Primal days 1 and 2 - Electric Bugaloo...
So we're two days in. Unfortunately, day 1 wasn't OMG amazing like it was supposed to be. I'd eaten a heavier dinner Wednesday night, so when I woke up, I didn't eat breakfast. (This concept, called Intermittent Fasting, is a take-or-leave concept with Primal... I chose to stay fasting because I wasn't hungry).
So I woke up, went to Open Gym to coach for 2 hours. Then had another hours' worth of Vball-related stuff to do at school. Came home, was approaching the evil side of hungry. Husband was like-wise. I shared with him my conundrum - nothing prepared for us to eat, not willing to wait an hour while a whole chicken cooked, so realizing that I needed to go out for either whole food that cooks faster or just order out. With a lot of gnashing of teeth on my part (and lots of understanding and leaving the decision of lunch up to me on his part), I ended up going for the local pizza place that rocks our world. I bought a meatball appetizer and our normal half cheese/half sausage pie. I had full intentions of eating the 3/4 meatball app myself and giving him 3/4 of the pizza. But it didn't happen that way, we split 50/50. And I had a Coke... well, like 1/2 of it.
For dinner, I'd picked up some beef liver, onions, and asparagus. I'd never had liver before, being one of sound mind who immediately thinks "Why would anyone want to eat the organ that detoxifies this organism's system?". But I decided to be a big brave dog, conjured up images of the TV show Doug from my childhood, and endeavored forth. The husband suggested that I hadn't bought liver after all, so he was making chicken fried steak for us. The level of my weirdness and paranoia was brought down a little by this, but I still refused to look at the slab of dark red chilling out on a plate on our counter while he fried up the onions in some bacon grease.
In the end, I ate half of my chicken breast size piece of liver. It wasn't horrible, as I'd been expecting. It didn't smack of toxicity. In fact, it was pretty flavorless except for a mild beefy taste. The consistency is apparently the issue for most people... it didn't have a substantial mouth-feel. The dredging in flour with lots of pepper and then frying in salty bacon grease made it pretty good. The end verdict is that I can't imagine passing up more traditional beef forms for liver, but in a pinch, it's meat. I made sure to take some bites with the onion, which made the liver much tastier, actually. The asparagus-agus was fantastic, as per usual!
Generally emotion-wise, I was even-keel all Thursday. Whether this is the new norm remains to be seen, since I did break that fast with some carby cheesy tasty washed down with one of my favorite HFCS-laden drinks.
So now it's Friday. Woke up at 9:45, much to my chagrin since I'd set my alarm for 7 to try to condition for an early bedtime tonight. Oops, I think I turned it off instead of on. About an hour after waking, I decided I was hungry. With an exclamation "Oh yes, oh yes, Oh Gods yes!" I remembered that not only was there bacon from yesterday when the husband needed bacon grease for the liver, but there was also substantial leftover grease too. Kaloo-calay! Scrambled eggs made in bacon grease and bacon for breakfast. It had been so long since I'd had eggs made with bacon grease, I'd forgotten how heretical making scrambled eggs without it is. Delicious.
That was mid-morning brunch type stuff.
Around 2, I had some cold-cut turkey and a granny smith apple. The batch of apples that we have right now is crisp and have a good bite to them. About 3, I had another apple.
I still had a chicken sitting around waiting to be cooked. I put it into the crock pot
with some tomatoes, mushrooms, onion, and garlic. It's tomorrow's dinner... chicken will be flavorful, going to reduce the rest down to a good sauce.
As for my own dinner, when I went to the store to get the mushrooms, they had a family pack of chuck steaks on sale for under $4. Substantial amount of meat (and fat) for really cheap. Good for stir-fry especially, so that's what I did. I decided to make my own Primal fajitas. Primal eating means this recipe didn't benefit from a tortilla or any beans. I couldn't pass on cheese, though I went more sparing than I normally would. After trimming all three steaks of the large parts of fat, I rendered the fat in the pan so I'd have some oil to fry the veggies and the meat in. Two of the steaks got chopped into strips, then put into the deep freeze. I caramelized the onions and peppers then threw the steak in. Originally, I was going to put it all over fresh spinach, but I decided it would taste better if it was all hot, so I tossed in my planned 2 cups of spinach into the pan to wilt a little. After the spinach wilted, I sprinkled the cheese on, stuck it in the oven for a couple of minutes, then pulled it out and plated. Spooned some salsa on top and was set...
We had some blackberries (damn they're good right now, go buy some!). One of my favorite things when we go to Chili's is their blackberry lemonade. So I made a primal version. Used honey instead of table sugar, blended the lemon juice, berries, honey and some hot water together in the blender, then added the rest of the cold water. The result was something that I could tell was supposed to be blackberry lemonade. I could taste the blackberries, I could taste the lemon (though I'd like it to be a little more present than it was) and I could really taste the honey. If I hadn't been looking at the pink-purple stuff I was drinking, I would have sworn it was tea, but I'm not sure why. Maybe because the combo of lemon and honey reads "tea" to my tastebuds. Or maybe because I like blackberry sage tea? Not sure. It wasn't bad at all, but didn't fit the exact taste I was looking for.
Emotionally, still even-keel. Not experiencing the sugar-withdrawal headaches I've been expecting. Willpower hasn't been a problem, walked through lots of aisles of crap at the store and didn't feel tempted. Feeling full for long periods of time rocks, btw! I don't feel like I'm having the blood sugar swings I used to have all the time. Hopefully that effect will last!
Tomorrow, I have a Vball tournament all day. One of the reasons I ate heavy this evening was because I plan to fast through til lunch tomorrow. Packing my own food, which out of what we have will probably be a couple of apples, a clementine, some cold cut turkey... and I guess that's it. Need to go figure that out before bed, which should really be soon since I have to be at that tournament by 7am and I'm leaving at 6! Yikes... goodbye summer. I'll miss you!
So I woke up, went to Open Gym to coach for 2 hours. Then had another hours' worth of Vball-related stuff to do at school. Came home, was approaching the evil side of hungry. Husband was like-wise. I shared with him my conundrum - nothing prepared for us to eat, not willing to wait an hour while a whole chicken cooked, so realizing that I needed to go out for either whole food that cooks faster or just order out. With a lot of gnashing of teeth on my part (and lots of understanding and leaving the decision of lunch up to me on his part), I ended up going for the local pizza place that rocks our world. I bought a meatball appetizer and our normal half cheese/half sausage pie. I had full intentions of eating the 3/4 meatball app myself and giving him 3/4 of the pizza. But it didn't happen that way, we split 50/50. And I had a Coke... well, like 1/2 of it.
For dinner, I'd picked up some beef liver, onions, and asparagus. I'd never had liver before, being one of sound mind who immediately thinks "Why would anyone want to eat the organ that detoxifies this organism's system?". But I decided to be a big brave dog, conjured up images of the TV show Doug from my childhood, and endeavored forth. The husband suggested that I hadn't bought liver after all, so he was making chicken fried steak for us. The level of my weirdness and paranoia was brought down a little by this, but I still refused to look at the slab of dark red chilling out on a plate on our counter while he fried up the onions in some bacon grease.
In the end, I ate half of my chicken breast size piece of liver. It wasn't horrible, as I'd been expecting. It didn't smack of toxicity. In fact, it was pretty flavorless except for a mild beefy taste. The consistency is apparently the issue for most people... it didn't have a substantial mouth-feel. The dredging in flour with lots of pepper and then frying in salty bacon grease made it pretty good. The end verdict is that I can't imagine passing up more traditional beef forms for liver, but in a pinch, it's meat. I made sure to take some bites with the onion, which made the liver much tastier, actually. The asparagus-agus was fantastic, as per usual!
Generally emotion-wise, I was even-keel all Thursday. Whether this is the new norm remains to be seen, since I did break that fast with some carby cheesy tasty washed down with one of my favorite HFCS-laden drinks.
So now it's Friday. Woke up at 9:45, much to my chagrin since I'd set my alarm for 7 to try to condition for an early bedtime tonight. Oops, I think I turned it off instead of on. About an hour after waking, I decided I was hungry. With an exclamation "Oh yes, oh yes, Oh Gods yes!" I remembered that not only was there bacon from yesterday when the husband needed bacon grease for the liver, but there was also substantial leftover grease too. Kaloo-calay! Scrambled eggs made in bacon grease and bacon for breakfast. It had been so long since I'd had eggs made with bacon grease, I'd forgotten how heretical making scrambled eggs without it is. Delicious.
That was mid-morning brunch type stuff.
Around 2, I had some cold-cut turkey and a granny smith apple. The batch of apples that we have right now is crisp and have a good bite to them. About 3, I had another apple.
I still had a chicken sitting around waiting to be cooked. I put it into the crock pot
with some tomatoes, mushrooms, onion, and garlic. It's tomorrow's dinner... chicken will be flavorful, going to reduce the rest down to a good sauce.
As for my own dinner, when I went to the store to get the mushrooms, they had a family pack of chuck steaks on sale for under $4. Substantial amount of meat (and fat) for really cheap. Good for stir-fry especially, so that's what I did. I decided to make my own Primal fajitas. Primal eating means this recipe didn't benefit from a tortilla or any beans. I couldn't pass on cheese, though I went more sparing than I normally would. After trimming all three steaks of the large parts of fat, I rendered the fat in the pan so I'd have some oil to fry the veggies and the meat in. Two of the steaks got chopped into strips, then put into the deep freeze. I caramelized the onions and peppers then threw the steak in. Originally, I was going to put it all over fresh spinach, but I decided it would taste better if it was all hot, so I tossed in my planned 2 cups of spinach into the pan to wilt a little. After the spinach wilted, I sprinkled the cheese on, stuck it in the oven for a couple of minutes, then pulled it out and plated. Spooned some salsa on top and was set...
We had some blackberries (damn they're good right now, go buy some!). One of my favorite things when we go to Chili's is their blackberry lemonade. So I made a primal version. Used honey instead of table sugar, blended the lemon juice, berries, honey and some hot water together in the blender, then added the rest of the cold water. The result was something that I could tell was supposed to be blackberry lemonade. I could taste the blackberries, I could taste the lemon (though I'd like it to be a little more present than it was) and I could really taste the honey. If I hadn't been looking at the pink-purple stuff I was drinking, I would have sworn it was tea, but I'm not sure why. Maybe because the combo of lemon and honey reads "tea" to my tastebuds. Or maybe because I like blackberry sage tea? Not sure. It wasn't bad at all, but didn't fit the exact taste I was looking for.
Emotionally, still even-keel. Not experiencing the sugar-withdrawal headaches I've been expecting. Willpower hasn't been a problem, walked through lots of aisles of crap at the store and didn't feel tempted. Feeling full for long periods of time rocks, btw! I don't feel like I'm having the blood sugar swings I used to have all the time. Hopefully that effect will last!
Tomorrow, I have a Vball tournament all day. One of the reasons I ate heavy this evening was because I plan to fast through til lunch tomorrow. Packing my own food, which out of what we have will probably be a couple of apples, a clementine, some cold cut turkey... and I guess that's it. Need to go figure that out before bed, which should really be soon since I have to be at that tournament by 7am and I'm leaving at 6! Yikes... goodbye summer. I'll miss you!