditioning every week or so (bare foot hill sprints) Oh yeah and the whole barefoot thing - I hate shoes and now can tell people that its part of my primal lifestyle instead of telling them to get bent.

Worst part about being Primal: no pizza - really - that is the sole reason that I'm only at 80% - gonna have to cut it out this year

[jerad]

Your location: Alberta, Canada

Age (If you want): 26

How Primal are you: 50/50... Figure I'll be 100% by the time I finish the book.

Do you consume dairy: Yes, cut milk intake waaaaaaay back.

Do you drink coffee or tea: Both, but much less since I started making changes, both are more for enjoyment rather than to get me through the day.

Motivator for switching to Primal: My belly, and being way to heavy for my weightclass, not to mention having more fat than I should for my weightclass.

Favorite exercise: Squats

Favorite Primal food: anything meat.

Best part about being Primal: Meat, lots of it.

Worst part about being Primal: Getting used to the idea of giving up burgers and pizza, by far my 2 favorite foods. Oh and Milk. I used to drink a lot of it.

[Tex]

Your location: England

Age (If you want): 27

How Primal are you: Spent the best part of 8 hours reading articles from this site. Just thrown out all my grains. Tomorrow will be my first day of primal living.

Do you consume dairy: Yes, love dairy. But will probably stop drinking milk to keep my carb intake low, and continue to eat cheese, cream and butter.

Do you drink coffee or tea: No. Makes me feel terrible.

Motivator for switching to Primal: I'm a powerlifter, and becasue I believed carb-loading was essential to ensure big lifts, I've ended up with a bigger than desirable waist measurment. So I want to try this out and will continue it for ever if i don't lose strength and power and end up looking good too.

Favorite exercise: The mighty squat.

Favorite Primal food: Chicken leg quarters, or pork belly.

Best part about being Primal: I will get to eat all my favourite fatty cuts of meat without feeling guilty.

Worst part about being Primal: I think I'll miss bread and rice.

[Nancee]

Your location: West Texas

Age (If you want): 59

How Primal are you: just starting

Do you consume dairy: cheese, yogurt only

Do you drink coffee or tea: yes

Motivator for switching to Primal: healthier lifestyle, want to rid my body of medically induced problems

Favorite exercise: walking

Favorite Primal food: chicken, fruits, veggies

Best part about being Primal: I like the foods

Worst part about being Primal: Sadly, I'm addicted to sugar but am working on it

[Angie87]

Name: Angie

Your location: Mexico

Age (If you want): 23

How Primal are you: 90%? Hard to say, I stick very closely to the right foods but I haven't made the switch to the super organic, fresh stuff because It is REALLY hard to find around here unless you're willing to pay 3 times what "normal" products go for.

Do you consume dairy: No

Do you drink coffee or tea: Yes, I love coffee too much to let it go.

Motivator for switching to Primal: I initially started an eating plan really similar to Primal to lose 20lbs that I had accumulated for no real reason (given that I've always worked out regularly and ate "right"). The only difference from my initial diet was that it was primal minus all the fats and nuts so i'd stay in keto forever without tracking carbs. I had great success in it and felt amazing and after getting to my goal weight I was stumped on what to do since I didn't want to go back to eating junk during the weekends and i did NOT want to gain all the weight back so I bought Mark's book and decided to maintain the lifestyle.

Favorite exercise: I love to run but I've been trying to just stick to 1 long run a week and do HIIT for 20 mins when I feel like running.

Favorite Primal food: Meat and broccoli. I could eat that for every single meal

Best part about being Primal: Ever since I started I no longer have "fat days" and that feels amazing. Also I rarely crave "poison" anymore and I still have a lot of energy.

Worst part about being Primal: The social aspect, of course. I find it sad that most of the traditions involve some sort of carb-feast, very hard to manage at work without people making snarky comments about how "ridiculous" it is to not want to eat cake, chocolate and chips.