Day 19: Is there really a point in putting a 30 day limit on this?

Well it's Day 19!  Time to get on my blog and whine and complain about how I'm suffering from not eating cake and Doritos and white bread.  Time to describe how depressed I'm feeling and how much I hate dieting.  Do I sound convincing yet?  Because I just realized 90% of this blog is dedicated to describing how much I LOVE eating this way, and listing all the incredible improvements I've noticed on the Paleo diet.  I mean, really, is there any point in calling it a "30 day challenge" any more?   Sure, I've had my bad days, but all of those bad days were caused by either A., me cheating and creating more sugar cravings for myself, or B., me not understanding that I was in control of my day and choosing what I wanted to eat could be as boring (or as exciting) as I wanted it to be.

Here's a running list of the benefits I've noticed:

1.  Longer attention span, better memory
2.  Easier to focus
3.  Rapid thought process
4.  No afternoon sluggishness
5.  No cravings (except when I cheat and have something with wheat or sugar - then I have cravings for 2-3 days - yuck)
6.  Effortlessly slimming down
7.  No bloating, no gas
8.  No retaining water
9.  Dark circles under eyes going away
10.  Cellulite going away
11.  No feelings of depression
12.  Less irritability - I'm more happy go lucky and less tempermental - stress and dealing with people's moods doesn't faze me anymore
13.  No mood swings
14.  More energy, no more chronic fatigue, no more listlessness after work trying to decide between napping or going through a drive through to get my next meal, no more groaning when I have to leave the house for an errand after a full day's work (I really used to hate that)
15.  No more dry skin
16.  Decreased appetite - I don't have to torture myself trying to come up with a sensible 2 or 3pm snack when right down the hall there's a snack bar filled with candy and chips.  Sometimes I bring in food to work and don't even eat it.  I can skip a meal without it bothering me now--whereas before I would get testy or distracted if I didn't eat.
17.  Foods seem like they taste better now.  In fact, they taste so good I frequently can't resist eating random things while I'm cooking that weren't that exciting to me before.  For instance, I'll just start chowing down on hamburger meat or mushrooms or raw broccoli. It's weird.
18.  This verges on TMI so stop reading if you're a non-TMI type person... increased sex drive!!
19.  I am starting to see my abs again
20.  My allergies are going away
21.  Got over a cold extremely fast vs. it turning into a 3 week long ordeal.  I didn't even need antibiotics to get over it.

And so I curled up with my jar of coconut oil, leftover bacon grease, beef tallow, bacon, avocado, and various cuts of meat, and we all lived happily ever after.  The end.

Day 18: Fat bomb smoothies!! Yay!

Well it's day 18 already.  I had leftover short rib from yesterday, and I also made a conscious effort to make a smoothie with almost every available non-meat source of healthy fat I could find--coconut milk, avocado, and almond butter (I say non-meat because meat doesn't seem like it would lend well to blending). It wasn't the best tasting shake I've ever had, but I gobbled it up.  When I get to a weight I like, I'll be more generous with my fruit servings in my smoothies since they make them taste amazing, but now I'm keeping a carb limit.

When I got home I made egg, sausage, and jalapeno "muffins" for breakfast tomorrow (baked in muffin tins - my coworker's idea-awesome!), chili, and Thai coconut chicken soup (tom kha gai).  It was a pretty busy evening and in fact I should probably go clean my kitchen.  :-(   I'm still a little baffled that I felt compelled to make 3 meals.  I get so excited about food now.  Even using up leftover meat to make stews and soups (which is what I did in both cases) is exciting on some level.

And you know I thought all this cooking would wear me out, but now I'm starting to think it's exciting.  It's sort of like a ritual and I enjoy it.  In fact, whenever I whip up a fast meal, I find myself thinking "Is that it?" and it feels almost like a letdown, like the experience has been cheapened.  There's a definite anticipation factor that goes into cooking.  Watching the fat sizzle and glisten on the grill, watching the vegetables brighten in color as they cook. It's fun.  

I love this diet right now.  It's like my entire being is just "waking up" again.  My appetite, my energy, my attention span, my sex drive... haha ok that was probably TMI but you get the hint.  Every single part of how I feel has improved.  I am getting to the point where I think this 30 day challenge is dumb.  It's not a challenge, it's just my first 30 days of Paleo!  I don't think of it as a diet challenge anymore.  I just think of it as foods I prefer to eat.  I guess after awhile, when you're eating really good foods you start to prefer it.   

Anyway, I just realized that it's been over a week since I've passed out on the couch like a slug after dinner.  Sad that I used to do that I know, but I would just get so worn out from lack of sleep.  Now I'm still short on sleep but I go nonstop all day!  I'm going to try to get to bed earlier though.  Really.

Day 17: MEAT!!! Paleo Korean short rib!

I can't lie. The most exciting part of my day today was the MEAT.  I made Korean short rib (galbi) with Korean spinach (sigeumchi namul) on the side.  I marinated the short ribs in the fridge for a day in a mixture of garlic, fresh ginger, kiwi, sesame oil, and gluten free soy sauce!!  Check it out!  I've always loved Korean food and I've made this dish before, but this time it made me want to slap my MOMMA it was so good.  I think it was because I altered two things I usually did wrong in previous attempts:  First, I let it marinade for a full day, and secondly, I let it cook for longer on low heat vs. quickly on high heat.  Unlike a steak which tastes awesome seared, the short ribs have lots of fat and tendons running through it that are pretty tough to chew.  If you cook it low and slow, all that melts down into buttery goodness and it is oh-so-tender and it falls right off the bone.  It tasted out of this world and I almost ate the whole pound, but I had to hold back because I want to have some for lunch tomorrow.  

To get an idea how to make this dish, check out the recipes I use as a guide here (for the galbi, omitting the sugar) and here (spinach).

YUM!  Korean galbi (BBQ beef short rib)
and sigeumchi namul (spinach)

I will try to put that recipe up on the site soon!   

In other news, today I started a new carb/fat/protein ratio because I think I've been eating too many carbs for weight loss.  I readjusted my intake to be about 15% carbs, 55% fats (the HEALTHY kind like coconut milk, avocado, and animal fat from grass fed animals--not canola oil!), and about 30% from protein.  Before today I was eating 30/30/30.  I hope it works a little faster than the 3 pounds in 2 weeks I noticed the first part of this challenge.  

I also got to order off the "health/gluten free" menu at Olive Garden today, and I had a 12oz steak which tasted great!  It was wickedly expensive though.  But eating it in total satisfaction while everyone else was eating pasta and was nearly comatose after lunch was entertaining enough to be worth the money.  

So if you'll excuse me, another helping of galbi is waiting for me...

Day 16: Feeling better again

Well the effects of the cake I ate on Saturday and the subsequent cravings, general despair, and hand wringing have disappeared.  Hooray!  Now I’m back to eating real food and my appetite leveled off (after feeling like I could eat my arm off for 2 days straight).  Now I know:  if you eat cake (or probably anything else with lots of sugar or grains), your appetite will increase and you'll get tons of cravings for bad foods for two days.  In fact, my appetite is still kind of high, but now for good foods, so I think my metabolism is going up as well as a totally unrelated event.  (Right now I should note that I'm eating fried eggs, organic chicken sausage, and sweet potato hash browns, AND I'm thinking about the Paleo almond pancakes in the freezer... and I have an appetite for all of this even though I already had salmon!  But, a higher metabolism is a good thing, and shows the diet is kick starting my energy).

The other exciting part of my day (and here is where I reveal that I have a totally boring life) is when I got some femur beef bones in the grocery store!!  Check it out!

Yummy.  Bones.  Never had it, but it's being served in
5 star restaurants so I bet it's good.

They're all ready for me to roast and make beef stock.  Once I make beef stock I can add it to dishes for extra nutrition and flavor.  You can read all about the thrills of bone marrow and why it's healthy in this enticing article on Mark's Daily Apple.

Day 15: Paleo MELTDOWN...

You guys might remember that this weekend the temptation was too much for me and I had a slice of birthday cake.  Well, ever since then, I've been thinking about CAKE, BREAD, PIZZA, MUFFINS, or anything made with flour.  In fact, I think I might be close to having a Paleo meltdown.  In other words, I feel like saying screw this and going back to eating whatever I want.  All of my cravings came back but they are even worse than before!  I also noticed myself feeling dreary and sluggish at work again.  I'm also retaining a lot of water.

Basically, eating that small amount put me back in this obsession with carbs mindset.  I can't stop thinking about them, and my appetite has increased like crazy.  I'm trying to tell myself that this is just a confused signal going to my brain because of the yo-yo effect it had on my blood sugar.  But confused signal or not, I wish it would go away!

Tonight I had a huge dinner with bacon and eggs, pot roast, and salmon.  I hope the satiety I felt after meals for the first two weeks comes back tomorrow.  That really kept me going...

Day 12-14: Temptation! (and a book I'm reading)

I roasted two free range chickens for my family Friday night.
They loved it, and didn't even know they were eating diet food!

I spent this weekend at my mom's house for her birthday doing what I love best--cooking for a crowd!  But it was also a weekend filled with temptation.  All in all I'd say everything was going good about this weekend diet wise until Saturday. The story begins with me coming off the plane with high motivation, ready for primal foods, using my moms kitchen to boil eggs and roast chicken and cut up avocados; it ends with me succombing to birthday cake, ice cream, and tortilla chips Saturday night. I have no regrets--its just food, after all!  But how did this happen?

I'm pretty sure a couple of different factors were at play here. One, I wasn't eating nearly enough. I was nearly ravenous after trying to last all day Friday with airplane snacks like boiled eggs and bacon. Two, although I bought a lot of food for my stay, I didn't buy enough to keep it interesting, and I was too busy to eat huge meals. So by the time I saw that cake, my body was telling me to EAT.  Next, although cake and other treats are easy to avoid at work, it's a lot harder when you're surrounded by family and you're making memories.  Lastly, it wasn't just crappy grocery store cake. It was CAKE, with buttercream icing, and it was good.

One more thing I noticed: after I had one taste of cake, I had some cravings return the next day. It seems like one yo-yo jolt of insulin with the subsequent drop in blood sugar is enough to mess me up for a day or two. All I could think about in the airport was eating ice cream again. I also noticed I woke up feeling groggy and sore again like I used to--I wasn't miserable, and I felt fine after coffee, but I noticed a difference between how I felt waking up after eating junk vs. how I feel waking up after eating primal. The cravings were the main thing that bothered me though. So it might take me a day or two to get back to feeling like I was.

I was proud of myself in the airport on the trip home though -- I saw a place selling cakes and muffins right next to my terminal.  I sat there for about 30 minutes trying to not think about it.  I knew I was just craving it because I wanted my next fix of insulin.  Finally I just said to hell with it and went up to get one, but while I was in line I saw they had Greek salad on the buffet.  In that instant I started craving Greek salad instead, so that's what I bought.  Lol.  That was close!  

Anyway, that was my adventure for the weekend!  Here's what I was reading on the plane!  

This book will make your fat cry.

On the plane I couldn't stop reading Good Calories, Bad Calories: Fats, Carbs, and the Controversial Science of Diet and Health by Gary Taubes.  This book is extremely complex and it was hard for me to follow a lot of it.  But basically this guy looked at every single heart disease and obesity study done since the 20's and compared them all and investigated the reason(s) why we are told such nonsense as to avoid egg yolks and enjoy things "in moderation" but never seem to lose weight longer than temporarily before we gain it back.  The first half of the book was all about heart disease and how politics have influenced what we are told and not told about recent studies and their effect on heart disease.  The most scary part from that section?  Studies have shown that avoiding dietary cholesterol is a pointless pursuit that might lower your risk of avoiding heart disease by only 1%, but no scientist ever told us that, because their attitude (and the attitude of our government) was better safe than sorry. In other words, this is why pointless products like fat free Pam are on the market today being presented as healthy (yuck!).  People need to eat good, healthy, nourishing fat! 

After about 5 chapters into this extremely technical book, I could tell I was in for it, but it was worth it when I got to the obesity section. This section went into how calorie restricting diets were totally abysmally ineffective  for long weight loss in every study, and how carbohydrate restricting diets and diets mimicking what early humans ate were MUCH more effective.  It really explained that carbohydrate consumption--not fat consumption--is behind our elevated levels of insulin, and that insulin is the hormone in the body most responsible for creating conditions favorable for fat storage and elevated appetite.  Insulin levels in obese patients are much higher than lean individuals,  even when they're eating an almost identical amount of daily calories.  Some of us just create more insulin, and thus store a greater percentage of our calories as fat--even to the point of not getting enough nutrients in our other organs, causing symptoms like fatigue and lowered daily activity.  It also totally dispelled the notion that getting fat is as simple as eating too much.  It really challenged everything I thought I knew about how we gain weight.   For instance, the pervasive logic in losing weight is "I eat too much, I need to exercise more".  Well, yes that might be true, but if your body is creating all these hormones that make you hungrier and more likelier to store fat even if you're eating reasonably well, then it's not always your fault.  You can exercise more and eat less, but the original problem with the hormonal response is still there.  How do you fix it?  Avoid foods that cause you produce insulin. Carbohydrates, sugar, fructose, high fructose corn syrup, all of the above.  Basically, don't believe anything you've been told about whole grains being "healthy".  If that was the case, how come human kind survived so long without eating them?  Every nutrient your body needs is in greater quantities calorie for calorie in meat, fish, nuts, vegetables, and fruit. 

Anyway, I guess I learned this weekend how pervasive those foods are and how they mess up your hormonal response to eating.  I mean just from that little bit I had, I completely had my symptoms of never ending hunger and cravings return.  It's nice to not have those symptoms, so I'll definitely keep eating this way as much as possible, even if I haven't really "graduated" to being totally primal yet.  It might have been too much to take on only 11 days into the diet.  

Day 11: Foraging, raaarrr

Today I took on the Modern Forage mini challenge on Mark's site, which means I had to practice foraging and find a Paleo friendly meal away from my kitchen, lol.  So I went out to eat at a Korean restaurant and ordered kimchi instead of rice!

My lunch, avoiding what I wasn't supposed to eat

It was really good, but one thing I noticed--I was hungry again after eating within an HOUR!  I wanted to run home and eat more food but I was stuck at my desk feeling starving... like I used to be all the time before I went on this diet.  It's really surprising how much more filling eating Paleo is.  I should probably just bring a can of coconut milk with me wherever I go and chug it at random intervals.  Would people look at me funny?  I like my cavewoman foods!

Anyway, tomorrow morning before the sun comes up I'm going to the airport!  Yup, I have someone special to visit this weekend.  So not only will I have a good time, I also get to try to eat Paleo on the road.  I've got some bacon, chicken sausage, bananas, and an orange all ready to go.

It's so weird how I used to look forward to flying because I could load up on whatever sugary pastries, fast food, and overpriced coffee I could find.  But now all I'm starting to remember from eating that way is that I was feeling hungry all the time and tired and never satisfied.  Anyway, I'm sure I'll eat these foods again one day but right now I'm thinking it'll be a lot more rare than it used to be.  Don't get me wrong, I'm all for enjoying life, but it's nice to make the choice, "Do I want to feel at my best today or do I want to treat myself?" and not just shovel things in my face randomly.