Primal/Paleo for April 2011

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  • Quote: I've been 5 weeks paleo and I'm feeling terrific!! Visited my Rheumatologist on Friday and got the go ahead to titrate down on my last lupus med. I'm now on half the dose so I should be med free in a few months!! I have been in a flare for 3 years and in just 5 weeks this WOE has almost brought me back into remission. It's just so unbelievable to me that I wouldn't accept it, if it wasn't happening to me!!

    Do whatever you have to do to make this WOE your WOL, after vegetarianism, veganism and everything in between, this is truely the most healing "diet" I've ever been on. So optimistic moving forward!!
    Paleo, that is SUCH WONDERFUL news!!! I am so happy to hear of your success --- certainly makes passing on the grains worth it! I think one day this WOL will be a standard "prescription" for anyone with autoimmune tendencies or illnesses. Awesome!
  • Hey all I hope I can join you guys! I'm learning about paleo and have more reading to do but it fits into what I'm about to embark on anyway. I'm already gluten free and going dairy free now. I like to stay low carb but don't have to be in ketosis so fruits are good. I also have inflammatory arthritis which may be rheumatoid arthritis (seronegative) or some connective tissue disease and possibly early lupus...they just really don't know... and just by going G-free it has gotten much better and I know I will be even better once I eat even more clean and avoid other processed foods. I can so relate to you Paleo on how much better you feel since eating this way. Yay for you for lowering your meds! I was on prednisone daily for a while and gained so much weight :/ I also took methotrexate which was horrible! Now I don't take meds for the inflammatory arthritis as going G-free has helped me a lot . I'm gonna check around here for Paleo diet plans and other sites too. I know I will have the occasional coke zero and other things not on plan but I hope to stick to it pretty strict for the most part.
  • Welcome leslie. Good to have another friend on our friendly little site. We're all paleo, but on varying paths with it, so your plan will be fine.

    Today: Short story: Excellent, perfect, fair, then slid a bit too far with the food, going to try a strawberry chicken spinach salad from Rachel Ray for supper (yummo?). Fatigue: Feeling fine, slept until I was ready to get up.
  • Welcome, LeslieLou! Apparently eating paleo is supposed to really limit inflammation.

    PaleoForLupus: I am so. glad. to hear this. So motivating and inspiring, too.

    I have buckled down and begun reading Primal Blueprint. It's nice to have in book form, though I've gleaned a lot of it for the site.

    I'm trying to think about how I'm going to leave it around for my BF to pick up. If I point it out he'll probably get curious eventually...
  • Quote: Welcome leslie. Good to have another friend on our friendly little site. We're all paleo, but on varying paths with it, so your plan will be fine.

    Today: Short story: Excellent, perfect, fair, then slid a bit too far with the food, going to try a strawberry chicken spinach salad from Rachel Ray for supper (yummo?). Fatigue: Feeling fine, slept until I was ready to get up.
    Thanks for the warm welcome I'm from Arkansas too Do you mind sharing the ingredients of your salad? I'm going grocery shopping tonight and need some ideas!

    Quote: Welcome, LeslieLou! Apparently eating paleo is supposed to really limit inflammation.

    Thanks for the warm welcome! I know cutting out gluten has helped me A LOT with inflammation but I think this WOE is gonna be even better, with no dairy
  • Leslie: I ended up not making the salad - didn't have a strawberry sale going on and I've become quite a cheapskate. However, will post the ingredients in the recipe forum. It's untried, but I don't think it could taste bad.

    darling: I love the primal blueprint stuff. I've not bought his book, but did buy the cookbook ebook. I've gotten many ideas from it, although I'm not ready to tackle ofal. Ick factor too high for me.

    Today: I'm about to eat ham, apple, coffee. I always start strong. Later I start to slide. Today I will not slide down the slope. One bite does not have to lead to the whole thing.

    ***Know what's funny! I said I didn't have the primal blueprint book, but I do! I've lost my mind. I've read it in randomly, and found it sort of repetitive but informative. LOL. I've lost my mind.***
  • Thanks Kel! I will look for the recipe forum. I'm off to the grocery store to get stocked up on some paleo foods. It's not much different than what I've been doing with LC but this cupboard is bare lol
  • Hi girls - welcome Leslie!

    I'm a little disappointed in myself for not managing whole30, but I am still eating dairy and having yet another very stressful week at work. I am truly thinking I need to get out of teaching or at least think about leaving the school where I've taught for 15 years. Argh. It's just so bad for my health to work SO much and have so much daily stress.

    Anyway, hope all of you are having a great primal/paleo week. I'm making a point to go to bed early tonight! So, I'm out.
  • Quote: Hi girls - welcome Leslie!

    I'm a little disappointed in myself for not managing whole30, but I am still eating dairy and having yet another very stressful week at work. I am truly thinking I need to get out of teaching or at least think about leaving the school where I've taught for 15 years. Argh. It's just so bad for my health to work SO much and have so much daily stress.

    Anyway, hope all of you are having a great primal/paleo week. I'm making a point to go to bed early tonight! So, I'm out.
    claire I know how stressful a job can be. I was an office nurse for 13 years and decided I didn't want the stress in my life anymore and made a job change to medical transcription. It wasn't a huge job change but it took me out of that stressful environment. Med. transcription is a dying field and I find myself probably looking for another field altogether and analyzing myself in a way that I haven't in a while. I wanna do something that I love and not something just to pay the bills. Sometimes we stay at a job because we are comfortable there because we have been there so long even though it's highly stressful to stay. If it's bad for your health to stay there then don't. Make that change lady and move forward
  • Claire, no worries. The way I see it, the Whole 30 is part elimination diet- if you know that the dairy doesn't affect you negatively, then you shouldn't need to give it up. For me- I've never given up dairy, glutens, or corn... and I have a strong suspicion that corn is making me feel bad. I know i have skin reactions to it.

    And I'm still not 100% sure I've avoided corn completely- who knows what my "free range" and "organic" chicken have been eating? I'm sure they're not 100% corn free. And my "grass fed" beef could also have been fed corn. I guess maybe the only way to know 100% that I'm not eating corn indirectly would be to eat solely buffalo. They can't digest it, so no one tries to feed it to them.

    Okay, sharing here: NSV! I fit into my skinny jeans! WOOOO!
  • uscarchie: WOW! skinny jeans. Now that's sumpin. That's reason to celebrate - get yourself a second pair and strut your stuff!

    Claire: it's proven that stress can derail your diet. If you managed a stress load and to do whole 30 halfway I would call it a success. Besides, whole 30 can have different meanings to different people. I did it, and only managed it halfway but came out of it feeling changed in habits and preferences. It's whole 30 not perfect 30. Maybe time for a change in jobs or a change in how you do this one. I don't wanna judge because I'm not in your shoes, but maybe there are things that could be done differently where you are? Ask your close friends what they see - I know I have one that can be painfully honest if I ask her.

    Today is all good. I experimented yesterday with sparkpeople's food tracker because I'm used to it. I was within calorie/carb constraints right up until late last night. Then I had a popcorn binge. AAAAAAND blew it. I'm considering instead of fighting myself in the evenings, maybe I should start the day lighter to leave more room for those afternoon/early evening attacks? Maybe it's just the fatigue? Maybe it's that my husband wanted popcorn and made some and it smelled so freakin' good I wanted it. He's such an evil person (NOT Really).

    Today. On track, but as usual, it's still morning.
  • OK, well, back to talking to myself. That's ok, it's still good therapy for me. Anyway, energetic today, and all I did was sleep late. Couldn't sleep last night for that noisy windy storm that blew over - no damage for us, Thank God! There were several deaths from this storm, and all I got was a chair blown around my back yard. After it settled, I slept like a baby. And slept. And slept. I think I'm just such a natural night person, it might me my fatigue issue. I've not acclimated to being a day person yet. Maybe?

    Last night we hit our friends house for BBQ - they are mostly LC eaters so it was all good. I ate 2 steaks. OMG 2 steaks. Was so good. Plus onions/peppers, sweet potato with butter, grilled cabbage with butter (Oh so good), diet coke. There was an optional sugared up dessert, but we passed on it. Heck, I had an extra steak, so I guess I had steak for dessert. I'm good with that.

    Today's munchies: hot tea, coconut milk, stevia/splenda mixed and am expecting a subway salad any moment from the Mr. Tonight - maybe trying that strawberry spinach salad if he wants to run to the store today.

    It's a sunny, cool day. I'm still on vaca. We survived the storm intact. I feel good. To quote Jake: Life is Good.
  • Well, it wouldn't do to have you thinking you're talking to yourself. I've actually been lurking for a few days and reading last month's posts but have kept silent so far.

    I am not yet following this WOE, guess you could say I'm trying to figure out just what it is I actually want to do. I've been morbidly obese for a long time, not terribly interested in making the changes necessary to bring about a permanent change, but lately I've been experiencing a lot of what I would call arthritis pain in my left shoulder and particularly my left elbow, particularly troubling as I write on a steno machine to earn my living and it's quite the downer to be in pain all the time. And one of the things that really caught my eye was some people talking about how this WOE is very helpful in dealing with inflamatory diseases, which is what arthritis basically is, to my way of thinking ...

    Left to my own devices I'm a huge carb lover. Never met a bread or pasta I didn't like. I tried cutting out all breads and white potatoes and did notice some weight loss, less bloating, etc., but cravings were still there and I fall back into the old trap of gradually increasing portion sizes until I'm out of control again. I did a stint with Overeaters Anonymous many (many!) years ago and remember that once getting past the first couple of weeks it was actually easier not to eat those "red light" foods at all, than to try to eat just a little. I'm wondering if perhaps that would be a good path for me to try to follow ...

    My husband is also very overweight and interested in losing ... the good thing about him is that he will basically eat whatever I put in front of him, but that's also the bad thing, you know? I know if I'm watching what I fix and what I eat, he loses weight too. If I'm in "I don't give a damn" mode then he gains weight right along with me. He is also VERY addicted to diet sodas and not ready to give them up. He drinks lots of water too, actually more than I do, but at mealtime he wants his soda! So that has to be allowed on whatever plan we adopt. Neither of us consume alcohol so that's one thing we don't have to deal with.

    Any suggestions any of you have with regard to books or websites would be gratefully accepted. I've discovered "Nom Nom Paleo" and I've found a couple recipes I want to try, going to the store today to get the ingredients to make that possible.

    So ... I guess what I'm saying is that I'm going to join your merry band ... I think.
  • Quote: Claire, no worries. The way I see it, the Whole 30 is part elimination diet- if you know that the dairy doesn't affect you negatively, then you shouldn't need to give it up. For me- I've never given up dairy, glutens, or corn... and I have a strong suspicion that corn is making me feel bad. I know i have skin reactions to it.

    Okay, sharing here: NSV! I fit into my skinny jeans! WOOOO!
    Congrats -- what a GRRREATTT! NSV!

    Welcome to Lady!

    The thing with dairy for me is partly weight loss related -- when I did my Jan Whole30 my only two changes were eliminating dairy/HWC/grassfed butter (was not drinking milk anyway) and eliminating alcohol. I dropped 4 lbs. effortlessly. I'm wanting to shed a few more pounds, and that was one reason for my whole30. I am still planning to do it - just because I LIKED doing it and felt healthy and dropped some weight, but I just have to get through this rough patch at work.

    Thanks to all for your supportive work comments - work stress is most definitely affecting my sleep and my health, and that ain't good!! I'm a good teacher (yes, I do inflict a lot of pressure on myself, but to teach and not do a good job seems reprehensible to me), and I don't think my principal wants to lose me. At my end of the year meeting with him, I plan to tell him I cannot sustain the current expectations - 2 planning periods a week with multiple preps is simply grueling. We are expected to do more and more with less and less, and I have hit the wall this year. I appreciate everyone listening to me vent... just trying to figure out my next step in life. I love teaching, but I can not sacrifice my health any more.

    I am suspecting I have some serious adrenal fatigue going on but don't know what to do about it (I've been reading lots, but it seems to be such a nebulous thing ... and getting a doc to run the proper tests is a battle in itself....). Anyway, on that note (stress, lack of sleep, and not feeling well all week), exercise has been a mere two 30 min walks this week, sleep not great, and food ... eh, so-so. I have lots of fresh veg in the fridge but no energy to cook them.

    So, I'm going to try to recharge this weekend and focus on good food and rest.

    Ladies - have a fabulously primal/paleo weekend! Glad to have everyone hear to listen and encourage. Happy Saturday!!
  • Quote: Any suggestions any of you have with regard to books or websites would be gratefully accepted. I've discovered "Nom Nom Paleo" and I've found a couple recipes I want to try, going to the store today to get the ingredients to make that possible.

    So ... I guess what I'm saying is that I'm going to join your merry band ... I think.
    And we are glad to have you!!!

    Click on the link in my sig. There are many great sites linked there and some discussion of books too. You will find lots of informative reading and recipes there!