First week on the Primal..can you have a look at this for me please....... page

[pippab]

Hi... just joined here so all very new to this ... have been eating primal for 5 days nowand have lost 3lb!! whoop whoop! but more imporantly my stomach is soooooo much more less bloated and my jeans are loose and not cutting in!

(A little background) The past 8 months i have been suffering from awful panic and anxitey attacks and am at the moment seeing a councillor for agoraphobia (luckily i am not really bad..cant go out on my own but i can leave the house with a couple of friends and go for walks around a quiet park near me)... so obv with all of this my exercise is very minimal at the moment. Im staying with my parents at the moment too and they do all the shopping for me...

My main question is are the ready cooked hot chickens you get from tesco/asda etc okay? I have no idea about how many calories etc i should be eating. I did the atkins a few years ago for a couple of months and i did lose on it but a friend of a friend mentioned this and said it was much better than the atkins. Im not looking for superfast weightloss just need to shift about 3 stone



how does this sound for my daily diet???



breakfast (taken about 11am) - banana

lunch - apple (if im really hungry ive had a matchbox size piece of strong cheddar cheese too)

dinner - half of a ready cooked chicken - lettuce - raw spinach - tomatoes - cucumber - onions - celery - raw chillis
anddddddddddddd... a table spoon of either salad cream OR mayonnaise

(instead of chicken this week i have also had... steak, 3 egg mushroom omelette, lambchops, boling bacon... all were with the above salad)


snack - (if hungry) - 5 dried apricots OR a banana OR apple

DRINKS - water

I also drink a couple of mugs of de-caf coffee a day too (i cant have any caffine as it can trigger my anxiety)


does this sound okay? I am hoping to buy the primal blueprint book soon and hopefully that will help too

Thank you for reading! x

[crogagnon]

Welcome!

I definitely recommend you buy the book--it is such an easy read. One of the most important things Mark suggests for losing weight is to keep daily carb intake between 50-100g. Seems like your snacks are very high on carbs. Perhaps if you ate larger meals with lots of protein and fats you wouldn't be hungry in between and you could skip the carb heavy snacks.

Good luck!

[SlimIcy]

My main question is are the ready cooked hot chickens you get from tesco/asda etc okay?

They're okay, as long as they aren't basted in anything nasty. The ones I've seen usually have some honey or something in them, which isn't optimal, but works great in a pinch or on a budget. Just check their ingredient label.

I have no idea about how many calories etc i should be eating...Im not looking for superfast weightloss just need to shift about 3 stone

Adding these two lines together, I'd recommend just doing whatever feels natural. Let your hunger be the guide.

[pacificBeef]

hello and welcome. personally, if you've gotten this far, stick with it if it's working for you.

In the long term, I would suggest disciplining yourself to 3 meals, no snacks and make your meals worthwhile but that's what worked for me, obligatory YMMV.

[pippab]

so eat EVEN MORE meat? I ate a half of a chicken and a massive salad! lol

does the book have a list of how many carbs are in what foods so i can track them easier?

also... should i be counting calories too?

(even though for the next month at least i'll never be eating more than what ive listed above... apart from i may have a glass or two of wine week when my brother comes home to visit)


Sorry for all the questions just want be be eating 'right' for at least the next few weeks when i can afford to get the book

[Uncephalized]

If you are trying to lose weight I would cut back a bit on the fruit and focus on vegetables (things made of leaves) and meat for a while. The more meat (and thus protein and fat) you eat in your meals, the longer you will stay satisfied.

Try to train yourself not to snack. Your body uses the periods in between meals to digest your food, and it's also only when you have not eaten for a while that you mobilize much body fat. Eating all the time makes that harder. It might feel difficult for a while but it really is more satisfying to eat big meals 2-3 times a day once you get used to it.

[pippab]

okayyyyyyyyyy.... no scooby snacks! :-(

[DaisyEater]

As people are pointing out, yeah there are some suboptimal things in there. But I also think you should pat yourself on the back for making some huge changes. No one's handing out medals for Most Primal and no one's going to vote you off the island for some non-primal indulgences. So welcome aboard fellow traveler!

You are already doing a great thing for yourself just giving up the grains and legumes. I agree that trying to move more to regular meals and away from snacking is good. I found that happened with me naturally as I got used to this way of eating. Right now, you're losing weight and feeling good so I'd just relax and listen to my body as far as calorie level goes. Eat until you're sated but not really full. Stick to clean foods. If the weight stops coming off, then you may need to tighten up, drop some indulgences, tweak your macros, etc.

As for truly bad foods, the only thing on that list that really threw a flag up for me was the salad cream/mayonnaise, though it sounds like you don't have much of it. I'm all for adding some fat to your salads. It's tasty and satisfying! However, industrial vegetable and seed oils really are some of the worst things you can put in your body. They're pretty inflammatory. You can make dressing based on olive oil. I sometimes make my own mayo with avocado oil. It's pretty easy. You can find recipes and debates about the various oils to use all over the recipes section. Sadly, store-bought dressings are generally full of the bad fats. Sad since they really are convenient. But a little olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper make a pretty tasty dressing just on their own.

Now, as for resources, the book does not contain a carb counting guide, but you can find that stuff all over the interwebs. There are trackers like Fitday and Cronometer. I often go to this site because they give a profile of fatty acids and I like that. You can actually get a lot of the information in the book by clicking the Start Here button up top. That'll do a better job explaining things than I can.

Congratulations on your change! Good work!

[Timothy]

Welcome Pippa!

All good advice here so far. I suggest that if you're trying to lose 42 pounds, low-carb high-fat may be the most effective way. At least it was for me. That would mean cutting out all the fruit, except for berries once in a while, and choosing loads of green veg instead, like broccoli, spinach, asparagus. That would also mean increasing the fat by adding coconut, more pork, fatty fish and the like. This will help your body learn to use fat for fuel instead of carbohydrate and will increase your insulin sensitivity. Everyone's different, but a lot of people have had dramatic success that way.

Good luck to you, however you choose to proceed! I'm particularly curious to find out if primal living helps with the agoraphobia.

[Dr. Bork Bork]

Personally I looked at your menu and my stomach growled. I'd starve on that! Aim to get some protein in at every meal, limit fruit to no more than 1 cup per week, and fill in the rest with veggies and healthy fat. The Blueprint suggests 50g-100g daily of carbs for weight loss for people who do not have metabolic disadvantages (such as diabetes-- if you have diabetes, you might want to consider going lower than 50g to help control insulin)
Welcome to the tribe!