catspaw

Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. You are making progress on your thesis -- feeling bad that it's not enough isn't helping anyone. Keep us updated on how the next few days go!

Welcome aboard Dave! Glad to have you with us.

Just remembered that I have a 10 mile run tomorrow, so microwaved up a sweet potato to add some starchy carbs to my evening. Add ~200 calories and a bunch of carbs to the counts above.

Food Breakfast: Breakfast at the farmer's market! Above, paleo burger with a fried egg on it. I also grabbed a stick of dried salmon to nom on while I browsed. Also awesome from today: I was buying lamb shanks from a butcher and he mentioned a stew he loves that goes well with thick slices of bread. "Ah, I can't eat bread," I replied. "No? Are you on a paleo diet?" he asked. I love love love living in an area so familiar with diet diversity that not only could I order a paleo burger from 4505 meats, but the guy at Marin Sun Farms asked me if I'm paleo. Crazycool. It makes it just sliiightly easier to walk by all of the baker stands (and their delicious-smelling bread) with these guys having my back. Plus, I think they like the idea of a chick buying pounds of meat every week. Lunch: Grilled sardines and leftover braised escarole Bought these sardines whole from the market. I'd never had sardines before, believe it or not, but these had been fished the day prior, and looked like they had potential. I about how to clean 'em (gut 'em, cut off their heads, etc.), pan seared em in a bit of coconut oil and they were great and easy. Snack: Some chicken breast, with a bottle of kombucha, and 5 dark chocolate almonds Dinner: Two chicken cherry sausages, topped with onions Met friends at a sausage shop dinner. Note to self: my processed meat intake is too high. Even though I'm careful with all the sausages and such I eat to make sure their ingredients are paleo, the sodium content is really high (I'm averaging ~3500mg/day) which is probably causing me some water retention problems. I'm gonna work on limiting myself to some bacon OR a sausage every day. Food totals: Calories: 1689 (63g carbs, 116g fat, 140g protein) Paleo score: A; Satiety: Mixed. Breakfast was extra-large which meant less food for the rest of the day, and I think that left my brain hungry, even if my body was satisfied.

I usually make two egg omelets. If I'm making a sweeter omelet though (like caramelized onion and figs) I'll use one egg and two egg whites. 1/2 Tbsp butter or coconut oil in a pan somewhere btw medium and medium-high. Beat the eggs in a bowl with 2 Tbsp water (gives them a fluffier texture) and add to pan. Just before it's solidified on top, I add my toppings to half the omelet. Use a spatula to flip the other half over into a semi-circle, or fold into thirds to make a longer omelet. To get it onto the plate photogenically, I just put my plate on top of the frying pan and flip the entire thing over so that the omelet falls downwards onto the plate.

If you check out my challenge thread, you can see photos of what I eat every day. My protein was in the 100-130ish range for the first half of the challenge, and these days is more like 150g per day.

If you're new to paleo, now's a great time to start learning how to cook some very simple recipes! Stir fries, salads, omelets, ... and then eventually curries, soups, stews, ... These types of things will totally get you through! (Out loud thought: maybe we need a chef guild / challenge / etc next time?)

I'm looking for some meatspiration. What's your favourite cut of meat when you want to treat yourself with deliciousness?

Food Breakfast: Turkey bacon, chicken breast and 2 egg veggie omelet Lunch: Grilled salmon on a tahini-dressing salad Snack: Bone broth (recipe), chicken breast, sausage and dark chocolate Dinner: Chuck roast (recipe) and braised escarole (recipe) I found the pot roast a little dry but the escarole was fantastic. Food totals: Calories: 1789 (49g carbs, 104g fat, 163g protein) Paleo score: A- (I need to lay off that dark chocolate); Satiety: Medium-good. Fine during the day but kinda still hungry now (end of day). Most of my snacks happened between 5-7 while waiting for dinner to cook.

I found some cat food that just contains meat, other animal products (ground bone, etc.), and some vegetable matter. No grains, no chemicals, no weird shit. There's apparently several brands that fall into this category -- try asking your local pet store for grain-free options, and then browse the ingredients to find one that looks like it's Real Food.

Food Breakfast: Vegetable omelet, avocado, green beans and canadian bacon Post-workout: Protein shake Lunch: Ground beef and brussels (1/4 lb beef, with rosemary and ras el hanout seasoning), scrambled egg whites, and a 4505 bacon-stuffed hot dog Snack: Another hot dog, and some shredded coconut to curb sugar-cravings Dinner: Mahi mahi and peppers stir fry (with red pepper flakes and a dab of honey) on kale Food totals: Calories: I'll be honest, I counted today after yesterday's disaster. 1679 calories, 60g carbs, 91g fat, 154g protein. I'll go back to unweighed/unmeasured in a day or two when I get my confidence back. Paleo score: A; Satiety: Hungry for a lot of the day, but very successful at curbing it. Lots of meat, lots of water. Exercise NRLW - 5B (2 of 4) Skipped the intervals at the end though. I was feeling a little low-carb sickness from yesterday's binge and the only way I could drag my sorry ass to the gym was promises that I wouldn't have to do the intervals. Other updates Dyed my hair a light brown shade for the autumn season. I've been blonde for so long that I forgot what I looked like with brown hair. What do you think?

Just heard a cute tip to regulate nut intake: Eat as many nuts as you want, but you must shell them yourself, without a nutcracker, as you eat them. (Ie: using the back of a knife, slamming them between two cutting boards, etc.) This extra exertion naturally limits how many you're gonna want to eat at one time but won't feel quite as limiting as "only one ounce per day" or other such rules.

A good way to ensure you're getting all of your vitamins and minerals is to eat a wide variety of vegetables. So here's a challenge for the interested! In the next week eat at least one of each of the vegetable families below. I'm happy to provide recipes or nomming tips for any vegetable if you're having trouble figuring out how to consume it. But print out this list, visit a grocery store or farmer's market, and experiment with some veggies outside of broccoli and carrots. Allium family: leeks, garlic, shallots, onions, chives Cabbage family: broccoli, brussel sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, collards, kale Compositae family: endive, artichoke, escarole, lettuce Squash family: gourds, squashes, cucumber, melon Nightshade family: tomatoes, eggplant, bell peppers, hot peppers Umbel family: celery, carrot, fennel, parsnip, cilantro There are many other families, but those six are the six for our challenge! (If you can't eat nightshades, feel free to substitute another family, like okra or sweet potatoes.)

So I totttaaally messed up food today. I had about double my normal number of calories, including some non-paleo food. I'm not gonna dwell on it negatively, because tomorrow's a new day, but I do want to look into what happened. I think three things: 1) Breakfast / lunch was too small. Tomorrow, gonna eat the world's largest breakfast/lunch evar to avoid this snackingtastrophy. Haha. I'm also going to make a big pot of bone broth to sip on when I'm feeling snacky. 2) Lack of success turned into "aw fuck it" binging We're halfway through the challenge, my body fat percentage seems to be holding steady and increasing a little bit, despite me trying sooooo hard to be good. So I had one of those "aw, fuck it" moments, where "if being good doesn't work, why should I bother?" I know these are pointless moments, but it hit anyway, and as such I grabbed a protein bar, not paleo, to top it off, and then some ice cream. 3) Still adjusting to unweighed / unmeasured. If I just "eat when hungry", I eat too much. If I try to restrict, I eat not enough and end up starving after lunch, like today. I'm still figuring this out, and I have to be patient with myself. Anyway, one super-high-calorie day isn't going to kill me. Maybe it'll jumpstart my metabolism. I'm great at giving my goals 110% during times when I can feel improvement. I need to get better at keeping it up when I'm not.

Food Breakfast: Vegetable omelet with canadian bacon and strawberries Post-workout: Protein shake Lunch: Leftover lamb curry I totttaaally fucked up food today (it happens sometimes -- learning and moving on). I guess I didn't eat enough at the start of the day so I was RAVENOUS between 1pm and 4pm and ate a TON of food. (Will discuss further in a separate post below.) Snack: 4 sausages (yikes! -- a whole package), carrots, lots of coconut flakes, 2 squares of dark chocolate, a protein bar, ice cream AND a large larabar. Dinner: Egg whites and broccoli Very small dinner since I'd already eaten about 3000 calories before dinner. Food totals: Calories: No idea!!! Stopped counting them! (eep!) Paleo score: C (protein bar and ice cream); Satiety: FAIL. Exercise Circus School More of the same: upper body insanity. Plus a 6 mile walk today.

Food Breakfast: Egg whites, bacon, sausage and fruit Breakfast today was at a meeting, so I didn't have a lot of options. That said, despite being surrounded by oatmeal and pancakes, I think I did a great job putting together a paleo plate. Lunch: Lamb curry (recipe) I replaced the potatoes in the recipe with some yellow bell peppers and carrots, and it was deeeeelicious! A very sweet, lightly spicy curry. Nomnomnom! Snack: Chicken sausage, and nearly an entire bag of carrots. (Chomp!) Dinner: Sushi Went out for sushi with the boy. I had only sashimi (paleo-friendly) and some cooked fish (also paleo-friendly) and okra-beef. Managed to pass on the strawberry daifuku for dessert (oh the willpower...), but probably injested some soy sauce that was used to flavour the cooked fish. Food totals: Calories: No idea!!! Stopped counting them! (eep!) Paleo score: A- (probably soy sauce traces); Satiety: Perfect. Exercise NRLW - 5A (2 of 4) Managed to increase my dumbell incline chest press by 10lbs since last week. /flex. Garmin HR monitor during session: garmin Other updates I enrolled in a knitting class! This is very very very outside my comfort zone (I'm not at all a into-that-sort-of-things) person, but falls nicely into my "do one thing every week that scares me" category. (Also, I measured BF percentages today, and my abdominal fat has gone up again a little bit. Giving it some time... giving it some time... I wonder if I'm allergic to something that's suddenly in my diet since switching to paleo. Pork? Coconut?)

If you have leftover squash, you should try this: http://www.kalynskitchen.com/2011/02/recipe-for-c.html Spicy Roasted Butternut Squash with Smoked Sweet Paprika

Also, drink lots of water. I discovered that what I thought to be hunger was actually either bloating or thirst (or boredom ). Drinking a big glass of water whenever I was hungry during the first few weeks took care of a lot of my hunger pangs.

It tastes a lot closer to soy sauce than to coconut. That same salty-caramel flavor.

Food Breakfast: Black olive, sundried tomato and onion omelet, with roasted cauliflower and leftover chicken I spent most of the day volunteering at the Eat Real Festival. The festival itself was very cool, with lots of whole foods, but they had tons of pastries to offer us volunteers throughout the day. It was really really hard to be hungry and say no to delicious-looking pastries that kept going by. I stuck with it, but it was haaaaard!! Lunch: Paleo burger and braised chicken Have you ever been somewhere and been able to order "a paleo burger" and have them just known what that means? Welcome to 4505 Meats. I also got some orange-braised chicken on a cabbage slaw (instead of rice). Snack: Spicy grass-fed beef jerky Dinner: Pan-seared tilapia with two types of rubs ("the red rub" and "tarragon mustard"), steamed veggies with garlic, and padron peppers. Had a (rare) glass of wine with dinner. Food totals: Calories: No idea!!! Stopped counting them! (eep!) Paleo score: A- (wine); Satiety: Great. Exercise Rest day (2 of 2 in a row) Other updates One week into trying not counting calories, and I checked my stats (BF, calipers, etc). I'm still gaining in size. :/ These things can take longer than a week, so I'm ignoring it, but it's discouraging. Especially when I've been trying really really hard. Maybe I'm eating too much? I'm just not sure.

I highly highly highly recommend this trick to clean cast iron: http://youtu.be/3yX1Q3x9Cs4?t=7m18s I learned it about 2 months ago and since then I've doubled the usage of my cast iron pan because it's so easy to clean.

http://www.livestrong.com/article/30801-effects-taking-zinc-empty-stomach/ "People who take zinc on an empty stomach may become nauseated or suffer other symptoms of an upset stomach, such as heartburn."

I added some tumeric and cumin seeds to mine, because I can't help but tweak recipes. It was very tasty though -- highly recommended.

http://nerdfitness.com/community/showthread.php?4610-Hotel-Room-Paleo-any-advice

Food Breakfast: Roasted brussel sprouts with bacon, and tamagoyaki Tamagoyaki is a japanese egg dish made with a bit of soy sauce (I used coconut aminos) and layered. Mine doesn't look pretty (I missed a flip) but was taaasty! Snack: Chicken sausage Lunch: Leftover bacon-wrapped sea bass, and carrot ginger soup with coconut milk (recipe) Snack: Dark chocolate, then an avocado, then several spoonfuls of coconut butter. Afterwards I felt awwwwwful. I dunno, maybe to much fat at once? Maybe too much food at once? Maybe the dark chocolate? Regardless, tummy ache for several hours. Dinner: Omelet with red pepper, onion and sausage, served with wilted spinach Lighter dinner since my stomach was still feeling a little iffy. Food totals: Calories: No idea!!! Stopped counting them! (eep!) Paleo score: B (lots of dark chocolate); Satiety: Fine but tummy ache mid-afternoon. Exercise Rest day (1 of 2 in a row, ooooo)