Fitness for Dummies - Holiday Edition

Would you rather start the New Year off with regret over your December glut, or begin 2012 admiring the work you did in December to help trim your big ol' November butt? 

Everyone always talks about New Year's resolutions, and starting afresh in the New Year.  You can see evidence of this everywhere you look, but especially at your local gym.  In December, the place is dead. 

Come January 2nd or 3rd, however, and you can't get a parking space outside, you have to wait 15 minutes to get on an elliptical machine, and the dumbbells are being occupied by, well, dumbbells who don't know how valuable your time is!  It is ridiculously frustrating, and, if you're like me, it gives you just one more excuse to slack off and stay at home, munching and watching the tube like a zombie. 

Here are some thoughts. 

First, you can do what I did, and hit the gym hard THIS month.  That's right.  Live in the present, and kick some tush NOW, not later.  While everyone else is out at Christmas parties, drinking and noshing their waistlines away, or vying for a parking space at the local shops, you can do the smart thing and hit that deserted wasteland that is your gym in December.  (Not that you can't go to Christmas parties or shop... just don't forget fitness while you gleefully prepare for your favorite holiday). 

There are a lot of benefits to hitting the gym right now.  Because it is not crowded, you don't have to wait in line for machines or weights, you can feel comfortable trying out a new routine or technique because you won't have an audience to observe if you mess up/fall off, and the likelihood is that you may actually get to have some quality time with knowledgeable gym staff who can teach you some cool tricks, or show you how to use a particularly daunting weight machine. 

As well, because you are being mindful of your fitness, you are less likely to treat yourself with the carby delights and alcohol abondanza that are pressed upon you this season.  So, the likelihood is that you will maintain your weight or even lose weight during the holiday season, instead of digging yourself into a nutritional and fitness hole that will be hard to climb out of next month. 

Second, you can start learning fitness techniques that you can do outside of the gym NOW, so that when the inevitable January gym rush hits, you can supplement your gym routine with activities that you can do in and around your home.  

Here's my recommendation: Check out these videos on body weight exercises by Mark Sisson of marksdailyapple.com and the Primal Blueprint fame, and give them a try.  In my life, I've never been able to do a single pullup.  Mark Sisson's videos show techniques that fitness neophytes like me (and maybe you) can use to work our way up to doing pullups, increasing the intensity of the exercise as we develop in upper body strength.  There are also videos for doing squats, pushups and the plank.  Best of all, these are exercises that you can do in the privacy of your own home, whenever the feeling strikes you.  To my family's amusement, I've popped a couple of wall squats (they look a little bizarre) while watching cartoons with my kid, and done some pushups off the kitchen counter while waiting for water to boil. 

Making the commitment to fitness, whether at home or at the gym, is something that you can absolutely do.  In my experience, taking control of my diet and my activity level has been an empowering experience.  

My LCHF 1 year anniversary arrives on January 24, 2011.  I have come a long way since then.  Today, I weighed in at 197 pounds.  I started this way of life at 231.5 pounds.  That's is a total loss of 34.5 pounds to date. 

Thanks to the changes I've made in my diet and fitness over the past year, I've said goodbye to heartburn, IBS, recurrent back pain, feeling dizzy when I bend over to tie my shoes, and wearing size 20W clothing.  I have said hello to being healthy, being able to run around with my kid, looking better (in clothes which are a size 14 regular now), and feeling more confident and accomplished.  Most of all, I have a hope for the future that I will never be fat and sick again, and I can see myself trim and healthy.

My interim personal goal is to hit my 40 pound weightloss milestone by January 24, 2012. 

What's your goal?   

FitDay Recap (Grown Ups Only, Please) and SNOW



Surveying storm damage in a nearby Town. Photo: Bristol Press.



Thanks to the freak[ing] October Nor'easter that blew through Connecticut and other New England states this weekend, I and 800,000 other Connecticut residents are without power.  I also have no heat or hot water. 

This morning, the ambient temperature in my home was a balmy 45 degrees Fahrenheit. 

Needless to say, I got dressed under the blankets today. 

Thankfully, my office has power and a hot shower available to employees.  The cafeteria has hot food.  My wonderful, generous, fantastic, amazing and delightful father-in-law is carting a generator and space heater to our house this afternoon.  With any luck, our house will be toasty warm tonight.  Thank you, Jesus.

Notably, I did weigh myself this morning.  However, because the house was so chillled, I did it with all of my winter clothes on.  My weight was 205.5.  Considering that I had on my heavy snow boots and all of my other wintry gear, I am thinking that I have probably lost weight this week.  However, don't anticipate a weight and measurements update until I can comfortably manage to get on the scale au naturel. 

I am keeping up with FitDay.  It is my new thing, and I just love it.  Do you know that you can input just about any activity that you do, and FitDay will give you an extra caloric deduct?  (Now, that's not to say that I agree with the thermodynamic calories in - calories out principle.  I'm just saying that it's cool.)  Activities that you can choose from vary from working out on an elliptical machine, to going grocery shopping, to nookie.  Yep.  You heard me right (*snort*, *chortle*, *giggle*, *act like a preteen*).  And get this - you can choose whether your nookie is "vigorous", merely "moderate activity", or limited to kissing and necking.  LOfreakingL.  I needed something like this to brighten my day.

I note this about FitDay because it is a true and amusing fact about FitDay, and because if you use FitDay you may not be aware that FitDay has this interesting function.  Also, I just wanted to let you know because, if you look at my public profile, you will note what I've, uh, been up to over the weekend.  *Snort*

Fit Day

I just started a Fit Day account.  Check out my public profile.  I've gone back and inputted my weights since starting LCHF in January 2011.  So far, Fit Day seems pretty cool.  

There are definitely some positives, i.e., I like seeing my weight loss charted on a graph.  What can I say, I'm a visual type of girl ;)

I do have some reservations about their nutrition tracker.  I had chicken soup today for lunch. Fit Day's "chicken soup" recipe that they analyzed for nutrition contains about 10 grams of carbs per cup.  Considering that my soup was mostly broth, chicken, and some veggies (no rice, noodles or potatoes), I'm pretty positive that my carb intake from the soup was quite minimal. 

So, the nutrition tracking of homemade foods is probably going to be iffy.  Unless you are eating completely whole foods (1 cup of raw broccoli) or major brand food items (1 cup of Cheerios), the carb counts in your food are going to be off, maybe even way off. 

 

I will investigate how to get around this and report back... 

Numbers Don't Lie

Check out my updated weight and measurements.

I am pleased to report that, somehow, I have lost weight during this crazy, stressed-to-the-max week. 

Historically, I started measuring myself on February 13, 2011, after I had already lost 8 pounds on LCFH.  Compared to those original measurements, after being on LCFH for 38 weeks, I have lost just over 15 inches of girth, total, from my bust, weight and hips. 

As of today, I have lost 33 pounds since I started this WOE on January 23, 2011.  There have been a lot of stalls, and some ups and downs, but my average weight loss is just under 1 pound per week.  It adds up, even though it feels like it is taking forever.

Not only do I feel better, I look better.  I've gone from a size 20W to a size 14 (on a skinny day), and I am still chugging along.  I have accomplished something that I never thought I was capable of doing, and in the process, I have learned a lot about myself. 

Now, if I could just get rid of my stress related zits and back pain and get a good 12 hours of restful, uninterrupted sleep...

It's Thanksgiving Somewhere...

Just the other day, I was reading a post on a low carb blog, and learned that Canadians have Thanksgiving, too.  And it's earlier than ours.  Who knew?

I was immediately filled with the desire for juicy turkey legs, dripping with gravy, served with stuffing.  Then it hit me.  OMG.  How do you make low carb stuffing without bread??!! 

I googled and found a couple of recipes for low carb stuffing bread, which you can use to make low carb bread cubes, which you then incorporate into your stuffing recipe. 

I also noodled over this for a little while, and thought that Wellness Mama's banana muffins (which are made with coconut flour) could be de-bananaed and made into a cheddar-bay type biscuit (the link is to the carby original recipe, where 2.5 cups of bisquick makes 12 biscuits at about 17 grams of carb each), which could then be used in place of regular bread in the stuffing recipe that I make (with oodles of butter, sauteed veggies, and succulent sage pork sausage).  I found a coconut flour cheddar biscuit recipe here:  

Cheese Biscuits

Ingredients

¼ cup butter, melted
1/3 cup sifted Coconut Flour
4 eggs
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon onion powder
¼ teaspoon baking powder
½ cup sharp cheddar cheese, shredded

Method
Blend together eggs, butter, salt, and onion powder. Combine coconut flour with baking powder and whisk into batter until there are no lumps. Fold in cheese. Drop batter by the spoonful onto a greased cookie sheet. Bake at 400F for 15 minutes. For a cheesier biscuit increase cheese to ¾ cup.

You know how I love me some kitchen experimentation!! 
Biscuits tonight...turkey on Sunday.  I will report back!!

Before and After Pics: 38 Lbs Lighter Than Last Year

Before:

One year ago (I am second from left).               

After:

Last weekend (I am on the right).   

Under 200 Pounds!

Yay!  I hit a milestone that I have been dogging for a while. 


199.5 never felt so good! 

This weight represents me hitting 40% of my 80 pound weight loss goal!

LCHF Dining at Ruby Tuesday

Dinner at Ruby Tuesdays: TWENTY FIVE DOLLARS.  Learning that you can stick to your LCHF diet and avoid salmonella at a restaurant: PRICELESS.

I traveled for work yesterday, and had no choice but to grab dinner on the road.  I had some time, so I decided that I would hang out at this shopping plaza that I found.  I did a little window shopping, then ended up heading over to Ruby Tuesday to grab some dinner before a meeting. 

All I can say is – wow – somebody at RT got the message about low carb dining.  It was a revelation to see SO MANY low carb dinner options on the menu.  Variety!  I love it!

Here is what I liked about RT:

The salad bar was good, meticulously clean and air chilled to the point where it was actually a little uncomfortable to serve myself.  In this case, hypothermia is a good thing, as it means that the salad bar was inhospitable to me and to bacteria.  I LIKE that about a salad bar.  The items on the salad bar were fresh, the crumbled bacon was good quality bacon, and the blue cheese dressing was super creamy and dense, just the way that I like it – hey, we eat LCHF, let's revel in it already!

They had several low carb choices:  Main dishes included an assortment of steaks, seafood and chicken, cooked in a variety of ways, with several options waaay under 5 grams of net carbs per serving.  You can do what I usually do, and grab a plate of wings (the entire plate has 12 grams of net carbs, and you probably won't finish it) and a salad.  RT also has the option to add a la cart shrimp skewers to your order (each seasoned skewer clocks in at 0 net carbs), so consider ordering the salad bar and get a skewer or two on the side.   They have so many veggie side dishes, including zucchini, broccoli, asparagus, roasted squash, and tomato salad (skip the balsamic dressing though, it is sugary), that are super low carb.  Caution, though: mind the mashed cauliflower!  I ordered it and enjoyed it, only to later find that one serving carries a surprising 11 grams of net carbohydrates.

Personally, I ordered the rib eye, medium rare, with sides of mashed cauliflower and grilled zucchini.  It was ridiculously tasty, and came out looking very attractive on the plate.  The steak was cooked correctly, and glistened with the sheen of succulent herb butter.  I enjoyed the meal and was surprised by the quality of the food put before me.  I am a food snob.  I will say, unqualifiedly, that this was a good steak – not just a good steak "for a chain restaurant".  And, it was cheap: $25 with tax and tip, including salad bar and a gigantic meal that I couldn't even finish.

Niiice...

Weekly Measurements Are Important

Numbers don't lie.  It is sooo true!

However, it has to be said that I have some say in what those numbers look like, depending on when I take my measurements. 

I've stopped taking official weight and measurements on Sunday mornings, because that is just too depressing. 

Oftentimes, I weigh more on a Sunday than I will on the following Tuesday, because the effects of the debauchery I've engaged in on Friday and Saturday take a day or two to disappear.  This weekend - for example - I went out for dinner on both Friday and Saturday nights, alcohol included.  I totally overdid it on Friday, including my first REAL cheat since January, in the form of the full-sized Reese's Nightmare sundae at my local ice cream parlor.  Talk about a carb nightmare for yours truly!

Also, it has to be pointed out that my weight fluctuates daily (and if you are a woman, there's a good chance that yours does as well), and throughout a given day, as well.  Most of this has to do with water weight gain and loss, which can be significant. 

I am a little addicted to daily weighing, which is not advisable (too easy to be discouraged).  Don't follow my bad example in this regard.  ((Note: for some people, especially those prone to regular swelling and those with cardiac issues, daily weighing can be critical to knowing when you've packed on too much water.  We learned this the hard way with my dad and his several bouts with congestive heart failure.  I'm not a doctor, and in no way qualified to give medical advice, so talk to your doctor about this issue!!))

The best thing to do is pick the same day, each week, to do your weigh in and measurements.  Weigh and measure yourself in the morning, naked, after you've used the loo and before you've had anything to eat or drink (including meds, vitamins and the water you guzzle them with), preferably when your hair is dry!  If you have your period, feel free to skip weigh in that week, as that can be horrifying.

Just - whatever you do - don't forget to measure yourself regularly.  It can be the only thing that keeps you sane when your weight has plateaued.  Frankly, I think that measurements are more important than weighing, as a general rule.  Back in the Spring of this year, I was stuck at the same weight - up one pound, then down one pound - for weeks!!  At the time, I was hitting the gym a lot.  Measurements showed me that even though my weight wasn't changing, I was still getting slimmer and healthier as my size decreased. 

LCHF Coconut Flour Brownies Produce So-So Results

I tried the Coconut Flour Brownie Recipe on the back of this bag of coconut flour, swapping out faux sugar for the real stuff, but otherwise staying true to the recipe. 

Honestly, the texture was okay, but the flavor just wasn't chocolatey enough.  I've read that 1/4 cup of coconut flour can be swapped for 1 cup of regular flour in a recipe, so I may try to recalibrate my Brownies #2 recipe by deleting the flax seed and vital wheat gluten flour (which I am avoiding these days), and adding in coconut flour. 

For what its worth, here's how I made the ho-hum brownies.  In my humble opinion, they need more fat and more cocoa.  Do you have any good LCHF brownie recipes?  **Whine**

Ingredients:

• 1/3 cup coconut oil (should be liquid, if it is solid at your version of room temp, warm it slightly)
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder
• 6 eggs
• ½ cup xylitol
• 24 drops liquid splenda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 cup sifted coconut flour

Directions:

1.      Blend coconut oil and cocoa powder, making sure to get all the lumps out.

2.      In a bowl, beat together eggs, faux sugars, salt and vanilla.

3.      Stir in cocoa mixture.

4.      Add sifted coconut flour and whisk the batter well until there are no lumps.

5.      Pour batter into a greased 8" square baking pan.

6.      Bake at 350' for 30-35 minutes.

Barbeque Restaurants: Primal and Low Carb(ish) Dining Opportunities Abound

Hi, my name is Kate, and I'm addicted to barbeque. 

Here's a photo of me enjoying the yabba dabba doo rib, with sides of cucumber salad and collard greens, at Smokin' With Chris in Southington, CT, this summer.  My friend snapped this shot with her cell phone because she was amazed at the meaty proportions of my dinner.  What can I say?  I can eat.

Here are some tips for eating out primal and low carb: 

First of all, barbeque restaurants are a great choice for someone who eats primal and low carb, because there is a lot of meat on the menu, and oftentimes, there are more veggie-only sides served ala cart than in a typical restaurant, including collard greens, coleslaw, buttered green beans, you name it. 

So hop on google and check out barbeque restaurants in your area, and how they've been rated.  That's how I found Smokin' With Chris, and it ended up being one of my favorite restaurants. 

You've got to be vigilant, though.  Our common enemies, sugar and starch, are lurking about, ready to hop on your plate and climb into your belly. 

Check Me Out!

Lynn Terry of TravelingLowCarb was kind enough to let me do a guest post on her blog about living mostly Primal and definitely LCHF.  Here it is!  Thank you to Lynn!

Sticking To A Low Carb Diet Away From Home

Many thanks to Lynn Terry of TravelingLowCarb! (a phenomenal LCHF blog with amazing recipes) for agreeing to author this guest post for me! 


Now, take it away, Lynn...

Whether you're traveling for business, on vacation, or just having dinner out with friends, sticking to your low carb diet can be difficult.  It's hard enough even when you're home and have a super busy schedule that doesn't allow you time to cook at every meal.

As a single mother and business owner, we get take-out a lot.  Fortunately there are plenty of low carb options at most restaurants, and I've become an expert at scouting them out - LOL!

Make it a point to plan your restaurant outings ahead of time. You can view or print Nutrition Facts for most restaurants (including fast food) online.  Knowing your options ahead of time helps you make smart choices.

What Do I Do With All Those Green Tomatoes!?

...and why don't they RIPEN during the SUMMER, like they're supposed to? 

Check out this tasty looking recipe I found online for Sugar Free Green Tomato Relish, at the FarmGirlFare blog (which is phenomenal, by the way!!) 

My plan is to follow the recipe with 1/2 the apple cider vinegar, and add some whey to lactoferment the relish.  You know me, Nourishing Traditions, and kitchen experimentation ;)

I knew I bought that 12-pack of mason jars for a reason! 

("Um, Kate, they only sell them in 12-packs...")

Navigating the Pitfalls of the Party Circuit

Disaster!  Okay.  Here's the deal.  I am very involved in State and local politics, and this is municipal election season, as well as preseason for a number of federal candidates who are going to be seeking endorsements in 2012.  In short, this is fundraiser season, and I have 2-3 functions per week to attend for the next month and a half.  It is causing problems, y'all.

Just last week, I whined about being so close to my milestone of 200 pounds.  Three social events later, and my weight this morning was up to 207.5 pounds.  At least half of that 6 pound weight gain is water and other stuff that will be passed.  The rest of it is comprised of something a bit more insidious, I fear! 

I'm a Renegade and So are You

Do you love high quality butter, grass fed meats, and raw and fermented food?  

Then you just might be a food renegade.

In related news, we took a trip this weekend to Karabin Farms in Southington, Connecticut.  They raise their own hormone free and fantastic livestock and have fresh, local dairy and eggs.  We had their handmade italian pork sausage.  OMG!  So good!  (They also have amazing produce, pick your own apples, hayrides, etc. and are very family friendly).

I called today to confirm and they have soup bones at $2/pound and beef shanks at $2.95 per pound - all organic, grass fed and hormone free.  Soup's on!  Recipes to follow!

Recipe: LCHF Coconut Vanilla Custard Ice Cream

Last week, I purchased a Cuisinart ice cream maker from Amazon.com. 

I had two reasons: first, my daughter has exhibited some lactose intolerance in the past months and there is really not much out there for lactose-free ice cream; and second, I have had good experience with store bought low carb ice cream but thought I could probably make my own tastier version, using high quality and healthy materials.  Plus, the low carb ice cream on the market is pretty much all low-fat.  I thought I could fatten mine up, and add in some coconut to make it feel healthy.

This recipe was my very first attempt at ice cream making.  I have made several batches since, including sugar-free for me, and sweetened dairy-free for my daughter.  This LCHF coconut custard ice cream recipe remains the best of all my efforts.  Each 1/2 cup serving contains 6.4 grams of net carbohydrate, and 24.2 grams of healthy, mostly saturated fat from the coconut oil and milk.  Enjoy!

UPDATE: This is an incredibly versatile recipe!  Check out this post for other delicious ways to use this ice cream base...

Dark Chocolate is Good For You…

…and it can fit into your LCHF lifestyle.  Surprise!

I admit that I am a chocolate fanatic.  Always have been and always will be.  When I restarted strict LCHF in early August, I made some promises to myself.  One of those promises was that I would find a way to make regular, decadent chocolate consumption compatible with LCHF. 

Guess what I found out?  30-40 grams of dark chocolate, eaten every day, is ridiculously good for you.  Plus, if you are choosy with your chocolate, you can easily find bars that contain 30-40 gram servings containing 10 or fewer grams of net carbs. 

Let's discuss, shall we?

Diet-Scape Learning Curve

How Did I Get Here?

If you have been reading this blog for a while, you may recall that I started low carb on a whim after reading a discounted diet e-book called Neris & India's Idiot Proof Diet and Cookbook.  I got the book for $2 or something, and loved the book's humor and attitude.  Basically, I read that book through the night, and started my new diet the next day, and ended up very quickly in ketosis.  The ketolysis process was expedited by a stomach bug that decreased my hunger and – because I spent much of a full week retching and wretched – forced me into what was essentially a liquid fast broken up by a few occasional triscuits.  I certainly was ingesting fewer than 20 grams of carbs each day.  By the time I felt better, I was already through the nasty carb-flu symptoms.  In fact, I don't think I even noticed them, as they were completely overshadowed by the stomach bug. 

I lost weight. 

I started to wonder why I was losing weight.  From N&I, and from a previous, half-hearted attempt at Atkins, I knew what carbs were, where to find them (and not find them) in food, and I had a vague understanding that carbs turned into fat by some metabolic process.  However, I didn't really understand digestion and metabolism and hormones, and all of the other things that go into the equation.

So, I began to do research.  I did a lot of internet research in the beginning: haunting PubMed and trolling around the Frontline: Diet Wars webpage to get a feel for what the diet-scape looked like, and what the various diet practices were predicated on.  I watched the movie, Fathead.  I learned about ketogenesis, and that the key to the low carb diets was this ketogenesis.  I learned that ketogenic diets have successfully been used, for decades, by credible physicians at top-level hospitals, to treat epilepsy in children.

This spurred me to read books by some of the diet gurus I had learned about online.  I've read so much:

• The Low-Carb Comfort Food Cookbook (Eades M.D., Mary Dan, Eades M.D., Michael R., Solom, Ursula)
• The New Atkins for a New You (Westman, Dr. Eric C., Phinney, Dr. Stephen D., Jeff S. Volek)
• Dr. Atkins' New Diet Revolution, Revised Edition (Atkins, Robert C.)
• Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats (Fallon, Sally)
• Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It (Taubes, Gary)
• Protein Power: The High-Protein/Low-Carbohydrate Way to Lose Weight, Feel Fit, and Boost Your Health--in Just Weeks!  (Eades, Michael R., Eades, Mary Dan)
• The Primal Blueprint: Reprogram your genes for effortless weight loss, vibrant health and boundless energy (Primal Blueprint Series) (Sisson, Mark)
• Good Calories, Bad Calories (Taubes, Gary)     
• The New Evolution Diet (De Vany PhD., Arthur)
• The Vegetarian Myth (Keith, Lierre)

I started to understand that there was a very long history associated with the diet-scape, and that some of it was pretty darned ugly.  There is compelling evidence that bad politics allowed bad science to be the foundation of our modern-day standard American diet, and that Americans, today, are more obese than they used to be, suffer from more chronic health issues than ever before, and are dying, in higher numbers, from diseases like heart disease and cancer.  Tragically, more and more young children are extremely obese are diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes (that's the reason why T2 is no longer called "adult onset" diabetes).  Our health is imperiled and this terrifying trend starts young.

Although I appreciated the simple rules provided by Atkins and N&I, I started to worry about some of the low carb faux-foods that I was bringing into my diet: fake sugar and oddly processed starches to be precise. 

I had sat down with Nourishing Traditions and much of what the authors discussed made an impression on me.  This was the first time that I learned about the danger of grains and the anti-nutrient properties of some of their components, including phytic acid.  NT convinced me that I needed saturated animal fat to be healthy, and had to avoid certain fats (including certain oils that are produced in pretty horrifying ways).  NT started to get me thinking about the contrast between traditional ways of preparing foods and the food that I purchased from the grocery store on a regular basis.  I wondered about lactofermenting vegetables to preserve them; consuming raw, unprocessed fresh dairy products; and buying organic produce and grass-fed, pastured meat products without nitrates or other additives or preservatives.  I lactofermented my own salsa (it was good and a little fizzy).  I started making and drinking kefir water for its pre- and pro-biotics.  In short, I started to care about eating WHOLE FOODS, and avoiding processed foods as much as possible.

I started learning about theories of Ancestral Health.  In particular, I read about Primal, Paleo and Evolutionary diet and fitness.  I found that primal appeals to me.  It just makes sense on some inner "Aha!" level.  Primal mimics what our Paleolithic ancestors ate and how they exercised.  There has been no evolution since Paleolithic times, and we are born physiologically identical to our Paleolithic ancestors.  Their remains and other significant evidence show that they were vibrantly healthy, had large brains, well-developed musculature, and good teeth.  They ate meat, eggs, vegetables, fruit, nuts and seeds.

I'm not completely Primal, though.  I eat small amounts of products that contain very small amounts of processed sugar, like dark chocolate.  Most significantly, I eat dairy every day (in the form of cream and cheese) and that is decidedly un-Primal. 

So, that begs the question…

What Do I Eat?

• I do not eat grains.
• I eat the highest quality meat and non-starchy vegetables that I can get my hands on. 
• I enjoy eggs that are high in omega 3 fatty acids. 
• I eat some nuts, including almonds, pistachios, macadamias and occasionally cashews, about 3-4 times per week. 
• I cook with organic butter, virgin coconut oil, olive oil and sometimes lard. 
• I do my best to avoid bad fats; I certainly don't keep them in my house. 
• I try to eat avocados and coconut products several times a week for their healthy fats (and because they are tasty). 
• I do not eat legumes. 
• I eat 30 grams of 60% dark chocolate every single day. 
• I rarely eat fruit, and when I do, I eat no more than 1 cup of berries in a given day, and I make sure that I eat them with fat.  I never drink juice.
• With the exception of the sugar that is in the dark chocolate I eat daily, I generally don't eat sweetened foods or drinks. 
• I generally eat foods that are found in the perimeter of the grocery aisle. 
• I usually avoid things that have to be processed by the liver, including caffeine (exception is the chocolate and 1 cup of coffee in the a.m.), fructose, alcohol (I occasionally have a slightly alcoholic drink), and I don't take drugs like Tylenol unless I really need them.  This way, the liver can spend less of its time removing toxins from my body (because I'm not consuming those toxins) and more of its time breaking down my stored lipids into their constituent parts and making me healthier and thinner.
• I drink boatloads of water.