DH just called to say that the store was too busy to go for lunch but he was starving. Left-over bacon and scrambled eggs in a tupperware container. Cheese and carrots in baggies. Not fancy but easy. Who needs fast food!?!

The farm I went to also has frozen bags of pig fat that you can render down to lard. I think bacon grease is lard with more flavoring in it. The stuff you can get in the grocery store is probably hydrogenated and chemically "cleaned" beyond recognition.

Hugs,
Sandy

Sandy - I haven't tried fasting yet, but was just wondering. Do you typically break your fast by eating something small at the end of the day or do you follow another schedule. I've heard anywhere from 16-24 hours is advisable but have no experience to draw from.

emiloots,

I am so not an authority but I really fast from 6pm one night, all day the next day, until 6am the following morning. It just dawned on me that that was more than 24 hours. (Is gout in my future??) Looks like I do 36 hours. I do not recommend doing this. If I eat in the morning, that seems to wake everything up and it is more difficult to fast. If I do not eat in the morning, I can go indefinitely with just water.

I was not able to be hunger free, until I started the Primal diet and kept carbs below 50g. Now fasting is effortless.

I broke my fast this am with BACON!!! I do not have a normal way of doing it, though. Just with whatever sounds good.

Here's a link that may help: marksdailyapple.com/how-to-intermittent-fasting. I do not have enough posts to use an actual link.

Sandy

So I've been doing reading about primal/paleo and it seems to really click. I've been gluten free for a couple of weeks now and my anxiety/depression has lifted, stomach problems have stopped, and canker sores have been gone. Yesterday, due to poor planning, I ate a bun and within a couple of hours I had a panic attack, incredibly sore stomach, and woke up this morning with 5 or 6 canker sores brewing. Ouch.

My worry about primal is finances. I would be a vegetarian except for my body does NOT do well on a vegetarian diet. We eat humanely raised chicken that we buy from a mennonite community and deer/elk/moose that DH shoots and butchers himself. We very very very rarely buy meat from the grocery store. We are running low on venison and We eat a whole chicken about once every couple of weeks. We would eat more of the chicken but it's beyond our budget since one 7 pound chicken costs us almost $20.00. We do eat about 3 dozen eggs a week.

I'm just not sure what to do. I really want to avoid buying farm raised meat, and I cannot cut anything else out of the budget so that I can buy more organic farm raised meat.

Any suggestions?

babygrant.... I think this is also where the 20% rule comes in, I don't and can't afford to buy farm raised meat, I do get venison once in a while. With 2 kids in university, it's just not possible at the moment... I just do what I can, later, when we can we'll go grass and farm raised for sure... Doing it this way I can still lose weight on Primal...

I've been hungrier than usual to0 and I know it's because of my vacation time off and eating way to many processed carbs, no even good carbs at that... Vaca ends tomorrow BTW and I'm actually happy to get back on schedule...

Today we ran/walked it is so humid and hot it was very hard to run, we should gone inside the Complex in the air conditioning but alas we didn't

Bob, hope you feel better soon...

Wow what a testimony to kicking the carbs especially grains. My SIL is on the IP diet and due to poor planning also ate a sandwich yesterday and became very sick. But your reactions were in a class by themselves, babygrant.

Like Ilene, I don't always eat grass-fed. We were able to put together enough dough to buy a quarter of a cow and we treasure each and every bite.

We live close to two grocery stores and if you go in the am, you can find bison and some organic beef and chicken marked down as they are getting close to expiring. I have gotten burned a couple times with the chicken but usually the meat is fine.

I hate eggs! I have tried numerous times to choke them down as they are so quick and convenient and good for you. So you are lucky there.

I think pastured pork is not as expensive as beef here and you can get less meat in a bundle. (pigs are smaller so...)

Mennonite chicken is such a treat. It is hard to get it here.

Maybe try making friends with the farmers in your area? Many farmers cannot call themselves organic or grass-fed/finished but actually raise their animals quite well. They may be able to work out something with you and others that may be willing to share a quarter.

One Paleo/primal expert takes a dose of Carlson's cod liver oil when he has to eat conventional meat, to counter the high Omega 6's. This may be a solution for the time being. Carlson has a lemon-flavored version that is not too bad and can be mixed into a smoothie and not be noticeable.

Welcome to the forum!

Hugs,
Sandy

PS - I know this doesn't help 'cause if you don't have the money, you don't have the money, but I am old enough to have learned that not being the correct weight causes health problems that in the end can wind up costing a whole lot. Also, the constant search for THE answer, can cost time and money. I now go around the outside of the grocery store and spend way less than I used to. If I had a green thumb, which I don't, I could grow the veggies I needed and save even more.

Good Luck!

In BC Canada you cannot sell meat unless you are a certified arbetoir (spelling???). So you have to buy meat from someone who is certified to be raising and butchering meat. I can buy beef from a farmer for $5.99/lb. Way too expensive for us. Only way you can get it cheaper is to do it "illegally" and buy from someone who legally isn't allowed to sell and I haven't found a farmer to do that yet, lol.

I used to take Carlsons but I burp up fish oil for hours and hours. Its sick. lol. Any remedies.

Thankfully I live in BC and we have universal health care. We don't pay for doctors visits, hospital visits, hospital stays, etc. And DH has an incredible extended health plan for work. Woo hoo!

I bit the bullet grocery shopping and just picked up a big box of chicken breasts. I do feel bad because I don't like buying factory farmed meat.....but for now, my health is more important and once we get back on our feet financially I will start buying the organic meat again.

babygrant,

It isn't "legal" here to buy raw milk but the producers get around it by selling cow shares. Have you checked into any organizations that support grass-fed producers in Canada? I use eatwild.com and localharvest.org to try to scout out sources in my area.

I do not have a remedy for the burping other than solid fish oil capsules, that may or may not cause the same thing. I guess I burp and am glad that my omega 3's are going to work. I don't actually burp all that much.

And don't even get me going on universal health care. We don't have it here which is precisely the reason I am so determine to take charge of my own health.

Didn't the depression and anxiety prevent you from "working" well either at home or a job? I have had severe anxiety problems as well and missed work a lot. I now work for my husbands business and can control the situation :0.

You just made me think about how I have been feeling calmer lately. I did not even think about this benefit. Hmmmmm....

Sandy

Will have to wait till later to catch up...BUT had to add this thought. In reading about the lard, we did buy some the other day. And my daughter was just cracking up becasue it came in a little plastic container....a tub. So she was taking the groceries into the house, saying "tub o lard" and cracking up........14 yr old humor you know!

Hope your weekend is great, its almost over....off to finish it in style with a stuffed pork roast with spinach, garlic, onions, kalamata olives and feta

This sounds yummy. How do you stuff a pork roast? I have one in the frig and I have memories of crispy roast pork falling apart when you try to cut it. I was going to try to recreate it. I gave up pork 10 years ago and am just getting back to it with this diet.

Sigh...
Sandy

Good morning!
Welcome Babygrant!

I'm another who just does the best I can cost-wise. My grassfed beef was only 2.50/pound. Fortunate, I know! I have not found good chicken yet, so we eat store bought. Not even the good kind, just what's on sale. The holistic pork is expensive. I haven't got around to buying a freezer package yet.
For my peace of mind, I have to believe that it's the basics that count. Fat, protein, vegetables ... no grain, no sugar, no chemicals. Perhaps some time in the future we'll be able to eat as cleanly as I'd like. But this has to be better than how we used to eat.
It's like balancing good, better, best and always having something to shoot for.

TMI ahead ... I sat on the toilet last night for an hour, flushing constantly KWIM ... So anyways, when all was over I lay in bed thinking about what had just happened... Was it caused by all the bad food, wine, beer, I've been eating in the last couple of weeks? I also had the worse sleep ever last night? Was it caused by the bad choices? PROBABLY...I'm back on schedule today thank goodness I'm back to work...

Well said as usual, SusanB...

$2.50 a pound is awesome, I know we paid closer to 4.99. I think each area is so different depending on the time of year. That's why I suggested researching. I have been surprised by different options that I found doing that. Also my meat guy sends out a note every once in a while announcing a bunch of lesser quality cuts that he did not want to sell as his best (usually very, very lean) and we have been able to get this at a 1.00 or more off.

I want to continue to make "friends" with the ranchers in my area. At least get on their mailing lists.

Hugs,
Sandra

Just wanted to share with you all how my Dr apt went this morning. My cholesterol test was much better then last yrs (June 2009) I told her what I was eating & she was happy with the changes I made. I am also down 11 lbs from last yr as well! I also do not need to go every 6 months for a mammogram any longer!