I Thought Green Beans Weren't Paleo?!

I thought beans weren't paleo so why are green beans?
Is honey paleo?
Are potatoes paleo?
Are "paleo-fied" foods paleo?
Bacon isn't paleo, is it?

I come across questions like this frequently. I see them in the comments of other blog posts and I get asked them as well. In fact, a friend asked me today if wine is paleo.

Before I started this most recent Whole 30 I always identified myself as primal rather than paleo. The main reason was that I eat dairy. But, I also felt that the self-proclaimed primal folks, the Mark Sisson followers, were more laid back about the "rules" (they have that whole 80/20 principle after all) and that sits better with me. Paleo is supposed to be a lifestyle after all, not a diet where you count calories or struggle with feelings of deprivation constantly. As I've explored this paleo concept further this past month though, I've become more comfortable with calling myself paleo and living it in whatever way makes sense to me (I'll let you know that part when I figure it out).

And this is why I was really excited to stumble upon this article from Chris Kresser and his idea of moving from a paleo "diet" (which is a really misleading term to start with) to a paleo "template". I highly recommend you check out the article, it's a quick read, but here's the gist:

I suggest we stop trying to define the “Paleo diet” and start thinking about it instead as a “Paleo template”.

What’s the difference? A Paleo diet implies a particular approach with clearly defined parameters that all people should follow. There’s little room for individual variation or experimentation.

A Paleo template implies a more flexible and individualized approach. A template contains a basic format or set of general guidelines that can then be customized based on the unique needs and experience of each person.

But here’s the key difference between a Paleo diet and a Paleo template: following a diet doesn’t encourage the participant to think, experiment or consider his or her specific circumstances, while following a template does.

He goes on to give his general guidelines for a paleo template, but the main point is that you should "experiment and observe" to figure out what your "optimal diet" is. Yes! Yes! Yes! Thank you Mr. Kresser for so eloquently speaking my mind and giving it clear terminology (part of my old college days in residence life and the discussions of the importance of our words stick with me to this day). I originally discovered Mr. Kresser's blog because of a great article on whether dairy can be part of an appropriate diet; he struck me as grounded in common sense. So now with the discovery of this article, I'm really excited to delve into more of his site.

Want to check it out at some point in the future? I did a little blog improvement earlier today and now you can conveniently find links to some of my favorite paleo blogs in the links section on the right. I've also added a fun little Widget from Daily Mile, which is the site that I use to track my workouts so you'll see my most recent workout every time you check my blog. If you're super curious what I've been up to (or want to see if I've been slacking so you can yell at me) you can click through to the site through the widget and see all of my workouts. I'm sure you guys will get right on that. :P

Whole 30 Wrap Up

Well let me start off by saying that I am horrified it's taken me so long to write this post. From my staycation with the girls to a work crisis that I returned to I really haven't had time. :( Let me also just apologize now for how long this post is likely going to be.

I realize that I haven't even given you a good idea of why I started this Whole 30/Crossfit challenge in the first place. There are many reasons, but the main ones were increased overall fitness, weight loss, increased energy and dealing with low blood sugar issues, and dealing with some gut issues I have. So let me just take them one by one:

1. Increased overall fitness - Check!

How does one really measure overall fitness? I think that's hard to say and unfortunately I didn't do anything like test my maximum weight for various exercises when I started Crossfit. What I can tell you is that I have vastly improved my upper body and leg strength and I see that both in not only the number of reps I can do in Crossfit (things like air squats, push-ups, pull-ups, etc.), but also in my flexibility when I do them. I also don't have the overwhelming soreness after each workout that I did for the first couple of weeks, despite the fact that I am doing a lot more in each workout. To give you some idea, here's the WOD I did in my second basics class:

25 pull-ups
25 push-ups
25 sit-ups
25 squats

It took me approximately 12 minutes to complete it. Today, in less than 15 minutes I completed this WOD:

1000m Row
50 Sit-ups
40 Squats
30 Push-ups
20 KB Swings (35lb)
10 Bear Crawls (10m each)

This was the first time I used the 35 lb kettleball (I had previously been using the 26 lb ball) and it killed me (as did the bear crawls) so my time would have been significantly faster had I stuck with the lower weight.

Finally (and perhaps most importantly?) I also notice a large difference when doing things in my every day life, like carrying 40-50 lb boxes of dog meat up the several flights of stairs into my condo. The proof is in the pudding as they say.

2. Weight Loss

Well, even while adding weight from muscle gain, I lost 8 1/2 pounds in these 4 weeks so definitely CHECK!! I also went down a couple of belt buckle sizes and managed to easily fit into a pair of jeans that previously left a sizeable muffin top, even with Spanx (yep, just admitted on the WWW to wearing Spanx and having a giant muffin top, awesome).

3. Increased energy/address blood sugar issues

There's no doubt that eating paleo addresses my blood sugar issues and leaves me with a lot more energy. That's also true of primal eating, which is why I've been doing it off and on for years. In the past, my blood sugar issues have been so bad (if I get overhungry I start to feel ill and turn very cranky) that a close friend of mine gave it a name, "hangry" (hungry + angry, get it?), lol. When I'm eating "cleanly" I can go much longer stretches without eating without feeling sick at all.

I've also had a ton more energy this past month, although I have to attribute that in part to my increased water consumption and better sleep. Of course, these are both parts of a paleo lifestyle as well and everything ties together. Replace coffee with a lot of water, work out really hard, fall into a deep sleep all night, nourish your body with good nutrient-dense food, repeat. It's a recipe for success for sure!

4. Gut Issues

I'm going to spare you the details, but in short, I've had IBS issues for some time, and they seem to have become more problematic as I age. The bigger issue is that about 3-4 years ago I started having these strange periods of excruciating gut pain that would wake me up in the middle of the night and last into the following day. After lots of testing and multiple visits to my GI Dr, he eventually just threw his hands up and chalked it up to my IBS. For a while I thought the episodes were stress related, but when I started having them occasionally during stress free periods of my life, I realized that wasn't entirely true (although there is absolutely a connection). Certainly my IBS is another main reason that I've generally tried to eat primally in the past.

If I needed any further convincing, over the Christmas holiday and into my birthday mid-January, I went totally off the rails. I knew I would be doing the Whole 30 soon so I gave myself permission to not only not be primal, but to have whatever the heck I wanted, which included a lot of crap I wouldn't typically eat - things like chips and french onion dip, store bought desserts, etc. By the time I started my Whole 30 my stomach was a mess. I had several of the really painful overnight episodes, I was having all of my usual "daily" problems and a new symptom had arrived, heartburn.

It took a few weeks, but by the end of the Whole 30, I was feeling pretty good. I was still supplementing with fiber, but considering what I had done to myself and knowing it would take a while to heal, I felt good. Then this weekend I had a lot of things I hadn't had for a while and the result was the reappearance of every single issue aside from the major overnight episodes.

The overwhelming reccurrence is likely a function of a few things, including overindulging on quite a few things in a small timespan, but if I needed any convincing that eating paleo is right for me (I didn't), this weekend was certainly it.

And that my friends is that - I think I can say that I've safely achieved my goals. Yay me! :)

Okay, so if you've stuck it out this long, I did mention before & after pictures. I cannot believe I'm going to post these here, but what the heck. And I figure if I'm going to do it, go big or go home so I'm giving you some of the most ridiculous poses ever. Please feel free to make fun of them, my body, the looks on my face, or anything else you see fit. I absolutely deserve it for publishing these on the web! You can click on them to enlarge if you dare.

BEFORE:

(BTW, this was about 9 days before I started my Whole 30, 9 days of continued crappy eating so I was actually even a bit flabbier when I started.)

AFTER:

Obviously I still have a lot of work to do, but I'm on the right track. On that note, for the indefinite future (at least the next month or two so I can get my gut back in order), I plan to stay strict paleo (pretty much Whole 30 strict as much as possible) during the week and "regular" paleo on the weekends although I will make exceptions for the occasional dinner club or night out with friends. I am also totally sucked into Crossfit so I'll be sticking to a combination of that, swimming, and cycling as I have been.

So have I convinced any of you to give paleo eating or Crossfit a try? 

Whole 30...Check!

Holy crap my abs are sore!!

Now that we've got that out of the way, today is the big day. The last day of my Whole 30 and the final reveal of how much improvement I made. Sadly, I've run out of time to give you the rundown. I know, I suck. :(

I could just give you the numbers, but to be honest, while losing weight was certainly part of the motivation for my doing this, there was so much more to it and it doesn't seem fair to share one part without the others so my pets, you'll just have to wait. And while I might get to it by tomorrow, it's more likely gonna' be a few days as I have a friend in town from CA and we've got a FUN-filled 3-day weekend planned.

So sit tight, and check back in a day or two. Until then, let me just say this:

I DID IT!!!! 

:P

One More Day To Go!

Only one more day to go in my Whole 30 and first month of Crossfit!! In the interest of full disclosure, I feel I should let you know that technically Saturday morning would be my first non-Whole 30 day, but since I have a friend in town from CA who I'm getting together with for dinner tomorrow night (to commence a fun filled weekend!) I will not be totally abstaining from about 7 pm on. I still plan to eat paleo and limit my alcohol consumption to a drink or two, but basically the Whole 30 is ending about 5 hours early. Hey, what can I say? Sometimes you have to make sacrifices for your friends.

Some other random tidbits. First off, I was really on a roll with my kitchen reorganization and a friend had me thinking about how much I hated the 2 plastic "bendy" cutting boards that have become totally worn and warped from the dishwasher so I went trolling at my favorite place to get kitchen supplies...get ready to be surprised....Ross Dress for Less. Seriously, no joke, check out what I scored for $50!

-That's a large plastic cutting board on the bottom left that just happens to match a smaller one that I own and that is my most frequently used cutting board. Good bye bendy boards -they went in the recycling bin yesterday.
-The little gadgets are a kitchen timer so I stop tuning out my microwave timer and burning things and an oven thermometer (turns out my oven does run about 25 degrees hot).
-A set of drying mats, towels and washclothes
-A basket to store all of the dog/cat/human supplements that had been cluttering my kitchen counter. Seriously, that basket, which now sits on top of my fridge is full. Please picture the counter space I was wasting, thanks.
-A set of 4 placemats that go with the 4 I previously purchased at RDFL
-A bag of organic coconut palm sugar. I know, random, right?
-And the piece de resistance, the thing I absolutely had no business spending money on except that now that I got those magnetic boards hung, I'm on a roll (and it was only $10 :P) - a magnetic dry-erase board for keeping tabs on my grocery list and what's in my freezer!

To say I love that store would be an understatement. I've gotten so much good stuff there over the years including a giant bamboo cutting board, my current drinking glasses, wine glasses and champagne flutes, the list goes on. I've also scored some great shoes and boots there ladies.

What else do you need to know? Oh, I tried 2 new recipes from Michelle at Nom Nom. The first were her Kale Chips. I've made kale chips before, but it had been a while so I followed her instructions. I had about a 1/2 a lb of chopped kale leftover from when I made that cacciatore so I tossed those with some walnut oil (didn't have the avocado oil she called for):

and popped them in the oven. Her timing was spot on and in 12 minutes I had a delicious and healthy snack. They're crispy, savory, and nutty - everything you could want in a snack - except that they're ridiculously good for you, win!

I also made a Garbage Stir Fry for the first time so I'd have a few days worth of healthy lunch to get me through the last days of my Whole 30. I had just cooked off a pound of sage breakfast sausage links so I sauteed some spring onions to the fat in the pan (waste not, want not, right?), then added some sliced cremini mushrooms and cooked them until they had some color. Then I added a pound of Polyface ground beef and about 1 1/2T of Savory Spice's Mt. Elbert all-purpose seasoning. Finally I added a bag of broccoli slaw from Trader Joe's and a bit more salt. It took me all of about 10 minutes and the result was delicious:

The best thing about this recipe is that it's really just a guideline. You can use any combination of fat, protein, veggies and spice that you think will work well together and it's an excellent way to use up leftovers from your fridge.

Time for me to head to the pool. Stay tuned for the big reveal tomorrow. How much weight have I lost. How many inches? Will I share my before and after photos? Does anyone actually want to see them? Only time will tell. ;)

Pork! Pork! Pork!

I know large numbers of you are dying to know what that meal was that I posted a picture of yesterday. It was actually a dish I was recipe testing for Stacy from Paleo Parents, who I had the pleasure of meeting recently at a paleo potluck and who has a new cookbook coming out shortly called Beyond Bacon (you can pre-order it on Amazon now).

The recipe called for both lard and pork stock, neither of which I had on hand. I did however have 5 lbs of pork fat from Polyface that had been sitting in my freezer waiting to be made into lard for quite some time so this gave me the perfect excuse! I'd never made lard before, but it's incredibly simple to do using a crockpot.

Before I got that going, I did some prep for my pork stock. Thankfully Lynne (from Ferguson Family Farm) had bones and trotters available so I asked her to add them to my order for the drop on Sunday. I put about 2 1/2 lbs of those bones and 1 trotter on a roasting pan lined with heavy duty foil:

and roasted them at 450 degrees for about 45 minutes, turning them over about 30 minutes through:

By the way, I consulted two of my favorite resources for making stock, Michael Ruhlman's The Elements of Cooking and Judy Roger's The Zuni Cafe Cookbook and determined that in this case roasting the bones to get rid of the "gunk" beforehand, rather than having to skim the stock part way through cooking made more sense. The bones then went into my stockpot along with a bay leaf and a few black peppercorns and were covered with water (about 10 cups) and set in the oven, which was preheated to about 250 degrees.

The pork fat then went into the crockpot and because mine tends to run hot, I set it at warm. Once I doublechecked, about an hour in, that the stock was at a good temperature (according to Ruhlman ~180 degrees is the ideal temperature for making stock), I went to bed and let my crockpot and oven do the work for me. In the morning I added some roughly chopped onion, celery, and carrots to the stock and let it simmer for about an hour longer, then I strained it through cheesecloth. The leftover chunks of fat got pulled out of the crockpot (those got frozen in small pieces to be fed to my dogs later) and the lard got strained as well. With minimal work on my part, I now had a nice stockpile of lard and pork stock:

Look at this beautiful white creaminess once the lard was chilled:

At that point, I was ready to start on the Beyond Bacon dish, a pork bucco. While I can't share the recipe with you (you'll have to order the cookbook to get that), I can tell you that the recipe followed a fairly traditional recipe for braising meats, but with the twist of using fresh pork hocks (also known as shanks), a very under-utilized cut of meat. I had planned to serve it alongside cauliflower parsnip puree, but parsnips were nowhere to be found so instead I made a cauliflower celeriac puree. The celeriac got chopped and cooked in boiling salted water while the cauliflower got steamed (I did this in the same pot using my stockpot and steaming basket, brilliant!). While those were draining in a colander, I melted some ghee in the pot and added some crushed garlic. Then the veg got dumped back in with some of the cooking water, salt, and white pepper and I pureed it using my stick blender until smooth. And that was that, pork bucco with cauliflower-celeriac puree:

By the way, I'm testing another recipe from the cookbook, maple pecan lard scones. Stacy made these for the paleo potluck where I met her, but because they weren't Whole 30 compliant I couldn't taste them, which pretty much killed me! So I'm super excited to make them in just a few short days. I am dreaming of having one with my first cup of coffee. I'll be sure to let you know how they are. ;)

Double Whammy

I did a lot of cooking this weekend and most of it involved pork. Fatty delicious pastured heritage pork. I want so badly to tell you all about it and show you pretty pictures, but today I decided in addition to my scheduled cycling class it would also be a good idea to go to Crossfit, which is exactly what I did. I took a quick power nap in between and I'm still so darn tired that I think I'm just going to go to bed. A 10 pm bedtime, that's saying something.

To tide you over until tomorrow, here's a photo of my dinner tonight:

Anyone want to guess what it is? Both the meat dish and the puree?

Out With the Old, In With...the Old

Right around the time I started my Whole 30 I did something major...I got rid of my toaster! Okay, that may not seem major, but I had been thinking about doing it for a long time, but couldn't pull the trigger. Even though it's not technically paleo, I do occasionally like to eat a piece of toasted rice bread with butter and sugar-free jam, especially if my stomach is upset, but I don't think it was just that. I think there was some sort of emotional attachment involved, as if the toaster were symbolic of an irreversible change. When I stopped to actually think about it, I recognized that it's just a freaking toaster! Worst case, I could always buy a new one, but of course so far I haven't missed it at all.

With it went my old 12-cup coffeemaker since I always make my coffee in the Aeropress these days (thanks to Freecycle both went to a good home, along with my old crock pot as well) and ever since I have been hoping to do some major kitchen reorganization. What started as taking out the trash quickly turned into that (don't ask, I have no idea how) and soon the space where the toaster and coffeemaker had been held my new crockpot and my food processor:

I cannot tell you how many times I have muttered strings of expletives as I wrangled the food processor in or out of its spot in my cabinet to the point that I opt for not using it if possible so I am really excited that it now sits on my counter!

I also pulled all of the flour type products out of my cabinet and put them in a bin that went into the closet on my deck for storage:

That created a lot of room in my very limited cabinet space so I could clear clutter from my counters, which left moving my cooking oils (canola, grapeseed, etc. have been replaced with healthier nut oils, coconut oil, and ghee) to a more accessible (and cooler) place:

I also freed up some room for my meat grinder and my finishing salts!

And since I was on a roll, I even hung the magnetic board and dry-erase calendar that I ordered back in September!

The magnetic board will be used for dog training stuff to keep me motivated. I just need to order the custom magnets I want so I expect that will be done in another 6 months or so.

This kept me from accomplishing many of the more boring cleaning tasks that were on my to do list, and I didn't get any cooking done either, but I am SO happy to have some room to work in my kitchen again. Loving to cook - and having to do a lot of it to stick to a paleo diet - in a tiny galley kitchen really stinks so every little thing helps.

Today won't be a total cooking lost though. I defrosted 5 lbs of Polyface pork fat and scored a 5 lb bag of pork bones and some trotters from Ferguson Family Farm* that I picked up at a drop-off today. The former will be going in the crockpot overnight to be turned into lard and the latter will be going in the oven overnight to make stock. Both are going to be used tomorrow to make that pork bucco I mentioned with the shank I also picked up today. It's a porky kind of weekend!

*Incidentally, Ferguson Family Farm is the farm that I recruited to vend at my local farmers market since the previous vendor seemed to have some questionable practices. She follows Polyface's models for raising chickens, beef, and heritage breed pork and her meat is delicious and in most cases, reasonably priced. I'm lucky to have regular access to her product, even in the winter!