Primal Journal **Greensprout** page 148

[Greensprout]

6.5 hours of sleep, the usual slow start to the morning, but it picked up quickly.

On the way to work, I realized I'd forgotten my hat for my gym bag, so that solved the dilemma of whether to lift or walk at lunch. So off to L some H Ts. Upped the squat to 70 lbs, and the OHP to 20 lb dumbbells, hopefully I won't be quite as sore as after Friday's workout. Definitely seeing some shape and leanness returning to the arms & shoulders. I even saw a bulging bicep vein during the heavy OHP, heheheh. Had to tell lifting son #1 about that tonight, as he's ever waiting for those elusive bicep veins to magically appear on his own well muscled self . Only about 30 min of lifting, but it got a light sweat going and some heavy breathing.

Had son #2 out driving, he's been asking for practice nearly every day, which is good. He's doing very well with the clutch control, I think he's probably ready to take the stick shift onto more than quiet residential streets, as long as it's not a busy time.

I managed to listen to all 3 of today's "Real Food Summit" talks today. Great stuff about GMO foods and bone broth. I played them from my iPhone in the car to and from work, plus while watering outdoors and making dinner. Call it multitasking. I'm going to try and keep up on all of the talks over the next week.

Last night I decided to treat myself to a big book order from Amazon: Cordain's new Paleo Answer; It Starts with Food, The Perfect Health Diet, Lights Out: Sleep, Sugar & Survival; and Deep Nutrition. Whew. Plenty of paleo info to keep me rolling for months. Of course, it reminded me that I didn't finish Primal Body/Primal Mind. I dug that out and plan to restart it tonight. A big splurge, but a treat to myself from the overtime shift last weekend. Some of the stock was very low, so it will be likely a few weeks till shipping, but that's fine, since I have one to finish (or restart, rather).

Eats:
black coffee
945: (hungry, so late breakfast/early lunch) BAS with 2 BBQ chicken thighs, greek yogurt with berry sauce
4pm: pepperoni stick, cup of cherries
7pm: 2 BBQ pork chops with SOG sauce, steamed asparagus with butter, about a cup of buttered rice (cooked in chicken broth).
One vodka soda.

I feel stuffed from the rice. Didn't plan to have any, it was for the boys. I still like it once in a while with plenty of butter & sea salt. Perhaps it's more the buttery saltiness that I like. Don't think I'll have any more of that for a while.

Hot and sunny for the week (30s). Hat is properly packed already into the gym bag, so walking on deck for tomorrow. I'm lucky that I get the time (usually) to do this from work, with the gym/showers right next door. It really breaks up the workday sitting at a desk quite nicely.

I saw last night and this morning that my shoulders were actually more pink than I thought. Still not sore, now turning a lovely light bronze colour. Here's to Vit D therapy.

[winencandy]

I'm impressed with the 9 hour sleep nights!!

Salt water for curls...hmmm

Tasty vinaigrette of avocado oil, acv, lemon juice, dijon, lemon basil, salt & pepper. A lovely pale green colour.

Sounds lovely!

I picked up purple sweet potatoes, and made the potato salad from Saturday's MDA recipe. Very good indeed.

I always forget to look at the main blog posts. Missed the salad post. I shall check it out.

"everything's better wrapped in bacon". I mentioned how a while back I'd made bacon wrapped chicken livers. His face turned to disgust, and said "that's so wrong...as bad as bacon wrapped babies".... HAHAHAHAHA.

Hehehe

[QUOTE=Greensprout;893928] Real Food Summit, hosted by Underground Wellness dude, Sean Croxton.. 8 days of speakers posted daily on all kinds of good stuff. I'd recommend it if you have the time. Real Food Summit.

I'll check it out, thanks!

Last night I decided to treat myself to a big book order from Amazon: Cordain's new Paleo Answer; It Starts with Food, The Perfect Health Diet, Lights Out: Sleep, Sugar & Survival; and Deep Nutrition. Whew. Plenty of paleo info to keep me rolling for months. Of course, it reminded me that I didn't finish Primal Body/Primal Mind. I dug that out and plan to restart it tonight.

I still haven't finished Wheat Belly...

[Greensprout]

Another good day. 7 hours of sleep, so not bad to start. I picked fresh basil from the garden to go with my lunch in the fresh early morning.

Out walking midday, about 80 minutes. It was very hot but I managed to find frequent shady spots, including a new trail in the park they're lining with bark chips right along the river. Most excellent. And I managed to fit in all today's Real Food Summit talks, between driving, walking, and puttering around doing home chores later on. Got my car to the garage for some maintenance tomorrow (can use hubby's car as he's away), took son #2 for driving practice, ran a couple of errands, and transferred the current batch of wines in progress to the secondary ferment. Yes, we make wine. It's both a good thing and a not so good thing. Sometimes having lots of wine readily available inexpensively lends itself to greater consumption.

I made a batch of chicken liver pate tonight too. Much better than the one I made last summer. This time used the recipe in the original PB cookbook, with a couple of small changes. And lucky me, I had fresh thyme & rosemary out my back door to include. I realized that the last one I made was very grainy and thus a somewhat unpleasant texture experience. This time I let the food processor run longer, which resulted in a creamier texture, rather nice, in fact. Of course, I'm the only one here who will eat it, hubby would have some if he was home, but that's not for a couple more days. So I have a pound of chicken livers to myself over the next few days.

Eats:
black coffee
1pm: caprese salad, pork chop
4pm: pepperoni stick
9pm: chicken liver pate on sliced cucumber and stuffed into celery stalks. One more pepperoni stick.
a hard cider.

Planning on at least 7 hours of sleep again for tonight. And another walk in the hot sun tomorrow.

[winencandy]

Yes, we make wine. It's both a good thing and a not so good thing. Sometimes having lots of wine readily available inexpensively lends itself to greater consumption.

We used to make wine too. Well, we went to one of those places that does it all for you
All we had to do was bottle it. It was the fruity sweet wine. But since primal, my tastes have changed and I can't drink that sweet stuff anymore. I'm not sure what kind of wine I'd make. But I agree, having lots of bottles readily available does lead to "bad" things

[Greensprout]

Yowza, it's hot today. 43C with humidex, which is 106F I think. I was planning to walk before lunch, but on the way to work I realized after doing laundry, I hadn't put a sports bra in my bag. Wasn't wearing a walking friendly bra on me, and I didn't relish the thought of sitting in a sweaty bra all afternoon. Thought I might fit it in later, but too damn hot to feel inspired. Ha, I even managed to catch son #1 between his workout and going to work to give me a lift to the garage 2 miles away to pick up my car.

Son #2 wanted more driving practice, we did some basics, then out on some highway speed routes for that experience. He really appreciated having the chance to do more, and is continuing to do pretty well. I'm trying to keep him focused on "situational awareness", as new teen drivers tend to miss what's going on around them while they focus on the car itself. He'll get there.

After dropping kid off with friends, and with the other at work, I decided to go get a pedicure. The massage chair was very welcome today as I've had a kink in my back all day. And I'm tired this evening. Not quite the 7 sleep filled hours I'd planned for last night. Close, but not 7.

Eats:
black coffee
green tea
11am: chicken liver pate on red pepper strips, cucumber and celery; cherries
430: 2 pepperoni sticks, spoonful of nutella.
630: small pork chop
830: 3 eggs with 4 slices of bacon.

The pate is still good the second day. I still have a bit left, but not much. I'll make it again, must search for free range livers next time, as these were not.

[Greensprout]

7 hours of sleep. Thunderstorms started right after I woke up, but were intermittent for the morning. I did make it out for a walk today for just over an hour, was pretty warm & humid, but overcast. I took the new path near the park I discovered last week, and continued a bit further. Found some more riverside park, which was great. I'll have to do this route again.

Fit in all of today's Real Food Summit presentations, which were all great. Dr. Cate Shanahan's made me pleased that I've ordered her book "Deep Nutrition". And the presentation on epigenetics was incredible food for thought. I'll have to look more at that stuff.

I had an interesting conversation with son #2, regarding carb intake and sugar highs/crashes. I told him about carb metabolism and how insulin works, with the effects on the body in terms of energy and so on. He was actually rather interested, even saying "I'll have to try that at some point" in reference to lower carb eating, though he was adamant about "not right now". He could see how this affects him with his high carb eating. Typical teenager diet. Perhaps a tiny seed has been planted. Son #1 with his workouts already has learned this stuff, he doesn't eat primal per se, but has learned how carb intake impacts cutting and bulking in his weight training cycles.

Today's eats:
black coffee
230pm: last of the pate on celery/cucumber/red pepper, 4 bacon slices, rhubarb berry sauce on greek yogurt
8pm: 2 burger& patties (grassfed beef & lamb) topped with gouda, red onion & avocado, caprese salad
rum & zevia

I'm considering purchasing the package of Real Food Summit presentations. They are really packed full of information, and I'm sure I missed a lot while listening on my iPhone. It includes a number of bonus presentations and pdf files, too. Have to think on this, but I'm leaning toward yes.

[Siobhan]

Thanks for those book recommendations. I've read Cordain's but not the other ones. I need to read up on sugar - I haven't read any books specifically about that. I love reading paleo books, maybe because they all seem to validate stuff I am experiencing. And I'll check out the Real Food, thanks for that too.

[Siobhan]

I just listened to Zoe Harcombe's presentation - terrific stuff! I am so impressed with the people I hear promoting real food/paleo/ancestral diet/whateveryoucallit. So intelligent and reasoned. I might have to purchase the series, there is a lot of stuff there I'm really interested in - remineralizing teeth, stopping hair loss. Haven't lost my hair and don't want to!

[Greensprout]

Sioban, you're most welcome. I've managed to listen to all of the Real Food Summit presentations thus far, and it has been well worth the time. I've restarted reading Primal Body. Primal Mind the past couple of days, and it's a very informative read.

Friday I was intending on lifting, but there was some stuff going on at work that precluded getting out earlier in the day, and then later, I was just not in the mood. Hot and humid once again, not complaining here, I'll be dreaming of that when it's -40 in 5 or 6 months from now.

Friday's eats:
black coffee
green tea
430 pm: pepperoni stick, a few raw almonds
9 pm: grilled rib steak, sauteed mushrooms & peppers.
through the evening 3 hard ciders, a shared bottle of malbec. some ice cream.

Lovely day today, hot earlier but cooled off this evening. Some work related emailing on the go, then errands.

Great farmers' market tally today: kale, radishes, tomatoes, romaine, carrots, broccoli, cucumbers (hooray!), pastured lamb chops and ground lamb, the ever fabulous eggs.

I considered a walk once the shopping was done, but gave it a miss and floated around the pool and lay on the deck collecting Vit D instead. A good tradeoff, methinks.

Eats:
black coffee
3pm: uncovered a stray remaining small pork chop in the fridge, that plus some cherries, 6 raspberries
hard cider
6pm: wild coho salmon whole stuffed with onion/lemon/thyme/lemon basil/butter cooked in foil on the BBQ, roasted sweet potato, raw cucumber, red pepper, radishes. Most excellent.

It was a 2.5 kg salmon, there is less than half left after 4 of us tucked in. And one kid wasn't "too" hungry. I see salmon cakes in my immediate future.

Evening is being spent sitting on the deck reading primal things and now online browsings.

A good day.

[Greensprout]

Grey and rainy all day, which precluded walking. A decent 9 hours of sleep, which I can manage quite well, thank you very much on the weekends, with sleep in time readily available, it's getting my ass to bed on work nights when I have to be up early thats the issue. Period started today, which after the last 3 cycles of ridiculous 19 and 20 days followed by 28 days, today was day 29. Hmm.

Rain, rain, makes for a good day to browse the mall. I did a lot of browsing, but didn't find anything I particularly wanted to buy. A couple of items at Lush, that's it (and kombucha from the health food shop on the way home). I had a bit of a craving, and found myself peering at the displays in Godiva chocolates, and even had a lump of maple walnut fudge in my hand at Rocky Mountain candy shop, but returned it gingerly to the stack and walked away. Ate a tsp of honey when I got home, instead.

I've had a lot of work on the go this weekend with the on call stuff. Many emails, phone calls, responding to pages. I think I've got things all well in hand to where they need to be, will find out in the morning, I suppose. I was considering a bath, which I haven't done in a hell of a long time, since it's a tad chilly, but have let that go, as I'm not wanting to drop any of my communication bits in the tub! Perhaps I'll still fit in a face mask (Lush).

Eats:
black coffee
3 eggs (one double yolk) with leftover steak & mushrooms
2 strawberries, 3 raspberries. tsp of honey
GTs gingeraide kombucha
D: salmon cakes with yesterday's leftovers topped with greek yogurt/sour cream/lemon juice/dill topping. Caprese salad
one chocolate/banana/almond butter nuked cupcake thing, topped with the last of the rhubarb berry sauce. Killed the chocolate craving nicely.
glass of red.

I can see tomorrow being busy, based on today's work events. And I have to take my car in early to the body shop. Finally getting the bumper replaced (all covered by insurance) from when I was rear ended nearly <ahem> 2 years ago. Can we say procrastination . At least it's getting done now, and insurance is covering a rental car while the work is being done. I'll also get the rock chip fixed in the windshield from my trip to Ontario last spring. Hopefully I'll get it back in time to make the road trip to visit my Mom in Alberta that I'd like to do at the end of the month.