Tumblr sucks.

http://prettyclosetoprimal.blogspot.com/

Just read this.

I’ll have more to say later. I’m under a bit of a time crunch now.

http://www.archevore.com/panu-weblog/2011/3/30/paleo-20-a-diet-manifesto.htmlI

I like Paleo because it makes sense. It’s obviously more healthful, it makes cooking simple, accessible, and fun, and it feels good when you do it right. I don’t like Paleo because it can make me obsess over every single item of food I ingest. I’m finding myself more and more attracted to Mark Sisson’s Primal Blueprint and the work of people like Kurt Harris who see Paleo as a step towards finding optimal well being. This is not about adopting another set of dogmas. I will not be on any sort of “diet.” This is about eating what tastes good and feels right, and I will not be cheated out of the joys of food.

Changes I’ve implemented: dairy is back on. Full fat yogurt and cream, good cheese when I get my hands on it. I’ll eat my damn starches. Potatoes, sweet or otherwise, are welcome in my house. Meat will still be heavily featured, but I plan on upping the fat content of my meals - I’ve found I get a lot more out of 2 eggs and a coconut milk shake than 4 eggs and more meat, and that adding an avocado can save a meal. I plan on playing with new foods, fermenting my own sauerkraut, soaking nuts, etc…

That’s what we’re transitioning towards, I suppose.

Breakfast: 3 hard-boiled eggs, butternut squash with sunbutter, a bunch of other veggies and stuff because I was sitting around at home. Some plain greek yogurt with blueberries.
Lunch: Big salad with sunflower seeds and a can of salmon.
Dinner: Attended an ACI presentation and dinner tonight. Automatically passed on the dinner roll, finished the salad, grilled salmon, roasted veggies, and most of the red potatoes. Had most of my crème brûlée; it was super rich, so pretty easy to pass on eating the whole thing. It’s funny how my choices and observations have changed. I automatically go for all the veggies, and I hold everything on the do-not-eat list to the standard of mind-blowing or I don’t finish it; I notice when people choose the diet coke and only eat half their dessert but finish their potatoes and fried chicken while ignoring the zucchini and summer squash.

I’ll end with two thoughts which are more important than the food you eat.

No panic.

The decisions we struggle to make today and the careful preparations we take for tomorrow are tenuous and futile compared to the pure random majesty of existence.

IAN

What a weekend. In a nutshell,
Activities: Work, gallivanting about the city with Mom and Gabi, celebrating with many a diet deviation, sleeping very little, and drinking one or four too many cups of coffee.
Exercise: So many deliveries. One 3/4 mile farmer’s walk weighed down by 20 box lunches. Plenty by bike - I can make it up the hill on James between 4th and 5th now! And a repeatedly blown out rear tube led to several running deliveries.
Food: While at work I ate well, but after that, in order to celebrate, I intentionally went out of my way to eat what I couldn’t have, regardless of whether I really wanted it. This led to me feeling sick a lot of the time! Woo! I’m learning the balance. Items which weren’t worth it included an espresso frappuccino loaded with ground up espresso beans. But it was definitely worth it for some things like a huge masala chai, pizza from Mario’s on Pike, ice cream from Dick’s, and an apple fritter from Top Pot. Mmm. Ended the weekend with a post-Search group dinner of baked ziti with italian sausage and cheeses from the Melrose Market. Plus some salad and scavenged garlic bread.

That’s enough cheating for a good few weeks: I’ll be up early and back on the bandwagon tomorrow morning. Ha, just realized tomorrow is actually day 30. I don’t really think I could go back.

IAN

Weird day foodwise. Started experimenting a bit, and my stomach was upset by the end of the day. I definitely messed with too many variables to pinpoint a cause though.

Breakfast (0700): Sauteed mushrooms, zucchini, rice. Topped with two eggs over-easy. Banana mashed up with almond butter.
Lunch 1 (1200): Half an avocado with leftover spicy chicken (so-so) with mango salsa (decent) and fried cauliflower rice (tasty - roughly ground up half a head of cauliflower and cooked it in EVOO with half a red onion and some cumin).
Lunch 2 (1300): Providence provided me with some very excellent roasted asparagus (garlic and butter!) and chicken (with some Mediterranean cilantro sauce which was wonderful) which I shared with Emily. Followed this up with an Iced Masala Chai.
Dinner 1 (1900): Didn’t think I was hungry until I started eating. One orange, plus a small plate of veggies (jicama/bells/beets/broccoli) and some cashews. Stomach started turning.
Dinner 2 (2030): Had a banana which did not help. Then tried to fight away the turning stomach with a green salad. Red lettuce, broccoli, celery, half avocado, some sunflower seeds. Somewhat successful.

Explanations for experimental deviations: I’ve had this bag of rice in my fridge for about a week now. I cooked it for some guests who ended up not wanting any. This morning I thought fondly of a breakfast Iaia used to make me where she’d fill a ramekin with rice, flip it onto a plate, and top it with a fried egg. So I sauteed some mushrooms and zucchini, throwing in a bit (as in a super small handful) of rice. Topped it all with some eggs. Nothing special. Strike 1, rice. Strike 2, only two eggs.
Eating a second lunch didn’t seem excessive, but the timing was strange, so, strike 3, gluttony?
The chai did not do me well. Strike 4, milk and sugarrr.

Who knows. I’ll try to control my variables a little better next time.

I don’t know? Emily and I both responded to it…

EMILY

Back in the habit of posting… this 30 day challenge is dwindling. Now that I’ve become super hyper aware of what I’m eating, it will be hard to just settle back into a vegetarian diet. I don’t think I will. But I am a little confused as to what to do once I’m out of this. I feel good, but the meat offered at the school cafeterias is seriously gross… I am just no so into eating meat, I guess. But the vegetarian diet didn’t really work for me before. I like chicken breast, a good steak, and maybe a good burger. Bacon has become more appealing, but mostly, eh…

Ian and I were discussing dairy… I was reminiscing about Greek yogurt, cheese, ice cream….

So I had Greek yogurt today, and a salad for a snack. It was so good, and I got 14 grams of fat out of it…MmmMMMmMMMMMmmMm

I can’t wait to cook this summer. To have barbeques, cooking fests, farmers market escapades, the whole nine yards. Culinary adventures await, along with full time gardening, all the bikram yoga I can stand, sun sun sun, henna, chalk festival, slacklining, hiking, climbing aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhHHHHHHHHHH

Breakfast: 2 fried eggs, 1 sausage link, strawberries, coconut flakes, one bite of Ian’s chicken omelette (I wish I had gotten one)

Lunch: salmon hidden under a green salad. Eaten outside, in the sun…

Snack: as mentioned above, sunflower seeds, green salad, honey greek yogurt

Dinner: Hamburger (minus the bun) with carmelized onions, bacon, over a green salad with tomatoes.

Post Dinner: Bowl of blueberries sprinkled with cinnamon. I love cinnamon, it makes everything much more delicious.

Sweet DreamzzzzZZZZZzzZZZZz

IAN

First, for Emily and her foot: http://www.crossfitscars.com/wods/injuries-and-fun/

Now then. Basically what Emily said. Time to wind down. I’ll have no trouble continuing to eat primarily paleo, but I’ll be playing around with reintroducing dairy, and I’ll definitely ease up on the overall strictness (e.g, I won’t accept every free doughnut offered to me; however, free lunch at Piecora’s pizza will never be denied). But I won’t be going back to grains and legumes as a standard basis for meals. Funny surprise: I tried some peanut butter, and I didn’t really miss it all that much. Which was kind of a shame. I liked peanut butter. I want to try some sunbutter now. Also I miss Mexican food waaaay more than I ever thought I could! I’m so excited for summer and barbecues and now I’m just repeating Emily.

Breakfast (0930): Chicken omelet plus all the veggies I could add and a bit of feta.
Lunch (1330): Coconut curry with chicken, bell peppers, cauliflower.
Snack (1930): Half a sweet potato with butter, dried cranberries.
Light dinner (2130): Spicy chicken with mango salsa, lime, and some avocado. I was excited for this Bittman recipe, but it didn’t turn out super well. A spice rub of cinnamon, cumin, and paprika sounded and smelled awesome, but ended up being a bit meh. Oh well.
Other snacks: Carrot, some cashews, sunflower seeds.

Exercise: I have been ready to bounce out of my skin! I want to run all over town. This resulted in me trying to make a WOD out of a ping pong game with Conor: five burpees whenever he took a point, one handstand pushup whenever I took one. That made conversation impossible and did not last long. Net reps: 5 burpees, 6 handstand pushups.

A word of wisdom: always make sure your fridge door is closed in the morning. Melted chubby hubby ice cream is wasted chubby hubby ice cream. Soggy pretzels in ice cream are about twice as bad as crunchy pretzels are good.

IAN

Gooood day. Awesome day. Despite the early gloom, the sun came out. Lots of walking and grocery hauling. Filled with energy post-dinner, shared a scoop of Maple Walnut ice cream from Molly Moon’s with Alana while I threw off my shoes and bounced around Cal Anderson.

One comment: God forbid a store stock full fat greek yogurt. Trader Joe’s actually has a full fat yogurt and their own full fat greek yogurt, so I shouldn’t actually complain. But I wanted to try Fage because it is supposedly divine. But no! Oh no, Safeway realizes that its patrons are terrified of fat. So they only stock sugar-loaded-fake-fruit-filled-0%-fat-so-called-health-food yogurt. Whine.

Breakfast (0700): Coconut chicken curry. Chopped up banana heated up with almond butter and sprinkled with cinnamon. Aaaaaah.
Lunch (1200): Big ol’ salad. Red lettuce, cauliflower, broccoli, sunflower seeds, avocado with dijon and balsamic. Plus half a red bell, half an orange bell, and three hard-boiled eggs.
Dinner (1900): Grilled chicken breast with pico de gallo. Field greens salad with sunflower seeds, beets, jicama, and some sweet potato on the side. Tried some cottage cheese, which was surprisingly pleasant. Might try more of that!
Snacks/Treats: Cashews, one orange, most of a scoop of maple walnut ice cream.

Time to catch up on sleep.

Emily:

Today was good for me toooooo!

I left the bold key on, and now it seems to be stuck. Oh never mind. I guess not.

I spent some time in the sun with some lovely people, did some handstands instead of learning Butoh in Movement… that is pretty creepy stuff…

Then I went solo to the Fleet Foxes… what beautiful show. The sound was haunting, soulful, breathtaking, soaring up to my thirsty little ears in the 2nd floor balcony.

Let’s see:

Breakfast: 2 hard boiled eggs, 2 bacon strips, strawberries, coconut flakes

Lunch: grilled chicken breast over a green salad with lots of special veggies and sunflower seeds

Snack: apple, dark chocolate covered almonds

Dinner: Naked taco salad (no shell) with ground beef

EMILY

I have lost count. Ian can edit this later.

Warm rain. I am hobbling around in flip flops because of my damn foot.

Breakfast: 3 hard boiled eggs, vegetable crudite platter, a few walnuts, 2 strawberries

Lunch: chicken breast over a green salad

Dinner: Dinner was a failure of epic proportions. Didn’t eat until 9:45 or so, and by that time everywhere but the Bistro was closed. They had run out of salmon fillets, and I wasn’t thinking fast enough to devise a quick paleo solutions. I was so starved and so taxed physically and emotionally by this time… heavy stuff today… although that is no excuse to revert back to an old habit of consuming a chicken parmesan, I am admitting it to the world. The thirty day challenge… I have fallen short of. That is too bad. But I think I have proven to myself that I can do it. Also, it would have been stupid to go back to my room and starvingly shove down carrots and almond butter. The chicken parmesan was good. So, I ate it, and now as I write this, I am eating a carrot.

Good night.

IAN

I was following the pack
All swallowed in their coats
With scarves of red tied ‘round their throats
To keep their little heads
From fallin’ in the snow
And I turned ‘round and there you go.
And, Michael, you would fall,
And turn the white snow
Red as strawberries in the summertime.

A hungry day. Then we found a smorgasbord of free food! (And Lexie was so kind as to feed me, woo!) Oh but wait! The only approved items in the smorgasbord were a veggie tray and a big bowl of roasted and salted cashews. Tried some cheese and crackers. Meh. Bagged up the entire bowl of cashews. Will be making this later. Took a couple brownies to the Fleet Foxes. The concert was great, but the brownies were not! So I threw them away. Gaaah I hate doing that. But you know what was infinitely better than stale stolen Bon App brownies? Chop up a banana into a ramekin with a spoonful of almond butter. Microwave it. Mix it up and sprinkle with cinnamon. Warm and gooey and sweet and spicy and everything I wanted that brownie to be.

Breakfast (0700): Butternut squash with almond butter and cranberries. One chicken apple sausage and a banana.
Lunch (1130): Coconut curry with chicken, cauliflower, bell peppers.
Dinner (1830): Naked taco salad: ground beef, chicken, roasted veggies, tomatoes, olives, onions, jalapenos, cilantro, guacamole.
Snacks: Two oranges, sunflower seeds, carrot, some celery, cashews.

Is this 30 day challenge functionally finished? Could be. I know the way I see food has fundamentally changed. First: I know I can do this. Second: I now feel guilty or stupid for eating anything that is loaded with sugars and anti-nutrients and not absolutely delicious. To be honest I wouldn’t really wish that on anyone.

This is mostly for Mr. Ingram but is good reading for all! I think I can speak for us both when I say we tend more towards the Primal side of things.