What to say?

People have started noticing and commenting on my weight loss (6 kilos in 3 months which is by no means outstanding, but it’s obviously noticeable). With the comments come the inevitable “how are you doing it?” questions. These are the ones that I still cringe at. Not because I don’t want to share, but because I know that my answers will cause some raised eyebrows.

Here’s the thing. When you say to people “I’ve started eating 200g steaks for breakfast” they look alarmed. They also don’t understand when you say “I only use full fat dairy and put butter on my vegetables”. Other concerning statements include “I cook in coconut oil – yes it’s high in saturated fat!”, “Soy makes me sick”, and “Potatoes don’t count towards my vegetable consumption.” And the most outrageous thing you could possibly mention is that you don’t eat whole grains. EVER! 

I shall never eat this way again!

The only way I can justify some of my eating habits is with my gluten intolerance. That gets most people off my case with the bread/wheat thing, but still doesn’t explain why I don’t eat rice or beans. The fat debate is one that I know I will never win, so I don’t even go into that argument except to say that coconut oil is the absolute best thing to cook in because it has a higher heating point than most things – including olive oil! It also helps that Miranda Kerr has spoonfuls of it each day ;-p 

This is more like it!

With the start of my Leptin Reset challenge, another difficult thing for people to understand is the no snacking thing. We have had the 6 small meals a day mindset drilled into us from all angles… Most people don’t take the time to understand the logic behind this – they just hear it and think “Yay! Another couple of times I can eat!” By following an eating plan which advocates eating windows allowing at least 5 hours between meals, I don’t only feel better, I feel free-er!! It’s less meals per day that I have to think about preparing.

In the exercise stakes, it’s a similar pattern, although a bit easier to explain away. At my first session at my new gym, the personal trainer assigned to me looked a bit crazed when I said I only wanted a weights program from him. “But you need to do cardio at least 3 days per week for weight loss!” No, actually I don’t. Apart from the fact that 70% of weight loss comes from what you eat, excessive cardio actually stresses the body! I told him that my main daily cardio would come from walking, and I would do one HIIT session per week (sprints on the treadmill or intervals on the rower). The rest of the time I would divide my workouts between weights, pilates and yoga.

Now that the weight loss is showing, it’s nice to know that I’m finally on the right path. I’ve been trying the excessive cardio route for years and combined with a conventional wisdom eating plan with whole grains in abundance, I didn’t lose any weight! So much for busting my gut at 5am every morning and starving myself by eating “low – fat” (but high sugar) yoghurt and calorie restricted meals! Conventional wisdom certainly does have a lot to answer for…

The Importance of Routine

I went to visit my parents on the weekend. They’re awesome and I love seeing them, but staying at their place for 4 days threw me completely out of whack! Don’t get me wrong, they are healthier than 99% of the parents out there, this I’m sure of. But there’s something about being in someone else’s place (even if they are your nearest and dearest), with a different kitchen and fridge, that makes it harder to stick to your tried and tested eating plan.

Breakfast wasn’t too difficult as they always have an abundant supply of eggs, and I was lucky enough to scrounge some left over curried mince to add to that. It had some vegies through it but I also added some broccoli to flesh it out. Lunch and dinner too was generally some kind of meat with vegies, but it always seemed to have an additional sauce or not huge range of veg… Overall, it was still okay but there was still small room for improvement.

So what is the big deal then you might be asking? Well it was just the little things that threw me. My parents drink a lot of tea, and will usually have at least one for morning and afternoon tea. With my new ‘no snacking’ rule, it was difficult to overcome. The worst was the morning we went to my grandparents and, knowing that my brother and I were coming and it was my dad’s birthday, my grandma had baked all manner of delicious but decidedly not-primal goodies. Sitting there drinking a cup of iced water while my family chowed down on pikelets, date and fruit cake was tough!

The issue there was that because I remained strong at morning tea time, when it came around to lunch I was able to rationalise having a piece of fruit cake with my cuppa! Perhaps ‘able to rationalise’ is not the right terminology, but with everyone commenting on my weight loss and me feeling like I’ve been eating really well, I just went with it.

I know what you’re thinking… So what?!?! You ate a piece of fruit cake – oh you’re just on a downhill spiral now!!! And yes, granted it is probably a bit of an extreme reaction. But do you know what? I didn’t really even enjoy the fruit cake (sorry Grandma!) It was too sweet for my palate which now associates sweetness to the tart berries I occasionally have as a ‘treat’ after dinner. Even the chocolate (85% at a minimum) I eat is bitter. But I love it!  And so I have learnt that I still need a bit of work when it comes to emotional eating. I wanted that fruit cake because it reminded me of summers at Grandma’s!

I guess the biggest lesson is that routine is so important. There is no way I would ever eat fruit cake at home because I just don’t have that sort of stuff in my house! It’s easier to skip morning and afternoon teas because I don’t have the social expectations surrounding it. Plus there’s never going to be a load of goodies silently chanting “eat me” in my ear.

So this week it’s back on plan. I won’t see my family again until Christmas, and even I know that I will give myself a cheat day then! I figure as long as I can eat fairly cleanly up until that point, I’ll be doing alright.

There's a reason they call it "Break-Fast"

Breakfast is a funny meal. A lot of people I know don’t eat it. Or count coffee as their morning meal. I have to admit that there are times when I wake up before 6am and the thought of eating something leaves me a bit nauseous. Those times are becoming few and far between the more I commit to a primal lifestyle however.

I used to have some issues with eggs. Not all the time, but I would occasionally eat them and feel average. Luckily those issues seem to have resolved themselves (couldn’t be because of primal again could it?!) and I enjoy them freely now. Which is lucky because breakfast is otherwise fairly difficult.

You've probably heard it before, but you can get literal meaning from the "Break-Fast" name. In principle, you've been fasting for 12ish hours when you wake up, and so it makes sense to fuel your body with the best food possible. 

With the Leptin Reset, the aim is to eat 50g of protein within 30 minutes of waking. I won’t go into all the reasons for this – read Jack Kruse’s website if you’re interested. The best protein sources are meat, fish, chicken and eggs, so this is predominantly what my current breakfasts are made up of, with some sautéed vegies thrown in for variety.

I’ve been eating primal breakfasts for a while now so I thought I would share some of my favourites…

• 4 egg frittata with ham, spinach, mushrooms & tomato (and fetta if I’m feeling generous)
• Grilled lamb cutlets with 2 poached eggs and sautéed mediterranean vegies
• Big Breakfast of bacon, eggs, chipolatas, avocado & spinach
• Grilled steak with cabbage, brussel sprouts and asparagus
• Beef rissoles with sunny side up eggs

A lot of people in the primal world have concocted ‘primal-friendly’ recipes for some of the more traditional breakfasts. For example, I’ve tried the coconut flour pancakes and almond meal waffles. I have to say however, that I don’t see the point in trying to re-create these recipes… For one, they are never going to taste as good as the original, and two, it does seem like a bit of a stretch that cavemen would have sat down to feast on coconut pancakes with blueberries and heavy cream!

For this reason I have pretty much given up any attachments I’ve had to non-primal foods such as pancakes and bread. I mean, seriously, have you ever tasted gluten free bread?!?! My advice is save yourself the trouble. If you’re really desperate, I think just eat the regular stuff, because otherwise it really just defeats the purpose don’t you think?!

Happy New Year!

Yeah, I know I’m a few days late! Better late than never but… I actually started off the year feeling terrible, but not from what you might think. I had a couple of drinks on NYE but certainly not enough to make me drunk, or sick… I was horrified to wake up at 5am on New Years Day as sick as a dog then! Hubby joked that I’d had too much vodka, but I knew the culprit – NYE dinner and the chicken kebabs that obviously hadn’t been quite cooked…

While it was horrible at the time and not exactly pleasant looking back on it, there was one good thing about it. It cleaned me out! Seriously, I was an empty vessel on January 2, ready to start the new year afresh. I couldn’t stomach anything serious however and unfortunately settled for a small cup of oats with banana and milk. I know, appalling! But honestly, it seemed to balance out my stomach, so at the time I was quite thankful.

Hubby & I had planned to really kick into the 30 day challenge on Sunday, but my physical state didn’t quite allow it. I was left feeling very sore and sorry for myself, and I guess you could call it a fasting day (which is not a bad thing when you think about it!)

By Monday I had perked up enough to stomach a small serving of bacon and eggs for breakfast. Lunch consisted of meatballs and strawberries (served separately!), with chicken and salad for dinner. I knew that my stomach was considerably smaller than it had been at the end of last year, so I took it really easy to make sure I didn’t overdo it.

This led me to thinking that I should really make a conscious effort not to overeat. I should explain, I come from a family of overeaters. It was almost a competition, especially with 2 younger BIG brothers! I know that over the years, I have definitely maintained generous portion sizes with my meals. Why not use this as an opportunity to curb my ways? Combined with primal eating, this must be a good pathway to a healthier weight!

So combined with my New Years Resolution to eat no grains and minimal sugar, I’m adding watching my portion sizes and eating slowly. Defined goals that are achievable. I can’t guarantee that I’ll lose 15 kilos, but I can stick to my ‘no grains and sugar’ mantra!

Mangoes

I have a confession to make... Mangoes are my weakness! I could live on them, bathe in them, eat them for every meal of the day and not get sick of them! I like them in smoothies, with cream, in fruit salad, on pavlova, in a Weiss bar (as a treat!) and most importantly, by themselves!
There could be worse things to be addicted to. But in the Primal Blueprint frame of mind, mangoes should be a 'sometimes' food. They're definitely not one of the lowest carb fruit options available and because, to me, they taste so moreish, it's often hard to stop at one...
In the move up north, mangoes have become a lot more accessible and a lot tastier (not to mention a lot cheaper)! Bowens are my mango of choice. There's nothing better than slicing up a bowen on a hot summer's day and enjoying every last mouthful (and then sucking the seed dry!)
So it seems I have a choice to make. PB is important to me, but is it as important as going without my favourite food?!?!
There's a lot of pathways I could choose to go down. One would be to avoid mangoes altogether, but I have scratched that off the list. Honestly, PB is about eating food as close as possible to how nature intended, and it's not as though mangoes are a compeltely manufactured food! While it might not mean I see great weight loss results, it definitely would mean that I felt like I was missing out on something, which means I wouldn't be able to stick to it anyway!
The options I'm now tossing up between are either:-
a) Forget PB and eat as many mangoes as desired; or
b) Limit myself to one mango per day and moderate my carb intake.
I'm leaning towards option b, but will see how I go in the build up before Christmas!
We bought a tray on the weekend and so far I've been eating between 1-2 mangoes per day. I've tried to be aware of what else I'm eating and limiting other fruit intake accordingly. It hasn't been difficult but I also haven't been actively denying myself mangoes!
I guess what it comes down to is an informed choice. I know that mangoes aren't necessarily the best food to be eating if I want to lose weight, but I also know that if I try to restrict something in my diet that I absolutely love, I'm setting myself up for failure! Seriously, it would be better for me to allow myself a mango than to hold out and then gorge on something like chocolate-coated peanuts or rumballs!
So, I'm going to eat my mangoes. They're only in season during summer, so I have to enjoy them while I still can! After that, I can go back to berries being my fruit of choice!

Primal Plan

Whenever someone has asked me about Primal Blueprint lately, they've always followed up with a "What's the eating plan like?" question. I'm sorry to break it to you, but there isn't one! And that is the real beauty of the Primal Blueprint - it can be tailored exactly to suit your goals and taste buds ;-p How many times have you read over a diet plan which gives you a daily eating schedule and thought, "I could never do that because I don't like eating (fill in the gap here)"... That issue is eliminated when following the Primal Blueprint because you can choose to eat what you like from the allowed foods list! If you're still unsure about the allowed foods, here's a run down:-
Eat:-
- vegetables;
- meat;
- fish;
- poultry;
- nuts & seeds;
- fruit;
- FAT!
Avoid:-
- grains;
- trans-fats;
- anything with an ingredients list ;-p
We also allow dairy in our eating plan. Mark recommends cutting it out if you know you have issues digesting it, but we, thankfully, seem to handle it well. Again with dairy, full fat is the only way to go, raw is even better but difficult to obtain (low fat means it's been heavily processed  - and seriously, how much better does full fat cheese, milk, yoghurt taste!)... But, as another example of making the eating plan work for you, if you don't feel 100% when eating it, don't!
Of course, people are still curious about what we eat during a day/week and so I thought I'd give you a look at our plan for the week...

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
1 x soft boiled egg Smoothie with hazelnut, banana, strawberries & greek yoghurt	Bacon & eggs with tomato, spinach & mushroom sautéed in garlic	Intermittent Fasting	1 x soft boiled egg Smoothie with hazelnut, banana, strawberries & greek yoghurt	Sausages with tomato, spinach & fetta frittata
Left over roast chicken and vegies	Fish cakes with BAS (big ass salad)	Grilled lamb, pumpkin & fetta greek salad	BAS with ham and avocado	Thai Lettuce wraps with roasted cashews
Salmon in creamy dill sauce with steamed vegies	Greek lamb cutlets with sautéed mediterranean vegetables	Beef ribs in blueberry sauce with roast sweet potato & spinach	Thai Lettuce wraps with roasted cashews	Cheat Meal (Katie travelling)

As you can see, we are eating quite well on this 'diet'. I do this plan up on a Friday before our weekly shop and it always works well. And just so you know, we plan to eat this way for the rest of our lives, focussing on the freshest fruit and vegetables, and best sources of meat (grass fed should be your aim). We have been eating like this for the past 2 months and I've lost over 7kg! And I've never felt like I'm missing out! To help you even more, over the coming weeks I'll post recipes for some of our favourite meals so you can try them out too (check out Salmon in Creamy Dill Sauce to get you started).
One thing you will notice is that there are no morning or afternoon snacks in there. Honestly, we've found that you don't need them when eating this way. Particularly after a breakfast filled with eggs and lots of fat, we stay full until lunch time. If we do feel the need to snack, our choices are nuts or fruit. Also, if we're feeling like we need something after dinner, we allow ourselves a square of dark (85%) chocolate with a cup of tea. Mark covers sensible vices quite nicely and dark chocolate definitely makes our list! Warning though, if you've never had 85% dark before, I recommend working up to it by starting at 70%... Initially, to our 'sweet tooth' 85% dark chocolate was quite bitter, but now after having cut out all sweet things, it tastes like pure gold to us! Apparently they can get 99% stuff in the States, so one day we might give that a go. I'll do a proper dark chocolate post at a later date.
So there you have it. I challenge anyone to claim that we are missing out on vital nutrition eating this way... Unlike many other diets, we don't feel restricted in our eating choices, and definitely feel FULL after eating every meal. We have more energy than ever before and that helps us when we're flexing our muscles at the gym. The variety in our food is amazing and we've discovered a love for many new vegetables (which, if we were told that we MUST eat for a diet plan we would probably dislike, but because we get to choose to eat them, we love them!).

First Week of Primal Challenge

So one week down in the Primal Blueprint 30 Day Challenge and honestly, it really hasn't felt like a challenge at all! The food we eat on this eating plan is absoultely mouth watering and we never feel like we are missing out... We're also really enjoying our exercise, having increased our strength training and limiting ourselves to one high intensity sprint session per week.
Take at look at how our first week panned out:-
Monday
B'Fast = Walnut, Banana, Strawberry & Blackberry Smoothie with Full Fat Greek Yoghurt & Coconut Milk
M'Tea = Cup of tea with Full Fat Milk
Lunch = Roast Pork and waldorf salad with apples (no dressing)
A'Tea = 1 x corella pear
Dinner = Salmon Fillet in creamy dill sauce with mixed steamed vegies (Recipe coming)
AM Workout = 30min body weights & stretching
Lunch Workout = 30min walk around park
PM Workout = 30min Yoga on Wii Fit
Tuesday
B'Fast = 3 egg omelette with mushroom, tomato, & spinach and 2 chicken sausages
Lunch = Ham & Avocado BAS (Big Ass Salad)
Dinner = Grilled lamb steaks with baked pumpkin and mixed vegies
Lunch Workout = 30min walk down to the lake
PM Workout = 1hr PT session (sprints & abs)
Wednesday
A day of travelling for work still meant No Excuses!
AM = Fasting
Lunch = Mix of caeser (no croutons) and greek salad, filling from 1 mini quiche, assortment of sliced fruit
A'Tea = Handful of nuts and cup of tea
Dinner = Moussaka with greek salad (Recipe coming)
No Workout today :-(
Thursday
B'Fast = Hazelnut, Banana, Blueberry & Strawberry Smoothie with Greek Yoghurt & Coconut Milk
M'Tea = Cup of tea
Lunch = Left over moussaka
A'Tea = 1 x apple
Dinner = Chicken Parcels (Recipe coming) with sweet potato chips and mixed salad
AM Workout = 30min bodyweight & stretching
Lunch Workout = 30min walk around city
PM Workout = 1hr PT (circuit)
Friday
B'Fast = Scrambled eggs with bacon, tomato, spinach & feta
Lunch = Grilled barramundi with chips & vegies (eating out reasonable option)
Dinner = Zucchini base pizzas topped with proscuitto, sundried tomatoes, mushrooms, bocconcini, rocket and basil
No Workout today
Saturday
B'Fast = Bacon, eggs, mushrooms & tomato
Lunch = Almond, Banana & Strawberry Smoothie
Dinner = Roast pork with apple and roast vegies
Dessert = Walnut self-saucing pudding & ice cream (a cheat meal as we had guests over!)
No Workout today but put in 2hrs of housework which I figured counted for something :-p
Sunday
B'Fast = 3 egg omelette with bacon, tomato, mushroom, & spinach
Lunch = Roast chicken with mixed vegies and tabouli
Dinner = Beef & pumpkin casserole
Dessert = Pear slices

Overall, eating this week was good! Our workout schedule could have improved, so that will be our goal this week. We do always get in 35-40mins walking daily by walking to and from work, so I know that if I miss my workout, it's not the end of the world!

No excuses!

I had a day of travelling for work yesterday. Not unusual in my job and it will probably get more prolific now that our Government has FINALLY sorted themselves out! It would have been easy to forget all of the commitments I've made to myself over the past few months, and in particular since the beginning of this week with the PB Challenge, but no doubt I would have regretted it later. So, I really planned my day in my head the night before, ensuring that I was fully prepared to keep on track with my eating.
A 5:00am start pretty much ruled out any exercise for the morning... And as I had already planned my 18 hour fast from Tuesday night dinner to Wednesday lunch, I didn't need to worry about breakfast. (I won't go into fasting now, but will post on it at a later date - here's some reading from Fitness Spotlight if you're really keen!)... I would have my usual water with lemon juice first thing in the morning (seriously, who can stomach food at 5:00am anyway!) and planned on getting a cup of tea at the airport.
My day went reasonably well, but I made some interesting observations. Society really does have a warped view of eating, if the food options I saw throughout the day are any indication! I guess we can blame conventional wisdom, but it takes all of my willpower to bite my tongue.
Waiting in the Qantas Club before my flight, breakfast options were various cereals and toast, and some fruit. We were then offered breakfast on the plane. I politely refused of course, but even if I had been eating, the offerings weren't even remotely Primal. Weet-bix, a blueberry muffin, low-fat yoghurt, and orange juice. Morning tea at the meeting was a selection of "flourless" chocolate tortes - catering for the gluten free diet - and a fruit platter. Lunch was a combination of sandwiches, wraps, and rolls, mini quiche and some more desserty cakes (not gluten free this time). The gluten free option was a greek salad, which I could eat, and there was also a caeser salad, which I ate but avoided the croutons. I also scooped out the filling from a quiche! If the salad wasn't offered, the 'grain-free' choices were slim to none. On the way home, we were offered an afternoon tea on the plane - plum strudel cake.
It should be obvious to you by now how carb-centric all of this food on offer was! If I had eaten everything that had been available to me during the day, I would have been left feeling seriously bloated and heavy. I don't even want to think about what it would have done to my digestive system. The other issue you will see is how laden with sugar that food is. The weet-bix was the only breakfast offering with minimal sugar. The tortes might have been 'flourless' but I'm guessing were still made with copious amounts of added sugar. Sauces on the sandwiches and salads, and more desserts only add to the concern. And on the plane, I saw one guy eat his studel cake with a cup of coffee that he'd added 4 sachets of sugar to!
I really do hope that we eventually wake up to the damage we are doing to our bodies by eating all this sugar and a diet that is predominantly carbohydrates. Although I think people are aware of the dangers of eating too much sugar, society still blames excess fat consumption for our obesity. And as for low-carbohydrate diets, many flawed studies continue to feed people the myth that they are unhealthy for you. Without public awareness of just how much sugar is added to our food, and how our bodies process and use carbohydrates for energy (excess carbohydrates are stored in the body as fat!) many will continue on oblivious, thinking they are doing the right thing because their diets are low in fat. If you consider the menu that was on offer for me, it certainly would have been low in fat and that is enough to give most people the green light to eat away, regardless of the ridiculous ratio of carbs to protein and fat.
I was fairly happy with how my day panned out eating wise. By the time I got home though, I was wrecked, and so didn't get my usual exercise in. Still, I managed to maintain a predominatly primal eating style while away from my safe haven of home and work!

15 Plant Types A Day

You might still be having trouble reconciling with some of the Primal Blueprint principles, however I'm sure you can agree with our daily goal to eat 15 plant types per day - after all, no one can argue that vegies and fruit are bad for you! This was a challenge set to us by our awesome personal trainer and it actually works in beautifully with the Primal Blueprint eating plan. The idea is simple - to get as much variety in your meals as possible and to feed your body with the best possible natural fuel - vegetables and fruits, nuts and seeds.
Here's how my day is looking so far:-
1. Spinach;
2. Cherry Tomatoes;
3. Strawberries;
4. Lambs Lettuce;
5. Cucumber;
6. Almonds;
7. Carrot;
8. Apple;
9. Macadamia nuts;
And on the menu for dinner:-
10. Pumpkin;
11. Zucchini;
12. Cauliflower;
13. Broccoli;
14. Asparagus;
15. Assorted fresh herbs & spices (basil, parsley, cumin & garlic)
I may have some apricots/peaches for dessert after dinner as well!
Other favourite plant types of ours:-
*blueberries (a SUPERFOOD)
*capsicum
*mushrooms
*banana
*kale (the farmer didn't have any this week otherwise that would have been on the menu tonight!)
*walnuts
*ginger
*pumpkin seeds
*red onion
*pears
I have no doubt that my body is thanking me for all of this good food I am putting into it - yours will too!