Primal: The First Weekend

This weekend was harder. My cravings finally kicked in with a vengeance. I woke up with them. All I wanted was pancakes and syrup. But, I fought off the craving successfully by eating some chicken salad that I made a couple days ago. All was well.

Then, I went out to run a few errands. I picked up a few art supplies and drove past McDonald's, which I don't usually care for at all but was suddenly calling me like the Sirens calling to Ulysses. I stuffed my ears with Bon Jovi and sang at the top of my lungs until I drove past it. Then, I ran into the Bojangle's. There, my weakness for all things that start with Bo, including Bo Diddley, Bo Derek and Bozo the Clown!

I was...good? I only got a bacon, egg and cheese biscuit. I avoided the fries and the tea. I decided that was doing great and didn't kick myself too hard.

In the evening I met some friends for karaoke. I had a scotch and soda, along with 2 beers that I milked through In the Jailhouse Now, When You Were Young, and How Far We've Come. 

Sunday was MUCH better. The cravings for fatty foods went away, but the desire for sweets picked up where the grease train left off. I was rummaging through the house looking for cheap chocolate, butterscotch candies, or those unwrapped mint candies my grandmother used to have on her kitchen counter. The gross ones. The ones I never would have eaten under penalty of death. If that bowl had been in my vicinity I would have scarfed the whole thing down.

But, alas, it wasn't, so I settled on a piece of Orbit gum. 

Primal: Day 6

I have been cooking all day. That sounds like a complaint, but in truth I'm very pleased with myself.

I should qualify. When I say I've been cooking all day, I don't mean I've been slaving over a hot stove like a 1960's stepford wife. What I mean is that I've actually cooked all of my meals today. At home. With real food.

Breakfast was simple. Bacon and eggs. Nothing crazy. I ate a couple hours after I woke up.

For lunch I made a variation of a Cuban pork chop, using cumin, lime juice and garlic. It was amazing. And, it was easy. Whipped the whole thing together in about 15 minutes. Ate it with a sliced up pear and a half of an avocado.

For dinner I separated a whole chicken and grilled it up using a new recipe from Allrecipes.com. Again, it was quick. And, even more importantly, it was delicious. Had some wilted spinach on the side. I'm using the chicken back and legs (neither of which I really like) to make a Parmesan chicken salad for tomorrow.

Earlier today I took Kosmo, Koolest Dog in the World, for a 3.5 mile walk. A good full day, but a healthy one, too.

I feel great. My feel less groggy. I have some spring in my step, though some of that could be mental. Not that I care. Spring in step is spring in step. Even had a little wine with dinner. The whole bottle? Nope. Stopped at two glasses, and that's only because TheWife didn't enjoy the wine very much.

I still haven't weighed. I don't want to know. I want to see if this thing makes me feel better, and if it helps my health issues. If I find I'm not losing weight as fast as I would like I might bail on it. So, I'm forcing myself to remember that this isn't for weight loss. It's for my actual health.

Has anyone out there had any good experiences with Paleo/Primal? Or bad experiences? Let's hear them all!

Primal: Day 5

Today wasn't as good as the others, but it wasn't terrible either. I started eating a Marie Callender frozen meal that I had in my freezer. It was a chicken and pasta dish that I usually love. I know it wasn't Primal, but I also hate for food to go bad and it needed to get eaten.

I tried. I got about a third through it. It was not good. It could have been all in my head, but it seems that five days is a little soon to have reprogrammed my brain already.

Whatever the reason, I threw the rest of it in the trash can and grilled myself some zucchini and onions. And my stomach was happy.

Primal: Day 4

I spent the morning laughing and cooking and drinking wine with AussieDiver. Her humor and joie de vivre is an excellent start to the day. And doing it over Skype makes me feel like one of these TV chefs. But, with an audience of one.

It was simple fare. An omelet with peppers, jalapeno, and potato. I know, potatoes aren't primal. At least, according to most camps. But some people argue the case for the poor white potato.

Those that say "aye" argue that potatoes are real foods. They don't require much processing like legumes and grains. The best argument I've heard is that chimps have been been known to dig up potatoes with a stick and munch on them. Only Encino Man was more primal than that! Or those cavemen from Geico.

But, there are those that say "nay," and their argument is good, too. The most important of those being that Primal/Paleo isn't just about natural foods, but it's also about limiting the insulin spike caused by eating things with a high glycemic index. Primal dieting is about cutting out all the sugars in our diet. In my case, it was a ton of sugar. I believe the term was "shit ton". But the reason for cutting out those sugars and complex carbs is that we want to limit the regular high concentrations of insulin within our bodies. Potatoes help cause that high insulin spike.

"I just want to be friends! Don't leave me!"

So, where do I sit? I firmly believe that I should limit potatoes in my diet. But, potatoes weren't the thing killing me. It was bread, Doritos, ice cream sandwiches, pancakes and syrup, cereal, graham crackers, Belgian waffles and fast food.

So, cut me a little slack. And, maybe cut yourself a little slack too. When you run a 17-minute mile you do not need to worry about whether your toe is flexed a little too much. That's advanced shit. You've got bigger things to deal with.

Eventually, my potato and I may part ways. For now, it was great in my omelet. More importantly, I felt great throughout the day. Maybe the potato isn't so bad after all.

Primal: Day 3

I have frozen shoulder, which is a fancy way of saying that my shoulder is all fucked up and nobody really knows why. Best guess, I have a swollen bursa that causes me intense pain when I raise my arm too high. It's been an issue for a few months. Physical therapy is doing alright in that I can move it much more. I can sleep most nights without waking up at three in the morning feeling like someone has taken a dentist drill to my shoulder joint.

Range of motion is at 70%. However, I have the strength of a 4 year old on one side. Ok, that may be an exaggeration. But, where I was once able to lift three small Cirque du Soleil gymnasts in my right arm I can now barely manage one. Also, it hurts when I do it.

So, imagine the wailing that was happening while, this morning before breakfast, I was trying to force my gargantuan frame off of the floor in an attempt to do 10 push-ups. I made it to 3. I wasn't sure if I was too weak to do another one, or if I just wanted the shooting pain in my shoulder to stop. Either way, I was finished. 

I did the last two sets on my knees in what used to be called girl push-ups. Hopefully women stood up and made a stink about it, forcing us to call them something else. Of course, I wasn't listening, so I don't know what that new title might be. May as well call them Geraud Push-ups. I managed to do a set of 4 and a set of 1. 

Can you call "1" an actual set? My calculus professor would be disappointed.

I did some shoulder stretches with the pull up bar and then 3 sets of planking. Don't let anyone fool you. Planking hurts.

My eating was great. I cooked three meals, avoided all the extra carbs, and felt really good. My energy levels were still high today. And still no desire to snack or run out to the drive-thru. Not that I'm bragging. It's been three days. You can spend 3 days in a hotel fire wearing gasoline pants. Three days is nothing.

Neither if four. Off to the next day.

Primal: Day 2

Two days isn't enough to evaluate much of anything. I've probably eaten primal for 2 days by mistake at some point. So, when I say I feel good I recognize that this could be for a thousand reasons. But, the effect is still there: I feel pretty good. 

I walked nearly 13,000 steps today at a good, steady clip. I ate an omelet with bacon for breakfast and a chicken salad for dinner. I had a bite of dark chocolate for an evening snack. I did eat a low fat yogurt by mistake for lunch. Full fat is the name of the game, because low fat crap is filled with sugar and chemicals. I took a spoonful of strawberry yogurt into my waiting gob and it tasted like the sugar fairy had pissed all over it. I looked at the ingredients and sugar was the third ingredient. Even before the actual strawberries. I ate half of it and had an apple instead.

I was expecting to be starving. Carbs are filling. But, my meals have been moderately sized, especially for a behemoth like me. But, I am not only sated, I'm also not feeling the urge to snack. 

Again, it's been two days. Let's see how day 20 goes.

Primal: Day 1

Today was easy. I ate roasted chicken wings ordered from Dominoes. It would have been better had I made them on my own, but I was hanging out with The Minx and she was paying. How could I say no to that? Also, I love wings.

For dinner TheWife and I ate at a sports bar where I watched Denver get its ass handing to them by the Seahawks. TheWife was pleased. I was not. But, dinner was great. I had a salad and some French Onion Soup. I had bourbon salmon. Again, not perfect. It would have been better if there hadn't been a bourbon glaze on the salmon. But, baby steps. I drank a lot of water with lemon.

I even took a nice long walk this morning. Kosmo the Wonder Dog was happy.

At the end of the day, I'm tired. I don't know if it has anything to do with eating or exercising, but I want to keep track of these things so that I know how this is working.

Going Primal: The Start of my Primal/Paleo Lifestyle

Let me start this by statin' the obvious: There are a thousand Paleo/Primal blogs out there. There are probably more people preaching the gospel of their dietary beliefs than there are preachers spinning their particular gospel about God, Allah, Jehovah or Cthulhu.

This isn't about trying to convince anyone of the Paleo/Primal lifestyle. Hell, I don't even know if I want to do it for any extended amount of time. But, I have to try something. It may be the only way I can get that one proverbial foot out of the grave.

I got a physical awhile back and it did not go well. Of course, it wasn't terrible, either. It was, in fact, sort of typical. I have high cholesterol, but not so high I need to take anything for it: yet. I have high hemoglobin A1C, which is on the cusp of diabetes but not quite: not yet. My weight has been an issue for some time now, and though it is slowly...ever so slowly...getting better, it isn't getting better as fast as it's getting worse.

I feel worse than usual. I'm feeling lethargic. My temple is rebelling against me.So, I'm trying something new. Maybe it will work. Maybe it won't. But here's hoping, because I have no desire to start taking heart medications and sticking myself with needles to monitor blood sugar and having to take blood thinners so I don't have a stroke or worse. I'm too young to be worried about such things, and yet, there it is.

So, let's see how the next 30 days treats me. You guys will be in for an interesting ride. In the end, some of you may decide to join me. Some of you may wonder what took me so long. Others will point and laugh and call me a hippie or communist or socialist or Narnian. Either way, it isn't for you. It's for me.

So, I'm going to see if I can rebuild the temple. You get to watch.