No Wonder North Americans Are Fat.

Here's a quote that literally jumped off the page at me while I was reading the Wikipedia article on the Paleo diet:

More than 70% of the total daily energy consumed by all people in the United States comes from foods such as dairy products, cereals, refined sugars, refined vegetable oils and alcohol...

WHAT!?!?

Does that seem anything less than totally ridiculous to anyone other than me? I mean...ok. When I was eating crap, I ate a lot of crap. But never that much. 70 percent??? And when you figure that probably everyone who eats this way is ALSO eating far, far, far too many calories to start with, that's an enormous amount of  crap. That stuff isn't even food. This type of diet translates into obesity, heart disease, infertility, PCOS, stroke, diabetes, and cancers, and probably many other health problems. Those are just the obvious ones.

These days, I'm eating ZERO cereals, refined sugars, refined vegetable oils, and alcohol. I eat cheese (raw swiss) once in a while, and I'm not adverse to having a glass of raw milk or putting a bit of cream in my coffee. But that's really practically nothing. Not even one percent of my diet. Not even 0.10 percent!

The only sugar I'm eating now (which is extremely rare, in any case) is honey and maple syrup. And guess what? I'm not really craving it. I'm eating so low carb at the moment that I'm in ketosis as I write this. Go ahead, look it up if you want (click on the word "ketosis," I made it a hyperlink for you).

That's the point. Our bodies were MEANT to be fat burners, not sugar burners. And that's what mine is doing. It's burning the fat right off of my ass. And that's the way I like it.

Source: Wikipedia

Staying on Track

I will be the first to admit that changing your lifestyle - when you've got deeply ingrained bad habits and preferences - is difficult. Expect to have setbacks. Figure out what works best for you; some people do really well on a 80/20 primal or pale/treat or cheat foods. Some have to do 100% primal or paleo, and some fall somewhere in between.

I've tried to have cheat/treat days or even just treat meals. It doesn't work very well for me. I have found that it opens up a can of horrible cravings and failed willpower, which cycles down into eating garbage every day until I have to start all over. I've just recently experienced this. Today is my second day on track after about two weeks off the wagon. In that two weeks, I ate inordinate amounts of pizza, some ice cream, and drank beer and vodka. Although that doesn't seem like a lot compared to most people's Standard American Diet, it's not really conducive to the lifestyle I want to explore - AND it stopped my weight loss process. I actually gained a couple of pounds back from water retention (caused by grains/excess carb consumption).

So, I'm back on track. I'm seriously going to work on staying under 50g carbs on rest days and under 100g on training days. It's actually what Gemma (personal trainer) recommended, but I wasn't really being serious about it. Now I'm going to buckle down and JUST DO IT. Once I'm at my goal weight (in about 20 pounds or so), I'll obviously consider adjusting my intake and ratios, but for now, ketogenic is what's going to get me there.

Pancake Tuesday!

Just because I eat paleo/primal doesn't mean I can't have pancakes! Today is Shrove Tuesday/Pancake Tuesday and so I made a special PWO-meal. I made two versions of pancakes, one for me and my daughter, and one for my husband (who doesn't like my version). My version is made from almond butter, eggs, yogurt, vanilla, and cinnamon. I used maple syrup on top, so I didn't include the honey from the recipe. I made a half batch, which resulted in 10 2-inch pancakes.

I also enjoyed some breakfast sausages (wheat, nitrate, and sugar-free) and some frozen raspberries...and some maple syrup, as I said. Delicious! Here's a pic of what's left of my lunch (forgot about taking a pic until halfway through)...

This is a fairly high-cal meal due to the fatty sausages and the almond butter, but that's ok. It's a workout day! I'll have to make sure I get lots of protein later, since this meal was kind of low. Macros: 1090 cals, 71g fat, 70g carbs, 46g protein.

For my husband's pancakes, I used 1/4 cup almond flour, 1 tbsp coconut flour, an egg, 1 tsp vanilla, and some cinnamon. They were much more like regular pancakes. The almond butter ones are not.

Week 2 Day 5 of BBB

It's late Friday evening, closing in on the end of the second week of Brutal Beauty Bootcamp. I'm pretty pleased with how things are going, notwithstanding that stupid piece of junk in my bathroom that calls itself a scale. Grr!

Ok, ok. I understand that it's a bad thing (supposedly) to weigh yourself every day. I understand that sometimes you can see the scale not move (or even go up!) yet still lose inches. I get it. I really do. But. I weigh myself every day. It's just a thing I do. And it's not because I want to punish myself about what I ate yesterday, or didn't eat...it's because, well...I kind of look at this like an experiment.

For example: I've noticed a trend over the last two weeks. The day after a training day, my weight is always up. It seems that the more carbs I eat, the more my weight goes up. It's a positive correlation. My calories are on-target, my protein is nice and high, I'm eating REALLY CLEAN...there's no other reason why I could be gaining weight. So, it must be water.

Last week, when I first noticed it, that weight (plus some) disappeared by the morning of the next training day. Today, I was up a pound from three days ago (the morning of my first workout day this week, the furthest I can get from a carb re-feed).

Last night, I got curious. I can't really tell much by my waistband if I'm losing any fat from the belly. I see some change in my face and neck, but I haven't measured my neck (hmm should do that, now that I think of it). So I measured myself. I was pleasantly surprised. In total, since I last measured myself at the end of December, I've lost an inch off my waist, an inch off my thigh, 3/4 of an inch off my upper arm, and an inch off my bust measurement. Wow. Not bad for - essentially - two weeks of serious bootcamp and one week of half-assed somewhat Paleo eating and a couple workouts!

I'm pretty pleased. I think I'll keep this up!

Bootcamp!!!

I am very excited to have been chosen to be part of my friend's 12-week inaugural Bootcamp program. She will design a workout plan, make suggestions re changes in my diet, and will monitor my progress via a private FB page and 1x weekly Skype chat. There are a total of 11 participants, although not all have forwarded their info to her so at this point it might only be 8 of us doing the bootcamp.

Officially, the BBB (I will tell you the name of the program once I get permission) starts Monday. Until then, I have started easing back into Primal-ish eating - I totally gave up for Christmas - and have picked up my workouts again, which I had paused due to knee and elbow pain. I've stepped it up a bit, and am incorporating some non-compound moves in there, because I don't have access to a barbell to do chest presses or deadlifts.

Goals:
-lose at least 15 pounds (although I am not stuck on this, I am sure it is possible. As long as I go down at least 3 sizes I'll be happy)
-build muscle
-gain strength (I would love to be able to do an unassisted pullup)
-improve flexibility

My biggest challenge will be the cessation of all alcohol consumed in the 12 week period. For the first 3-4 weeks of my original Primal lifestyle back in November, I didn't drink anything, and lost an average of 2 lb per week. As soon as I started enjoying a drink every now and again, my weight loss plateaued. So I know it is detrimental to fat loss and will totally cut it out until I am at my goal weight. Once there, I will imbibe only occasionally, and only vodka and club soda (low cal, low carb).

Because I don't have a lot of fitness equipment, my entire workout plan will involve 2-3 days of training a week using body weight, a chinup bar, and 10-lb dumbbells, unless I am able to buy some kettlebells in the interim. I will likely continue to do sprints once a week.

As part of my deal with the personal trainer, I will provide before and after photos, weekly blog posts, and a testimonial for her website. She is starting a new business and finishing her personal training certification. I will also be posting on here for friends and family to follow, if they wish. I will link any new blog posts to my FB page.

I anticipate the next 12 weeks will be difficult and challenging. I look forward to the challenge, and I really think the motivation of a personal trainer and the support from the other participants will help me keep on-track for success.

Primal Lunch (pre workout) October 27, 2011

I'm not sure I'm a fan of quinoa. Having said that, that's what I had for lunch today - a stirfry with quinoa as a base instead of rice. Did you know that quinoa is not a grain, but a seed - and therefore allowed on a primal diet? Quinoa is very easy to make, is totally good for you, chock-full of essential amino acids - and has a slightly nutty flavour. If you decide to try it, make sure you buy organic because it can be high in nitrates if grown conventionally. You can get it at bulk stores. It even comes in fancy colours - red, black, and the regular colour.

Dinner last night (and lunch today) is organic red quinoa, ground beef from pastured cows, broccoli, zucchini, onion, and mushrooms, with a dab of HP bold. (That's the shiny brown part in the photo, I guess I should have stirred it in first LOL.) Carbs are fairly high in this, so if you're keeping your carbs low, you might want to eat this on a workout day. One serving of quinoa is 1/4 cup, and has 170 kcals, 3g of fat, 30g of carbs, and 5g of protein. Wowza, that's a lot of protein. Long-grain brown rice only has 5g of protein in a whole CUP!

I actually didn't eat the larger chunk of apple,and so didn't count it when figuring out the nutritional info on Fat Secret. There's a half-cup of cottage cheese in that measuring cup, with salt and copious amounts of black pepper. Baby dill pickle. mmmmmm salt. If you'd like to see my food and exercise log, check it out at FatSecret.

This meal broke a fast of almost 20 hours. Feel great!

Nutritional info for the meal:
401 kcals
8.18g fat
46.77g carbs
33.75g protein

18% fat, 47% carbs, 35% protein

The scales told me today I have lost another half pound. Today is Week 4 Day 3 (so almost 3 and a half weeks since I started Primal and LG). Woohoo!

By the way, my post from Tuesday is up on the FFF blog - go have a look.