Primal Journal (Judg) page 2

[Judg]

Thanks Siobhan. CFS could very well be a viral infection. There was a study, now much disputed, a couple of years ago, showing a very high correlation between XMRV and CFS. Regardless of the merits of that study, I tend to favour the hypothesis of a physiological, infectious cause, mainly because of the epidemic nature of CFS when it first made its appearance. Many of the doctors who first responded to it have been convinced of a viral cause all along. (See the book Osler's Web if you have any interest in pursuing this.) On the other hand, fatigue is the natural result of a vast host of problems, and if you have several of them, you could very well be tired all the time without the help of a specific virus. I am hoping for myself that some kind of gluten intolerance is a major factor for me at least, enough to raise my quality of life if I address it.

I'm not doing so well today, I'm afraid. I went to bed early last night, and got to sleep well before midnight, so I woke up at a reasonable time for a change. It should, logically, be a much better day today.

Not.

I'm feeling draggy and discouraged and downright snarky. My weight isn't dropping, or barely, and I feel tired? Like, why do I have to face life kind of tired? When I've been so good? And it was hard to find all the ingredients I needed for my lifestyle at my warehouse style grocery, but because I rely on my son to take me who is on a tight schedule, I didn't have time to find them all. So I couldn't make that chicken tikka masala last night. And you know, you kind of feel like you should be rewarded for being virtuous... Dumb, I know, but we are not always rational creatures. I mean, I'm not trying to be virtuous, I'm trying to be healthy. I'm giving things up, not to adhere to a code, but to try to make headway in my war on feeling rotten. So when I get the opposite of hoped-for results, I feel ticked off. Of course, the rational part of me knows full well that a down morning means precious little on its own, but there you are.

And then when I read a snarky comment about peanut butter somewhere in these forums, I kind of snapped. I went and made up a recipe for primal pumpkin almond butter brownies with PEANUT BUTTER, ostensibly to use the stuff up, but more because I was feeling cantankerous and I wanted comfort food. I've been gorging on them ever since. And they're not all that wonderful, truth be told, so I'm not even that much comforted. Needless to say, I'm going to have to skip lunch and forego weighing myself for days to undo the damage. And of course, being in a snarky mood to begin with, all the little things that went wrong - like my silicon spatula snapping because the handle was so cheap - bugged me more than normal.

Anyway, breakfast was basically a replay of yesterday, and that no-fat aspartame yogurt is finally gone. The Greek yogurt we found yesterday is only 2%, which is a bit disappointing. I want something that's going to make me feel full all morning and even beyond, which will help prevent me from snapping in the future. I probably went too light on the nuts this morning, so there wasn't enough substance in breakfast to keep me going.

I'm going to try to get out this afternoon to see if I can scare up the rest of those ingredients. Contributing to my annoyance this morning is the sheer effort of having to reprogram my head, suddenly develop a bunch of new habits and source my new staples. It's not surprising I wasn't able to do it in one rushed shopping session, and the rational part of me knows this. It's the irrational part of me that's causing problems today.

Anyway, we'll chalk it all up to experience, and move on. Nobody said the path to success would be free of stones. I think I'll go listen to some good music, for a source of comfort that won't add excess calories and will probably work much better on top of it all. And try not to kick myself too hard for stuffing myself. It's not something I do very often, but I do have my moments. And unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, I have to 'fess up in a public journal.

[Siobhan]

Oh honey, I am sorry about your day and if I were there I would cook up a big batch of nitrite-free pasture-raised bacon, polish up a couple of apples and serve up a primal feast. It is easy to underestimate the challenges of making a paradigm shift happen in your life. But you are doing the right thing by focusing on positive things like music and realizing that even though seems terrible, in the big picture they are really okay.

FWIW, I personally feel that gluten intolerance was a big part of my problem, and I have to stay away from the thinking that - hey, no gluten = okay for me. In listening to the people talking around me, I am thinking that pretty much everyone is gluten intolerant to some degree. It is hard to wrap my head the fact that this grain that CW holds up as a model of good nutrition, and has in fact been eaten by millions of people for thousands of years, is in fact bad. But it is, and most of those millions of people weren't, in fact, very healthy.

Enough of that - I hope you are feeling better and don't let the bad guys get to you. I have found these journals to be generally positive and populated by reasonable, thinking people, so I have been spending lots of time here looking for moral support. I also have a jar of peanut butter in my cupboard that I can't quite part with. Up until Easter Sunday, peanuts and peanut butter were mainstays of my diet!

[Sabine]

A tablespoon or two of cream stirred into low-fat yogurt makes it much nicer.

[Judg]

I ended up going out for a big chunk of the afternoon. I chased down the rest of those ingredients and a few other things and just enjoyed being out on my own. I'm still feeling stuffed from all those brownies... *sigh* Ate a little sausage anyway, but any further fridge browsing will be leftover veggies.

I did camp out in Starbucks for a while to recover from the walk to the shopping centre. Somebody was thoughtful enough to forget a novel there, and seeing as it was actually quite good I stayed quite a while. Just had a decaf, but I did notice this particular shop is now carrying coconut water. And smoothies with no offensive ingredients. And Greek yogurt. 0% unfortunately, but we can't win them all, can we? Which reminds me, I forgot to check the yogurt section at the grocery store. Rats.

So I'm kind of tired, but overall, feeling in a more positive space, even if I am still rather annoyed with myself.

Sabine, good to know. Now I just have to persuade my son to use up the low-fat cream I have in the fridge so I can get some "real" stuff... LOL! I rarely put cream in anything, but that yogurt is probably going to need a little help. Haven't tasted it yet. Although 5% cream would still up the fat content of 2% yogurt, wouldn't it?

[Sabine]

Do I even want to know? What the heck is 'low-fat cream'? How is that possible?

[Siobhan]

You know, I've seen fat free half-and-half but I've never looked at the label. Made me shudder even before primal. Fat-free Half-and-half? Isn't that an oxymoron and not a food?

But I'm glad you're feeling better and had a nice day out. We have new honest-to-goodness coffee shop in our little village, very exciting stuff. Of course now that we have a nice coffee shop I can't drink coffee (hello chest pain). I will have to see if they can make a decent cup of tea (very rare here in the U.S.).

[Judg]

Do I even want to know? What the heck is 'low-fat cream'? How is that possible?

Half-and-half ultra-homogenized that has been doctored somehow to reduce the fat content. I bought it because of my hubby who really likes a lot of cream in his coffee. If I can persuade him to go Primal, that will be a thing of the past altogether.

And now would somebody please scrape my jaw off the floor? My youngest son, who lives at home again (at my invitation) and who has been working on losing weight and getting fit asked me what my new eating plan was. So I told him. He listened for a few minutes and said, "Okay, I'll do this with you. Just don't make anything gross." LOL! Thing is, he does read about these things somewhat and listen to people who have credibility with him. One of his customers, who was obviously brilliant and obviously fit (both would impress my son and give him credibility) had told him that while cutting the sugar in his coffee was a good thing, going with low-fat milk as opposed to cream was not, and told him why. And the trainer at the gym had told him a few things too. So he was basically ripe for the persuading. Still, I was astonished. It was a big step for him to take on the basis of a pretty brief explanation from me. Gee, maybe I have some credibility with him too...

It's going to be harder for him than me. He eats a lot of pita and tortillas, as well as hummus and beans, and just doesn't like a wide variety of veggies, but I'll see what I can do to ease the process. He does love spices and that tikka masala is on the agenda for today. I am quite sure he will find that an encouraging start.

As for myself, what a difference a day makes! My walk went better than I expected yesterday. I was all prepared to jump on a bus if I got too tired to walk all the way to my errands. I didn't feel any muscle fatigue till I was almost there, which rather surprised me, given what a rotten start I had had to the day. I did stay tired for quite a while (nothing surprising there, one of the givens of my condition is that once I get tired, I stay down for the rest of the day), but I was able to do my errands at a reasonable pace. Didn't feel up to cooking when I got home, but after gorging myself on high-protein brownies, I wasn't exactly hungry, so that was alright.

As the evening went on, I felt better and better, and went to bed pleasantly tired, instead of weary to the bone like I should have been. My body actually felt good after the day's exertions. And today I woke up eager to face the day and capable of sticking to my morning routine (which isn't anywhere near routine enough). I've had my coffee, read my Bible, done my exercise (15 minutes of dancing, seeing as it's cold and rainy today and walking would be unpleasant), I'm dressed and washed up, and my bathroom is nice and clean. I'm a little tired from the exercise, but not enough to throw my day out of whack. I haven't eaten yet, because I'm not hungry enough to bother with it, and I do prefer to get some exercise in before eating if I can to get my body into fat-burning mode. (You see why Primal appealed to me. It hit a lot of bases that made sense to me from my reading and my experience. I prefer to eat only when I'm hungry, a luxury I can permit myself seeing as my schedule is so open. I don't have to worry about hunger hitting in the middle of a shift at work.)

Anyway, this is big. I would sometimes feel this good even before going Primal, but it required several good nights of sleep, no stress, and just plain luck. I am encouraged. Big time.

Oh, and I got on the scale this morning and I'd actually edged down, despite yesterday's indiscretions. My travelling weight is now pretty well gone (there wasn't much this time, which was pretty astonishing in and of itself, but I was already going semi-Primal). I can now start aiming for historic lows.

What a difference a day makes.

[Judg]

Lunch:
Primal Chicken Tikka Masala
Garlic-Marinated Broccoli
Mineral water

Lots of sauce in that chicken recipe. I could have practically doubled the chicken. Next time I will; it's quite a lot of work, so better make enough for lots of meals. Son appreciated both it (I added extra cayenne, he likes things HOT) and the broccoli. He doesn't mind it raw so all in all it was a lovely meal. Next time I might try making the "tortilla" recipe as a substitute for naan bread to sop up the sauce. It made for quite an intense cooking session, so I am going to lay off elaborate cooking for a few days.

And I'm going to go rest. It's been a good day, but not THAT good... ;o) Time for tea.

[Siobhan]

Funny, I haven't had any tea today and as soon as I saw that "Time for tea" in your post I wanted some. Ah, the power of suggestion! How great that your son is joining you - that will make it easier.

I'm going to make the CTM tomorrow, wish me luck!

[Siobhan]

Funny, I haven't had any tea today and as soon as I saw that "Time for tea" in your post I wanted some. Ah, the power of suggestion! How great that your son is joining you - that will make it easier.

I'm going to make the CTM tomorrow, wish me luck!