Friday 15 February 2013

Flashback Friday

Pardon my absence....things are squirrely 'round these hurr parts without my better half to keep it locked down but here is a picture of me the night I graduated from high school. I vaguely recall it being a thousand degrees on June 30th in the un-air conditioned 50 year old theater wearing a polyester robe and hat under the lights. I was wearing a tank top and short shorts under the robe and was still dying of heat stroke. My mom was front row center with my (older than me) then boyfriend and I think my L.P.C's daddy took this picture. It also just dawned on me this picture is almost 13 years old....ho-lee-FACK!


Saturday 9 February 2013

Do (mental) work son!

I've been talking a lot lately about the nutrition side of things lately with my n=1 experiments. I want to talk about the mental side of things for a second or two because that side is also really really important. I find I am not as "strong" without my rock here (husbie..duh). The first week he left was rough on me; he left very very quickly with no notice and our vehicle died at the exact same time. It was a double whammy of stress for me. I think lots of us can relate to whammies (double, triple, quad) being tied to emotional eating. I am mostly recovered from disordered eating in general and fully recovered from bulimia specifically but when I am stressed I still feel the urges to turn to food for comfort. It is a really hard cycle to break and one that I am not sure that I will ever be free from. With that comes a lot of negative self talk in my head, a lot of not being kind and berating. The kind of things that if your friends said them to you, you probably wouldn't been friends with them anymore.

But it's all about perspective. I was feeling crappy and kinda miserable without husbie here and was eating too much coconut and dried fruit. My friend came over the night I went to get husbie from the airport and he looked at me and said "you're pretty skinny hey?"...out of the blue, without prompting. I couldn't believe it. I had last seen him just before Christmas when I was riding high on almost a month of mega super duper squeaky clean eating and had just fit into my 27 inch waist jeans and then I saw him again after 10 days of dried fruit and negative self-talk. He saw what was really there, what everyone else sees not the obese person I was trying to convince myself I was (yeah, I get the negative self-talk bad). Not only did his comment make me instantly feel 100 times better but it helped me see that 9 times out of 10 I am slimmer (and probably more tanned) than I actually see myself. It's like I am permanently wearing fat goggles (like beer goggles) and prodding and poking the flaws that only I see.

I have reached a strange spot in my journey where the smaller size me I see in the mirror is now the norm...the "new normal"...where as before I could kind of remember the bigger sized me and now I am seeing the new sized me as the old sized me...does this make sense? I feel like I am doing a poor job explaining it. I was convinced I was back to my old size and reluctantly pulled on my mega small jeans expecting them not to fit over my ass let alone button. They fit...and buttoned easily. Even this morning I had to put on my size 5 board short *just to make sure* I hadn't some how magically gotten fat overnight. I do see that I clearly have disordered thinking about my size (thank god I don't own a scale!). I am just unable to properly see the size that I actually am and this fuels all the negative talk in my head that I convince myself is reality. I think this is a topic to broach with Dr.H because I would love to delve deeper into this and pick it apart in hopes of better understanding it and eventually squashing it. Do I fear being fat/overweight so much that I project all these negative things? I have no idea. My husband has always told me I was beautiful at every single weight and never once has made snide comments or anything passive aggressive so I know this issue is all me. I would really love to hear perspectives from other people if you are willing to share. I want to bring this into the light and not have the fear about talking about it.

Moving forward...back to nutrition...dairy is officially voted off the island. I kinda thought this was going to be the case but I had to know without a doubt the affects of dairy on my system. Lots of guts squeaking and gurgling and some strange BMs. Dairy, you are no good for me...we are never ever ever getting back together. That's ok. I am totally not heart broken and I am glad that strange rumblings have come to an end. So dairy and lots of raw veggies/leafy greens are a no go for me. It has been fun (maybe not the right word) figuring out what is the optimal nutrition for my body because it varies from body to body and what works for you might not work for me and vice versa.

My newest experiment isn't really an n=1 experiment, more of an experiment with a new food, something I have never eaten in my life. While looking for fatty foods for my Eat Moar Fat adventure I came across sardines. Obviously I knew about sardines before but they skeeve me out...tiny fishies in a can with skin and bones...Eeeeee! Going paleo really has opened me up to eating things I never would have eaten before so I figured it was time to take the sardine plunge! Admittedly I bought these awhile ago and some how the box is now gone so I took a picture while at the store the other day. I have no idea what the difference between anchovies and sardines is...I am going to assume they are damn near the same thing...tiny fishies in a can with bones and skin


Not the greatest nutritional profile but not awful either


These are the sardines I bought specifically for my experiment. Lots of them had creepy soy in them but these are clean



Not shockingly the olive oil ones have a better nutritional profile for omega 3 ratios



I am kinda scared to try these mostly because I have never had them and I am worried I will hate them but I'm a grown ass woman and I shouldn't fear tiny fishies in a can. So come back tomorrow for my very fishy experiment full of pictures!

Friday 8 February 2013

Flashback Friday

Going waaaaaay back...BABY MVJ! Look at how cute I was (still am) AWWWWWW


Thursday 7 February 2013

The Great Dairy Test

After attempting the high fat protocol and failing due to lack of choice, I decided to give high fat dairy a try since so many people seem to consume it as part of the high fat protocol. I gave up drinking cows milk years and years ago with the exception of being with fetuses (feti?). When pregnant I consumed milk...a lot of it and I would only drink the milk from one specific store. We bought some from a different chain store just because it was closer or we had a coupon...I don't remember...but I thought that milk tasted "dirty" and I refused to drink it. Once the children were birthed I ceased drinking it. I recall pouring a glass a few days after my second was born and not even being able to swallow it it tasted so gross. I'm guessing the milk consumption was a pregnancy thing...crazy old pregnancy.

Dairy consumption as part of a larger Primal diet is a contentious topic. Some say it's alright or benign other use the argument that humans are the only mammals to consume another mammals milk well after infancy. HERE is a good article from Mark's Daily Apple about humans and dairy consumption.

Anyways! I got some non-creepy organic heavy whipping cream from the hippie food store to conduct an n=1 dairy experiment on myself. Reintroduction protocol is to consume the food you are trying to reintroduce at every meal for a day and see what happens. First dairy of the day...I put an ounce of the heavy whipping cream in my tea. I measured it out using my bad ass WV shot glass from T.M...can you hear the banjos?






Observations: Look away if you fear TMI...the heavy whipping cream seemed to produce "loose poops" within an hour of consuming...ewww I know right. I wasn't sure if it was the HWC (heavy whipping cream) or the fact that I took my magnesium on an empty stomach last night. I wasn't drawing any firm conclusions from the first dosing.

For lunch I ate normal stuff, stuff I eat all the time like meat loaf, bacon, avocado, pickles, a SeaSnax sheet, kombucha then drank about 3ish ounces of the heavy whipping cream straight up.

Observations: Same as the morning! EWWW! By this point I was starting to see some causality between the HWC and my bowel function...experimention, you seem to be working!

For dinner...well I haven't eaten dinner in 2 days. I gave up the Eat Moar Fat thingy but I decided to just keep eating lots of fat but ignoring the counting of all carbs and such (fuck that counting noise!) so my breakfasts have about 50g of fat I am guessing, maybe more since my daily shot of coconut oil is 28g by itself. This has made me surprisingly unhungry (is that a word? it is now!) at dinner time so I listen to my body and don't eat if I'm not hungry (hello unintentional IF). I needed to get the HWC into me to continue the great dairy experiment so I made up a mug of vanilla rooibos (remember the tea that smelled like cigarettes?) and added about 2oz of HWC. I am really starting to like this creamy tea business. It also made the cigarette tea super tasty!

Obeservations: Lots of guts gurgling and squeaking but no bowel movements, nary a single fart!...interesting. I was not expecting that to happen. I assumed that it would have been the same as the morning and lunch time consumption. Now I am not sure what to think. My results seem to be inconclusive so I am going to do another day of HWC consumption at each meal and see what happens...I also don't want to waste the rather-expensive-for-such-a-small-carton of HWC and another day should finish it off. My hypothesis now is that dairy and I are going to stay broken up since I don't miss it or even have the desire to consume it but that I *might* be able to tolerate small doses of high fat dairy very infrequently. Creamy tea is awesome!

I already have my next experiment planned out for when I finish the great dairy test. It should prove to be more entertaining with lots more pictures (really...how many times can I take a picture of whipping cream?) My precious has already left on a jet plane to go be a hard working rigger...insert sad panda. He'll be gone for Valentine's Day which I don't give a squirt about but he will also be gone for our 6th wedding anniversary the traditional gift being sugar and iron...WTF? Who dreamed up this crap??


Wednesday 6 February 2013

Fat fail

Alright, so I made it 2 days on the Eat Moar Fat n=1 experiment and let me tell you why. It's not because I'm not a fucking solider because I am but rather, I don't eat dairy of any kind (butter, cheese, cream cheese, sour cream, heavy whipping cream, creme fresh etc.), this makes eating high fat pretty hard without being repetitively snoozily boring. Someone linked me to THIS which is a list of 12 foods for nutritional ketosis. Well I don't eat 5 of the 12 things on the list and the others I was already consuming. For 2 days I ate the exact same things just at different times simply because I lack a lot of options not consuming dairy...can you say BOOOOOOORING? I also HATE olives, salmon and coconut milk which would have helped out my cause. I guess I could have just drank coconut oil for a month Mmmmm oily. Me thinks I should have done a little more research first before jumping in to this...oops! Live and learn. I was bored after just 2 days and couldn't fathom eating the same things over and over for a whole month! I would have stabbed myself in the primal eye.

Also, the ladies on the forum doing the experiment eat a lot of things I just cannot nutritionally stand behind like "cream cheese clouds" which is basically whipped cream cheese with stevia....gross gross gross gross. They also suggested consuming Knorr bouillion cubes...MEGA GROSS AND CREEPY! I refuse to self-sabotage like that. So, here is what I learned...it is exceedingly hard to do very high fat if you don't eat dairy and don't want to eat the same things over and over again and "cream cheese clouds" are a thing...so is FAT BREAD which is just paleo-ified bread...no, just no.

The high fat protocol got me thinking though. After my very successful completion of the program that shant be mentioned, I never did a reintroduction process which they do suggest. I don't really have a desire to consume copious amounts of dairy since I gave up drinking cows milk YEARS ago and I was eating cheese only sparingly before doing the program whose name shant be mentioned. But I got to thinking...maybe I *can* consume high fat dairy (can consume as in eat it very sparingly without GI issues) or maybe I can't but that would be an interesting test given the high fat content of dairy. So I skimmed a few HWCs (heavy whipping cream) in the local chain stores. Interestingly enough ALL of them had carrageenan in them! WHY? Why does heavy whipping cream *need* this additive? (carrageenan is a binding agent and it is in ALL boxed coconut and almond milks and is a known carcinogen...I avoid it like the plague) short answer...it doesn't!. If you do consume dairy, high fat and unpasteurized is the bestest. Low fat dairy is awful....tons of sugar with none of the fatty fat fat benefits. Raw dairy is scandalously illegal in Canada...lord knows why...how dare people chose for themselves what they want to consume...so I scoped out the health food store to see if they had any HWC that did not contain cancerous agents. They had some! Success! I grabbed it.


Horray...cream as the only ingredient! Thanks for the pasteurizing Health Canada


 A nice fatty nutritional profile...FEAR NO FAT! The dairy experiment will see me consuming this at each meal for a day and monitoring how I feel after it.


Check out this cool snow sculpture. These are scattered all over my area for a special winter event called Festival du Voyageur...an annual local event celebrating the French culture in my city, check em out HERE I really want to check out the beard contest...I love me a sweet beard!


Husbie made his signature balsamic beets....NOM! They are soooo good.


We've had a lot of snow this year...like, a lot. The snow banks are over 5 feet tall in some spots...dangerous! I slipped a fell on my already wonky L5 vertebra walking to yoga (I know it's L5 because I have a fucking awesome chiropractor who always tells me what's up)...damn slippery Uggs!


Someone has put up some new happy motivational signs on the way to yoga. I usually go to yoga in the evenings so it's hard to capture them without good day light...and I didn't notice them until I spotted the last one "Keep on smiling even for the little things :)". There is LGBQT resource center right by the studio so I have no idea if these are done by it's members or just a random ar-teest, either way I love them!


Monday 4 February 2013

Fatty McFat Fat

So my first day of EAT MOAR FAT was what I am considering a success. It was really strange and kind of a lot of work to count everything out (I'm soooo lazy!) but I assume it will get easier as it goes along.

My ratios that I need to hit every according to my size and the protocol are:

Fat - 118-206.5g 
Protein - 64.9g
Carbs - 29.5g

I don't know or remember why the range is so large for the fat, I think it depends on your goals for the protocol. I chose to go on the lower end of the range.

So my numbers for my first day were:

Fat - 123g
Protein - 63.5g
Carbs -  33g

Not too bad. I went over my carb grams before noon..OPPS! Nothing major and I'm not freaking out about it, it is as simple as leaving the salsa off my eggs and I need to balance everything out better so I am not just eating a bowl of lard with a spoon for dinner...Mmmm lard. I think it will take a few days to get it "dialed in" as they say but I did pretty damn good for my first day. I learned avocados are pretty freaking high in carbs as well as good fats. Half of all my total carbs was just one avocado! Totally not worth it for me. I will eat half an avocado from now on just to not use up all my carb grams in one go. I was also just shy of my protein for the day which is also fine. It's allllll about the delicious fat.

I also consumed a lot of coconut oil which had an ahem...poop producing affect. I think because I consumed like 4 tablespoons of coconut oil in 2 hours. I think I'll be fine if I do 2 tbsps first thing in the morning (which is my usual 1oz morning shot of CO) and 2 later on in the evening. Keeping them well spaced out should I'm hoping will lessen the poop producing affects, not that I dislike being regular or anything. It's good to know my colon and GI tract are doing their thang and that copious amounts of coconut oil has that affect on me.

Husbie thinks the amount of food I am eating is light but fat packs more calories per gram than any of the other macros. I legit felt full with all the food I ate yesterday. I did not feel deprived or anything.


Sunday 3 February 2013

n=1

WOOHOO! My 100th post on ye olde bloggie!

After my disillusionment with the "program whose name shant be mentioned" at the beginning of the month and husbie leaving, I kinda "floated" for the month of January. I stuck to Mark's Daily Apple's 80/20 rule (80% paleo 20% other). The more I read on the forums on MDA the more I am drawn to the larger primal umbrella which is much more inclusive than *other* programs without the drama...ahem.

I was perusing the forums over there yesterday and came across an interesting thread called "Eat Moar Fat!". This is a thread for an "n=1" experiment. The principle behind n=1 is basically you are conducting nutritional experiments on yourself...totally my kinda thing. There is a Potato Diet thread which is another n=1 experiment where people eat only potatoes for a week to see what kind of results they get. Let's keep in mind that the people that are doing these experiments are already successfully following a primal or paleo lifestyle or MDA's "Primal Blueprint", not Crisco guzzlers. They are trying different things on themselves with a great understanding of whole food nutrition. I don't recommend conducting n=1 experiments on yourself without first understand and following the paleo/primal diet for awhile. You shouldn't go from eating burgers and fries and Starbucks to doing an n=1 eat moar fat experiment...that's my disclaimer.

So after reading the thread I got all jazzed up. I geeked out on the sciencey bits and figured out my ratios for the experiment. I had wanted to start some n=1 experiments but the Potato one freaked me out. This one seemed much more do-able for me so I have decided to commit to it and putting it up on here means that I really have to do it.

I won't go into detail about what the protocol for the experiment is but here is the link to the February thread EAT MOAR FAT! Apparently, a lot of people did it in January with great success. The ultimate goal of the experiment is to get yourself into a state of nutritional ketosis (fat burning or fat adapted).

I'm going to post my foods and ratios for the day on here. Today's food log will be posted tomorrow so I am doing the most painful and tedious thing I can think of which is not only logging all my food but figuring out the macros....blah! Macros are macro-nutrients, macro-nutrients are fat, carbs and protein for all of you who are not up to snuff on your nutritional info (micro nutrients are things like vitamins, potassium, magnesium etc). I am actually excited to do this since I love experimenting and trying new things. Husbie thinks I am totally insane as always. Speaking of the husbie he has stuck to the 80/20 principle as best as he can eating crappy crappy camp food that he has absolutely no say on. I am proud of him! I send him away with fish oil pills to balance his O6-O3 ratio, a case of Lara bars and a big bag of raw almonds. He has made the observation during a very informal reintroduction that of all the things he cut out, dairy seems to be the only one that really gives him issue so he is remaining mostly if not totally dairy free.

Also, I stopped eating HUGE salads for lunch and dinner and my weird left side pain, bloating and gurgling went away! I was eating waaaay too much insoluble fiber. I don't eat a lot of raw veggies anymore and that seems to have remedied the issue. I will have a tiny salad once or twice a week now...my gut is mucho happy with me.

Speaking of supplements, I have been meaning to share mine with you. I think that you don't really need to supplement if you are eating a wide range of real whole foods. These are things I take, some on a daily basis, some on a less frequent basis.



1. FISH OIL PILLS - I take 2 of these every morning, some days I take 2 with my mid day meal. Being a land locked land lubber I don't eat nearly enough fresh oily fish (I also hate salmon). I like this brand because it's dairy, soy, gluten free and I can buy it at the grocery store in the hippie food aisle. Husbie takes a cheaper brand that is also creepy-free. This is something I take everyday because I like keeping my O6-O3 ratio in check.

2. ALOE VERA JUICE - I wanted to try this for awhile so I bought a bottle. Mine is the whole leaf stuff, you can buy just inner leaf stuff. I don't know what the difference is. This stuff I take about 2-3 times a week. I thought it was going to taste better than it does...it tastes like crap. Good thing you are only supposed to drink a few ounces. I doubt I will buy it again after I finish the bottle but I wanted to try it (hello inner scientist!). I also ALWAYS date my supplements so I know how long they have been open...you should do this.

3. MAGNESIUM CITRATE - I try to take this every single night before bed but I haven't since husbie has been home *winkwinknudgenudgehowsyourfather*. It also tastes like crappola and does this weird bubbly action when you mix the hot water in. To make it taste less like crap, I use cold herbal tea to top it up instead of the cold water or fruit juice they recommend. I use 2 tsps and I take it to promote better sleep and as a mag supplement (most people are magnesium deficient as I have mentioned multiple times). It also has the fun side effect of keeping one regular...horray for pooooop!

As a final note...I love the song Inner Ninja by Classified and husbie hooked up the satellite radio again and 90s on 9 is probably the best thing ever...I forgot how much I loved that station and the 90s.

Saturday 2 February 2013

The roughest neck around

I can finally divulge the BIG NEWS that I was forbade from speaking before this point. Husbie is now a rigger...oil rigger...my hard working love drills for oil. This means he is gone for weeks at time then back home for a brief bit then gone again...rinse, lather, repeat. Admittedly, this was my plan for a looooong time and it has finally come to fruition. I don't like him being away from me or the beasts but this is the way it has to go for our future.

So because of this, one of the requirements was that he had to shave his beard. Well....he didn't *HAVE* to but then he wouldn't have got the job. He has to be able to put on a mask and have a tight seal in case of H2S (we called this sour ass while planting, H2S can kill you in seconds no joke). So he shaved the beard, the Duck Dynasty beard he was growing as well as the beard that he has had for over 4 years!

This is the before beard...large and burly, just the way I like it!


MOUNTAIN MAN STATUS!


The de-bearding


Face pubes...this was just as he started the grooming. When he was done it looked like a small rodent burrow


GONE! or mostly gone...this was prior to the shaving down to bare skin. I don't know why he is giving this wonky ass smile...makes him look silly.


I thought I would be much more distraught over the death of the beard but alas I wasn't. Nary a tear was shed! Beardless he looks much much younger I think (as do others). After not seeing him for almost 2 weeks, when I picked him up at the airport I was a bit taken a back even though he was shaved before he left. He also looked smoking hot when I picked him up (absence makes the vagina heart grow fonder).

I snapped this quick while I was at a red light. It's new-ish and I am familiar with this artist. I am glad to see this as it means the artist is still working in their preferred medium. It's large too, about 3 feet tall and a foot and a half wide. I would also say that it means spring is just around the corner but it has been in the -40s for weeks (this is no exaggeration, it's been "exposed skin freezes in under a minute" cold) so someone exposed themselves (hehe) to put this up...SUFFER FOR YOUR ART!


This rather disconcerting stickers was put up in one of the elevators in my building recently. Apparently the elevator has unspecified deficiencies. What kind of deficiencies? Vitamin? Mineral? Electrical? Structural? Why not just fix or if it can't be fixed, replace the damn elevator? So many questions so few answers.



Friday 1 February 2013

Flashback Friday

I know I know, I missed last week...whatevs. BUT THIS WEEK...in honor of my darling husband's return from being a hard working roughneck, the very very first picture ever taken of us about a week after we met. I picked this one because he had to shave for work...the full beard...gone! This was the only other time he had absolutely no facial hair since we've been together. I love him so freakin' much, look how hot he is!