Susan, enjoy your nap, you certainly deserve it

Ho hum coupla days for me... Primal is good but I just can't eat as much fat as the plan requires but I do get 50% most days...

Noon tomorrow will be 48 hours without food for me. Wow. Since that restaurant, I haven't eaten a thing. I did have a twice baked potato with my steak, and my stomach was upset most of yesterday. Mild, no big deal, but grumpy. Today I just decided to catch up on my missed fast without realizing I skipped dinner last night. Hopefully a bunch of pounds are coming off. I have the goodies for meatza ready to go tomorrow. But I suspect I'll be too tired and dirty for preparing anything elaborate. I will be getting plenty of beef and veggies tomorrow.

Re incontinent dogs: if it's a leak rather than forgetting not to actually do it inside, you can get some great syrup from the veteranarian called Propalin. No side effects on my 2 old ladies and an instant - er- sealant!

Hi Ilene (and anyone else) -- what percent fat are you aiming for? And why? I have not read the "Primal Blueprint", is a specific percentage of fat recommended there? I notice I eat between 45-55% fat in my food-tracker. I don't aim for anything specific, that's just how it ends up. I mostly try to watch my carbs and keep them below 100 grams.

Also -- for everyone who eats coconut oil, I am confused. Dr. Andrew Weil has specifically said NOT to eat coconut oil (link here) because it raises cholesterol levels. I have very good HDL, low triglycerides, but I do have slightly elevated total cholesterol and LDL (which I guess is common on a primal diet because of the saturated fat). I am concerned when someone like Dr. Weil, who is not a mainstream "by the book" doctor, recommends against eating sat fat and specifically coconut oil.

Dr. Weil's a little chubby wouldn't ya say?

He also advised himself into the high carb corner years ago. Experts have a very difficult time accepting contrary information when they have a lot of advice out there. So they'd rather just disagree than admit fault. Imagine, with the very best of intentions that you, as a professional health advisor, had told millions of people to eat lots of healthy whole grains and to keep carbs a good 50% of your caloric intake. Millions of people are making you money doing this. Now it turns out your advice was bad. What do you do? Admit the hated Dr. Atkins was right all along, or keep making a living. Because admitting you blew it, blows your cred which dumps your income.

By recommending high carbs he has not choice but to be low fat. He completely missed the research that Taubes and co. presented so perfectly about saturated fats. He was very conventional on that topic. He has since agreed with what Taubes says, but decided to disagree about sat fats. Why? Could it be his credibility? Likely.

Mark Sisson on Coconut

I'm consuming about 70% fats, which seems to satiate me for long periods on less calories than lower fat intakes. I am in ketosis, so fat is the fuel I burn. I haven't eaten in 46 hours at the moment. I AM NOT HUNGRY. I understand the body has built in defense mechanisms when fuel is low, but I feel strong and ready to go beat myself up prepping those floor for a few hours before I eat.

Maybe I'm crazy when it comes to fasting (intermittent or not), but anyone who doesn't have low blood sugar issues should read up on fasting the same as we've read up on paleo low carb dieting. Or not!

I get these strange little highs fasting that are stronger than the endorphin rush of a good work out. I suspect it's an adrenal response to a lack of food, and it is energizing my body to go kill something. In order to create this energy my body has no choice but to find a bunch of fuel and burn it. That fuel is the visceral fat around my middle aged middle and it is shrinking rapidly this morning.

Another great benefit to fasting is how it addresses your eating issues, whatever they are. Mine is late night munchies and way too many nuts. Well, by fasting I have done neither for two days and this teaches me how unnecessary both are. Fasting trains your willpower muscle like lifting weights trains Susan's guns.

Good afternoon. Susan is keeping it very lowkey this weekend. A little shopping, a little gardening and a litlle sleeping. Destressing!

I aim my carbs at about 30 and 50 and that gives me 50% fat, it just the way that it happens.

I googled Paleo vs. Primal ... I too am worried about my cholesterol so I think I am leaning towards Paleo when it comes to fats... I will use coconut oil though at times because I like the way it cooks, and like it in my coffee...but the rest I'm unsure...

Sorry to cut this short, I gotta go..............

Because of Good Calories, Bad Calories and the recent meta analysis released on sat fats, I am convinced that sat fat's are not dangerous. I still feel weird about it, though! I mean I grew up in the 70's and 80's! I was vegetarian from age 13 to mid 20'd and stayed away from most meats until pretty recently. That's a long time to be conditioned to avoid sat fats.

I am still eating ok over here. My carb intake is 12-18%, and my weight loss is so slow. I am trying very hard to be happy with what I have been able to accomplish instead of getting super depressed bc I'm not losing tons of weight and feeling tons better.

I;m still tuckered out! My GERD is still gone, thankfully, but I am still tired most days. Not fun.

I think my work is getting to me. I know Susan is a nurse so maybe you can relate, Susan. Today we accepted a 95 yo woman who is hard of hearing, nearly blind, demented, malnourished, with heart disease, respiratory disease and rolled in septic. She is on a ventilator with a really ugly heart rhythm, temp is 92, pressure is kept up on with a continual drip of medicine and she has a deviated gaze and is unresponsive even without sedation. Her family wants us to do everything possible.

I see this kind of thing so often. It's really really depressing. I just want to sleep every day.

I got the book Good calories Bad calories at the library this week, I'm looking forward to reading it...

Oh Kathy! Yes, it's hard sometimes. Hopefully she is not in pain. Poor wee thing.

Does Mark ever say what ideal fats %'s should be? My friend has my book. I thought all macro %'s were kinda trial and error. Even protein is a range from0.7-1 gm per pound of lean body weight depending on fitness levels. I have a tendency to remember things with rose-coloured glasses but ... my mental picture of primal eating is good protein, nice fats and real live vegetables. No sugar, no chemicals, no grain.
Anything beyond that is personalized tweaking. The nice thing about primal is that there is such a lovely broad spectrum from which we can tweak!
Just look at us here in this thread. So diverse! Our menus vary, our exercise varies.

I started out really excited about fats but the thrill has kinda worn off. We don't even eat bacon as often as we used to. I am not buying lard! Whatever is attached to meat, butter for taste, coconut oil in my coffee .... that's all fine. Oh and my eggs

And the tiredness ... Kathy have you ever been diagnosed hypoglycemic? I wonder if I dragged my "carb flu" out over time because of a few high carb days. I wondered if perhaps there are some folks who have "problem" blood sugars and need to work harder to develope (I can't think what the term is) that nice level glucose/insulin response thing.
Please don't underestimate the power of stress! I don't think we've even scratched the surface on how bad it is for our health. Anybody got a recommended read about adrenal response?

Maybe we should rename our thread for July the Primalish Paleoish Warriors who eat lower carbish

If I couldn’t eat meat and eggs, I wouldn’t do well at all on this journey. Sometimes I feel almost driven to eat something, and I make that “something” protein or veggies, not sugars or starches.

I do think my portions are sometimes too big, but I’m afraid if I limit my portions when I feel compelled to eat, I might start gaining weight by eating carbs again.

It is nothing for me to eat an entire bag of spinach or a half a pound or more of meat. I had leg of lamb the other day, and it was wonderful and I ate a ton of it. I bet it came close to a pound. I do not think this is good, but I do not gain weight when doing it and it keeps me off the carbs which I KNOW will start a downhill spiral. I watch my calories every day and aim for 1550, but don’t get upset if they’re higher (or lower) unless they’e crazy higher. One thing I believe (truly) has helped is eating specific foods to proliferate my good gut bacteria.

I feel great, but it has taken me awhile to realize this *in my head* becaue it feels so natural. I don’t take naps after lunch any more, my GERD is completely gone and I am no longer taking medication for it. I’m sleeping very well. My balance is much better. I take an exercise class, a sort of combo cardio and weight training. There are mirrors all over the studio and I realize I am keeping up with and surpassing the other slimmer people in the room with my activity level in the class.

I am losing weight very slowly. I am hypothyroid and post-menopausal, but the real reason, I suspect, is because I’m eating too many calories to lose weight fast. But weight is not the only measure of health, in fact it is probably not even the most important one. I do not want to fight my body too much, I want to sort of ease it into a lower weight so it doesn’t lower my body temperature and slow my metabolism to try and “survive” on less food. My body inflammation as measured by Lp(a) and cardio CRP is very low now. My fasting blood glucose and a1c have dropped from “almost” pre-diabetic down to the very lowest range of the normal numbers.

All that said, 1/2 to 1 pound a week loss feels like failure. It shouldn’t, I know, but it kinda does. (Well, *failure* is too strong of a word, but I can't think of another to replace it.)

Detox day for me...I made awful choices yesterday, gotta own up!

My younger brother(hes in the Navy) who I only see about 1x a yr came to town for a day and my mom fixed her famous chocolate cake that we only see on special occasions, so I ate lots of meat, no decent veggie choices around (apparently baked beans are now vegetables?lol) then I had a slice of the cake which led me to have alcohol(only 1 shot, thank goodness). I feel like a ton of bricks this morning and my joints are killing me, more proof of the horrible effect of grain on my body.

I started my detox this morning, I had a great primal breakfast hoping I could push out some of the crap I ate yesterday and the rest of the day I'll either IF or have a little late afternoon snack, I'm waiting to see how my head feels from lack of sugar.

Unfortunately its so hot & humid here the past few days I haven't been able to do much outside, its just too hot for a 10m old, 100% humidty and 98degrees is not workout friendly, we tried Friday and even my 5 yr old was complaining 5 minutes into the walk. We are going to the library later I'm planning on getting Gary Taubes book...

Hello everyone. Susan has directed me to this thread. Hoping you all can help me stay on track & not have such a hard time. I am doing the low carb thing as well. I had success with it 6 yrs ago & loved it then, this time I am having a hard time. My belly is always growling at me. I eat & eat alot when I do but within half hour to an hour later its growling at me again. I broke down & started drinking diet pop to help with it, I am drinking more pop now then before I started the diet.

I notice that you are talking about coconut oil. I did a little research on MCT oil & found out that coconut oil is composed of 66% of it. Do you notice anything while taking it? Are there side effects? I need to go out & pickup some vitamins & was thinking of picking coconut oil up too.

I notice if I eat any carbs in the morning other than the insignificant amount in my coconut milk for coffee then I will trigger hunger for the rest of the day. It could be carrots/peas/dressing, all of those can trigger more hunger IMO. I would stay mindful of making sure to consume enough quality fats. Coconut oil has helped me with the hunger, it naturally fills me up and I find it does boost my energy like other people have talked about on other sites.

Check out these sites: and WELCOME!!!!!!!

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/

http://www.paleonu.com/get-started/