Weekly Weigh-in (Week 54)

Sunday yet again and time for the weekly weigh-in.

Been doing alright the past week. Getting some things straightened out, plans put in place, and visiting with some friends I haven't gotten to see in a while. All told, a pretty good deal.

It's the end of January now and my recent dietary experiment is drawing to a close. So today I'm going to discuss said experiment, and let you know a bit about how it went for me.

For the month of January, partly as a challenge to myself to see if I could do it, partly with a friend to see if it would increase her energy levels, and partly because I was looking for a way to start the year off differently, I decided to try and eat Primal for an entire month. Now, I'll admit it wasn't strict primal the whole time, Monday was our designated cheat day to eat whatever we felt like eating primal or not, though for the most part I found that even on these cheat days I still ate differently than I would have before the month had started.

For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about the Primal plan is based around the idea that humans are adapted to what we were eating in the late Paleolithic time period, ie pre-agriculture. As such things which do not occur naturally in the wild are avoided, grains (and gluten in particular), legumes, rice, corn, and potatoes and various other starchy carbs are cut from the diet leaving you with meat, vegetables, fruit, nuts, and seeds. At first blush that sounds like it would be incredibly limiting but I found that, despite the fact that I did often eat the same basic things out of convenience, I wasn't any more limited in my food variety than I had been before when I could eat anything I wanted. I just ate slightly different things.

Over the course of the month I can honestly say that I never felt strong cravings for carbs like some people experience, though truthfully I find I don't really eat all that much in the way of grains/carbs anymore even before this experiment. I feel great, I've been dropping fat consistently through the month and putting on muscle, and I've tried some foods I never would have otherwise (spaghetti squash may not be that full of flavor on it's own, but neither is pasta). I've developed a love for spinach I never knew I had, and discovered that I really enjoy cashews.

So you might be wondering, what does your meal list look like on a plan like this. Well, here's a couple sample meals from my month of primal dining.

Breakfast: Homemade Protein bar (made from almonds, pecans, eggs, and blueberries); or some fresh blueberries, cheese, beef jerky, and a handful or two of either pumpkin seeds or mixed nuts (but without any peanuts as those are a legume not a nut); eggs and bacon; omelet with mushrooms, cheese, bacon, and sausage

Lunch: Salad from Subway or Paradise Bakery (I prefer Subway with spinach instead of lettuce), Fajita Burrito bowl from Chipotle, Protein Style burgers from In-n-Out, chicken and wild rice soup, leftovers

Dinner: Steak and Asparagus with a Cesar Salad; Spaghetti Squash Carbonara with mushrooms, asparagus, and sausage; Chicken Soup, Pulled Pork and steamed spinach, roast chicken with mixed veggies

Snacks: Pumpkin Seeds; mixed nuts (again, no peanuts); cheese; salami; fresh fruit (blueberries and nectarines came up a few times); Trader Joe's Thai Chili Lime Cashews; Trader Joe's Jerky (I had both beef and buffalo at various points in time)

As you can see, there's a decent amount of selection up there provided you aren't a vegetarian (sorry). The most limited meal is probably lunch and that's mostly because of my schedule being a pain for eating of lunches that require any preparation. Dinner was often prepared by a trip to the store on the way home from work to figure out what meat was in the mark-down section that day, and then combine it with a veggie that was on sale and a salad kit. The protein bars I was using for breakfasts all came from a batch I made at the start of the month and have been eating off of since. All told, it's a pretty varied plan in practice even if the theory makes it sound restrictive. Well, that's about all the space I plan to dedicate to this post so come back next week for the rest of my primal wrap-up and some info on what I plan to do with the observations from the experiment.

So, what does the scale have to tell me today? 199.4 up a bit from last week, 3.2 to be specific, but not enough that I'm particularly concerned based on my behavior toward the end of the week. We'll see where it goes going forward. Even still, my fat mass is decreasing so I'm not concerned.