Taming Of's Primal Journal page

[tamingof]

Hey Everybody!

I'm here with my wonderful friend Wendy ( View Profile: Mshathvri - Mark's Daily Apple Forum ) giving the primal lifestyle a try until her birthday at the end of next month. Here are my reasons for starting:

I just got diagnosed with Celiac disease. I've been completely gluten free for 4 months now and pretty much all of my health problems are slowly disappearing. In addition to that, I also have a corn allergy. (Plus some other things, but I'm trying a rotation diet right now to see which of them I get back.) At my last check up, my Doc asked me to go sugar free as well, to help control the level of yeast in my intestines. And well, as my nutritionist put it, "I've never seen anybody having problems with only eating meat, vegetables and fruits." Sounds pretty primal right?

My main goal is to have a sustainable lifestyle that supports my health. Gluten free can't be a fad diet for me. And this looks to be a really supportive place to make long term changes.

So here are my starting stats:
Height - 5' 4.5"
Weight - 154lbs
Muscle Mass - 59.3lbs/38.5%
Fat Mass - 39.1lbs/25.4%
*data from a Bioimpedance Analysis by my nutritionist

[tamingof]

Had a great shopping trip at the farmer's market yesterday. Picked up a couple of heads of lettuce, chard, yams, eggs, eggplants, cherries, ground beef and a london broil, tuna, olives, and cauliflower. Looking forward to cooking some stuff up today.

[Mshathvri]

I made mashed cauliflower last night and it was super yummy! Hi!

...I want a london broil!

[tamingof]

Hi! Thinking of making roasted cauliflower "steaks" recipe from here: PROUD ITALIAN COOK: Cauliflower "Steaks" That's my current favorite way to cook it. I also want to try this whole riced cauliflower thing I've been reading about. Speaking of recipes, have you found any boards to follow on pinterest or have you been looking through the forums here?

[Mshathvri]

Oooh! I had never heard of cauliflower steaks before. That's totally something I could try; I roast vegetables all of the time.

Hi Katie! Hello! Hello!

I haven't been looking at recipes very much. I'm just kind of cooking things up. Right now I'm cooking some skin-on chicken breasts with butter and Cajun seasoning. Om nom. Sometimes I get in mad cooking phases where I like to get all gourmet on Aaron's ass, but right now I just kind of want my food when I want it. =) We've had a couple of barbecues which is a big help, because then we have ALL OF THE MEATS IN ALL OF THE LAND leftover when we're done.

When I do want recipes, I'll probably look at the reader-compiled free e-book from MDA.

[tamingof]

Not doing a great job of keeping up with this journal, but here's the recent news. I've been mostly primal, with some addition of dairy to the mix, mostly just milk in my coffee or tea, or some goat cheese, but on the 4th my cravings totally got away from me and there was some delicious ice cream. I'm going to try and cut my dairy down to just yogurt, cheese, kefir, and maybe some cream, and only one serving of it a day, with the cream in the coffee counting as one serving. Oh, and the whey protein powder my nutritionist recommended, because that is a life saver in a fruit smoothie for a mid-day snack.

It's weird, but I'm having a much harder time cutting out the sugar then I did with cutting out the gluten. And well, with the corn allergy taking away corn syrup, it's been months without soda too, which was my big sugar hit outside of gluten filled things. So, I don't know, I'm kinda doing a little kid grabby hands impression? Miiiiiiine. So, stocking up of farmer's market honey and some agave syrup, which at least has a low GI hit. Baby steps I guess.

The sadder news is that I did another food challenge (after the oregano one turned out in my favor) and sadly it looks like I won't be getting coconut back. Lots of ginger and lemon tea for my poor stomach and stressed out intestines right now. This one really sucks because it's used so much in primal cooking and is just so tasty. *sigh* But hey, only 12 more challenges left! Ug.

Sorry, kind of a downer post here. Once I get my phone synced up to the computer I'll load a picture of the amazing, entirely paleo 4th of July BBQ my amazing Mom cooked up. One word hint: Ribs.

[tamingof]

Applying some unfuck your habitat to my primal life tonight. Went out, walked up the hill to Alamo Square, played on the jungle gym, did some capoeira and yoga, said my daily prayers, and walked some more. The whole deal with unfucking is to just do something for 20 minutes. So I set a timer on my phone and headed out. Wonderful walking through the cold fog. And amazing because when my timer went off, I wasn't done yet. I still wanted to be doing kicks and cartwheels. Still wanted to be sitting on the damp grass. Felt good.

[tamingof]

Wheee! Hard to believe it's been nearly a month already. Had some rough ups and downs, got accidently exposed to gluten twice this month, both times in the same week. And I've been struggling majorly with cutting out sugar and the cravings that are resulting. Doing better, more on track now. Mom is helping me out with food, primal "microwave" dinners if you will, that way I get more variety in my meals, and I have something safe to grab in case of work call ins.

Today inspiration came from a couple of sources, but the main one being NF's article: A Hobbit's Guide to Walking | Nerd Fitness So I signed up for Map My Run! Running, Running Maps and Running Routes, Runners Community | MapMyRUN I'm tamingof over there too. I set a goal to slowly work my way up to 5 miles a day. Right now I'm going to try for 1 mile a day for a week and then start adding additional miles per day from there. Today I walked 1.62 miles! What I like most about Map My Run is that there is an app for my iPhone so I just hit go and start walking and the GPS on my phone tracks where/how far I'm going. Neat!

So I'm now more fired up about a walking workout, anybody have any suggestions for the sugar cravings? Articles? Recipes? Tricks?

[tamingof]

So went to visit the nutritionist again today, and despite my fears that nothing happened this month, I'm down 4 lbs! Here's the Bio-Impedance breakdown:

Muscle: 56.2lbs/37.5%
Fat: 36.3lbs/24.3%
Total Weight: 150.0lbs

Woot! And in addition to those numbers, my hydration levels are perfectly normal! Dehydration has been a big problem for me in the past, so that's awesome. Now my nutritionist just wants me to lost 6.3lbs of fat, while maintaining or gaining muscle mass. She's happy with my rate of loss and just wants me to focus on knocking out the sugar. She recommended more veggies! Trying to get 5 different colored veggies a day is a new goal. Also she told me that avocados have more fiber than artichokes. Who knew?

In walking news, I went 1.32 miles today. Well... I walked more than that in general, but the specific, I am going out on a walk now, walk was that far.

[tamingof]

1.24 miles today, up to and around Alamo Square. I also am loving Map My Run, because it not only tells you the distance, but the change in elevation. A very important stat in SF. Today's walk had a 92ft elevation change.

Stopped about 3/4 in to do a quick workout. Attempted burpees for the first time since middle school, and then settled into my regular mix of yoga, capoeira, and push-ups/sit-ups. Felt really good even though I was super self-conscious because of all the tourists. Whatever, powered though!

Also in the phytonutrient challenge I'm doing pretty good today. Colors include red (tomatoes), green (zucchini, celery), and white (apple). Now to finish with some yellow-orange and blue-violet. I'm thinking sweet potatoes and blueberries. Yum. (not together)