Skinny Me

Week Three

2011-11-28T08:35:00.000-08:00

Hello all. Pardon the minor disappearance there. I weighed myself this morning, and I'm at 168 still. But. BUT. I got my period yesterday, and usually I'm up three or four pounds the during the beginning of my period, so I'm confident that once it's over, I'll be around 165.

I've noticed that my sleep pattern has changed. I used to nap every afternoon, sometimes for hours. I was never tired at night, and would at times lie awake staring at the ceiling. However, I am now awake, and motivated, during the day, and at night, I sleep soundly until my alarm goes off. My body has just adjusted its own timeclock, and I really do attribute that to the change in my diet.

Yesterday, I had someone ask me, "How are you doing it? What on earth do you eat? How do you shop?" My answer was that at first, I was really nervous about how this was going to work. My biggest concern was cravings. I've always been an emotional eater, and when I get upset, I generally turn to food. That hasn't changed, but what I'm eating has changed. I'm upset, I eat bacon. I'm angry, I eat a square of dark chocolate with a glass of red wine.

But in truth, this is way, way easier than I thought it would be. After the first few days, my cravings vanished. I've never once craved bread or rice or oatmeal or cake. I can bypass the candy aisle with ease. I don't even get hungry for snacks. I eat breakfast, then am not hungry till lunch, then am not hungry till dinner. The notion of six small meals a day to reset a metabolism seems silly to me, and I eat when I'm hungry.

I also don't find myself staring into my cupboards like I used to. I'd often not be hungry at all, but still searching the shelves for something to cram into my mouth. Those days are gone. The only thing that I still have trouble with is sweeteners. I LOVE me some Diet Coke, and I've been finding it hard to not buy it. I do allow myself an occasional one, but I figure it's okay if it's once a week instead of once a day like it used to be.

Also yesterday, while out at The Keg for my friend's baby shower, I was sitting with a woman who has an apparent allergy to gluten, dairy and eggs. I'll admit that some of her reasoning sounded not right. Before deciding to take gluten out of my daughter's (and thereby the entire family's) diet, specifically targeting wheat, I read lots on Coeliac (celiac) Disease, wheat intolerance versus allergies, and how gluten reacts in the body. When it comes to health, I don't do things uninformed.

Several of the contradictions that I was hearing out of this woman were that her stomach lining is completely trashed because of the way she used to eat, and it will stay that way forever. All my research has led me to the conclusion that the lining of the stomach and intestines repairs itself, generally over six months. She stated that her stomach lining was so trashed that she couldn't digest a raw strawberry - and yet gummy candies were one of the simplest, easiest things on her stomach. Also, she drinks like a fish. She can't tolerate fats of any kind. No animal fat, no olive oil, no butter, no ghee.

It really surprised me. I'm not sure if this is an actual intolerance or allergy, or if this is an outward sign of an eating disorder. From personal experience with the latter, I can say that it sounds probable.

Anyway, The Keg turned out to be the best place ever for a Paleo eater to dine out. While I've been plenty of places since going Paleo, and I can usually find something to eat everywhere - including fast food places, The Keg's menu is pretty cut and dry. Steak, veggies, potatoes, salads. I've been avoiding large amounts of chicken because I frankly can't afford and haven't found a good free-range chicken distributor, and the hormones/genetic engineering in chicken scare the bejeezus out of me. I've been focusing on beef, bison, pork, free-range eggs and fish for my protein sources. And the pork always seems to take the form of bacon. ;)

My original plan was to do this and blog about it for 30 days. Now I'm nearing day 30, and I'm going to keep going. No question about that. Even though the weight isn't falling off like I'd hoped (you know, 10 pounds in the first week kind of miracle that everyone wants when they start a new diet), I feel fantastic. My outlook on food has changed, and my motivation has, too. I don't feel like I'm limiting myself because I eat what I want, when I want. I just don't want all that other stuff any more.

So there's my update. I'll do it again next week.
XO

Day 7 - In Which Week One Ends

2011-11-14T18:59:00.000-08:00

Looking back on the last seven days, my first week eating Paleo, things have been decent. I've, for the most part, stuck to the diet, and I'm no longer ravenous, prepared to trade my left arm for a chocolate bar by midday. The few times I have screwed up and had a quarter cup of rice or a few rice noodles, my cravings have gone through the roof! Right now, I've started to come down with a very sore throat, and typically with a sore throat I run to three things: Dairy Queen, tomato soup and Halls. Since all three of those things are out due to dairy, dairy and sugar, I'm resorting to oranges (vit C), cold water and prayer. (The prayer part was snark.)

My weigh-in is tomorrow, and to be honest, I've been stepping on the scale pretty much every morning all week. In the beginning, I was down to 169, a loss of three pounds, but this morning I was sitting at 170. Of course, being a woman, I have fantastic water retention abilities which cycle around a few events each month (ahem), so I'm generally good with a few pounds up or down. I'd prefer the latter direction, but I'll take what I can get.

I'm going to start looking into Intermittent Fasting, since I've not been hungry very much with this way of eating. Generally I'm only really hungry for two meals a day, and maybe one snack. Not sure if this is normal, but if my body's telling me not to eat, I'm not going to eat. Or at least I'm going to attempt not to eat.

As an added bonus, my acne has cleared right up. It had been quite bad, thanks to Clomid, but since I'm off that and now eating significantly better, my skin is starting to go back to its normal, happy, clear self. All right. Sore throat is raging. Time to eat an orange and go back to my knitting while watching Big Love. It snowed up here today, so we won't see grass for another, oh, six months or so. Knitting sounds spectacular right about now.

Day 5 - Where One Day Was Missed

2011-11-12T20:08:00.001-08:00

I guess I'm blogging for both day four and day five, as I totally didn't blog yesterday. Whoops. As per usual, I was up at 5:30 a.m. to start my day. While I live in the wonderful GMT region, I contract out of New York City, so my day begins slightly earlier than most people's. Luckily, I work out of the basement, so a bad commute for me is stubbing my toe on the way downstairs.

I did my work and was finished by 8:30 (spectacular), then crawled back in bed for a few hours to attempt to get some more sleep. At 11:00, I dropped my car off to get the winter tires put on (living in Canada, those suckers are essential), and then the hubster and I went out for lunch. Our daughter had spent the night at my parents' house, and we take advantage of our child-free days.

I hadn't had breakfast, but I wasn't as hungry as I would have been before going Paleo. I ordered a burger without a bun and no cheese, sweet potato fries and a salad. My parent have family dinner once a week, and this week it happened to be Friday night. I asked my mom what she was intending to have, and explained my new diet, which she thought was a good idea to try. She informed me it would be "pork tenderloin, red cabbage, salad and veggies." I thought, perfect! But when dinner was actually served, it was pork tenderloin, red cabbage, QUINOA SALAD and RICE. Luckily, there were some raw veggies hanging around, so I had a handful of carrots, red cabbage and pork.

My brother had picked up a DQ Blizzard Cake for dessert, which I bypassed and had a cup of tea instead. I also had a glass of red wine before bed while watching Crazy Stupid Love (dude, Ryan Gossling used to be a geeky kid on Breaker High. WTF happened?).

This morning, I had two eggs and some leftover bison from Thursday for breakfast. Lunch was missed, unfortunately, as we were running around and it just slipped right by us. I did have a latte midday, but I consider that okay. I'm not against drinking some milk from time to time, and really, a latte is a pretty negligible amount. Dinner was a Subway salad. When ordering, they looked at me like I was nuts for saying, "One pizza sub, made into a salad." And then absolutely psychotic when I said, "No cheese."

Tonight, my snack is cashews, pepperoni sticks and red wine. I think my favourite thing about this "diet" so far is that there is no calorie counting, no portion control. If I'm hungry, I have more meat or veg or a handful of nuts. I stop eating when I'm not hungry anymore. And if that takes two steaks, then it takes two steaks. The caveat, of course, is that it hasn't taken two of anything. One helping is more than enough when you're eating fat and protein. Spaghetti, I could've had two helpings, easy. But this way? No way.

The only not so great thing that happened the last few days is that while my daughter was at my parents' house, she had pancakes for breakfast, a peanut butter sandwich for lunch and a cookie for an afternoon snack. We've had her 90% off wheat, and it was such an overload for her poor tummy. She complained of a tummy ache until she went to the bathroom, where she had major loose poops (or as she used to call them, moose poops). We have noticed that off wheat, she's so much more regular. Hell, even she's noticed it, and when a five year old notices her bathroom schedule is better, that means something.

Day 3 - Clean

2011-11-10T23:10:00.000-08:00

I managed it. My very first absolutely, totally, completely Paleo day. No sugar, no grain, no legumes, no dairy. Breakfast was bacon and eggs. Lunch was a bowl of bacon/apple/butternut squash soup, and supper was one grass-finished bison burger (no bun, obviously) with a side of cooked veggies and fresh cucumbers. I must say, I had no desire for snacks, no eating in between meals, and I felt spectacular. Full of energy. I know this may sound strange, but I could actually feel digestion taking place.

This is going to be a rather short update, though, because I'm just sitting down to work (since I don't want to get up at the ass-crack of dawn) and need to get to business. So, yay! 1/10th of my 30-day experiment, and I can already tell that, while difficult to start, this is going to be something I will love the results of.

Day 2 - In Which There is Sushi

2011-11-09T19:21:00.000-08:00

This day went by fairly well. I got up at my usual 5:00 a.m., worked till 7:45 (love being self employed), and then sat down to a breakfast of leftover pork chop and braised red cabbage. Then, as is typical for me, I went back to bed until 10:30, woke up, got dressed, picked the kiddo up from school, and came home for lunch.

Elodie's lunch was her last bowl of Mac and Cheese ever. Mine was a Butternut Squash and Apple soup. It was tres delicious.

I had a snack of some cashews around 3:00, and then at 6:00, a friend of mine swung by and we went out for sushi. I will say, I didn't eat absolutely well. There was rice and miso soup. And LOTS of fish. And I don't feel well, to say the least. I've been gluten free for several weeks, and totally forgot about gluten existing in soy sauce. And while I know this sounds like I'm justifying it, my friend has stage four breast cancer, and sushi is kind of our thing. We go and forget both of our worries and eat and chat and gossip and eat, and then we stare incoherently at the bill because we didn't eat THAT much, did we??

But we only do it once a month, so tomorrow, it's back on the clean food. And there was no refined sugar, no chocolate cravings, no popcorn cravings, no FOOD cravings, really. I woke up this morning feeling positively svelt. And while I know this is silly, I kept wanting to step on the scale because I felt like I should be ten pounds lighter by now. Two days into it. Why yes, I am an instant gratification kind of person. Why do you ask?

Anyway, I stopped by my local Nutter's (a health food store up here in Canuckistan) and picked up some grass fed bison patties. I'm intending to cook up extra of every dinner meal so that I can eat it for breakfast the next morning.

I think the biggest thing about this diet that I've noticed is that it's for cookers. If someone doesn't like cooking, this would be hard to do. As it is, I like cooking. Seriously. There's nothing I find more gratifying than frying the shit out of something. I also rather enjoy peeling things. I have an awesome potato peeler. My food processor is spectacular and HUGE. But, I mean, this is not a diet for those scared to cook. And I don't mean that they spend 15 minutes boiling some pasta and heating up a jar of tomato sauce and call it done. That's not cooking. Cooking is scratch, real food, real ingredients, mixed together until it's a meal.

Seriously, I've probably spent more time cooking this week than I have working. On average? Three hours a day are spent labouring in front of my stove, chopping ingredients, stirring and peeling. So yeah, if you can't cook...well, you'll be able to by the end of this.

Day 1 - In Which Preventative Measures are Taken

2011-11-08T14:48:00.000-08:00

The stats:

Weight: 172 pounds
Height: 5' 6"
BMI: 27.8
size: 12

I'll be checking my weight every Tuesday morning and posting it to the blog.

So last night, I said goodbye to sugar and had a Blizzard. It was terrific, but dude, immediately after finishing it, my back started to ache, my poor tummy cramped up, and I was exhausted. It's amazing how before, when I ate crap all the time, that wouldn't have affected me at all. But now that I've been eating fairly decently for the last year-and-a-half, that amount of junk entering takes me down.

This morning, I fried up two eggs, three slices of bacon, and had an orange. It was extremely yummy, and I was very satisfied. I turned down the coffee my husband offered (cream and sugar are the only way I can drink that stuff), and opted instead for a big glass of water.

Lunch consisted of leftovers from last night, a pork chop, braised red cabbage and half a honey dew melon. My daughter and I met my best friend at McDonald's. The kiddo played for a few hours (and discovered what appeared to be either peanut butter or cake in the play structure, was ordered NOT to touch it because things that look like peanut butter or cake around children are usually poo, and the peanut cake poo was promptly cleaned up by an employee), while the bestie and I drank tea and chatted. Thankfully, peppermint tea is just about my favorite thing ever, and my go-to visiting beverage.

An apple upon return home, and now I'm looking forward to a dinner of pressed chicken, sweet potato and avocado over salad and probably some grapes to finish it off.

So all in all, not bad. I certainly seem to be slightly more clear-headed. I'm not feeling the need to totally stuff my face all day. And there's no way I can eat Hallowe'en candy because, well, I made my daughter hide it. She's five, and she is one of four kids on our street. The neighbours were very generous, and she had a huge haul this year. Candy, sweets and chocolate are my weakness. Utterly and totally my weakness. So last night I explained what I was trying to do ("I'm not going to eat any sugar," to which she replied, "Well, that's crazy."), and asked her to hide all her candy. And she did, bless her heart.

So I have no idea where it is, and despite the fact that I am having a significant Jones for a piece of SOMETHING sweet and melty, I cannot find a darn thing. And she won't tell me where she hid it. I love my kid.

I have also sworn off cleaning her room for fear of finding the candy. This diet has bonuses that I never imagined.

Day 0

2011-11-07T11:37:00.000-08:00

Today is my last day of eating the way I do. I've said it before, but this time, it's a promise.

18 months ago, I joined Simply for Life and changed my lifestyle for the better. I cut out highly processed food in exchange for veggies, lean meats and whole grains, and LOTS of yogurt. I went from a size 16 to a size 10 and lost 33 pounds. I dropped from 192 pounds to 160.

In May of 2011, I stopped going to SFL, since I'd hit a plateau that I could not shake for the life of me. I tried everything my nutritionist suggested. I upped the protein, upped the veggies, lowered both, ate really clean, and yet those pesky pounds stuck. Since May, I've gained back ten pounds of the 32, leaving me at 170 (give or take three pounds, depending on the day), and a size 12. It's time to change something.

I've been reading The Paleo Solution among other things, and it's intriguing. The thought of reverting back to a traditional (in every sense of the word) diet has some inherent principles built in that would make the diet very clean. First, no processed foods. Obviously. No grains. No rice. No milk products (except for small amounts of butter). No pasta or bread or muffins or bagels or granola or oats or ... well, you get the picture.

Lots of fruit. Veggies. Meat. Fish. Eggs. And potatoes. Potatoes are okay. There would be no sweetener, no sugar, no beer. Wine is okay. Honey is okay, in limited quantities.

My husband thinks I'm nuts. However, lots of the books I've been reading link grains specifically with lots of diseases. Our family has cut wheat (mostly) out of its diet. And I'm struggling with secondary infertility. Hey, if something can get me to have a baby, I'll try it. And I figure for a generally-healthy 26-year-old woman, cutting out most carbs isn't going to be a bad thing or a scary thing.

So. Bucking common ideas of health and nutrition, cutting out (mostly) all carbs, and eating mostly plants with a side of meat. I'll be blogging every day for 30 days.

Go.