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

Nope - going off now to look it up!

Ultratex looks like fun - will have to play with some once we're done with the whole30 thing. Being able to make a creamy custard without milk protein (heavy cream instead of milk once we can have some dairy again) is a project I want to tackle - guar has too much slime and beaniness, arrowroot doesn't provide enough structure

Ran out of coconut milk this morning so used coconut oil in my second cup of coffee - whoa. Stirring really hard isn't close to emulsifying, so a bit of an oil slick on top. Tasted pretty good though.

i just got two teeth pulled so i ain't eating a damn thing. maybe a smoothie...

I got a tooth pulled too, and my blender broke yesterday :( in solidarity, scott!

they wouldn't let me have my teeth. biohazard! they were just in my mouth...

had soup today. having soup now. carrot/coconut. cheated and had some pudding today. but i deserved some pudding. having big teeth yanked out that had been in my head for 40 years was a little traumatic. didn't fill the pain pill prescription they gave me though. feel okay. i have it in reserve just in case.

I got mine, explaining that I've regretted for the last ten years not having got my wisdom teeth! The tooth was a mess so it's in a few pieces. The root is gigantic. Sorry for off topic y'all. Hot and sour soup for me tonight.

yeah one of mine fell apart when they were taking it out and it took some doing to get all the pieces out. oof. very unsettling. i never got my wisdom teeth out and they had been digging into the molars next to them. thus creating a hole in the molars. so, couldn't save them. not that i miss having a root canal or whatever.

i had some mashed potatoes tonight too. i know i know they aren't paleo but i don't care. i know for a fact who my mortal enemies are: corn, sugar, and wheat. i still feel great. even after the teeth i felt great.

break a rule now and again.

personally i allow myself to eat what i like at weekends, though some weekends i'll just health on through to the other side cos i want to.

i could never be paleo. i love corn! corn on the cob (where 80 percent of my corn comes from- ah August in the Midwest) is god's work

i mean, if you feel bad about eating mashed potato, you're doing well imo.

Bought 2 giant jugs of extra light olive oil at Costco and made 3 cups of mayo last night in the KitchenAid to cut the remainder of the batch I made with extra virgin (so horribly bitter!). Making ghee today with 2 lbs of butter - Cooks Illustrated had a short blurb on using the oven to make it: 250 deg F for 2-3 hours. Use a big enough pot.

Also made a creamy salad dressing that was ugly but tasty - 3 tbsp mayo, 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar, 1 tsp mixed italian dried herbs, 1 clove minced garlic.

Sleeping so soundly and feeling so energetic, it's ridiculous.

Jaq, I just looked at Whole30 and it says: 'In addition, no Paleo-ifying dessert or junk food choices. Trying to shove your old, unhealthy diet into a shiny new Whole30 mold will ruin your program faster than you can say, “Paleo pizza.” This means no desserts or junk food made with “approved” ingredients—no coconut-flour pancakes, almond-flour muffins, flourless brownies, or coconut milk ice cream. Don’t try to replicate junk food during your 30 days! That misses the point of the Whole30 entirely.'

Why is that? I do get the feeling it's not good that I'm mainlining almond flour lemon scones, I'll admit.

I think it's their "tough love" stance on only eating minimally processed food or something. I went ahead and bought their book - too many inspirational I-was-soooo-sick-now-I'm-soooo-well saved-my-life anecdotes, but they had to pad out the remaining content somehow. I'm buying the plantain chips and thinking of the coconut butter wafers as shortbread cookies, regardless.

What are their maintenance suggestions for after the 30 days - do you introduce one food back at a time and see what happens?

exactly - start with the thing you most want to add back in, eat some for a day, go back to the restricted diet for 3 days, try the next thing you want to add back on the 5th day, etc etc

We're not going to do that, b\c that 30th day is Christmas and my sister sent me a big box of homemade cookies.

Heh, I should think not.

all those desserts made with “approved” ingredients have sugar or other sweeteners in them though right? i think if you're actually trying to stabilize your blood sugars and/or lose weight and/or feel healthier/sleep better/etc (all of which can go hand in hand obv), you need to cut out all sweeteners and high-glycemic fruit + any fruit juice for a while (30 days or longer), then slowly re-introduce some as non-regular parts of your regular diet. and even then, not really on their own as a snack, just as a small dessert after a meal.

I make stuff with a tiny bit of stevia in (hardly any), but a ton of nut flours. Fruit might be a bigger problem maybe.

Yeah, rrrobyn, they all have honey or something. Looking at the larabars, they might be acceptable (or their homemade equivalent), but too much dried fruit could be a real problem.

I haven't had any fruit except berries in season (and no juice of any kind) for about 3 years, due to eating low-carb and ketogenic, but I ate a hell of a lot of artificial sweeteners. One of the intriguing things for me is the idea that the sweet taste of even artificial stuff triggers a blast of insulin just in case.

Yeah, I wondered about that too. Is there evidence that it does?

I think it's still just a theory. But maybe there's a study that ties diet soda to obesity, so conjecture around that sort of evidence?

I reread that bit in the Whole30 about not recreating junk food - it's about breaking habits too, and the idea that the substitute made with approved ingredients just isn't going to be satisfying and so your cravings for it will be increased.

Turned 2 lbs of butter into ghee today - a quart jar of golden deliciousness.

That said, I'm still making rocket shrimp that I have been craving like nobody's business tomorrow - breaded with coconut flour, fried in coconut oil and tossed with a spicy remoulade of homemade mayo, horseradish, and tabasco.

be rite over...

co-sign

hope u have enough to feed ilx

I'll make extra :)

:D

i think you meat-eating paleos would enjoy chowing down on the brisket i'm making tonight (happy latke-free chanukah). the only iffy thing is the tomato paste i basted it with, cuz it's a nightshade vegetable. god, it smells amazing, and i don't even get to dig in for another hour and a half.

So it's not paleo but I don't know where else to put it. I realized that I eat way too much pasta/rice/bread especially when I eat out a lot which I was doing for a while last month so I started just this low carb vegetarian diet thing just to sort of give it a shot and see what happens. Jesus Christ I have never eaten so much cheese in my life. I mean it's basically my favorite food so I'm not exactly complaining but having been fat-phobic since the 90s eating full fat cheese and using butter is the weirdest fucking thing. Last night I made a spinach and boursin/cheddar gratin with fried tomatoes on the side. Tonight it's some sort of spicy baked tofu thing. We'll see.

I have lost 17 lbs!

Damn girl. :)

hsII - that's awesome!! good work!

apparently after a Thanksgiving bounce, I've dropped 10 lbs total since starting my fake paleo diet (ie, I bought the cookbook jjj referenced, flipped through it to see the types of meals they were advocating, then adjusted my eating habits so I was eating stuff 75% similar to the recipes in the book)

this is despite Thanksgiving and living with two enormous bags of Halloween candy over the past 6 weeks

wow, 17 lbs is substantial for sure! you can feel that kind of weight loss. and if you are eating lots of veggies and fruit you know you are losing weight healthily.

my tooth extractions have screwed my whole food thing up. still can't really eat comfortably without getting sore so lots of soups and smoothies. turns out i could probably live on soup though. and my oral surgeon was right about a possible infection. i wanted him to be wrong because i hate taking antiobiotics. but went and got them and pain pills today after all this time.

also, since the teeth have been taken out i have craved dairy like crazy. had a little frozen yogurt and a little ice cream on two occasions. made my mouth feel better anyway. maybe my brain knew i needed a lot of calcium or something. weird.

Of course today is the day when some people at work decide to bring in a giagantic tray of leftover Halloween candy (IN DECEMBER) and some other people bring some trader joes cookies and then there's some party with cake. THANKS A LOT ASSHOLES. On the other hand this avocado is really go so.

people bringing food in to work to share is the biggest killer for me whenever i try to do this - it's perfectly easy/natural for me to go to the grocery store and only buy meat and vegetables and not get tempted by anything else on the shelves but when the food is free and being offered to me i crack

Oh man, I feel for you ENBB - this is my first day back in the office since before Thanksgiving and I am so glad there are no treats just laying around in the coffee areas. Tried to anticipate bringing enough stuff in to keep me from being tempted: ham, avocado, snap peas, grapefruit, caramelized coconut chips.

I am not really tempted my candy. Most of it is gross. However, if someone brought in a delicious pain au chocolat from like a specialty bakery I would really have a moment of sadness. I did tell my sister I feel a bit left out not being able to partake of sweets this Holiday season. We're going to have berries and double cream on Christmas to soothe the pain (with the possibility of 70% dark chocolate drizzled on top).

Jaq, please tell me more about the caramelized coconut chips...

x-post - Oh, I'm totally eating whatever the hell I want on actual Christmas - that's a free day imo. I didn't take anything and I only really wanted to try the TJ cookies because mint chocolate is my favorite but, yeah, people bring stuff in here is hard.

And, yes, I would also like to know more about the toasted coconut chips please.

They are simple! Get some unsweetened flaked coconut (I got Bob's Red Mill), heat up a skillet over medium, put in a tiny bit of coconut oil and a handful of flaked coconut. Stir gently and watch it brown - just takes a few minutes. I did a whole bag a handful at a time, then tossed with some salt while it was warm - it's like popcorn. It would work with shreds too. The little bit of oil helps the tiny crumbs cling together once out of the pan.

oooooh. I think that's my plane snack for Thursday.

holy um yes I am so trying that

These are from The Clothes Make the Girl btw: http://www.theclothesmakethegirl.com/2011/06/13/carmelized-coconut-chips/

I skipped the cinnamon but will add it next time I think.

The thing I find hardest about people brining stuff in is not that I desperately want it, more that I hate having to say 'oh I'm doing a sort of paleo thing...' and get into the negotiations and the 'go on, go on, go on.... '. And I don't want everyone to know that I'm trying to eat a certain way, and therefore have them be aware of whether or not I'm holding myself to my own standards. So I tend to be super-enthusiastic about the food that's been brought, in the hope that no-one notices I haven't eaten any, or I 'take some for later' and then give it to housemates. Or even bin it, which is terrible (I only do that if it wasn't a labour of love).

Anyway, I'm kind of inclined to try the Whole30 after Xmas, because eating paleo-ish is doing nothing for me. It might also help if I took even the tiniest amount of exercise.

I have a dumb question that may have already been addressed itt

What happens AFTER the 30 day period if you do the Whole30. Do you start adding stuff back in?

alllllmost to 30 lbs lost thru (mostly) paleo eating, hit a bit of a plateau late but I'm still inching downard