Going Paleo for 30 days

Shawn's Day 2 - No Grains, No Legumes, No Dairy, Nothing Processed .......

I realized while talking with a friend and client today that I forgot to include "No Dairy" in the heading of my first Paleo Diet posting yesterday.  I think it was because for me, dropping dairy products will be not as traumatic as grains and legumes.  Though while I was at Peet's getting latte's for my family it was challenging to order plain drip coffee (half hot water, half caff).  I packed snacks of celery, carrots, kiwi, an apple, and cheese (I know it's processed non-Paleo....but you know....just in case of emergency) for the trip to the farmer's market at the Ferry Building in San Francisco.  If you've never been, it was quite fun!  Similar to the Campbell farmer's market but I liked that the SF market had more protein vendors, there was a grass fed sustainably grown red meet vendor, chicken and fish vendors.

At the farmer's market, only a couple of the food vendors had anything even close to fitting the Paleo plan.  One served hamburgers including buffalo burgers which would have been grand except that the only Paleo carbohydrates were pieces of lettuce to put on the processed-non-food hamburger buns.  I ended up having two organic eggs lightly scrambled with arugula and onion.  Not supposed to eat potatoes, but I had probably the equivalent of two red potatoes and did not eat any of the large piece of foccacia that was doused with butter and herbs and looking wonderfully deadly.

Went out to dinner and had clam chowder and a chopped salad with chicken and a dressing of olive oil and lemon. No bread, one glass of Pinot Noir and water.  I wouldn't make a habit of the clam chowder since it more than likely had dairy product but I don't think I could have pulled off not eating the bread and all the cheese in an onion soup.  The fam got dessert to share so, just to be polite, I had one fork of cheese cake and one of chocolate cake.

I did not add salt to anything.  This is a big deal for me.  I was a salt-aholic until last February.  I always thought that because I have always had normal blood pressure that I didn't have to worry about using too much salt.  Then in February 2009 I experienced a kidney stone and learned from our nutritionist, Diane, and since then in other readings, that salt is generally a culprit.  I didn't quit salt cold turkey (as I had quite the addiction), passed one more stone a few months later and have now stopped adding it to my food.  This is handy since salt was never used pre-Agricultural Revolution.

 

Comments

[William]

Shawn, gOod for you. I'm attempting the paleo diet too, with the exception that I'm allowing for some dairy. Natural cheeses...like brie, or for shredded mozzarella melted over eggplants.

I have a few thoughts I'd like from you to see your experience with this diet:

This is great! And it's a great resource to show to friends who think we're crazy :)

Dear team, I have a few questions about the Paleo diet:

1. How do you reconcile the relative health of the meditterenean peoples? North Africans (cous cous, flat breads), Italians (wines, pastas), French (breads,cheeses), Greeks (cheeses, wines) etc are healthy, have nice skin, don't have a lot of degenerative disease, etc. But they're not doing paleo. is the problem grains, or is the problem processed food?

2. How strict are you on artificial preservatives or ingridients? For example, sometimes the smoothie might be completely paleo except that the shredded coconut has some preservative. Or you might be drinking a drink with sucralose. Speaking of which...

3. What do you drink? It appears virtually everything other than water is forbidden.

4. For someone that's active, and lifts weights, how should one diet? One problem I have since trying out the Paleo diet is that I am always hungry. Seems like you have that problem too.

5. About about fruits. Are bananas, mangos, pineapples, et al allowed?

6. Last question is how do you add variety in your meals? Does eating nothing but leafs and vinegar drive you nuts after a while?

Thanks again.

[Shawn]

Love the frozen vegi idea. I've frozen some of the vegi's I got at the farmer's market but I'll be needing a lot more. The only time Paleo has really been difficult is when I let myself get hungry.

Are you eating lots of meat, fish or sea food?

[Sergio]

nice job Shawn! I'm having my share of challenges too. The biggest so far is I am feeling weak and hungry, I need to make up so kcals so I went to TJ's and bought 5 bags of frozen and fresh vegs (no corn).