Primal Journal ~ Merryish page 5

[merryish]

Val, I hear you - I'm a southern transplant, and I would never have imagined I could bike in weather that cold. But you do adjust after a while! And I'm trying to expose myself to the cold more so I can maybe stay warmer at lower temps in the house (it saves on the oil bill!) This morning, for instance, it was 34F and I biked in wearing just a short-sleeved t-shirt over a long-sleeved t-shirt, jeans, and regular shoes. It felt a little chilly, but nothing unmanageable or uncomfortable. =D

The soup really was amazing, I hope it works out for you, too. I've already bought the ingredients for a second batch. This weekend was a big cooking weekend for me - I made chicken soup, my first time, and it turned out kind of awesome. Then I made bone broth with the carcass. Then I made bacon for breakfast for the whole week ahead. I don't know what got into me!

I'm starting to feel like I'm solidly back on track. I've ramped up my biking, and I think that's put a little extra muscle in my thighs, so I haven't lost more weight yet. But I feel like some of the holiday flab has fallen back off, so that's really nice. My energy is back up, too. I'm not sure if I'm back in ketosis yet, but it's been three days of fairly low-carbing and fully primal eating, so if I'm not there already, I'm on my way.

In my ongoing attempt to keep things fun and interesting, I'm contemplating a warrior-diet style change in my eating patterns. Mainly I'm considering a "feeding window" of 7pm - 10pm on weekdays. Skipping breakfast is never a hardship for me, and skipping lunch only gives me a little twinge these days. But when I get home in the evenings, I like to EAT. So I think it would be a fairly easy change. For NEXT week. Because this week, as I mentioned, I've made bacon! On weekends, I'd take a break and eat breakfast and lunch if I felt like it. I like the limit on snacking this would impose and also the convenience factor - making breakfast and lunch takes extra time, money, and effort - all things I don't like spending.

Here's another thing I want to try - I found this online searching for egg muffin cup recipes. It looks amazing! At first I thought the "cup" was bacon, but it looks like it's actually roast beef. Others have mentioned that they did it with ham instead, which sounds far more breakfasty to me. Eggs in Muffin Cups Recipe | Taste of Home Recipes

[AmyP]

Hey!! I enjoy reading your journal (you are a very good writer) and am missing seeing how you are doing!

Is it strange that a stranger pops up like this to tell you to post? I've been primal for a couple of years but lose weight very very slow. I just started doing an intermittent fast on Thursdays. No food until a normal size dinner. That seems to make me lose a pound or two. I read this forum pretty much daily to keep inspired. So there...we are no longer strangers!

[valmason01]

HOw is your warrior style diet going? I can't seem to keep myself in line.

[phigment]

I am rooting for your success in your bike challenge. Biking against the wind is the worse but with it being that cold it must feel like biking uphill in the mud. May your wheels keep on turning.

[merryish]

Okay, I can admit it - I've been off the wagon. A LOT. Basically, I've been rolling in sugar for a couple of weeks now. This is probably why I haven't been around much - a healthy dose of not wanting to show my face.

I had a bit of a health scare - an abnormal CT scan in the girly region. It turned out to be nothing - cysts, basically - but I didn't know that for a couple of days. I got the message about the abnormality after 5pm on a Friday - no news at all till Monday. It was kind of horrible.

You know what I don't react well to in my life? STRESS.

I try to avoid it, but lately it's been piling on. A little work stress - things are not as shiny around the office as they usually are, due to a new guy in charge who has put everything, including my once-imminent promotion, on hold until he gets his bearings. Everyone is tense. Family stress - my father is aging and ill, and far away, and I'm adrift on a sea of denial and confusion over what I can do about that. Debt stress - I've recently begun an orchestrated and intensive campaign to pay off my student loan debt, and the first step was selling my new(ish) car and switching to biking plus Zipcar. And then the medical stress piled on top of that, plus stressing out over what I was eating once I stopped eating the way I knew I should.

I am, my room mate and BFF recently pointed out, trying to do everything at once. Fix ALL the problems, pay ALL the debt, save ALL the money, eat ALL the way right. I may have taken on too much, but when I look at any one thing, it feels impossible to just let it go. So what gave was the eating - and I've gained about 5 lbs, and feel incredibly icky.

Every day for the past week I've made myself the promise of getting it right TODAY, and every day I've finished up with chocolate or some other form of junk food (I'm not talking about the nice "couple squares of dark chocolate" thing; I'm talking about bathing in the stuff.)

But today I think I've got my head on straight. My planned-for breakfast avocado was too unripe, so I fasted till lunch, and then ate three big lettuce wraps with chicken, asiago cheese, tomato and dijon mustard for lunch. I feel pretty full right now, but I have some concerns about 3pm, because there wasn't a lot of fat in that meal. For dinner tonight, asparagus roasted in butter and salt, and grass-fed hamburger with more of the asiago cheese. THAT should up the fat quotient. For tomorrow's lettuce wraps, I'll pre-cook some bacon.

Basically, this is a re-dedication update. I'm starting over from scratch, and trying to get into nutritional ketosis and stay there for a while until the sugar and carb cravings fade out again.

AmyP - we're totally not strangers now. And hey, look, I'm posting, as requested!

Val - the warrior diet thing got derailed by my sugar misadventure, but once I get back into ketosis I'm going to give it another shot.

Phigment - thanks for the encouragement! I'm still biking in to the train station every day for work, and it's been great and also challenging. Weirdly, today I had to fight for space on the bike rack - in Boston - in February! I think I started a trend.

[AmyP]

I'm glad you are back! I had a two week trip on the crazy train over the holidays myself. Got a grip in January. Had a short ride this past Saturday but back at it again now. The part that drives me nuts is that I FEEL so much better when I am eating right.

Onward!

[Siobhan]

Yep, been there, done that. The sugar dragon has visited me and brought her friend the debt monster. I'm telling both of them to go to H*ll. We fall down and we get up, we fall down and we get up.