Primal Journal (Difwiz) page 2

[Seaglassgreen]

Difwiz, where did you go??

[difwiz]

I've been offline for the past few days, but I haven't quit eating as primally as possible.

I drove from eastern VA to Memphis, TN yesterday. L-O-N-G DAY. I did bring a lot of my food with me though, so I think I fared pretty well on the trip.

Yesterday's food:
Breakfast - scrambled eggs and coffee with half and half.
Lunch 1: some hard-boiled eggs, walnuts, olives, and fresh mozzarella cheese balls at a random rest area in Western Virginia.
Lunch 2: same as Lunch 1, except add in some celery and a few swipes of almond butter - this time at a random rest area near Nashville, TN.
Dinner: lettuce, endive, olives, walnuts, cucumber, and a bun-less bacon thick burger from Hardee's.
After dinner (while waiting for my mom's flight to land at Nashville): black coffee with 1 square of 70% dark chocolate and one square of 77% dark chocolate.


Today, I am at my cousin's house in Memphis, so I have a lot less control over what I will be eating, but I had leftover food packed from yesterday's trip, so I had some of it for breakfast and lunch. Dinner is actually planned to be something close to primal if I don't have the potatoes, so I think today will be a good day.

Today so far:
Breakfast: leftover salad of lettuce, endive, hard boiled eggs, walnuts, olives, mozzarella cheese, and some ranch dressing.
Mid-morning snack: some celery with almond butter
Lunch: 2 hard boiled eggs, some walnuts, a few olives, some mozzarella balls, and 2 squares of chocolate.

As I was eating my lunch, my Aunt walked by and really harped on me about eating not only TWO but FOUR eggs during a single day. She said, "you are definitely going to find that eating 4 eggs a day is WAY TOO MUCH. That is just WAY TOO MUCH cholesterol and fat to eat." I told her "no it's not" and she said "YES IT IS!!!!"

I did get a little bit of exercise and sun today though. I don't play golf, but we went to hit some balls at the range, so I got exercise walking a bit (we also went to a local lake and played on the swings, etc. for a little while) and I got some sun (I did get a little bit red though).

I tried to get my mom to go primal with me this week so we could both keep each other on track and be able to support each other when challenged by the rest of the family, but she is having none of it. She went to Sonic this morning with my cousin and got God knows what to eat. She also had potato chips this morning. I would normally be tempted by the chips and Cheetos, but I wasn't this time. I just looked at them and decided to not even go there. I know where that leads me. If I have one, I will have the whole rest of the bag. AND. I. WANT. TO. SUCCEED. TOO. DAMN. MUCH.

[Seaglassgreen]

yay you!! good job on the snacks! I am always so tempted when there is junk food around. Good for you!

[difwiz]

Thanks Seaglassgreen! It has always been tough for me to avoid junk food when I was on a regular Conventional Wisdom-based diet, but right now, it just doesn't draw me. I would rather have a few olives and yummy mozzarella balls and a few walnuts. I feel better after and fuller longer...and I don't have that weird orange "cheese" goo on my fingers after eating my snacks that I do when I eat Cheetos. Given the choice, and knowing what I have learned over the past few weeks, if presented a table with some mozz balls, olives, walnuts, a hard-boiled egg, and an apple on one side and cheetos or cheese fries or nachos (or all 3) on the other side, I would (probably) choose the apple/nuts/olives. I say probably because I have an unconquered weakness for eating cheese fries when I am at the movie theater (they make it fresh when you order - hot fries, melted cheese - takes about 10 minutes for them to make) when we are going to see a "big" movie. Thank goodness we haven't gone since I started this. Maybe when the next Hunger Games or Twilight movies roll around I will have that under control. Or maybe it will just be my 20%. I think I have been pretty near 100% for the past few weeks (except the two occasions I had rice and butter to calm an upset stomach).

Ok - for the 2nd half of today:

Afternoon snack: a handful of fresh snap peas - taste reminded me of eating snap peas out of my aunt's garden when I was young.
Dinner was grilled chicken (Yum!! haven't had this for a LONG time), roasted carrots (from my aunt's garden), roasted beets, and roasted potatoes (didn't want to have these, but they were all mushed in with the rest of the veggies, and it was hard to pick out), a cut-up apple, a small handful of walnuts, and some leftover lettuce and endive from yesterday. And red wine. No dressing - the roasted veggies had enough of flavor and the olive oil on them helped spread the flavor around. I didn't finish it all - it was a lot of food. I finished the wine though.

Ok. I think I have sort of gotten the hang of the whole food thing, so I am going to add the 10 Primal Blueprint laws so I can start to focus on the other areas as well.

Eat Plants & Animals - Did this well today. Chicken for dinner, eggs earlier in the day. Lots of veggies.

Avoid Poisonous Things - At my house, we don't have chips, cookies, candy, or soda. Here, however, this stuff is in abundance. I haven't had a crumb or drop of it (patting myself on the back - in an earlier time, I would have started and not stopped until I went home at the end of the week).

Move Frequently At A Slow Pace - walked some at the golf course, wanted to go for a little walk after dinner, but it was too dark when we were done and I was still exhausted from yesterday's marathon drive.

Lift Heavy Things - didn't do any of this today, but I have one of those cool workout sandbags on order and it should be delivered to my house while I am out of town. Can't wait to try it!

Sprint Once In A While - none today

Get Adequate Sleep - Severely lacking in this area. I got in to Memphis last night at 3 a.m. and was woken up by my nieces at 7:30 am. Hoping to get to sleep at 10pm tonight. We have to get up super early tomorrow morning to get my nieces to school (us visiting family types need to know what to do and where to go b/c my cousin is going to have a baby on Tuesday and we will need to take care of her kids while she is in the hospital). The rest of the week though, I want to have no alarms - I want to wake up when the sun comes up. Maybe this week can be a reset button on my sleep cycles? Not bloody likely. (I know I am mixing cousin and nieces, but my cousin is more like my sister - we grew up 2 miles apart and are only 5 months apart in age - she is like a sister to me and her daughters are my nieces and I am their Aunt. Twisted, I know, but it makes things easy. And that is just how it is to us.)

Play - Played golf with my Aunt, brother-in-law (cousin's husband), and 6 year old niece. Just did some swinging at some golf balls at the driving range, but I can already feel it in my shoulders, arms, and back. We also played on a playground for a little while.

Get Adequate Sunlight - see aforementioned golf outing. Got a little burned, but it felt good to be outside without oppressive heat and humidity. We had a nice breeze too.

Avoid Stupid Mistakes - I stopped swinging the golf clubs before I felt like I was overdoing it. I went to a driving range about 5 or 6 years ago and did too much too soon and never went back. I would like to get into golf - what a great way to get your walking in!! - and I don't want to injure myself before I even get going.

Use Your Brain - I have been reading a little bit of Mark's book every day (when I have a quiet moment and not too much that I overload my brain and forget what I read. I read the first part of the book too fast and will need to go back and re-read it to really let it sink in.


Tomorrow will be a crap shoot. We are going to Waffle House for breakfast and some BBQ place for lunch. I have high hopes for the BBQ place - maybe score some BBQ without a bun and some green beans with bacon or some collards with bacon. Or maybe some bacon with bacon. Waffle House - well, I will probably be having some mess of eggs and veggies. I do love the hash browns smothered, covered, diced, etc., etc., etc., but I will stick to the eggs even though my Aunt will be all over me for eating eggs...again.

[difwiz]

Ok. Back on track. Again.

The week with the family went ok, except near the end, when I just lost steam and for the last day there and the two days of traveling, I broke and ate regular food. Oh well. I got back in the saddle after that and except for one day last weekend, I have been eating primally.

I just started up using Twitter and I am a complete amateur, so I am not sure if it will take, but I thought it might be fun to try.

Breakfast: leftover grilled chicken thighs (from KFC)

Lunch: coffee with half and half and a salad from whole foods with some veggies, pulled pork, and sour cream

Dinner: I didn't eat all of my salad, so I am going to have the rest of it for dinner maybe with some cut-up grass-fed, no bad stuff hot dogs.



Eat Plants & Animals - Did pretty well with this today.

Avoid Poisonous Things - Yep. As far as I can tell.

Move Frequently At A Slow Pace - Big fail here. Still recovering from an ill-advised half-marathon last weekend and I am waiting for my knee to stop complaining.

Lift Heavy Things - I have the Ultimate Sandbag, but I just need to get some sand to fill it with.

Sprint Once In A While - Not today (knee)

Get Adequate Sleep - Yeah...not so much. I was up until midnight last night and then it took a few hours for me to fall asleep.

Play - I am sure other people won't call it play, but for lunch, I escaped from the office, got a salad, then went over to Starbucks and ate lunch on their patio in the sunshine with a cool breeze, while reading the Primal 21 day Transformation book on my nook.

Get Adequate Sunlight - See lunch above. I pushed up my long sleeves so my arms could get some sun. Not enough, but it was still nice to be able to sit outside at lunchtime and not die from the heat and humidity.

Avoid Stupid Mistakes - I think so.

Use Your Brain - Well, I spent hours and hours at work, so yeah. Did this.

[difwiz]

Okay so yesterday, I had some scrambled eggs with some heavy cream whisked in for breakfast.
I had 3 slices of roast beef smeared with some cream cheese for lunch, with a few olives and some mozzarella.
I had some leftover Boeuf Bourguignon that I had in the freezer for dinner. THAT was really good.

Today, I had some coffee for breakfast, and a slice of roast beef at Whole Foods.
Still thinking of what to eat for lunch. Maybe the last of the Boeuf Bourguignon.

[difwiz]

Okay here is today:

Breakfast - 4 eggs with 3 slices of bacon

Mid-day snack - 1 piece of 86% dark chocolate and one piece 77% dark chocolate (was comparing different brands - had to taste them both )

Afternoon Snack: Some crockpot beef burgundy that I made yesterday. It turned out pretty good given the fact that I just threw some things in, crossed my fingers, and hoped for the best. I have made Boeuf Bourguignon before and know the ingredients for that, so I based this concoction on that recipe, but played with the quantities a bit, and also took some hints from a few online recipes that I saw that used a few different things. I will definitely be making this again because it was so easy and comes sort of close to Boeuf Bourguignon, but my favorite will always be Julia Child's Boeuf Bourguignon (leaving out the flour of course!).

I have decided to only work on adding 1 of the Primal Principles at a time. I need to work on one at a time to make sure that I am focusing on creating a habit instead of hopping, skipping, and jumping between all of them and not doing any of them well. This first week, I am going to be working on moving around a lot at a slow pace. I usually come home after work, make dinner, and then relax for the rest of the evening. This week, I will be heading to the gym to walk on the treadmill for a little while after work. I know walking around outside would be better, but I need to separate this from my routine at home.

Although I haven't quite gotten to the first day of the transformation in the 21 day transformation book, I am starting my 21-day push tomorrow. I have been including dairy these past few weeks in the form of cream in my coffee and little fresh mozzarella balls. I will be keeping the cream, but cutting the mozzarella balls. Also, with very few exceptions, one of my goals is to have a big ass salad every day for lunch like Mark does. I need to plan ahead so that I have cut up veggies and protein each morning so I can make my salad and not give myself an excuse to eat out. I am not very good at that, but will work on getting better.

I will be posting every night as well (trying to get into a habit of doing this regularly too) to try to log my progress.

[difwiz]

Today was GREAT!!!!! I have lost 4.6 lbs since the last time I posted my weight on loseit.com (my family is on there and we track our weight loss there) which was 9/18. Not as much as I had hoped for, but I had a week-long trip to visit family and a half marathon in the middle of that, so a net loss of 4.6 lbs is pretty good I think!

Today's food stuff:
Breakfast: 3 scrambled eggs and bacon
Lunch: big ass salad with lettuce, cucumber, red pepper, walnuts, seaweed, chia seeds, a side of barbacoa from Chipotle, and a dressing of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, mustard, salt, and pepper. It was REALLY GOOD.
Dinner will be some of that beef burgundy and some steamed broccoli with butter.

I went to the gym at lunch and walked in my vibram fivefingers for 30 minutes.

[difwiz]

Day 2 of my 21 Day Transformation went pretty well. I had a meeting in the end of town where my gym is and went there after my meeting during my lunch. I did 3 sets of weight-assisted pull-ups and 3 sets of incline push-ups (all in my business casual work clothes, so I kept it pretty tame on purpose). Then I went for a nice stroll in the sun for about 20 minutes around the little area where my gym is (kind of a new "main street" type development with brick sidewalks, benches, grass down the middle of the street, storefronts on the bottom level and condos on top, etc.).

Breakfast: 3 slices of roast beef smeared with cream cheese that had been blended with some yellow mustard (YUM!!!) I will be making this again!

Lunch: a big ass salad like yesterday's, but minus the seaweed, and add Chipotle's grass-fed rBGH-free sour cream.

Dinner: a can of tuna with some mayo (I know, not primal), ketchup (365 organic, but still has some sugar in it, I know), and some mustard.

Still trying to get to the challenge days in the book. Busy days and nights do not lend well to reading.