Primal Diet / Paleo Nutrition
Okay, so I thought the primal diet thing was a little kooky. I didn't know much about it, and it seemed like a bland, boring, limited diet (ooh, look, ignorance!).
Then adammaker started posting about it. And anything adammaker is looking at is definitely worth a second look.
So I read the stuff at Kurt G. Harris' blog (thanks to adammaker for the link). It was chillingly logical and well backed-up with chemistry and study, not anecdotes leading to spurious conclusions ("My aunt Martha stopped eating bread and then felt better so bread must be poisonous!") as I'd seen in most of the other anti-grain blogs/books. Food for thought.
I've been doing the South Beach Diet for six months, and have not lost any weight at all.
So I'm doing a 30-day trial of this paleo thing. My two metrics are weight loss (objective) and overall feeling of health (admittedly subjective), on a simple worse-neutral-better scale.
Weight GainWeight MaintenanceWeight LossFeeling Less HealthyScrew this! Back to SBD or something different.Not impressed. Back to SBD or something different.Ugh. Maybe worth sticking with for a while to get results, then switch to something else for maintenance.Feeling the SameNot impressed. Back to SBD or something different.Fascinating. =/ Time to try something totally different.A definite improvement, worth sticking with.Feeling HealthierFascinating. =/ Time to try something totally different.An improvement of sorts. Time to research more deeply.Complete success; try not to become a raving evangelist about it.
I'm following KGH's outline pretty religiously:
In addition to all this, I'm taking a basic multivitamin and a kelp (iodine) supplement. I'm tracking my stuff on Daily Burn to keep track of my macronutrient percentages. I'm finding that keeping up with KGH's weight loss percentage recommendations is difficult, but I can see how his general maintenance percentages would be effortless to hit.
I've been doing this since Saturday (April 10). So far:
I feel pretty good. Coming off a cold, and I'm only a couple of days in, so no stunning overnight revelations there.
On fasting days, this is how it goes: the first 18 hours are easy. I start to get light, vague munchies about 20 hours in. At 24 hours, I start obsessing about cooking, look up recipes for the next day, and crave CHEESE. Once I get some sleep, and make it to the 36 hour mark, I'm a Zen master: centered and unruffled.
I know full well that a woman checking her weight more often than once a week is like checking the tide level of the sea at 10-second intervals. But I have dropped 2.5 lbs since April 8, before I started the diet change. That's already more change than I've seen in the last 6 months. It could be water weight or random fluctuation. But I'm encouraged, because at least it's in the right direction!!!
So, I might post occasional progress reports and recipes. Like I do. Wish me luck... or better yet, wish me HEALTH! ::grin::
Then adammaker started posting about it. And anything adammaker is looking at is definitely worth a second look.
So I read the stuff at Kurt G. Harris' blog (thanks to adammaker for the link). It was chillingly logical and well backed-up with chemistry and study, not anecdotes leading to spurious conclusions ("My aunt Martha stopped eating bread and then felt better so bread must be poisonous!") as I'd seen in most of the other anti-grain blogs/books. Food for thought.
I've been doing the South Beach Diet for six months, and have not lost any weight at all.
So I'm doing a 30-day trial of this paleo thing. My two metrics are weight loss (objective) and overall feeling of health (admittedly subjective), on a simple worse-neutral-better scale.
Weight GainWeight MaintenanceWeight LossFeeling Less HealthyScrew this! Back to SBD or something different.Not impressed. Back to SBD or something different.Ugh. Maybe worth sticking with for a while to get results, then switch to something else for maintenance.Feeling the SameNot impressed. Back to SBD or something different.Fascinating. =/ Time to try something totally different.A definite improvement, worth sticking with.Feeling HealthierFascinating. =/ Time to try something totally different.An improvement of sorts. Time to research more deeply.Complete success; try not to become a raving evangelist about it.
I'm following KGH's outline pretty religiously:
- Eliminate sugar and white flour. Easy enough, as this is also part of SBD. I'm being more careful about flour now, as I'd been having the occasional tortilla or wrap at restaurants.
- Start eating animal and coconut fats. Butter, cream, bacon, coconut, and I can leave the skin on my chicken? OH NOES. This feels very scary-sinful. And very, very tasty.
- Eliminate gluten grains, and limit corn and rice. Easy enough, because again, this was limited on SBD, and I have a history of bad reactions to rice.
- Eliminate grain- and seed-derived oils. Okay, I have ghee and coconut oil. Check.
- Favor ruminants like beef, lamb and bison for your meat. Eat eggs and some fish. Awesome. I dislike most cooked fish except salmon, and our sashimi options are extremely limited around here. Maybe more shrimp, then...
- Get some midday sun or take a vitamin D supplement. Oh noes, sunshine. ;) I picked up a map of the local trail system, so maybe I can get to know the local land a little better while I'm at it.
- Intermittent fasting, or at least don't graze throughout the day like a herbivore. No problem. And it develops the will, which is probably good. ;)
- Adjust your 6s and 3s. I need to find a source for local pastured/wild meat. Ditto for pastured eggs and dairy. In the mean time, I'm taking a daily fish oil supplement.
- Exercise, emphasizing resistance and interval training, rather than marathon cardio. Fetch / Sticky One / Moon Self totally agrees with this. Long bouts of cardio are boring and pointless. Sprints, weight challenges, stuff like that? That's challenging and exciting and interesting.
- Practice moderation with fruit. Stick with lower-fructose fruits like berries, and avoid high-fructose ones like watermelon. Again, same as SBD, so no problem. (Also, did you know that Agave Nectar has more fructose in it than most High Fructose Corn Syrup? I avoid that stuff like the plague.)
- Eliminate legumes. Great, didn't like 'em much anyway. I'd been forcing myself to eat them this last year, but am perfectly happy to go without.
- Final option: cut dairy, like cheese and cream. Well, I'm keeping dairy, but then again, so's KGH.
In addition to all this, I'm taking a basic multivitamin and a kelp (iodine) supplement. I'm tracking my stuff on Daily Burn to keep track of my macronutrient percentages. I'm finding that keeping up with KGH's weight loss percentage recommendations is difficult, but I can see how his general maintenance percentages would be effortless to hit.
I've been doing this since Saturday (April 10). So far:
I feel pretty good. Coming off a cold, and I'm only a couple of days in, so no stunning overnight revelations there.
On fasting days, this is how it goes: the first 18 hours are easy. I start to get light, vague munchies about 20 hours in. At 24 hours, I start obsessing about cooking, look up recipes for the next day, and crave CHEESE. Once I get some sleep, and make it to the 36 hour mark, I'm a Zen master: centered and unruffled.
I know full well that a woman checking her weight more often than once a week is like checking the tide level of the sea at 10-second intervals. But I have dropped 2.5 lbs since April 8, before I started the diet change. That's already more change than I've seen in the last 6 months. It could be water weight or random fluctuation. But I'm encouraged, because at least it's in the right direction!!!
So, I might post occasional progress reports and recipes. Like I do. Wish me luck... or better yet, wish me HEALTH! ::grin::