My True Primal Story by SweetPickles page 2

[DarthFriendly]

Your story needs more dragons.

[SweetPickles]

What I ate today:

Breakfast: 1 hard-boiled egg, 3 sausage links

Lunch: 1 chicken leg, cup of strawberries

Dinner: Ground beef casserole with ricotta, tomatoes, eggplant and zucchini and a spinach salad with avocado and peppers. Thanks Mr. SP! It was amazing.

Well, I think I might be on the verge of "breaking through" carb mode and becoming a fat burner. I think that because I ate a very light breakfast - I was going to eat 2 eggs and 5 sausages, but was too full. Then I went to Bikram yoga and wasn't hungry for several hours after that. Then when I finally ate my lunch at 3:00, I couldn't finish that either - left my apple and my egg for tomorrow. And just now, I was hungry for dinner - but ended up giving some of my food up to Mr. SP.

[SweetPickles]

Your story needs more dragons.

I disagree - I think it needs more cowbell!

[SweetPickles]

Day 18!

What the hell is up with the end of daylight savings this year? What is this, Indiana? I need that morning light to start my day. My bedroom windows face west so it seems like the sun doesn't come up until about 8:00. Politically, I'm no libertarian but I think the government should stop telling the sun what to do. Why isn't Ron Paul addressing this issue?

I have to say, this hasn't been too hard. After years of CW eating, I feel like I'm on a huge break from dieting. The first couple of days it really was like, "Can I really eat this?" and after that, it's been kind of like one big party. Because for as long as I can remember, I haven't been able to eat anything, anything without some idea of guilt or virtue attached. Everything I put in my mouth had some moral judgment attached to it. Whether it was a salad or "healthy" grains or whether or not I was swallowing my gum, I was doing it to be a better, thinner person. And if it was anything I actually wanted to eat, I'd think: Do I need this? Do I deserve it? If I eat this now can I eat that later? It was relentless, but honestly, it's been that way since I was probably about 12 years old so it seemed perfectly normal to think of food this way. I didn't know it was possible to eat without that kind of guilt or stress.

I've probably had more fat in the last 2.5 weeks than I had all summer, and it's hard to miss the bread when I'm still eating the butter. Now, if I were not having dark chocolate and wine, it would be much harder. I may have also gone a little overboard with the heavy cream - definitely stretching the boundaries of moderation and sensible indulgences.

Treat your self!

So I started using PaleoTrack. Not for accountability - that's what this journal is for. The tracker is for informational purposes so I can make tweaks if I want to and so I actually see how much whipped cream is going into me. Confessional: I think I prefer unsweetened heavy cream to bacon.

I'm still breaking through the carb mode, though. I do seem to be able to go without snacks and wait longer between meals, but I go from slightly sluggish to very energetic and back again. I've also been insanely tired at night - extra hours nannying and teaching this week. Don't know if I've lost any more weight, but my clothes are still growing.

[SweetPickles]

Day 21 is here! I never said I was following a 21 day challenge, but I never said I wasn't, so it seems like a great excuse to celebrate. So we're having mussels! I drove home from Whole Foods at about five miles an hour with my precious loot, as if I had a newborn baby in the backseat.

Yay! Can't wait.

Day 21! It seems like a long time ago since I started this up, and I noticed that very quickly I started talking about eating primally as not something I was just trying out, but something that I had fully integrated into my lifestyle - sort of, "No bread for me" vs. "No bread for me right now." I started thinking long-term right away - I was already thinking about how to tackle the holidays a couple of days in, for example.

I fully embraced this not as a challenge, but as a lifestyle. But now things are settling into more of a routine with meals and cooking, which makes it easier, but also makes it a little more...routine. So perhaps this is really where my real challenge will begin - keeping things interesting.

I've seen people who post who say they were primal for however long, fell off the wagon, and are now returning, and I didn't really understand that - I mean, treats and cheat days, sure, but who would want to go back to eating a low-fat, high carb diet full of gluten on a regular basis? But now I wonder if it's boredom, especially if because of family, financial, work or other types of situations, we aren't able to have as much fun with food and play. And although I'm still having a blast with the food and have no intention of living any other way, I'll admit that being able to eat animal fat, while still delicious, is not quite as thrilling as it was three weeks ago.

I know that I have so many recipes to explore and so much wonderful food to try. But today I thought about having steaks and was like, "meh." How can I possibly be unenthusiastic about steak? Juicy, red verging on bleu, a little cool in the middle, grass-fed steak?

I'm still not feeling it, damn it. My sense of steak had better come back.

But today I did try something new. I tried Crossfit for the first time. And it kicked my ass. And it was so much fun! I went to a beginner's drop-in. I really struggled with the burpees. I did better with the lunges and squats, because as one of the instructors pointed out, I have strong legs (thank you, Bikram) but overall I was wrecked by the end of the workout. I was the slowest one of the beginners group. But then, I had a drink of water and caught my breath for a couple of minutes, and I feel amazing. It was hours ago and I still feel a little high. Right now I can't wait to do it again, though we'll see what soreness tomorrow brings.

[Timothy]

Congrats on 21, SweetPickles!

I'm not sure what makes people fall off the wagon. A day of cheating followed by feeling ill, I can understand. But to willingly return to the industrial food-substitute lifestyle, and the broken body that comes from that, is hard for me to imagine.

One thing that keeps life interesting for me is the occasional carb refeed. On grueling workout days, lean protein with starch and berries can be a very entertaining change of pace.

Sometimes steak seems boring to me too. But when I actually put it in my mouth, I am reminded of how awesome it is. Especially with butter and pink salt.

Crossfit sounds like loads of fun!

[SweetPickles]

I'm closing in on 4 weeks of primal living and feeling great! Ladies and gentlemen, true, I am not in my skinny jeans yet - but I am back in all my regular size 12 pants and jeans, comfortably, and with room to spare. I can go to my closet and fit into almost all of my clothes - exception being two pairs of skinny jeans I wore at my lowest weight. This is a huge triumph for me, and honestly, if this is all I got for going primal, I'd be pretty thrilled. But wait, there's more!

You also get great skin out of your primal package! Yes, my rosacea has hardly flared up at all, as it usually does in cold dry weather. It's a pretty effective deterrent from eating grains - if I eat them, my face gets red. And I don't want to have the red face. It's not just a little pink. It's not even just a little red. It's more like having a terrible sunburn. It glows, like Rudolph's nose.

I keep thinking I should still be shy about my face. And then I duck into the restroom, and I wonder who that non-red person is staring back at me. And I realize that I might not need all that money I put aside for laser treatment this year.

Perhaps I will be using that money to buy a big freezer. We sure could use it around here. Next week we are going to pick up our meat club order from Black Earth Meats. We got the smallest box because that's all we have room for right now. It will have steaks and grass fed beef and maybe some sausages. We are also trying to figure out what we will do with the organic turkey we ordered for Thanksgiving, and our little freezer is also filled with plenty of Mr. SP's produce (in addition to all of the stuff that got canned). Eeek!

But really, it is an embarrassment of riches. We have so much wonderful food. We just need another apartment to store it in.

Last night we went out to dinner for the first time in two weeks. Mr. SP and I used to eat out about two times a week, but lately I've been pretty bent on shopping and planning for primal meals, so it hasn't really come up. But this has been the week from hell for both of us in terms of work load. So we took the night off from preparing meals at home and went to one of our favorite restaurants, Graze and had goat meatballs with this amazing tomato coriander sauce. We also had a burger (substituted salad for the fries and just didn't eat the bun). We had a selection of different pickled vegetables for an appetizer and we ordered deviled eggs for dessert.

I have really found that eating primally at times puts me back in touch with basic, simple delicious foods, foods that nourish, foods that put me in touch with the simple act of putting nutrients away - but yet there are times where I want to eat decadently and be swept away from flavors, and it's nice to know that being primal is compatible with a party in your mouth as well as your tummy.

[Timothy]

SweetPickles, you are an inspiration. Such excellent results after four weeks, and you're still building momentum. Imagine six months, twelve months, more! You're doing your primal brothers and sisters proud.

[SweetPickles]

Aw, shucks! Thanks Timothy. I really am looking forward to the next stages - and I really do feel like I've moved away from being a carb-burner. It's a whole new world of appetite and satisfaction - so much better than the old one.

[SweetPickles]

Day 33. I've completely changed the way I eat and fuel my body. Yet here are some aspects of primal living I have yet to explore:

Barefoot/minimalist shoes. About two weeks before I discovered the primal lifestyle, I bought a new pair of New Balance 993's for running, probably the 7th or 8th pair I've purchased in the last 15 years. My late father always wore this model of NB and I do, too in a sort of morbid homage. When I'm ready to try minimalist shoes, I'll go with the NB version - but I just shelled out 130 bucks for these new ones on Amazon, so I need to get some use out of them. They are now my CrossFit shoes. I could probably use them for some light hiking as well.

Cold showers. Clearly a primal notion practiced by people who don't live in Wisconsin. Doesn't going outside to start my car when it's twenty below count as a cold shower? Sigh, okay, maybe not. I have been making a effort to take cooler showers - but I may never want to give my hot water up in winter. That might be more of a warm weather experiment.

Hair. I have been experimenting with only washing my hair every other day, but I still use regular shampoo. I have fine straight hair that can get very oily. I've noticed that my scalp is less oily now that I've changed my diet, but I'm easing in to this one.

You know, I think that my true primal story is about two major changes I never thought I'd make. The first one is to change everything I thought I knew about losing weight and exercise, of course.

The second one has been about becoming less prissy. Like Eva Gabor on Green Acres. I've been prissy since I was a kid. Other kids were making mud pies in their little overalls and I wore dresses all of the time and read. As an adult, my ideal Sunday afternoon used to include shopping, taking in a movie, visiting an art museum, etc. You know, stuff you can do indoors with clean hands and while wearing shoes you care about.

This last weekend I suggested to Mr. SP that we should go out to the woods and split some wood. After he finished snickering at the idea of me with an axe, he arranged with his dad for us to go out to his family's woods and get chopping. We haven't done it yet due to brunch conflicts, but I'll report back.

Goodbye, city life!

I still have far to go in embracing a primal lifestyle. I may always eat primally, but I may remain a sissy at heart. Or maybe I will eventually abandon my prissy ways, dragging Mr. SP off to a dank cave with only our heated mattress pad and french press for company? You just never know.