Update and budget for the week

So our meals have been pretty standard for the past two weeks. I went shopping at Costco and Safeway for lean on-sale meat a couple of weeks ago, and so I have a freezer full (and I do mean full) of bay shrimp, whole chickens, lean steak, lean pork loin, and lean ground beef.

I also have some ham and a ham-bone in there left over from Christmas--Typically I consider ham to be a processed food, and we rarely eat it, except on the rare occasion when it is 50 cents a pound. Ham is lean, but also salty, and not one of my favorite foods, but cut up and fried in a pan with veggies and sweet potato, I can live with it. You get the whole "sweet and salty" thing that way, which makes it almost worth it.

I have decided for the sake of our budget to eat our way through what we have in the freezer before I buy anything new. This means a lot of meals that I know we have ingredients for...

Karney's Paleo Stuff
Grilled Steak
All-Day Paleo Stew
Taco Salad
Shrimp Salad
Roast Chicken

For the past two weeks I have spent about $45 on vegetables and fruits, and about $20 on meat.
I buy yams or sweet potatoes, mushrooms, spinach, romaine lettuce, carrots, turnips, campari tomatoes, bell peppers, brussels sprouts, asparagus, and avocados. I also buy citrus fruits: oranges, tangelos, clementines, grapefruit...Soon it will be strawberry season and I will have berries as well. We eat yams a couple of times a week, no more than one per person. They are very good for stretching our meals out and filling us up, but I prefer to keep the carbohydrates down.

We do have a couple of strategies that help our budget. It makes it easier that we fast for about 20 hours each day. (We typically eat between 5pm and 9pm) With only one real meal to deal with, we can eat as much as we like at that one meal without feeling deprived, and 20 hours isn't so much that it seems impossible, or overwhelming, and it does cut down on the cost quite a bit.

Some people don't do well with intermittent fasting. I think ideally two meals a day would be about right--that seems to be what most of the Paleo literature suggests as well. One light meal, one heavy meal, or two moderate meals. We plan for a small snack if necessary, but tend to skip them most of the time. I do drink coffee in the morning with coconut milk which helps, I think the fat takes the edge off. I also drink Yerba Mate during the day at work, which I love the flavor of, (very herbal and nice) and it has the added benefit of dulling hunger a bit. I also find that fasting helps me concentrate in the afternoon better, and makes me stick to my afternoon workout. I find it much easier to cut back on calories when I fast like this.

If anyone is interested, I took a look at my nutrition statistics for the past two weeks (Since January 1st) on Fitday and here is the breakdown of what I am averaging each day:
Calories 1,643

Grams Calories %-Cals

Total Fat 99.9 880 54 %
Saturated 27.6 244 15 %
Polyunsaturated 18.2 159 10 %
Monounsaturated 45.2 398 24 %
Carbohydrate 88.2 329 20 %
Dietary Fiber 23.4
Protein 98.5 399 24 %
Alcohol 4.9 34 2 %

I am interested to see that my fat ratios are pretty much exactly as Cordain suggested our paleo ancestors' would have been, "the normal dietary intake of saturated fatty acids that conditioned our species genome likely fell between 10 to 15% of total energy." (Cordain)

I typically don't pay too much attention to my fat intake--I am eating primarily lean conventionally-raised meat, and occasionally having higher fat meat like roasted chicken a couple of times per week, so I figure it all balances out. I also am consistently losing weight at a rate of about 2.5 pounds per week since January 1st.

I walk for about one hour a day for stress relief. I look forward to walking--and take the day off if I need to. I don't pressure myself about exercise. Walking is a weight bearing exercise, so even though it is "cardio" it is also weight resistance. It is the perfect thing to do if you aren't ready for "weight lifting" and need something to get you started. If you want more of a challenge, and want to increase your resistance, walk in sand, or walk laps in a swimming pool. I do all of my walking indoors, barefoot, on a treadmill--mostly because it is convenient and I am less likely to talk myself out of it. I like to walk outdoors, but I don't like to walk in the rain, and in Seattle it rains regularly...Plus I believe in the benefits of walking barefoot, which is difficult to do outdoors unless you have a nice soft course somewhere, which I don't.

Well, there is my long-winded update.

I am still looking for autoimmune research that will help me determine which nightshade veggies I can eat, and which I need to avoid. I have been eating a little ripe tomato here and there, and some bell pepper, but not much--at the most two small campari tomatoes per day, and maybe 1/4 of a cooked bell pepper once a week. I am having an LS flare though, so maybe it is related. I am going to try to cut them out for a few days and see if anything changes.

I also hope to try out a new recipe this weekend and post it soon!