Psst. I just spied on the Ideal Protein peeps and man am I glad I ain't doin' that craziness. sshhh, I'm sure that shake business is helpful.
whatever works, right?

wow... I feel a weight off my shoulders, 1pm Friday, and this week is over. I have the afternoon to myself. The kid is much better. Of course, that may be the arrival of a weekend motivating her to rally for some fun stuff.

I am off for a long long long head clearing, sleep inducing walk. I've had some insomnia this week. I doubt it's diet related.

Hi everyone! Sounds like you all are doing well on your PB eating. My 5yo just graduated from preschool today and they had a huge table of cookies just waiting for me to inhale but I obstained and was so glad I did. (cookies and sweets in general are a huge problem for me.) I just really like the way I feel from eating this way and didn't want to ruin it with all those carbs and sugar. I think if I cut my carbs a little more I would lose more weight but right now it's been a few pounds over 2 weeks of not totally strict primal eating.....and the added bonus of feeling good.


I just made this cauliflower pizza and I thought it was really good. I found it at Primalgirl's blog at wordpress ... ( I didn't realize you can't put links on here or I don't know how to do it). I put olive oil, chopped garlic, sliced red and orange peppers, and shredded romano cheese on top and it was fabulous......

Just thought I'd share. Have a good weekend!

Hi all, a great week for me! I started eating 5 mini-meals a day and lost 4 pounds!!! I've got to say I have been doing my plan now for over a year and if eating mini-meals is all I have to do I'm going to kick myself for not trying it sooner. (Of course, I'm eating all the right stuff, but I did that before.)

Maybe it would have come off anyway, but *for me* 4 pounds is HUGE. It's how much I lose in a month if I'm lucky. So I'm going to keep trying the mini-meals in order to get a more mini-me (I know, I know, sorry).

PS -- I know that a lot of primal eaters do intermittent fasting. I have often skipped dinner and thus "fasted" from lunch to the next morning. I am just trying different things on the frequency of eating spectrum, hope that's okay with everyone.

Just bookmarking my spot here. I am very interested in eating and living the Primal Blueprint way. Do not have the book yet but I will at the end of this month.

Good morning!
Hi Canadianwoman! Good to see you here with us.

wildviolets ... you'll be able to post links after you've been here a while. It's a safeguard against spammers who come once and post links all over the place. If anyone is hunting for that recipe, let me know and I'll go hunting and post the link.

CJZee ... we're not super fussy about how closely you follow the plan. Fasting is one of those things. As a nurse and 3FC mod, I cannot, in good conscience, support it. However, I have read the PB "science" behind IFing and kinda understand what they're getting at.
If you've been at it long enough to be sure you're body is easily drawing energy from body fat, then I guess it's OK to skip a meal. In that case, I have no problem with a fast ... especially if there is good nutrition at either end of it.
And about small meals. I'm hypoglycemic. It's been best for me to eat small frequent meals since highschool. That did not change in a hurry when I went primal. I continued to nibble for quite a while.
After several weeks I got the hang of understanding hungry/full/stuffed and I haven't had a low blood sugar moment for months. I can skip a meal and I have done a 15 (or so) hour fast. It didn't make much difference and I didn't enjoy it.

Hi canadian woman and Marc Sisson has a really nice site to start you off if you don't have the book yet...

CJZ -- I like to eat regularly too and am having a hard time doing IF
but I don't eat at night, or if I do I will have almonds and tea or wine... Just do what works for you, we're all an experiment of one

Last night was NOT Primal... had beer and munchies at a bar with DH and some friends, but today is definitely Primal ...

to the new folks. I'm glad to see others checking out being primal and reading the book.

I'm doing pretty well. I had a really great 50 carb day a couple days ago. I was so busy with work that I didn't eat much.

Bibob, hope your daughter feels better. My oldest dd is 10. Puberty definitely seems like a condition. Sounds like she has more going on.

I can't afford all organic, either. I focus more on getting the top 10 veggies and fruits. I've been thinking about getting a freezer and buying 1/2 a cow. There's a few local grassfed suppliers around here.

Ideal protein diet sounds pretty awful to me (and expensive!).

Welcome to everyone new! Glad to have more Primal supporters.

Yesterday was an okay Primal day, a little more of the 75/25. Today is completely primal with lots of activity outside since its so nice, maybe a trip to the pool later. I'm dealing with some stress today, my 12 yr. old dog is very ill, we will see what happens, I'm trying to focus lots of attention on him today too just in case.

I made some chicken thighs in the corckpot overnight for today, with some salsa and tomatoes, probably we'll have green beans with them. My fridge is getting low on my favorites so I'm having to eat my 3rd choice stuff!LOL!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Happy Saturday everybody. Nice to see more looking into this way of life. I finally got a great night's sleep, but it took a 12 mile hike. Was I exhausted and my ankles were on fire and swollen, but all's well this morning.

Canadianwoman -- While I love Mark's PB book you can learn a lot about paleo eating online from PhDs with even better cred than Mark. Spend some time at proteinpower dot com and paleonu dot com. I highly recommend the "Get Started" link at PaNu. I found his discussion on weight loss very motivating for some reason, probably because he's so straightforward, nothing sugar coated. Hope you join in. I am sold on the lifestyle and have stopped calling it a diet.
Congrats on your loss CJZee!
Thanks Wendy. The doc thinks she's fine, basic bug making the rounds, no meds. I am making this a daddy/daughter day after she gets some chores done and I get off this pooter. I'll be probing for other issues should they exist. We are extremely close.
Ilene, I am a little bit of a beer snob, but I am now convinced I have serious grain issues and I'm kind of excited about exploring wine with the same passion. Just a random comment, but if "I" can give up beer just about anyone can.

I still have this urge to type up my observations after 2 weeks primal, but I better not waste the time. So briefly, here are some highlights:

The Bad

Friends and family are not supportive. If it was low carb and low fat, they would be.

I developed carb flu, kicked it, but I have an infrequent mucus loaded cough.

I cannot break the midnight snack habit, but I keep it primal.

I'm not losing weight as fast as I would if I just water fasted for two weeks. (that's for mother nurse Susan hehe)

The Good

I'll only weigh on the first of each month, otherwise I get obsessed by the scale, but my guess is I'm down 15-20 pounds; and most importantly, not only have I rarely been hungry, I usually feel quite full. Awesome. Wearing shirts I couldn't two weeks ago.

My blood pressure has fallen from a consistent 140/110 to 119/68 yesterday. Amazing

My very difficult bowel movements are history. I count this a major lifestyle ehhancement.

I feel very strong physically and mentally.

My kid is eating much much healthier.


edit to add: both of my links encourage IFing, but it certainly isn't for everyone. I get great weight loss results from a variety of different fasting techniques, but I have always yo yo'd. This paleo version seems to answer that problem because it is a sustainable way to live, not a desperate crash diet -- yet the results are pretty similar.

Bob, water, tea, coffee, wine and beer, in order of preference, are the only things I drink...

Just had the best lunch... salmon burgers wrapped in romaine lettuce with slices of avocado and a touch of mayo who needs freakin' bread when you have wraps like that... They were soooo good...

With the rest of the avocado I made chocolate pudding for a mid afternoon snack... This morning I experimented with making almond flour pancake, with very little success... they were good, but looked nothing like a pancake ... I added some frozen blueberries on top after they were in the pan and when I wanted to flip them over they turned blue and broke apart... looked like heck but were tasty enough just the same...gonna have to work on them for looks

Bob, just wanted to add that your good list is quite impressive...

I made a pork roast with sauerkraut and onion overnight in the crockpot. Hubby isn't a fan (he likes the pork, but I get all the sauerkraut), and then made mashed cauliflower as a side (when I was a kid, it was always mashed potatoes).

Old habits die hard, though. I remember this as a dish that was a bit of a celebration dinner in my family - and overeating was part of the celebration.

I recognized the binge potential, so I deliberately chose a tiny bowl instead of a plate and layered my kraut and pork over the mashed cauliflower. I expected to want a second bowl, but one was more than plenty. I'm glad I didn't start with a typical old-style portion (it was so good, I was tempted to go back for a second helping, but I wasn't hungry).

As usual (in keeping with my memories of the tradition), though I wish I had put in more sauerkraut (though I also remembered why that wouldn't be such a good idea - overeating the kraut can have digestive consequences).

It's good made with canned sauerkraut, but it's much, much better with the bagged kraut (even better with home made kraut, but I'm afraid of doing that kind of home chemistry, especially since I don't have a cool porch or cellar to leave the crock).

Today was an odd day eating, I had an early appt. and missed breakfast. I still eat some dairy in the form of Greek yogurt and cottage cheese, plus a little hard cheese. Also I eat fruit a couple times a week although I try to stick to veggies and proteins most days.

For lunch I had:
A big salad with lots of veggies and a tiny bit of cheese, and egg salad

For dinner I had:
A large spoonful of green salad olives with pimentos, cottage cheese and a can of sardines plus an apple

Fage Greek yogurt mixed with unsweetened cocoa and splenda for a kind of "pudding" dessert

I've decided to stop now and have a low calorie day (for me) around 1100 calories. Usually I eat 1500 or so, often more but I'm not hungry now and I'm not going to have anything else, the kitchen is closed.

Also went for a walk tonight and will go swimming tomorrow morning (I always go swimming when my hair's dirty, LOL). The last time I swam laps I did "sprint" laps interspersed with more leisurely ones. I kept thinking about a lion chasing me, but maybe I should consider a shark instead

So what do you all think about dairy and fruit in primal land?

Today was decent. I made a balsamic pot roast and taco meat before I went to work. The taco meat had tons of onion, garlic and some mushrooms. I added cumin, salt, pepper and a can of rotel tomatoes and chilies.

I had some of the taco meat with sour cream before I left for work.

At work I ate a salad of greens, butter lettuce, half an apple, red bell pepper, almonds, bacon and a french vinaigrette. It was Brianna's brand dressing and it was delicious! I also had 8 strawberries.

Dinner was a small bowl of pot roast. (Just now. I worked evening shift) I'm still hungry but am trying to resist the urge to eat lots so late at night.

I love this way of eating. If I could only get over the physical reaction to even a picture of a cookie or brownie. Hopefully that craving lessens with time, like my craving for cigarette's did when I stopped smoking. That took about a year for me to just not want one anymore.

I eat the stuff, but I'm not a perfect primal eater.

People have varying opinions, but generally speaking it's very little dairy, and berries are ok in moderation. Some ok other fruit, too. Mark Sisson (marksdailyapple dot com) is a pretty moderate proponent of primal eating. I tend to strive towards his recommendations.