so so i just started doing this paleo diet thing - feels like it should be bullshit. is it?

I suppose! I don't know who has the time, though.

i figure even if i buy better meats/veggies (organic/free range/etc) i'm still gonna be saving a ton by not buying all the crap i used to buy on a daily basis. chips and ice cream and other sweet stuff adds up. plus, we haven't been buying alcohol for months so that right there...

anyhoo, maria is kinda following along on the caveman journey (i'm actually dragging her by her hair hahaha! not really she's into it) and she don't feel so hot! totally different reaction than i've had. she's really spacey and tired and feels a little ill from it. so she's been having a little cheese and some other stuff so as not to shock herself so much. you never know how much wheat and other gunk you eat until you stop eating it.

rufus wants to join in on the fun too but i'm making sure that he gets plenty of everything that he needs. he already loves vegetables so much and will eat pretty much anything. we had ham & eggs for breakfast. and he took some smoked bluefish and carrots and grapes to school for lunch this morning. feel like kids can go wheatless/sugarless easier than adults cuz they haven't had that lifetime of accumulation/addiction. cyrus is a total chip/sweets/cheese addict already at the age of seven and i feel good about bringing healthier stuff home for everyone to eat. i mean he learned it from us, man. already just bringing more nuts and seeds into the house has paid off as cyrus likes that kinda healthy fare.

I mean to cook like THAT. I can understand the whole hard-boiled egg and handful of almonds and raw fruit/veg during the day and a chicken breast + half an avocado for dinner, for instance, but not that glorious feast above.

yeah that spread does make our scallops/broccoli dinner look pretty pitiful. if i had the time i would get more elaborate. probably. i'm kind of a simpleton though.

I make lots of stuff like this! It's mostly a matter of shopping/planning more than cooking, imo.

otm. been doing this for over 6 months and have gotten so much better at meal planning and shopping. it's like no big deal anymore

yeah same. most of the meals get pretty easy to make, and now that i have figured out the utility of having a bunch of pre-made spice blends, it's even easier.

? It didn't take that long! I'd made the cabbage the night before. Cleaning up afterward took longer than the prep, I don't own a dishwasher

The reason I'm "this might get $$$" is because I'm eating so many vegetables, it's really nuts how much you've got to eat when you're not padding it with rice or w/e

yeah one of the hardest habits for me to break is going to be not making a pot of rice with everything i eat

scott, due to the low carbs her body is just going through a transition. she probably needs to up the fat intake. (with low carbs AND low fat your body really doesn't have much energy to get from just protein)

low carb flu iirc

I had it for two days and low sodium was also an issue.

magnesium supplement helps.

so i got a PT job a restaurant making salads back in may. i was working 40-50hr weeks for months on end and as such i usually had a bowl of cereal for breakfast and then ate one of my own salads later down the line. oddly enough, i didn't lose any weight on the scale but dropped from a size 36 to 32, which was a fucking triumph. i hadn't realized it til now, but after work i was still feeling extremely active and was only really sitting for long periods of time when i was on the bus or..in bed.

i've gotten far less hours now that winter has set in (it's a shit time for the restaurant industry, for the most part) and as such don't eat salads near as often. it felt odd the other day buying a sandwich for lunch. noticeably, my feet always fucking hurt now and i spend way more time refusing invitations to go out b/c i just lack the energy to even think myself remotely entertaining company.

anyways, yeah, salad is powerful stuff

A lot of tasty paleo recipes/ideas here: http://www.theclothesmakethegirl.com/

Day 3 of Whole30, not going badly at all. 3 Diet Coke/day habit replaced by coffee with a little vanilla almond milk + chai + water. Meat and roasted sweet potatoes for breakfast, snap peas + cashews for snacks. Fruit choices of red grapefruit, avocado, bosc pears, and honeycrisp apples seem just right.

i have recently introduced a little bit of dairy to my diet. I've never had a problem with lactose so i figured it's okay for me. just like a cup of whole organic grass-fed milk a day.

i put practical paleo on hold at the libary. there are 45 ppl in the queue ahead of me; guess this paleo thing is popular!

JBR, that's not that long of a line! My sis is a librarian, and for something like "50 Shades of Grey," there would be 500+ people in the queue. But still, it is gaining traction!

Costco carries a huge jug of coconut oil (I think it's organic, even) and Kerrygold butter, for all you members! It's pretty much why I still go. Ha.

Our Costco has the Nutiva brand coconut oil for 1/4 the price I've been paying locally - it's great. I bought some coconut manna of the same brand - it's the raw coconut meat ground up really fine and mixed with the oil. Sort of like coconut butter. i think you could make the same stuff by mixing coconut flour with coconut oil. It's pretty tasty on its own, reminds me of shortbread in texture somehow. I've also been topping roasted yams with it. You have to warm it up and mix it for about an hour when you first get it, but if you stir it as it's cooling down it stays mixed (gets hard as a rock though, not spreadable like peanut butter).

We're on day 5 now - starting to really miss cheese. I dreamt about eating a hamburger topped with blue cheese crumbles.

Jaq, do you recall if the coconut manna had any carbs?

just checked for myself on their website, so disregard!

i went ahead and bought that practical paleo cook book, just a few days in now. tonight we're having sausage-stuffed peppers, chard + apple cider vinegar, a sweet potato soup i made--going on a diet rules.

holy shit, executive coffee - a+ !!

really starting to appreciate rich flavors with no sweetness

Been using almond milk in my coffee, but finally read the ingredients this morning - tapioca starch, carrageenan. I'm going to try blending up coconut milk with some vanilla and cinnamon instead. Mr. Jaq decaffeinated himself, but I'm not up for that.

had the best dinner last night -- eggs scrambled with tinga de pollo (chicken in chipotle-tomato sauce) -- and was able to avoid most of the carby stuff the restaurant served with it, including the tortilla chips, the corn tortillas, and the black beans. well, i did have one tortilla chip and a spoonful of beans. otherwise i was good! this is the place, loteria grill.

tonight will be a challenge: i'm going to a bar that serves french dips and pretty much nothing but. i'm looking at ordering the half sandwich and a cup of soup and just not eating the bread.

Arby's, if the stuffed peppers are the practical paleo ones, they are fucking magic

yes and YES

You can cheat on your birthday, any cavewoman would!

oh man my bro-in-law recommended this to me tonight.

i had beer, so i did cheat.

i made tinga de pollo last night for the second time in a month!

my mother is disturbed by my eating habits

so we had rufus's 10th birthday party today here and i already decided that i wasn't gonna worry about holiday eating or special event/big party eating (don't go to many parties) and i had two pieces of pizza and later a piece of birthday cake and i almost immediately felt terrible and my face got hot and my head hurt and i got really sleepy. just like that! i really regretted it. and the cake was unbearably sweet to me. i'm beginning to think more and more that i had some wheat allergy all along and just got used to it. so strange!

I don't know if it's wheat, but sugar definitely does that to me - hot flashes, gut ache, and reflux if I have anything sweet within 4 hours of laying down. And I KNOW it's going to happen but sometimes just don't care, I want that cookie\cake\candied thing (and none have tasted as good as I expect, why do I keep punishing myself?)

On the paleo cooking front, I slow roasted 15 lbs of pork shoulder overnight and my god it was just perfect this morning. 1/2 in the fridge awaiting various treatments for lunches and dinners and 1/2 vacuum sealed up in the freezer. Roasting yams now, which are my current favorite breakfast thing.

now diet coke tastes really sweet to me, to the point where I make other people taste it to make sure it's not the regular kind.

I am still allowing myself the once weekly diet soda. Someday I'll give it up.

Can someone refer me to a non-crazy web site that covers paleo basics? I am scared to just google.

http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2010/10/04/the-beginners-guide-to-the-paleo-diet/

i'm gonna put this here for myself so i remember it:

http://paleodietlifestyle.com/paleo-diet-recipes/

http://www.theclothesmakethegirl.com/paleo-101/

Mr. Jaq commented yesterday that the paleo sites run by men are all mighty hunter-gatherer EAT MEAT and the ones run by women are more about vegetables and balance and enough protein. Not sure about that, but it's possible.

i'm nicer to people now since i started eating this way. even people i don't like or who are tedious. i'm more level. no sugar up and downs. i used to get crankier.

yaay :)

having even blood sugars is an amazing thing.

i did a proper food shop today, instead of my usual piecemeal food shopping. like, i bought two different kinds of meat and several different kinds of vegetables. going to make some fun meat & vegetable dishes of the south-east asian variety. i'm not fully paleo though, i mean, i still often eat a bit of brown rice with curries and things like that. and sushi rolls, so... but i don't eat much wheat at all.

tonight's slow cooker meal is sweet potatoes, black beans, and cut-up chicken thighs. (i'm still wrestling with whether or not beans are ok. right now they are.)

I'm happy with the fact that so much Thai food meets paleo guidelines. Tom ka gai for dinner last night with leftovers today for lunch, getting the ingredients together for holy basil w/pork for later in the week, subscribed to a monthly delivery of coconut milk yesterday.

Jaq, do you use any kind of rice substitute with Thai food?

Not yet, but have been thinking about making faux rice from grated cauliflower!

I've also got some of the weird asian style noodles made of - I don't know what they are made of actually. Some kind of clear stuff that doesn't have carbs. Glucomannan? I'm kind of afraid to try them.

Ooh, I've been looking for those!

sweet potato noodles would qualify if you didn't want to eat rice