DoingTheCaveman

two days

Just keeping track

Tuesday

• Breakfast - Omelet cooked with Argon oil
• Lunch - 1/2 baked squash
• Evening meal - small Pork chop, carrots, cabbage,  small roast parsnip, broccoli
• nibbles - 21 hazelnuts + 3 dates (supplies almost gone)

Wednesday

• Breakfast- Omelet, 2 eggs, cooked in coconut oil
• Americano with a homemade banana/spelt flour muffin - Yes, a weak moment for a colleagues baking.
• Lunch - apple, banana
• Snack - banana (again)
• Evening meal -2 pieces roast chicken, roasted root vegetables (onion, carrot, parsnip) broccoli, garlic, 1/4 baked butternut squash,
• 1/2 small mango

Who's whispering in my ear?

On Friday night I went shopping hungry and wandered off down the sweet isle.  I ended up coming away with a 100 gm chocolate bar, although with the intention to share.  I gave away two squares and then on Saturday hid away the empty wrapper of the entire bar!

It must be a sign of the double sided personality of the Gemini I am. I'm fine as long as I don't start but once I get started but - me- the person who's writing this story isn't the same person who demolished that bar.  

Over the last couple of days I've been reflecting about why these events should happen, although they do happen less.  What it brings to mind is more that it's to do with an addiction problem that belies the weight problem.

With this in mind, have you ever been on a Very Low Calorie Diet (VLCD)?  I started one a couple of years ago and lost an almost unbelievable amount of weight (35 lb within 4 weeks)!!! As you can imagine I was completely high with exitement of the weightloss.  However, please don't rush off and go on a VLCD as one things for sure this *isn't* a recommendation! 

My experience was that, in addition to the prohibitively high cost of this diet, every bit of the weightloss was gained back when I took a seasonal break from the regime. 

If you haven't heard of a VLCD it consists of a soup and milkshake powders but absolutely nothing else except water is allowed (and at last 4 litres a day to stay safe on this diet).  The lack of carbohydrates then sends your body into ketosis. This is what promotes weight loss and the burning of fat. Be warned, this type of diet can be a strain on your kidneys and liver.

For me, the first few days on the diet caused migraine and sickness but you have to go through this pain as you move into ketosis.  It was also the sole reason I couldn't' get back on to the plan, the second time round going into ketosis left me so totally debilitated to the extent that I was in bed sick for two days. Alongside the regime was (hmmmm) CBT therapy.  I say this because, for the price, it was just someone who had a franchised into the scheme and by no means a professional counsellor.

OK, so now I've had a little moan about one of my failed diets I give credit to something that I did take away from this diet -- finally starting to acknowledge the concept that my weight problem could be due to a kind of addiction problem.

Eating is afterall essential to life, but unlike other vices you can't completely stop eating - you have to learn to manage a healthy eating regime into your life.  The underlying principle of the VLCD was that you simplify choice and take a break from your 'normal' eating regime.  Therefore, reducing the range of food takes away the responsibility of making choices; initially simplifying your diet  and rebuilding it alongside lifestyle.

Overall I think this is why I've so embraced this paleo lifestyle, as at the end of the day my diet is no longer a juggling act.  What I haven't really decided is whether it's down to me having some sort of addictive personality or whether something in the food itself was driving the bad habits. 

*** TODAY I HAD ****

• Breakfast: 1 Egg omlette
• Snack: 1 apple, 1 clementine
• Lunch: Didn't really eat lunch but through the afternoon had about 2 handfuls of my sweet nuts + 1 date.
• Evening: Roast lamb with carrots and brocoli                  

As it was my day off I also had a long brisk walk along the seafront.  Stretches and attempted some press-ups.  I can't do these yet but I've set them as a goal - they're something I've never been able to do before even when I was at a healthy weight.

Paleo the veggie way

I was rather disorganized and unprepared with my food today, I ended up being trapped at work with no food and empty vending machines (thank goodness). 

• Breakfast was a clementine.
• Nothing at lunch.  I meant to grab an apple on the way out apple but forgot (slap wrists).  I arrived home at 6pm with a banging headache.  But, instead of reaching out for Ibuprofen I had a handful of almonds and the headache abated within 15 minutes.
• Dinner was half a baked butternut squash - mashed with a dash of argon oil, caramelized onion, 1/2 tsp cumin and 1/2 tsp coriander served with peas.
• 1/2 an apple.
• A handful of sweet roasted nuts (recipe described below adapted from www.paleofood.com).

I made a batch of sweet roasted nuts to snack on over over the rest of the week and hopefully break the date habit.  I'm not really a measurement cook so roughly 4 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp nutmeg, 1/2 teaspoon mace, 1/2 tsp cayenne, 1/2 tsp fresh grated ginger.  Whisk 2 egg whites, 2 tbsp honey.  Mix together and then add mixed nuts.  Use enough nuts to be well coated but use up the mixture.  Bake until crisp.

As you see from the peas and onion again today the cupboards are bare.  Hopefully tomorrow meat will be back on the menu.

1st day of keeping paelo food diary

To keep myself accountable to myself and my little blog I've decided to recall and start recording what I may eat in a day.  Anything I know not to be paleo I'll highlight in red but feel free to point out anything that I may not have noted or adaptions I could make.

So, today I had:

• For breakfast omlette made with 2 eggs, with peas and 1/4 of a small onion caramelized in a little coconut oil.
• I was at work today so no lunch but a handful of pecan nuts.
• In the evening I had salad with baby leaf lettuce, cucumber and a tomato salsa salad (tomato, spring oinion and tons of fresh coriander).  Dressed with a red pepper pate (blended 1 red pepper, 1 clove garlic, pumpkin seeds, 1 tbsp cold pressed olive oil and pepper).
• Snacked in the evening on 3 dates and more pecans probably another handful (I have small hands).

Basically a veggie paleo day and the following is NOW very unusual as I finished the day with a 100 gm chocolate bar!!!!  Nooooooooo...

Dear blog - I'm working again tomorrow so I'll have to revisit this then.

Date feasting

This week I've been feeling blue and eating paleo in its simplest form.  Fast food cavewoman = eggs nuts and fruit - in particular dates.  The thing is for most of my life I've been under the illusion that dates were, quite simply, disgusting.  Anyway I was given some last week and thought I'd give one a try.  Well, that first nibble descended into a full on date binge that's been in progress for most of the week.  This week I haven't eaten much more than mini pecan and date sarnies, and I certainly thought that this would cause my blood sugar to go through the roof.  However, surprisingly my readings have remained relatively stable.

Wednesday

• Before Breakfast 6.8
• Before evening meal 5.4
• After evening meal 8.7.

Thursday

• Before breakfast 5.8

To explain this by a UK measurement I need to be aiming for between 4 & 10, but previously even a slice of bread could cause my blood sugar level to spike over 12.  I'm quite pleased with the above as it means I can have a little sweet indulgence, but if I keep my sugar levels low weight loss should still follow.

Cravings - what do you REALLY want?

As I've mentioned before, I was admitted to hospital a couple of years ago following an acute post-holiday illness.  What I didn't say was that on admission the doctors said I was severely malnourished.  Of course, on that occasion the illness had certainly caused this, but the fact that I am now no longer experiencing cravings  and changed diet has made me to take the connection between malnourishment, obesity and cravings far more seriously. 

It's not uncommon knowledge that just because you're obese it doesn't mean you're well nourished. If you eat and you're not providing the nutrients your body requires it constantly cries out for more; you feed your body more empty calories and so the cycle goes on... 

I'm sure this is why my appetite was never previously satiated, all the bad high calorie foods were totally displacing the good.

Now, although many of the foods I eat may be rich in calories they are also rich in the essential nutrients my body requires. I no longer waste time eating empty calories and now when I eat, that's it, I'm truely satisfied. It's more than measuring what calories you put in and then burn off.  I always keep in mind food density and hope that heeding this keeps all my previous cravings at bay.

I believe that contrary to dieting by starving and withholding calories, the key may be actually be feeding my body what it's *really* demanding from me.

Baby steps

Finally my weight has started on a downward trend and I'm starting to believe that this year further loss will follow.  Therefore,  I'm daring to set my first goal.  The weight I have in mind is 12 stone 13 lb (181 lb OR 82.1 kg).  I know it's not a nice round number but it represents 3 stone from the time I started this journey.  More significantly it will be the lowest weight I've been for over 10 years.  I'm not to sure yet what my ultimate goal will be, but I think at 5' 3"  my correct weight would fall between 8 & 10 stone.  However, my obesity actually sits on a very petite frame so possibly I should be aiming for 8 stone (50 kg).   Six months ago that would have seemed an impossible dream but now I'm positive it's a realistic final goal to set. 

* SIGHS *  I'm still not halfway, aiming for 8 stone that's another 5 stone to go.

Life changes

Sorry to be distant this week, I haven't been able to keep my thoughts around weight related issues. 

I was in two minds about sharing this but to explain my erratic blog, last week I took a life changing decision.  An extremely painful one and not just affecting my own life but two.  It's something that's been brewing for a very long time although it was only last week I finally decided I had to act, but the moment the words were out of my mouth I wanted to take them right back.

As we approach our 11th year I decided to separate from my husband.  Obviously I won't go into full details, there's a few issues but one in particular, for which there is no compromise.  At least he understands and lovingly agrees that we do have to part.  As we build our life's together our individual hopes and dreams have grown further and further apart.  That's what it makes it so difficult; if he was a real s*** it would be so much easier, but he's not and in fact he's in many ways what most woman would dream of - he's my best friend - maybe I've made my biggest mistake:(

Liquid gold

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I have *stuff* going on, it's not great so there's not much writing going on this week.  A little light relief after the weekend entry, and thank you to MS for taking the pic and for keeping up my replenishments of Argon oil, sometimes known as liquid gold 

For Argon I'd be up that tree too - this is my ultimate caveman diet treat.

BTW, I couldn't resist and had a sneaky mid month weigh in:  86.5 kilos/188 lb/13stone 6 lb.  So since my end of December weigh in that is a 6 lb loss. 

Why I started on Man's first diet

It's been bought to my attention that new visitors may be completely bemused as to quite what's involved in the Caveman diet, so this post is just the story about why it's my diet choice.

I'm your usual dieting veteran, I've re-joined WW more times than I have fingers (& toes), Slimming world, Very Low Calorie Liquid Diet (medically monitored 400 cals a day); the Cabbage Soup Diet; The Grapefruit and Egg diet; Hay Diet; Atkins and the Greek diet.  BTW I love the Greek/Mediterranean diet (for taste and healthiness), but I didn't lose weight.  Finally, at the beginning of last year I finally went on a medically monitored weight loss diet, with the institution of this both my weight and diabetic control rocketed out of control.

Since I was gradully ticking through a list of weight related medical problems it looked like the next on the list were the biggies, it definitely was time to re-evaluate.

After all the above diet failures I instinctively didn't feel that paying out for another mainstream diet (ones that I'd already repeatedly failed before) was not going to be the answer, for me.  Then I had the most awful and patronizing doctor's appointment, one that left me in tears (I DON'T BELIEVE YOU DIET, YOU'RE GREEDY AND YOU EAT TOO MUCH - yes he did say that to me). The bottom line was, you need to lose weight otherwise you will be starting insulin, and soon .  So, if you know anything about diabetes and you're overweight that's very bad news - insulin will make you gain weight. 

I was an emotional wreck that week.  On the Friday before my grandmother (who had been suffering for a long time) fell ill and they said she wouldn't last the w/e,  Sunday was my birthday and obviously didn't want it to happen that day, Tuesday was the hospital appointment and my grandmother died that Friday.

BUT, that week was also the turning point.  An article was published, a diabetic study on the benefits of Caveman diet. It compared a group on the Caveman diet and a group on the Mediterranean diet.  At the end of the study the blood sugar of those on the Caveman diet had dropped significantly compared to those on the Mediterranean diet.  Secondary to that, the group on the Caveman diet also lost a significant amount of weight. 

When I chose to go onto this diet it as much for getting a grip on the blood sugar issues as it was about weight. 

There was also an element of distrust, I mean I've followed all the prescribed diets, trusted the packaging, counted the calories, taken every bit of advice I could, but for my efforts I simply got fatter and fatter and fatter......

*Light-bulb moment* I was simply expecting too much from my body and it obviously wasn't coping.  I believe I had a false sense of the quantities I should be eating, and additionally I wasn't in control of what I was eating; much of it was canteen, packaged or ready made, or if it had a low calorie count that was good enough for me.  So I concluded that if I took all the extras out the equation (all the man made foods) my body would have the opportunity to be able to work in the way it was designed. 

Why should I expect my body to understand and process foods that aren't natural?  It was time for me to get back into the driving seat take back control of everything I ate.

'A wise man ought to realize that health is his most valuable possession and learn how to treat his illnesses by his own judgment.  Hippocrates

Anyway that's just my little story as to how I've arrived at this lifestyle change.  It may some appear to be a faddy diet but I've read around it and started to follow it after a great deal of consideration. I've experienced a lot of physical changes not just to the diabetes, but also to my gums, my blood pressure, my gums. Heck, even my fat has changed (ie where's the cellulite gone).  It feels right and sustainable (for me) but it has entailed lifestyle changes that may not suit everyone.  It's working for me and I believe it's the healthiest choice for me.

I've gabbed on for far too long now so I'm going to have to save exactly what the diet entails to a future entry, for anyone who's interest a past entry regarding the rules is posted here.