Meagan's Food Diary: June 29th

Well, it's been a bit of madness for the past week or so. I managed to pick up a bug of sorts and ended up with the stomach flu last week. That meant 3 days of no food except gingerale, saltine crackers, and chicken broth. As I slowly recovered, my body was craving carbs and fat like crazy. I didn't know if it was a good idea to deny it while I was recovering, so I just gave in to my cravings. This means that I had pizza, bread, processed sugar, and other carbs over the weekend. The fascinating thing is that my eczema has been acting up like crazy. So I now know, almost beyond a doubt, that my diet contributes to the health and condition of my skin.

So, I know I'm not doing particularly well with either the challenge or the blogging. I think part of it is that if I actively deny myself certain foods, I crave them more (this makes sense, I think). So part of this is also an exercise in discovering my own motivations. I think I need to go back to just eating well and not thinking too hard about what not to eat. Because inevitably whatever is on the "not" list becomes the desired item. Interesting.

I'm trying to get back on track today.

So far:
- 1 cup of tea with milk
- smoothie (apple juice, banana, cherries, 1 scoop greens+)
- 1 rosemary lamb sausage
- protein shake
- 16oz peppermint tea
- 1 apple

Angela's Food Log: June 24th, 2010

So tired--third night of 6 hours of sleep or less.

• 1 grande *$s coffee with 1/4C cream
• 2 Handfuls of trail mix
• 1/4 C baked/refried potatoes left over from the other night
• banana
• 2-3 handfuls of trail mix
• 1C "baby" carrots
• 1T almond butter and 1/2 T coconut oil
• 6oz (?) sirloin tip steak (finally, food!)
• 1/2 red bell pepper
• 1.5 C Primal Apple Something*

So... I forgot the most important part of my lunch: the meat. Hence the lack of meat until dinner.

I tried making a primal dessert, even though I am firmly in the camp of "don't try to make perverted substitutions of former favorite foods". I peeled, cored and sliced 6 or 7 medium Fuji apples, tossed them in a bowl with cinnamon, cloves, ginger, and a few drops of lemon juice, dumped them into a 9" round pie dish lightly oiled with coconut oil, and baked uncovered at 350F for 30mins. While that was cooking, I mixed 2C almond meal, 1T raw local honey, and 1T pure vanilla extract to make a topping of sorts. After the apples had baked for 30mins, I took them out of the oven, added about 1/2C water to the dish and sprinkled the almond mixture on top. I then put it back in the oven for about 15 minutes.

First impression: it was ok. The almond topping wasn't very exciting, and the apples weren't cooked to that delightful mushy stage that you get in real, good apple pies. If I had included chopped nuts in the topping, that might have helped. Next time, I will try that as well as covering the apples while they are baking with aluminum foil (we are currently out of foil). MC seems fairly unimpressed with this, so I suspect I'll be finishing the rest myself :S

Angela's Food Log: June 23rd, 2010

Was woken up in the early morning by a horrible calf cramp! This seems to happen when I go sufficiently low-carb and work out. I have seen posts by other people on LC diets complaining about muscle cramps. We'll see if the cramps continue--I am not sure what to do about them.

Today has me seriously considering if I should dump the coffee and cream habit--mostly because of the amount of dairy it causes me to ingest. I have heard many many people say that dairy stalled out their progress on weight loss, and even though I am not trying to "lose weight" (i.e. make the scale go down), I wonder if it is interfering in my body's ability to use stored fat as fuel. Also, I have a sneaking suspicion that the dairy might be responsible for my skin problems :(


Food for today:

• 3 (?) handfuls trail mix
• 1 grande *$s coffee with 1/4 C cream
• 2C beef guacamole left over from last night
• banana
• 2 handfuls trail mix
• 2 shot americano with 1/4 C cream
  
• 2T almond butter and 1T coconut oil upon getting home from work
• half a large pork sausage (getting tired of sausage)
• 1 small glass Merlot
• 3/4C baked & refried red potatoes with 3/4 C hamburger 

Angela's Food Log: June 22nd, 2010

Tuesday. CrossFit tonight.

• large coffee (*$s) with 1/4C coffee cream.
• Lunch: 4 bacon-wrapped halibut nuggets, 1/2C sausage.
• Caesar salad with baked Cajun chicken breast (B/L, S/L) at Smuggler's Cove pub. Felt a bit bloated during the afternoon.
• 2 shot breve with half-and-half from Olive Olio's. Tasty!
• Some sausage as an afternoon snack...
• Dinner: Guacamole Beef (Courtesy of Taryn @ Tabata This; link here), 1.5 baked small red potatoes with a dab of butter on each half. Also a strip of bacon.

CrossFit tonight was great: 6 rounds, 4 mins each of: 8 hang squat snatch (25bs) & a 250m row. My fastest time was 1:34, slowest time 1:46 (first round). Felt good, a little wobbly on the squats though. Need to work on snatches for sure.

Angela's Food Log: June 21st, 2010

Uh oh. I didn't log Monday and now I can't remember what I ate. Here's what I *do* remember:

• large coffee with 1/4C coffee cream
• 1C sausage
• green salad with grated carrots, apple slivers, salad crunchy mix and olive oil/balsamic dressing
• Double Americano with 1/4C cream
• Dinner: sausages, bacon-wrapped halibut chunks, refried leftover chicken with sliced vidalia onions, glass of Merlot, bacon. Sooo good!

Hmm... that might actually be accurate.

I fell off the wagon.

Well, that didn't take long. I already missed two days of journalling. I am so stressed out right now that I am craving coke and a bag of potato chips--this is most certainly an emotional craving, and I know better than to cave in. I think that I just haven't had enough to eat today, and so it's wreaking havoc on my blood sugar and emotional well-being. Not having internet at home on the weekend seems to have thrown off my food diary as well. I meant to keep a written record that I could transcribe, but ended up repeatedly forgetting. So I'll piece together what I can remember, and start again for today.

This weekend (what I can remember):
Saturday:
Scrambled eggs
1 Apple
50g Roast Beef
Lamb
Sauteed bell peppers (olive oil)

Sunday:
Scrambled Eggs
1 rosemary lamb sausage
3 slices back bacon
1 banana
5 large strawberries
1 Frunola bar
1lb mussels (smugglers cove)
3 gin and tonics
1 cup earl grey tea with milk
1 square dark chocolate

Today's food:
Breakfast:
1 1/2 rosemary lamb sausages
Fruit salad (1 banana, 1 apple, 7 large strawberries)
1 cup of Tea

Snack:
Coffee with cream

Snack:
16 oz Hot Apple Cider (holy sugar rush. Bad idea.)
1 energy ball with chocolate from Finnerty's

Snack:
16 oz Earl Grey Tea with 1/8c milk

I'll post more as the day goes on...

Angela's Food Log: June 20th, 2010

More weekend! Yay again!

• Cup of coffee with 2T whipping cream
• 4 slices bacon
• 2 scrambled eggs in bacon grease with 2 slices cheddar cheese and diced vidalia onoins
• Homemade frappuccino: 1C whipping cream, 1C almond milk, 1C frozen coffee (freeze in ice cube trays), 1T raw local honey, 1/2T pure vanilla extract. Nom nom! (see picture, below)
• BBQ at my parents': Large steak, green salad with local organic lettuce that I picked myself, salad crunchy mix, grated carrots, apple slivers, and olive oil and balsamic vinegar dressing. I had a 1/4C of Mario's Vanilla Gelati with assorted fruit for dessert. Tasty but I think it made me unable to get to sleep, as we ate dessert at about 10PM. Also felt itchy and headachy when we got home, but that could have been due to the caffeine wearing off :S

Here's a picture of my frappe:

Angela's Food Log: June 19th, 2010

Weekend! Yay!

• 1C Coffee with 2T whipping cream
• 3 slices bacon
• 3 chicken thighs (B/L, S/L) baked in olive oil with salt, pepper, and oregano, with 1.5 baked small red potatoes with 1T butter
• another baked chicken thigh later in the evening

Slept in. Was a little sore from yesterday's workout, but not bad. Got a 2-hour massage treatment in the afternoon that REALLY helped =)

Angela Food Log: June 18th, 2010

Wow, this is day 5 already... so far I think I've stuck to the rules. 

• Grande Pike Place coffee from Starbucks with 18% cream
• 1C pot roast left over from dinner
• 3 fish oil capsules (will look up EPA/DHA amounts when I get home)
• 2000mg Vit D (in tablets)
• Double americano with cream
• 1T almond butter & 1t coconut oil
• 2 chicken thighs (B/L, S/L) fried in olive oil
• 1T almond butter & 1t coconut oil @ 12:30PM

Still feeling sick, tummy unhappy, headachy. Went to CrossFit anyway and did the Baseline again (first time was in January 2010 when I started, time 15:23). Time 7:20 scaled: knee pushups, green band for pullups. Yay!

Did not eat enough at dinner (we were rushing out the door) and was starving by 10:30pm. Got home at midnight but didn't want to eat anything substantial right before going to bed, so I think I had another tablespoon of almond butter with coconut oil.

Angela's Food Log: June 17th, 2010

• 1 large cup coffee with 1/4 C whipping cream
• handful of trail mix
• 1 C (approx) sliced pot roast beef with some onions
• another handful of trail mix
• 2T almond butter and 1T coconut oil upon getting home*
• 1 premade beef patty with 1t Cholula hot sauce. Patty contained only beef, salt, spices.

* I am clearly not taking enough food to work.

Angela Food Log: June 16th, 2010

• Breakfast: one large pork sausage. Last one, so sad. Handful of strawberries. Large Coffee with 1/4 C. whipping cream.
• Lunch: leftover chicken stir fry and 1 C. strawberries.
• Afternoon snack: 2 handfuls of trail mix: hazelnuts, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, a couple raisins and a few pieces of date. Out of coffee, so none this afternoon.
• 2 T almond butter & 1T coconut oil upon getting home after CrossFit in the evening. 
• Dinner: Pot roast with dry rub of salt, black pepper, turmeric, coriander, and one other spice (can't remember). Seared in pot on stove, cooked for just under an hour at 350F. Damn tasty. I also ate a cup of cooked mixed veggies : broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots. Left most of the carrots. 

I think I may need a kitchen scale so I can more accurately record things like "pot roast" and "chicken stir fry". :S

Meagan's Food Diary: June 17th

I need to go grocery shopping tonight. I have no paleo-friendly food left in my house.

Breakfast (8am):
Peach juice with 2 tsp Greens+
1/2 hardboiled egg
Tea with milk

Snacking throughout the day:
Trailmix

Lunch (12noon):
Salad (1 large carrot, green and yellow pepper, grapes, strawberries) with balsamic dressing

Snack (3pm):
Fruit and cheese box from Bibliocafe

Snack (5pm):
leftover chicken wings from Fifth Street
5 table water crackers + brie

****This is where the night went downhill****
Written 1 day later, retrospectively:
The evening was a bad food night for me, but put in stark relief my reason for facing this challenge. We went to a friend's house and he had cooked us dinner. Pasta with spaghetti sauce with garlic bread. I hadn't eaten because I thought it would be rude to not eat what he had made us. 5 bites into the pasta I started to feel ill, my skin got itchy, and I developed a massive headache. I stopped eating at that point. I am now understanding the benefit of fasting if the proper food choices are not available. White flour and wheat are NOT good for me. I feel disgusting, my eczema is flaring up, and I am having a "fat day." I am not going to get mad at myself for breaking the diet; if anything this experience makes me realise why I have decided to be more conscious of my food choices. I will get back on track today, which should be easy because I feel so gross that I can't even imagine eating non-paleo foods!

Angela Food Log: June 15th, 2010

This is yesterday (the 15th):

• Breakfast: half a large pork sausage: pork, water, salt spices. Coffee with heavy/whipping cream.
• Snack: Larabar (coconut cocoa)
• Lunch: one large pork sausage and a BAS (local organic lettuce that I picked myself, strawberries, salad crunchy mix and a lemon juice/olive oil dressing)
• Afternoon coffee: 2 cups, each with 1/8th C whipping cream.
• Snack after work: 2T almond butter with 1.5t coconut oil. Yes, I eat this on a spoon. Yes, it's odd. But it's tasty!
• Dinner: Chicken stir fry: boneless skinless chicken breasts, Vidalia onions, olive oil, garlic, local organic "bok choi" (it wasn't bok choi, but a very closely related leafy green).
• Dessert: several strawberries

Mood: exhausted. Got home from work and was near to collapsing on the couch and passing out. Rallied later in the evening Woke up the next morning feeling under the weather in some indefinable way.

My primal beginnings

I am undertaking this challenge with the knowledge that at this juncture, there are certain items I am unwilling to give up. My goal will be to eat roughly 85-90% within the scope of the primal/paleo diet, but still allow myself the luxury of a few choice foods. I think it makes sense to have reasonable expectations, and given that this is my first official foray into the vicissitudes of the paleolithic, I must be gentle with myself. That being said, I am making a pact to blog about what I eat, every day for thirty days. I promise to be 100% honest about everything I eat for the next thirty days. I make this pact with the knowledge that I will have a much better sense of my diet at the end of the month. I also forsee some difficulty in holding to the diet in July, given that I will be in the UK for two full weeks. I will stick to Angela's list of foods, with the exception of dairy, which I will try to scale back but not cut out entirely.

Today's food diary

Breakfast (8am):
Black Tea with milk
Scrambled eggs (2)

Snack (9:45am):
Banana
Green Tea with Ginger

Snack (10:15am):
Trail mix (nuts/pineapple/apricot/coconut)

Snack (11am):
16oz coffee (double shot espresso with 1/2cup water and 1/8 cup cream)

Snack (11:42am):
~1/4c Dried fruit (apples, cranberries, blueberries)

Lunch (Noon):
450ml Carrot & Coriander Soup
1 nectarine

Snack (1pm):
16oz darjeeling tea with milk

Snack (1:45pm):
~1/8c Dried fruit (apples, cranberries, blueberries)

Snack (3:30pm):
Trail mix
16oz peppermint tea

Snack (5pm):
6 Table Wafers with Brie (because I have them and they need to be eaten--won't buy more when these are done).
Perrier with Lime

Supper (7:30pm):
B.A.S. (Greens, Red and Yellow Peppers, Carrots)
Chicken Wings (Fireside Honey Garlic)
1 glass red wine

Angela: In/Not In

My goals for the next 30 days are:

1. Lose a few inches around the middle, butt and thighs: lean out. I'm finally getting muscles from CrossFit and I wanna see 'em!
2. Get stronger and have more energy¹

To achieve these two (admittedly fuzzy) goals, here's my In/Not In (INI) list:

IN:

• Meat, including beef, chicken, pork, venison, lamb/mutton, moose, rabbit, turkey... pretty much anything other than human and dog. Probably won't eat cats, either, come to think of it. Realistically--anything that is sold in the grocery store.²
• Fish, including... well, see above.
• Eggs. See Footnote #2, below.
• Vegetables: green leafy things, cucumbers, brassicas in small amounts (I have a negative internal reaction to most brassica family plants), onions, chives, garlic... the usual victims.
• Nightshades in limited amount: this includes potatoes and tomatoes, which I'm including for a few reasons; one, I agree with Richard Nikoley's take on them (see here), two, it will make cooking in my household INFINITELY easier, and three, I like them.
• Tubers: yams, sweet potatoes.
• Fruit: to achieve goal #1, I'm going to restrict total intake of these. But berries are in, apples/pears in small quantities, and because we just bought & dehydrated a bunch of it, pineapple. It's candy, and will be treated as such :P 
• Nuts: almonds, walnuts, hazelnuts. Almond butter. Tasty Coconut!
• Oils: Extra Virgin Cold-Pressed Olive Oil, coconut oil, small amounts of butter (mainly for scrambled eggs),
• Coffee: Organic, fair trade, shade grown from Creekmore's Coffee (a local roastery). 
• Misc: olives as tasty salty treats.
• Heavy/Whipping Cream: for my coffee. I'm sorry, I like black metal but I can't drink black coffee!

OUT:

• Grains: of all sorts, including but not limited to wheat, corn, rice, barley, oats, sorghum, quinoa, rye, blah blah blah. NONE.
• Soy: for many reasons, most notably the fact that it contains quantities of phytoestrogens and my body is out of whack enough in that regard. Also, soy is processed. Heavily. And I don't like it, except in the form of soy sauce. No soy whatsoever for the next 30 days.
• Dairy, except for the above two exceptions. Store-bought dairy is heavily processed, pasteurized and industrialized. It is also implicated in cases where people can't lose weight on an otherwise clean diet (I will provide links to anecdotes for this if necessary).
• Refined sugar in all forms: HFCS, "glucose/fructose", cane sugar/syrup, corn syrup, sugar, etc. Honey and maple syrup to be used in extreme moderation.
• Peanuts: because I haven't heard anything good about them. Admittedly unscientific. Send me references if you think I really ought to be including these. I will take any data under advisement.

There you have it. I'm not sure what macronutrient balance I should be aiming for, so I don't think I'll bother with daily calculations. At the end of the 30 days, it would be interesting to do some analyses based on these food logs, though, as Meagan pointed out today ;)



Footnotes:

1. I suffer from chronically low energy, in my opinion. I have difficulty going to CrossFit two times a week and biking the 10K round trip to work five days per week. I end up bedridden if I go above CFx2 + biking x2. Something isn't right, because I used to hit the gym 4x per week, and bike EVERYWHERE as a poor student. I'm hoping a stricter, cleaner diet will help, and will look at options with my doctor in the next week or so. 
2. We currently buy all our meat, eggs, and fish from the local grocery store. I am checking out a local source of free-range pastured hens this week, so hopefully we will have tasty eggs from happy hens soon. I have also (courtesy of Sarah P on Facebook) found a possible source of local, grass fed & finished beef. Pending tasting approval by MC, I'd like to quit buying beef from the store, as we eat mostly beef as our meat.

First Post - Angela June 14th

So MC and I started off our Primal/Paleo 30 Day Challenge with a trip to Costco to get supplies. We discussed the In/Not In list (which I'll post for each of us tonight) and made ourselves a Primal dinner.

My Food List:

• 2 eggs, scrambled in coconut oil with a few drops of Cholula (?) hot sauce.
• 2 slices bacon
• an ounce(ish) of medium-rare steak with Montreal Steak Spice (left over from the previous night's dinner)
• 1 large pork sausage (pork, water, salt, spices... that's it)
• Big Ass Salad (organic lettuce from MC's parents, feta cheese, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salad crunchy mix (pine nuts, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds)
• ~500mL Perrier, lime flavour
• 2 medium strawberries

I'll make another post tonight detailing today's meals, along with MC's and my In/Not In lists (which are going to be slightly different).

Cheers!
~A