About the Relative Importance of Food

If you thought my recent silence might mean I was having difficulties with my eating approach or health, I have good news--the opposite is true.

First, I have a story too funny not to share.

A little background: a month or 2 ago I ordered some water kefir grains and about 4 days ago I discontinued the daily brewing routine of water kefir (again.) I wasn't enjoying the kefir as much as I had a year ago and I decided I didn't want to be tied to a daily routine for something that wasn't proving delightful. Either my taste buds have changed or those grains didn't produce kefir as tasty as the ones I  had before (I was using the same ingredients otherwise.)

My practice has always been to rinse bottles, bowls, etc., in plain water. When I stopped brewing the water kefir I had a little juice left over so I put a little in some plain water in a well-rinsed seal-tight bottle and put it in the fridge to chill. As it happened, I had company and forgot about it and I just opened it today. To my surprise, there was a hiss when I opened it and it had become very light, slightly carbonated WATER KEFIR! Oh, I laughed so hard.

Anyhow, I've been doing very well eating meat, fruit and vegetables. About once per week after my 2 mugs of coffee--cream and honey--I decide to skip solid food that day. I am so "normal" the next morning that last week I realized at 8 pm I'd accidentally skipped for a second day. My rate of fat loss has picked up because I don't seem to eat any extra food after the skip days. But I do think one skip day per week is enough. I'm just about back to the best measurements I achieved on my first round of "paleo" and this time there's been no need for willpower, no cravings and no anxiety.

Since I haven't had to apply much energy to food management, I've been knitting and helping out with a new web site, NewsBacon. I've been enjoying it so much that food just isn't as important as it was. And that's good.

I hope you're also having the kind of spring that makes food management a natural part of your life rather than a focal point.

Oh, I almost forgot. About once every month or 2, I now have a treat day and my usual choice is to drink some Coke since most manufactured/baked treats have negative consequences but a tall glass of Coke doesn't seem to trigger any problems at all. For the first time since I began having weight issues, I'm able to savor how much I love the Coke and even have a 2nd glass if I wish. The next day I go back to drinking carbonated water with a wedge of lemon or lime and life is good.

A Simple Feast

Note: I read and enjoy every single comment. At the moment, though, the blog isn't letting me reply to them. I hope to resolve that soon!

I had an amazing culinary experience yesterday. It probably helped that I didn't eat until 5:30 pm, ensuring that I was good and hungry. I love food to  begin with, obviously, but when I'm hungry I really enjoy it.

Anyhow, one of my errands was the grocery store and I bought a lot of fresh produce and found some cheap  inexpensive packages of meat. One of those was a $2+ package of raw shrimp. It was a generous single serving.

As I was putting the food away, I boiled water for the shrimp and dumped them in. I then cored and sliced the fresh pineapple I'd purchased. I intended to make a nice green salad, too, but somehow I found myself eating the flesh off the core and rind of the pineapple. I have the handy-dandy utensil that creates a spiral of beautiful slices in about 15 seconds flat, but there would be quite a bit of waste if you threw away the trimmings. Besides, it's more fun (as far as I'm concerned) to gnaw the good stuff off the trimmings, kind of like corn on the cob, than it is to eat the "prime" slices.

Most of the slices went into the fridge for tomorrow because the core, rind and ends gave me a nice portion of fruit. I also ate a few fresh strawberries but that stung after chewing on the pineapple; my lips and tongue were quite sensitive and they let me know right away that the berries were still acidic and not summer-ripe. Note to self: Eat the strawberries first, then the pineapple!

I took the hot shrimp out of the shells and poured some melted butter over them. They made a great counterpoint to the pineapple and strawberries and I had no interest in additional food so the salad fixings are still in the fridge and on the counter.

I'll have to remind myself today to make and eat the salad before I taste the pineapple and/or meat. if I don't, I may just skip salad again. I have no clue why, but I'm a maniac for fresh pineapple right now. I reacted the same way at the recent pot luck and buffet visits (see earlier post, Out of the Shadows, Into the Sun.)

Of course, the very best thing about my feast last night was that it was so delicious it felt somehow naughty, yet it was totally legal under my easygoing paleo approach. I didn't eat until I was actively hungry, I ate food I liked and I skipped the salad because I no longer felt hungry. The only item worthy of possible debate would be the butter and I'm not asking for feedback on that. I use butter on hot shrimp, period. If I had chilled them, they would've gone into my salad with the usual vinegar and EVOO.

How'd It Go?

Note: I read and enjoy every single comment. At the moment, though, the blog isn't letting me reply to them. I hope to resolve that soon!

Holidays and other family/social events can be challenging and unsettling for those of us trying to manage our health.

I'm pleased to report I had an easy go of it. I started with a grapefruit cut into wedges, Starkist tuna with sun-dried tomatoes, mayo (I didn't have paleo so I <gasp!> I used store-bought,) celery stalks, grape tomatoes and pimento-stuffed olives. I did treat it as a special day, though, so dessert was a well-rinsed small can of mandarin orange segments with a generous handful of frozen blueberries on top. Yum!

In terms of food volume, my meal was smaller than usual as I usually load up with a high-volume green salad or large servings of low-carb veggies. The main reason I didn't on Easter was that I was expecting a repair person on Saturday and didn't get to go to the store.

Anyhow, I wasn't shocked when I felt hungry by mid-afternoon despite usually eating only a single meal. I simply scrambled 3 eggs with butter and turmeric and that did the trick. I feel fine this morning and very happy that I didn't do anything with consequences. Why couldn't it have been this easy for the last 50 years?

Note to self: add to-do list item, make paleo mayo

Mindfully Eating ... A Cadbury Egg

A very happy Easter to all Christians and a happy, festive holiday to others. 

My planned Easter holiday splurge this year was a Cadbury egg (sorry, no photo.) Just in case you live in a remote area yet are somehow reading this, a Cadbury egg is a milk chocolate shell with creme filling--and, through the miracle of Cadbury technology, the innermost creme is yolk-orange.

So, I ate my holiday meal of ham, ham and more ham. Recipe: I bought a spiral-cut bone-in ham and gave it a thorough bath under the faucet, then warmed it in my slow-cooker with fresh water. I'd planned to make salad, bake a sweet potato and have a small side of canned pineapple but when the time came all I wanted was ham and I figure the other items can add novelty to leftovers in coming days.

A couple hours later I was ready to have a go at the Cadbury egg. In years past, I would've eaten it in about 3 bites and moved on to other goodies but times have changed: I don't plan another neo-splurge until Memorial Day or beyond and I won't have another Cadbury egg for at least a year.

It was very different, carefully and mindfully eating the egg. After the first taste, I asked myself, "Does it taste really good? Good enough to finish and count as my holiday neo-splurge?" My answer was yes so I continued to lick at the creme.

"How would I rank the flavor?" was my next question. Is it better than the ham? I guess it is. Maybe better than a leafy salad with oil and vinegar, but not really that MUCH better. Is it as good as frozen berries with yogurt or heavy cream? Hmm. Yes, I decided, as good but not better. Better than a grapefruit? You know what, no, not better than a nice peeled grapefruit. And definitely not better than a ripe banana or a good plum.

So now I know--the goodness of a Cadbury egg fits somewhere between ham and a grapefruit. Not something to crave or feel deprived without, actually, but a nice personal splurge to mark a segment of the holiday calendar.

Do you fear eating neolithic treats in case you might binge? You might be surprised to find that if you really pay attention to the taste on your tongue, it's not that big a deal--and if you later detect brain cravings for more, remind yourself that your daily mix of foods includes items every bit as good or better and go take a walk or something.

I'm Going to Binge! Oh, Never Mind ...

The past few days have been interesting!

After I made the wonderfully tasty cold banana pudding, I must admit I found my appetite somewhat higher. It not only tasted more like a dessert than the room-temperature version, I reacted as if it were. Nothing bad happened, though, until I was once again exposed to external family-related stress. 

I bought and ate a large chunk of raspberry coffee cake (yes, sugar/wheat/SUGAR) in a "take that world" fit of temper. I fully expected to get sick as a dog but there were NO bad consequences. It's entirely possible I now have a truly healthy gut and one junk-food assault is not enough to make me sick. We could call the coffee cake incident risky or foolish, but we can't call it a binge because I ate one large serving and no more--plus there were no follow-up bags or boxes of junk.

The day after eating coffee cake I ate my normal healthy menu and the day after that was a calorie-deprived day in which I drank my usual coffee with cream and honey but ate no solid food. I'm not recommending that approach in any way but it actually worked quite well. I enjoyed the heck out of the coffee--even had a mug or two more than usual--and my body didn't even notice I wasn't eating until about an hour before bed time so I easily shrugged off the impulse. As usual, I had no acute hunger the next morning (yesterday.)

BUT something interesting happened. At mid-day I made myself a weekend-style breakfast of 3 pieces of bacon, 3 eggs fried in the bacon fat and a large serving (more than a cup but less than 2 I think) of the rice/veg dish which I added to the skillet for a swim in the bacon fat. I actually started the breakfast with 2/3 cup home-made yogurt and a banana. So I think we can all agree it was a huge feed of nutrients. Unfortunately, it didn't turn off my impulse to eat--I was just as "hungry" when I finished the meal as when I started. 

In my binge-eating career, this was how all serious binges started, by eating what should have been a large satiating meal but finding myself totally crazy with an urge to eat junk. So, I found myself thinking this might be it--after a year of healthy eating with splurges here and there I may be about to drive to the store and buy armfuls of junk. Drum roll ... 

What I DID do was make myself a 4-5 cup leafy salad and I ate a whole grapefruit plus the salad. And here's the REALLY weird thing. After I ate this second meal, with more food volume but much lower caloric/energy value than the breakfast I'd eaten an hour previously, the lizard brain impulse to binge WAS STILL THERE but my stomach/gut were so stuffed I found it incredibly easy to do nothing. Over the course of 2 hours the over-stuffed feeling gradually faded and so did the urge to binge. 

This morning I woke up feeling great, not to mention "lean and mean." All physical indications are that I actually lost some weight overnight which makes sense on 2 fronts--one, recent emptying of some fat cells could very well be what triggered the binge impulse and two, when you look at what I actually ate yesterday it was within my normal range of a day's food (just a little out of sequence) and I had been calorie-restricted the previous day. 

So here I am, learning more and more about my body's signals and responses. I'm eating normally today (Sunday) and Monday will be another coffee-only fast and THEN I'll be very interested in how my body responds on Tuesday. Will it be a normal day of eating or will I again have "binge fever" and need to make an extra-large salad to make the lizard brain happy?

Does "No Symptoms" Mean No Problems?

I've been thinking a lot about my health lately, I guess because I've been feeling so great. I've wondered to what extent my metabolism has actually healed and to what extent my ancestral eating is masking symptoms I might otherwise be having.


And that's where my question to you comes from--are you assuming that no symptoms means no problems? If you're making annual trips to a doctor for a thorough check-up I'd support you in saying that's enough and I'd also support you in taking your own measurements every few months just because you're interested. But my question remains.


I'm usually careful to eat fruit in modest amounts and eat other foods either immediately afterward or with the fruit. I've wondered, though, how my blood pressure and glucose would respond if I splurged by eating a lot of fruit by itself. I've also wondered how I'm handling the yogurt I've started eating most mornings. 


If you aren't having check-ups with a physician, which I suspect is more common these days because of financial pressures and high medical/insurance costs, are you taking your own blood pressure and glucose measurements? Or, are you assuming that no symptoms means no problems?


The good news for you is that I'm not going to bore you with a blow-by-blow description of the lengthy experiment I ran this week testing my blood pressure and glucose. I will share a few observations though.  


My typical morning coffee--2 mugs over 2 hours with heavy cream and honey--barely registers on the blood glucose meter.  I've read that some people have high insulin responses to dairy, but clearly I don't. Also, the home-made yogurt I frequently have for breakfast plus the quantity of fruit I typically add causes only a moderate blood glucose reaction well within the normal range.  


During my experiment, I ate fruit as stand-alone meals three times, 2 large meals and one smaller meal of the exact types/quantities of fruit I had added to my yogurt the morning before.


My fasting blood pressure and glucose rates are both very normal on the typical ancestral meals I've been eating. After the large fruit-only meals, my blood glucose had returned to about the fasting rate 2 hours later BUT the readings spiked pretty high at the 30-90 minute marks. The smaller meal of fruit stayed within the normal range throughout but my blood glucose went higher than when I ate the same amount of fruit with yogurt or any of my typical fruit-salad-meat meals.


The bottom line for me is that I was paying very close attention so I noticed some very slight symptoms after eating the large meals of fruit, including minor mood alteration (less calm). If I hadn't been paying attention I don't think I would've noticed anything although I would've been less serene than usual for a few days. I've been known to eat stand-alone meals of sweet fruit from time to time but I probably won't do that any more.


What about you? Are you relying on "no symptoms" or do you know how your meals affect you? Do you eat enough fruit or sweeteners that it matters?

It's Time, and I'm Ready! Part #3

Happy New Year! I'm posting this on New Year's Eve so here's hoping you've had a great holiday season and you're excited about what you can do to make your life rich and enjoyable in 2012.


This will be the final update to this post because the "transition" back to ancestral eating turned out to be a ho-hum event with no difficulties whatsoever. Wednesday morning I will measure my waist and hips, begin my 2012 walking program and take my picture for use in a month or so to evaluate my progress. 


I lived in Wisconsin for many years and on Tuesday the Badgers are in the Rose Bowl. My menu will be ancestral but I plan to park myself in my recliner, celebrate, and watch lots of football. Food-wise, no major adjustments will be needed for weight loss but I do plan to moderate some of my daily portions starting Wednesday:

• Full-fat yogurt will drop from 2/3 cup to 1/2 c daily
• Total fruit will be reduced from 2-3 cups daily to 1 c or less
• Coffee will be reduced from 2 mugs to 1 (only because I'm not willing to reduce the cream/honey I add per mug. I'd rather have 1 yummy mug than 2 yucky ones) 

All together, the changes should make the difference between maintenance and slow-but-steady weight loss. Portions of meat and vegetables will stay the same (basically, as much as I want) but that will be subject to change if I don't lose weight in January.


If you have established a goal to lose weight after the holidays I strongly encourage you to measure your waist and your hips and make sure you can find the note in a month. You could measure other places, of course, but if your waist and/or hips are losing inches you can bet the rest of you is doing the same. Also, you can calculate your waist-to-hips-ratio.


Plan to re-measure about once per month. If you do it more often than monthly, you have an anxiety issue so just chill.  :-))  Okay, okay, if you HAVE to you can measure more often but don't expect dramatic changes every week. It's also a good idea to take your picture so you can compare monthly photos and monitor your progress. If you find yourself struggling to get your weight loss started, check back here. I plan to offer a few suggestions in my next post.


In my case, I admit I expected the end of holiday splurging to be a much different experience, based on my history of binge eating and sugar addiction, but I suffered no cravings for sugar and I'm happy as a clam to be back eating grain-free, sugar-free, additive-free whole foods. During the holiday season I have been very lazy so an important goal for me will be walking every other day until I can go at least 2 miles. When I can do that, I'll start using 3-day cycles in which I walk twice and rest once.

Today was very spur-of-the-moment and totally off plan. Oops! The shrimp are still in the freezer and will probably be my New Year's Day meal. I had my usual coffee and yogurt/fruit in the morning but I was on the go after mid-day and wound up grabbing things like a chunk of fried pork rind (2" by 5-6") a grapefruit, a 7.5 oz can of wild salmon which I ate as is--just stirred the juice back into the meat and sprinkled on a little salt, and my usual bottle of water kefir. 

New Year's Eve Dinner :-))

It was early evening by the time I sat down and enjoyed a leafy salad, and by then I didn't feel like eating anything else. It was fun to just do what felt right. Overall, what I ate was probably better suited to my state of mind that if I had forced myself to fix a fancy dinner.










Part II - late on 12/30/11

Happy New Year's Eve! (posted late on the 30th) My first day went well! For breakfast, I chopped a fermented fig and a ripe persimmon and mixed them in 1/2 c full-fat yogurt. 


 I fixed my salad at about 1 pm and sat in my recliner munching slowly in the way I used to enjoy a bag of chips. I ate my beef stew at about 2 pm; since it was a same-day stew the bones weren't quite completely clean so I dished some bones into the bowl and had a great time gnawing off the last of the cartilage and sucking out the last clinging bits of marrow. I also went back for seconds, so the bones in the second photo represent both helpings. On slow-cooked stews that have cooked longer, been chilled and then re-heated, the bones are clean and I just toss them. 

Bone Broth Stew

Nothing Left But Bones

I don't know whether to be happy or disappointed, but I had no cravings today. I mean, where's the heroic sacrifice? I had a plan ready and my willpower was poised to execute but nothing happened. It was anti-climactic, really. Okay, I'm kidding. It was a relief to have this first day go so well and it gives me confidence going into tomorrow.


I expect stronger cravings on New Years Eve. At the very least I want to be mentally prepared in case they strike hard. I'm going to do some laundry at mid-day to keep me away from the fridge for a while and then I'll eat my main meal later in the day so there's less time to think about food afterward. 


My planned menu is suitably festive: fried pork rind (I buy a brand that comes in large chunks rather than machine-cut pieces,) salad, shrimp and eggs sauteed in butter and--wait for it--broccoli cooked in bone broth. In honor of the holiday, I'll finish with one square of 90% chocolate. You may not have noticed, but you can now buy chocolate bars at your regular supermarket that are nearly pure chocolate. I find that greater than 90% doesn't taste good enough to be a treat but 90% or even 85% tastes great without causing binge cravings.


My New Year's Eve will be quiet. The grandkid is spending the night at a friend's place and I will watch the Eastern time zone's celebration with a fizzy water kefir.


Part 1:  Originally posted on the morning of 12/30/2011

I'm calling an early end to my holiday "open eating" season. The plan was to stop splurging on Jan 3rd, but for a number of reasons today is the day. Don't worry, I will have home-made eggnog and other ancestral goodies this weekend but I won't eat any more processed/commercial treats.

One reason for the accelerated schedule is that it isn't fun any more. I mean, in the past few days I'd look back at what I ate each day and the food that tasted the best was never one of the splurges--it was the yogurt and fruit, or the brussels sprouts cooked in bone broth, or the bacon bites. So why bother?

Two other reasons for stopping are more ominous: It was becoming important to have a neolithic treat every day AND I was starting to feel physical signs of an unhappy GI tract--tingling down my arms, uneasy stomach and bloated gut. It really makes you wonder why I would start to feel strong urges to eat more of food that didn't even agree with me, doesn't it?

So, if you're also trying to shift what you eat--a little or a lot--I invite you to join me as I head back to the health and well-being of ancestral eating.  If you just want to keep me company as I jot down my results for the next few days that would be great too. I will post daily updates at the top of this post for the next week or so until I feel confident I am safely through New Years weekend and back onto my ancestral routine.


This morning is easy--two mugs of coffee. I always put a little heavy cream and a tsp of honey in mine and I happen to think it eases any urge to eat first thing. Others drink it black. You do what you want, but I do best with a light "breakfast" at mid-day and my main meal in the afternoon.


My breakfast will be about half a cup of home-made yogurt with a fermented fig (from my water kefir brew) and a banana. Doesn't sound like a diet, does it? It isn't; it's a lifestyle and you don't punish yourself, you just ease your way to better shape. Some in the ancestral community avoid dairy but I do use cream, butter and yogurt although in moderate amounts.


I don't plan to eat a snack today but if I feel I need one I'll eat a can of sardines. With or without the sardines I will drink a bottle or two of home-made water kefir.

My main meal will be a salad and a large bowl of bone broth stew. I started the stew this morning but first let's talk about the salad. I like rich-colored leaf lettuce. It tastes good and has lots of volume to make me feel like I've eaten a lot of food. I add a green onion and some celery (think crunch) and some cucumber. Oil and vinegar with a little salt and pepper and it's great to sit and crunch the salad. I sit in my recliner and I take my time to slowly munch my way through the bowl. It should be a relaxing interval rather than an intense workout for the jaw.

Okay, about the stew. At a local market, I found 2 small packages of inexpensive meat/bones--a hunk of marrow bone sliced into several thin slices and a cross-cut piece of shank. I also found a small package of 3 cross-sections of beef tail. All together, the meat/bone items cost about $7 and the meat/broth will be good for at least 3 meals. Since I always have bone broth on hand, I didn't put water on the meat after I seared it in fat from the previous stew--I added rich broth and vegetables from the previous batch. I brought it all to a boil and it will simmer gently all day until I'm ready to eat it.

Bone Broth Stew

Note: I added a lot of broth to the bowl after taking the photo; I just wanted the solids to show up well.  I won't add vegetables today as there are brussels sprouts and carrots I added a day or two ago, but whenever the stew runs out of meat or vegetables I just add what I want. I frequently add a dose of cod liver oil to the broth just before eating (not into the main stew.) I will eat as much as I want, there's no need to walk away hungry. The salad will take care of portion control anyhow. 


If you're not comfortable without breakfast, have the meat of your choice plus eggs. If you want a meal in the evening, have the meat of your choice and 1 or 2 vegetables. Something like asparagus and maybe 1/3 of a sweet potato or half of a white one with butter.


Talk to you tomorrow!

On the Edge of the Precipice

A little dramatic with the title, don't you think? After all, I am a pudgy grandma and not the type you'd imagine standing on the edge of a precipice.

And yet I am. After a life of binge eating and yo-yo dieting, it appears I've finally found the solution in ancestral eating. It took months, but I can now "hear" the signals my body gives when I eat good/bad things.

I've done so well in 2011 that I deliberately chose to splurge for the holidays. In the past, I had to be perfect on any diet because the first time I "fell off the wagon" it was the beginning of a binge that lasted until I regained all my weight back and then continued on to an even higher weight. I need to know if that has really changed. So, on November 15th I officially declared an "open eating" season.

So far, so good, but I'd be lying if I pretended not to be nervous about the upcoming end of open season on January 3rd. 

On the good side, I have had a specific treat or two on a given day rather than anything close to a binge and I have comfortably had no treats at all on many days. I made a bad choice when I tested my wheat tolerance with shortbread, but home-made eggnog and 85% chocolate were fine. I even ate ice cream once and nothing terrible happened. Extra fruit on my yogurt has just been extra fruit. On the bad side, though, I have been thinking about food more and have noticed that I'm feeling cravings late in the day sometimes although I easily ignore them.

So here I stand, knowing I can either turn and walk away toward the healthy ancestral eating that resulted in the loss of half my excess body fat OR I can throw myself off the cliff and dive into bags and boxes of processed foods. Obviously, my rational side fully intends to turn and walk away but that other, compulsive and self-destructive side is hovering near the edge. 

 

Why did I put myself at risk? Well, I want it all. I want to have an occasional treat and still reach and maintain a normal weight. I want to know that my inner shadows are under control. I want to be able to relax and celebrate major holidays confident in the knowledge that I can and will return to sensible eating.

January 3rd is coming. We'll see what happens then.

Ho! Ho! Ho!

Like many others, I'll be seeing some family members at Christmas and missing others. I derived some comfort from sending gift cards to those far away and I derived additional comfort and some laughs from visiting with friends. And I'm very lucky to have my grandson living with me; when he's not making me feel really old, he makes me feel younger.


I'll be traveling today and eating at a buffet in Vegas. That should be interesting; I'm hoping to find enough "ancestral" foods that I don't have to risk more digestive upset OR feel deprived. Yes, I'm a little wary due to the shortbread I convinced myself would be okay earlier this week. You can read  yesterday's post if you want to know more about that sorry episode.


Update: I was very pleased with the foods offered at the buffet at The Fiesta in Henderson, NV. There was good news on 2 counts: the foods I was able to find and how immune I was to the foods that would've been tempting a year ago. On the latter, when I looked at them it was as if they were plaster figurines; I had no interest in eating them. My selections: an orange, a leafy salad with good color, brussels sprouts, cauliflower, a tsp of black-eyed peas and another of chickpeas, pulled pork, beef brisket, crayfish. For dessert I nabbed a small-scoop coconut sweet that had a hint of lemon flavor.


Now the preparations are as done as they're going to be and I plan to eat "bacon bites", some sauteed duck and home-made eggnog.


Have a great holiday!

Why Did I Do That?

“It’s the holidays—why can’t I have a piece of shortbread?” That’s how it started. You see, this year I discovered after a month or 2 of ancestral eating that I have trouble with wheat. Long-standing health complaints disappeared and I felt better than I could ever remember.

So, walking around a store last week I saw Walker’s shortbread and thought, “Maybe if I just eat one cookie per day it’ll be fine.”

Day 1 – I ate one cookie and felt fine afterward. Maybe this’ll work! Yay!

Day 2 – Woke up with a stuffy nose. That’s not so bad—I’ll take that if it means I can have a cookie every day. At bedtime, I noticed a little itchiness when I changed clothes for bed. Also a light hacking cough.

Day 3 – Nose a little stuffier. Went for Mexican food and had 2 tacos—the shells were crisp so I assume they were corn. (2 hours later) Itchy! I want to scratch myself bloody! (5 hours later) Woke up in the middle of the night and my hip was killing me. Also noticed a little heartburn.

Day 4 – Nose at the level of a mild cold. Still feel some general itching on my skin. I’m thinking those taco shells were at least partially wheat. My brain is foggy and I'm not thinking very quickly. My thumb is swollen and stiff, so either I hurt it somehow or the hip and thumb reacted to the grain. I now think it’s not  a “GI intolerance” for wheat but an allergic reaction.

So, instead of thinking “one cookie per day will be fine” I’m now thinking, “Why did I do that?”

An Excess of Holiday Ham?

Yesterday my day started as usual, with 2 mugs of coffee, each with a little heavy cream and about 1tsp of honey. At mid-day, I had my usual dish of 2/3 c. home-made yogurt with a banana and a fermented fig (more on the fig later.)


So, in late afternoon, I decided to have some ham. This is not a strict "ancestral" ham because it's not from a pastured hog and I'm sure it was sugar cured. You know the type I mean, a ready-to-eat shoulder with the bone still in. I have plans for that bone, but for now I'm just going to freeze it.


Now about my meal--normally, I make a leafy green salad that marinates for a bit in vinegar and olive oil. And I usually have raw and/or cooked vegetables, and maybe a piece of whole fruit for dessert.


But not yesterday. No, I carved myself a huge slice of ham from around that bone, browned the slice of ham in a skillet and made a feast of it. It was about the regular thickness for a ham steak, but I would normally eat about half of a round with the salad and veggies.


That slice filled my dinner plate! And nothing ever tasted better. Ham has never been my favorite meat, so I only have it once or twice per year, but I am a woman who hasn't had refined sugar in 8 months (well, except for that binge in August) and my taste buds actually work now. The sweet, delicate flavor of the ham inspired me to eat that whole slice with gusto.


How, you ask, was I punished for eating a large meal of nothing but ham?


Umm . . . well . . . I WASN'T! When I woke up this morning, alert and well-rested, I had that tell-tale feeling when you know you've lost a little fat overnight. When I walked my dogs I was light on my feet and I had tons of energy; my waist was the same size as it was on Nov. 15th when I went on my holiday rules.


So, the moral of the story is that if you really feel like a big meal go for nothing but meat. It's not the ham that'll make you fat, it's the bread and mashed potatoes and pie. There's no such thing as an excess of holiday ham!


P.S. The fig I mentioned above is a dehydrated (unsweetened, unsulphured) fig I put in the pitcher when I brewed the previous day's water kefir. It soaks up the brew and becomes the juiciest, most delicious fig you ever had. I change out the other fruit every second or third day, but I have to put in a new fig every day because I just can't resist them.

My Holiday Rules

Since April 2011, I have lost nearly 40 pounds. Since September, when I first measured it, I have lost 4 inches from my waist. Since I improved how I feel and my energy level at the same time, I feel good about the way I approached eating in 2011.

My holiday rules make sense to me, but they may offend ancestral eating purists. First, I defined the “holiday season” as beginning November 15th and ending February 13, 2012 which is my birthday. The general rule for the season is that I will try to maintain my reduced weight. My intent is to have this time as an annual rest period when I can relax somewhat about nutrition and my weight while maintaining an awareness of my health and reactions to food.

As of today, December 13^th, I have maintained the same weight or perhaps lost a pound or so since mid-November. It will only get harder in December, of course. For one thing, I spurned all conventional dishes at Thanksgiving and just hit the ancestral meats, vegetables and fruits hard. Secondly, on a day-to-day basis the only change I’ve made is eating full-fat yogurt every day. As mentioned previously, I make the yogurt at home so I can spike the fat content and avoid additives.

As we get closer to Christmas I’m sure I will partake of some conventional treats. I’ll just keep my portions small and keep an eye on my waistline. After New Year’s I expect to go back to typical ancestral eating, and will be in weight loss mode if I did gain at Christmas, but for the Super Bowl and my birthday I expect to be naughty again. I will then focus on nutrition and exercise as I did last year—2012 should be the year I achieve normal weight!