The Road Goes Ever On and On...

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.

That is my favorite quote from Lord of the Rings, and so appropriate for this week since I won my Fitbit New Zealand badge this week for having walked the distance from the Shire to Mordor, 990 miles which also happens to be the length of New Zealand. By my calculations the Hobbits took a longer route, so this 990 miles would be as the Nasgul flies perhaps?

So this week neither of us lost weight, and in fact we gained back a pound each. It has been a very stressful week and there was rum involved. This week will be easier, plus I think I am going to ramp up my walking after being inspired by A Simple Walk Into Mordor. I do not want blisters on my toes next year when we do the North Downs Way. We both need to be comfortable walking 13 miles a day. I should probably start breaking in my walking shoes now...

First Week in

So M and I have been sticking pretty closely to our healthy eating goal.  We ate out once this week and both stuck to our Paleo guidelines when we ate.  I am IFing most days and eating after 3pm.  I managed to save a few dollars by shopping at Safeway last week, but today's shopping trip went over budget--(mostly because I did not stick to my shopping list.)  I need to come up with easy weekly menus and actually stick to them.  So far We did primarily eat what I planned for last week, except that M is not fasting mostly, so I ran out of food a couple of times and had to improvise--I was also sick which meant I wasn't feeling like cooking as much as I usually do, so we ended up eating a rotisserie chicken once.  All said and done though, we each lost about 1.5 pounds this past week.  That's pretty good considering that I pretty much ate everything in sight after 3pm most days, and was not very good about keeping my carbs in check or cutting out the alcohol...

Rule for the future:  Only have wine/spirits when out on a "date," over at my cousin's for dinner, or playing our Tabletop RPG with our friends.  This should cut it down to about once per week--saving  us money and the detrimental affects of alcohol on willpower.

So far the most popular recipe I have made is the simple stew I made last Sunday.  I made it again today when M requested it.  It is one of the easiest recipes I have and truly delicious!

Simple Stew

4-5 pounds pork shoulder with a nice layer of fat on top--cut in 1-2 inch chunks  
1-2 large sweet onions, cut in 1 inch chunks
5 large carrots, scrubbed and cut in 1 inch chunks
2 T. dried thyme
2 T. dried basil
2 T. dried oregano
1 small can tomato paste
Salt and Pepper to taste.

Brown pork in its own fat for 5-10 minutes in large stew pot on medium high.  Add in carrots and onions, herbs, salt and pepper, and stir.  Cook for 30 minutes, then add in the can of tomato paste, cover and continue to cook.  After 30 minutes, take lid off pot, reduce the heat to low and continue to cook for 2-4 hours.  The longer you cook, the better it is. :)

This makes a lot of stew, so if you don't want to eat it for three days, I advise freezing half for another time--it freezes very well.

Happy Holidays!

I love the holiday season.  I love Christmas Carols, eggnog, and champagne.  I love holiday movies, decorating the house and planning special meals.  And I love love love that my anniversary is two days after Christmas!  M and I just celebrated our 11th anniversary.  Traditionally the gift for 11 years is steel.  We took this a little differently and for our anniversary we made the steel resolution to work together harder this year in the journey toward good health.  Over the past two years, I have mentioned that my health has declined somewhat due to STRESS, partly due to my job moving and partly due to money concerns.  M has also had issues mostly due to the same things--he has a job (also downtown, and also sedentary).  And as the new year approaches, we have been trying to find ways to incorporate better habits into our New Years plans.

We stress out a lot about money, and one of the things we are trying to do this year is save save save!!  It is totally possible.  Right now, we unfortunately let stress get the better of us, and often eat out because it is convenient and we want something simple and quick.  While we always (well, mostly always) chose something Paleo-friendly the expense is pretty crazy--especially if we have a glass or two of  wine each--eating out in Seattle adds up fast.  It is so easy to drop $100 on a dinner just for the two of us.  Our first step this year is to cut our "dinners out" down to once per month--and if possible once every other month!  Our second step is to cut out alcohol.  If we limit eating out to once per month, and have a glass of wine on those occasions, and stop buying wine to bring home, we can cut that back quite drastically as well.  Our third step is to cut back on groceries.  I have been buying grass fed and pastured everything, all organic veggies, and spending a huge portion of our budget to do it.  I am changing our approach to allow us to save an extra chunk of money per month.

As I have mentioned before, I use several tools to save money while still focusing on healthy eating.  One of those tools is intermittent fasting.  Another is Costco.  I also utilize the Environmental Working Group's Clean Fifteen/Dirty Dozen lists.  We are attempting to save $$ to put toward a house, so I am cutting back on the money we spend on grass fed and pastured meats, and focusing on adding more fish weekly (sardines) and using grass fed ghee to cook with.  The rest of our diet will be veggie-heavy with various other meats (whatever happens to be on sale.)  We will have lots of stews, roasts, casseroles and salads.

This week the menu is:
                  Pork, sweet onion and carrot stew.
                  Taco salad with tomatoes and guacamole.
                  Roast chicken with brussels sprouts.
                  Chomsky salad (salad with cucumber, tomato, avocado, bacon, chicken breast, mixed greens and vinaigrette.)
                  Beef pot roast with carrots, onions, and green beans.

Primal Mayo!!

Mark's Daily Apple:  Primal Mayo (YAY!!)

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Week Three

Several challenges this past week or two, but I am sticking with it.  I did have one day where my carbs and calories were too high.  We had a family party, and there was pie, (one of my weaknesses.)  If it had been at home, I suppose I could have made some keto pie-like concoction to take to the party, but it was up north at a beach resort, and I thought I would be able to resist on my own, but unfortunately, I had a martini first, which worked against me.  In any case I jumped back on the horse immediately after having fallen off, and am home again and ready to start the week off well!  I figure with my experience keto-ing, I should be back into ketosis within three days or so.  Just in time to go away for my birthday weekend, where I have made a pact with M to only eat healthy keto-friendly food, and to walk a lot along the beach and enjoy the ocean which I love. No pie this time.  Maybe a martini...

So since we got back from the family get-together, I have been having Keto coffee in the morning, (coffee with butter and MCT oil) similar to the Bulletproof coffee that Dave Asprey has popularized.  Today I am out of MCT oil, and so I just put in extra sweet cream butter.  Generally this will last me until early afternoon when I have a low carb snack of some kind.  Lately I have been having cucumber (3 oz) with cream cheese ( 2 oz) and smoked salmon (1 oz).   Then dinner is my protein for the day--lately chicken hindquarters which are higher in fat and a bit lower in protein than steak with either a mixed salad, or some sort of low carb veggie with butter.  I do better when I eat the same thing each day rather than try to have something different all the time. I have all of this week off to spend with M so hopefully we will get a lot of walking in and all sorts of other good activities!

Ketoing on...

I am hanging in there.  This week has been a struggle, mostly due to hormonal issues...
I started off by losing one pound earlier in the week, but by Thursday I regained a bit (probably water weight) due to my time of the month.  I am not going to get discouraged this time though because it is perfectly normal to have these kinds of hormonal fluctuations.  If I stick to what is working, by the end of this coming week I should be back to where I was, and proceeding downward.

I am currently reading Jimmy Moore's "Keto Clarity", which is a summary of his experiences on a ketogenic diet, as well as the added input from some of today's top ketogenic doctors.  He focuses a lot on how necessary it is to tailor your ketogenic approach to your own person needs.  This can vary pretty widely between different people, so he gives some examples of what works for him, and what has worked for some other people. It has been a really useful read, and I'm glad I bought it...

The Perfect Keto Ratio...

For the past 8 months I have been following a fairly strict Ketogenic diet.  I have been sticking with it pretty consistently, and really not cheating much at all, but I still have not had much success.  My experience thus far has been disappointing.  I lost two pounds the first week.  Then gained one back,  Then lost 2 pounds again and gained three, etc...This is the pattern I have been accustomed to.  Every time I gain anything I get disheartened.  My doctor has been working with me diligently to come up with good ketogenic ratios that will actually allow me to lose weight.

This past week seems to have been a turning point.  This week I have lost between 1/2 to 1 pound every day.  I think I have finally found my perfect Keto ratio.

This is currently what is working for me:

Protein 80-100 grams
Fat 90-100 grams
Carbohydrates 25 or less
Calories:  1300-1550

It is interesting that previously when I was following keto ratios from the same calculator, it suggested I should be able to lose weight at a moderate rate of 1-2 pounds a week at 1800 calories, 60-70 percent fat, and 5% carbs I did not in fact seem to lose much weight at all.  So, at my doctor's suggestion, I took another look at my ratios and re-entered the info.  I changed my profile to "sedentary" instead of "lightly active." I do walk every day at least 6 days a week-- 5-6 miles (and some days as many as 10-11), but at work I am primarily at my desk the whole time.  This put my ratios to what you see above.

Cutting my calories back to around 1500, seems to have really helped.  When I was testing this out, I tried to keep my ratio as close to 1300 as possible and plateaued after a couple of days.  So my sweet spot seems to be around 1500 calories.

I know I am totally over-analyzing this, and I know that daily weigh-ins are not a good indicator of how you are doing, but I like the feedback--and I want to know myself and figure out what works best for me.  When I started, I also took measurements for future comparison.  Like anything else, a ketogenic diet needs to be highly personalized in order to work for an individual.

I have changed several things about my diet overall.  One of the first things I did was replace the cream I have in my coffee every morning with unsalted butter and added a tablespoon of coconut oil.  In the past, coconut products have made me gain weight, but the research really suggests that coconut oil is very good for you and I wanted to include some in my daily diet.  I started off with 2 tablespoons, but in order to keep my calories down, I cut it to one tablespoon of coconut oil, and two tablespoons of unsalted sweet cream butter.  This is a good flavor ratio as well--I mix the coffee with the butter and shake it in a covered container until it is melted and incorporated.  It seems to blend well, and doesn't leave a filmy oily layer on my coffee! (yuck!).
I have also made an effort to only include organic veggies, and pastured or grass-fed animal products.

In order to keep my protein levels adequate, and not go overboard on fat, I also have to lessen the amount of added fats I use, and cut back on the fattier cuts of beef and lamb.  This means I must eat leaner cuts of meat.  If I were to stick to getting my fat and protein in the appropriate ratios from strictly meat sources, I would have to cut out the added fat in my coffee entirely I think.  I may do that later, but for now I like the shot of energy in the morning that the coffee gives me, and the way the fat helps to modulate my hunger in the morning.  I have cut out most of the added dairy in my diet, although I do have a dip for raw veggies that I make that includes about 1 tablespoon of pastured sour cream--I tend to have that on week days.  I take a lunch with me to work that includes a couple of ounces of lean protein, or three hardboiled eggs and up to 1 cup of raw low carbohydrate veggies like celery, cauliflower, cucumber, etc...I usually try to wait as long as possible to eat my lunch so that I don't get too hungry in the afternoons.

So far on this plan, I have not experienced nausea or the absence of hunger.  But it has only been a week--the non-hunger might kick in soon.  As an experienced ketogenic dieter, the nausea has never been something I have experienced really except for maybe a day or two.  For that matter neither has the non-hunger that people talk about.  I am hungry, but not desperately so--It is not markedly different from the hunger I experience from fasting.  I am basically fasting from 8pm to around 12 or 1pm the next day.  I expect that the hunger will go away as I adapt to these ratios and as my stomach adjusts to the meal plan.

So when I look over what I am doing, I see that I am following a very paleo-influenced ketogenic diet with a strong fasting element which allows me an effective calorie control strategy.  I expect to follow this for some time, and will try to report back each week...

Testing new walking app

http://moves-app.com

After a long (and hectic) winter break full of travel and far too much dark chocolate, I am ready to get back to my regularly scheduled life...

M and I made a pact to eat clean and healthy this year. A lot of people started out 2014 with a Whole30, and we are doing a variation on that--just not as strict, because we find that being Paleo-Zealots makes for a difficult life, and life is difficult enough without the added stress of trying to be perfect. We prefer a more balanced approach to life and to food. That being said, we will still be avoiding all the main "non-paleo" foods: grains, beans and sugar. M is following a stricter Paleo plan than I am--avoiding dairy pretty much completely, but eating fruit most days. He eats lunch and dinner and usually skips breakfast.


I am including grass fed and organic dairy products in my diet because I am doing a strict ketogenic diet and I find adding cream or butter or sour cream to my meals makes it much easier to keep my fat high enough. I am limiting my carbs to 20-30 per day, my protein to 70-100 grams per day, and aiming for 75-80% fat each day. Over the holiday I read The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Living,and The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Performance, two Keto cookbooks (Dana Carpender's Fat Fast Cookbook, and KetoDiet Book by Martina Šlajerová). I started off the New Year ready to go!

I think that this year I will be able to lose the weight I need to lose, and still be able to maintain the well balanced Paleo diet my husband loves. I have had a lot of fun looking up new recipes and coming up with ideas for lunches. M works in a very physical job, so he needs daily lunch sustenance. I have taken some paleo kids lunch ideas from around the web and converted them into adult-sized portions. I am trying to take pictures so that I have a record of what we are eating so that I can blog about it later. We also like to drink wine from time to time, but have stopped buying it and bringing it home--on our "date nights" however we have dry wine and eat out. We focus on eating steak and veggies or a green salad with chicken or shrimp. One of our favorite places to go is JJ Mahoneys in Redmond--they have a yummy steak on the menu that we get (without the Guinness gravy) and with extra veggies no potato or bread. A fair Paleo meal, and low carb enough for me, even with a glass or two of wine!

For my next blog post, I will share with you some of the meals I have been making for M. In the meantime, for those of you on Keto, I know how hard it can be when your friends, family, and workmates are not doing the same thing as you. Good luck. Keep Calm and Keto On! For those of you on Paleo, I will be posting some awesome new recipes soon, so stay tuned!

Morning commute...

I walked with MapMyWalk! Distance: 1.80mi, time: 31:41, pace: 17:36min/mi, speed: 3.41mi/h. http://mapmywalk.com/workout/424479409

Thoughts on my Whole30

I'm glad it's over. 

I think it is good to shake up the way you eat from time to time, but for me having been Paleo for a long time, I seem to do a lot better on Paleo with dairy and wine than on the stricter Paleo path.  I gain weight if I replace heavy cream with coconut cream, mostly due to the carbs, and no doubt the calories.  (To get the right milky balance in my coffee, I need a lot more coconut cream than I do heavy cream...)

I've tried to switch to just plain tea, but it just doesn't do it for me unfortunately...

During the past 30 days, I ate a lot of the same thing. Due to that fact that I commute two hours each day, I find that my time gets cut to the point where when I get home the idea of jumping in the car and going to the store to get the ingredients for something exciting just doesn't appeal to me. This could be avoided by planning, but planning also takes time and so does grocery shopping, and I find it far easier to fall back on one or two staples that I can remember to pick up the ingredients for on the weekend. I know, it's kind of sad really...there are so many great Paleo recipes out there, this would have been a great opportunity to try them out! But instead I stuck to what I was good at--roasting chicken, sauteeing veggies and ground beef, searing steak, throwing together salads, stir fries, slicing tomatoes and baking, scrambling or poaching eggs.

The other thing that sort of got in the way of my enjoyment of it is that I really don't enjoy the paleo pure fat sources that I need in order to do a well balanced ketogenic diet. In my usual paleo with dairy, I use butter and cream and sour cream liberally.  For paleo it is straight animal fat, avocado, coconut milk (and oil) and nuts.  It is really easy to overdo nuts, coconut milk and avocado when you are relying on them for fat and need to limit your carbs...Also trying to keep the appropriate ratio of O3 to O6 is tricky when you include nuts...

So long story short, the Whole30, while a good exercise in practice, actually worked against me a little this time.  But it gave me some goals, and made me reflect on what I eat...I am motivated to make bone broth and eat more pro and prebiotics as I carry on!

Day Thirty!!

Sorry, not many pictures for the past several days. My last couple of Whole30 days were pretty uneventful.  Breakfast on my last day was bacon and eggs followed by a sort of Paleo moussaka--ground lamb, tomatoes, spinach and eggplant topped with cauliflower puree.  It may be that a little goat cheese got in there, but I won't tell if you don't... ;)

Day Twenty-Six

I had the same breakfast as yesterday...with my trusty cup of coconut coffee.  I missed lunch, so I had an early veggie-heavy dinner with zucchini, broccoli, mushrooms, green onion, and some grassfed ground beef thrown in for protein.

Only a few more days to go!

Day Twenty-Five

I have this favourite egg dish I make with cream and butter.  I have been craving it lately, so I decided to try it out with coconut cream and ghee and a little curry.  It turned out delicious and makes the house smell wonderful.

Take two eggs, cracking them into a ramekin which has been smeared with a bit of ghee or coconut oil.  Sprinkle with your favourite curry blend, salt and pepper. Add 1/4 cup of coconut cream and bake for 20 minutes at a medium heat. I set my oven for 350 F.  When you take it out, let it cool a bit before eating.  It is unusual but very filling and good...

Days Twenty-Three and Twenty-Four

I apparently don't have a picture of breakfast for Monday or Tuesday, and ended up eating no lunch on Tuesday and having dinner around 9:30pm both days as well... too much going on. Not a stellar week so far.  I have gained several pounds...MUST. NOT. WEIGH. MYSELF.

Day Twenty-Two

Breakfast today was similar to yesterday--poached eggs with vegetable hash topped with avocado.  I was exhausted this morning due to a late night board-game session--I don't stay up late any more...(obviously over-tired, since my hand was shaking when I took this pic.) :)

Day Twenty-One

Three weeks in and I keep forgetting to take pictures of my food...this weekend I only managed two pictures. 

Day Twenty

I had coffee with coconut milk for breakfast, a salad I forgot to take a picture of (sorry, hungry...) a snack of almonds and coffee, and a yummy dinner of broccoli,mushrooms and sausage...

Day Nineteen

Breakfast and dinner...