Carnivore II : Day 5 - Bacon, Eggs & Chicken! (Almost Deja Vu!)

A very similar day today to yesterday, in terms of carnivore cuisine. Decided to keep eggs as part of my normal carnivore weekday plan for this week, since they went well yesterday and I'd like to see what results they have on my satiety.

Breakfast (at 8am): Bacon and three eggs, fried in butter ( there were only supposed to be two, but I dropped the carton as I was putting it back into the fridge, and the top edge of once shattered, so I had to add it to the pan)


This breakfast kept me going all day, despite my lingering sniffles, cold weather, and long day. I did notice a Babybel in my bag when I was hunting for my phone, so I decided to eat it at 2pm to ensure I wasn't struggling with hunger before my day ended at 6pm. It was probably a good move, especially with the cold weather, and by 6pm I was tasting the first tingles of ketosis breath (yay, it's been a while!), so it obviously didn't affect my fat-burning!

Dinner (at 7:30pm): Roast chicken! The boy loves breasts (*cough*) so I let him take what he wanted, and I ate the rest... Ate a bit too much, am very full, but I don't think I've gone over my calorie aims, so that's good! I've only been eating when I have wanted to, without watching the calories too much while I fight this bug, but I've remained in the 1500 - 2000 zone every day since going carnivore again. A testament to how satisfying this lifestyle is!


Along with my little sprint session yesterday, I did some dumbbell work at my desk last night, and boy am I feeling it today?! No real pain, just some stiffness in my shoulders, and a sudden awareness of my thighs and glutes after all those squats! Lovely!

Carnivore II : Day 4 - Bacon, Eggs & Spatchcock!

Another sleep-in today, trying to rid myself of this pesky cold. Awoke to a lovely surprise - a pleasing result on the scale! And I have noticed my stomach flattening again, and some jiggliness returning in my trouble spots. There may well be a chance of some more fat loss before Thailand...

Breakfast/Lunch: Bacon & eggs!


Despite my chest pain and sinus issues at the moment, I decided to drag the boy outside to try a workout theory of mine - sprinting up our long, steep driveway and then walking back down to the bottom, only to repeat the exercise. We went out, I in my Vibram FiveFingers, and completed a warm-up lap (jogged uphill, walked back down), and then tried one sprint. The weather was much crisper outside than it had looked from indoors, so we left it at one sprinted lap, as my chest was hurting from the cold. But I certainly felt better having completed some physical activity, after almost two days of rest. I may do some body weight exercises once my dinner has digested further...

Dinner: Spatchcock - my first time preparing such a meal. Having to cut out the spine and remove the organs was quite an experience (note: sharpen kitchen scissors), but the result was certainly worth it!


Basted with coconut oil and a little harissa, grilled in my faux-George Foreman grill. Delicious!

I have spent much of my convalescence catching up on my reading, and spent a bit of time reading through PaNu by Kurt G. Harris MD. I don't agree with everything he shares regarding the Primal/Paleo lifestyles, but his observations and studies regarding human biology and nutrition needs are thorough and accessibly presented. I also spent time trawling through Fitness Black Book, after being attracted by the new report, The Vacation Body Blueprint. I have not read it yet, but if it is like the majority of his blog posts, it should be intriguing, open-minded, and well-researched at the same time. Plus, since I'm about to go off on vacation, it's quite timely - not that I'm expecting the report to teach my anything I don't already know. But hey, the more information and motivation, the better!

Carnivore II: Day 3

Yay, the scales are showing improvement - guess the water weight is finally leaving me, in the face of the BCP, nut & fruit binges, and my cold! I love living as a carnivore!!

Breakfast: More like lunch really, since it was past noon... Organic lamb chops, and bacon!


Lunch: A remaining chunk of my basil cheddar (exploiting the weekend dairy & egg allowance, although I wasn't really wanting anything but meat), followed later by some pure cream to up the dietary fat intake.

Dinner: Roast pork!! And, boy oh boy, am I good at roasting pork or what??! Just check out the gorgeous piece of meat and its perfect crackling I removed from the oven...


And after letting it rest, check out the perfect juiciness and stability of the meat...


And here's my share of the feast - with the boy's share of the crackling on the side!


Had to toss most of the lean after devouring the crackling and the fat - it's the one roast meat I can't stand cold the next day. Which reminds me - gotta enjoy some more beef and lamb roasts before spring weather kicks into gear!

Carnivore: Again!

Back on the bus! And I'm already feeling so much better, digestion-wise - energy-wise I won't be able to notice any changes until I shake this bloody cold!! Argh, sinus pain! Thanks, little brother who took a cold to our family get-together last weekend!

Breakfast: Leftover chicken thighs from last night.

Lunch: Bacon!!


And then, some chicken drumsticks!


Dinner: An itty-bitty organic scotch fillet steak (admittedly, my sense of proportion is a little off since Dad's massive 400g scotch fillets he gave me last weekend!).


Guts = happy! Sinuses = sad. :( Fingers crossed that my day off today and my big sleep-in tomorrow (along with my nap this afternoon) will kick this bug so I can enjoy the zero-carb lifestyle fully!!

Getting Back On The Bacon Train!

I have been struggling through this first month back on the BCP, trying not to get down in the face of water retention, hormonal flip-flops, weakened self-control (seriously, I'm like a warrior on a normal day, but now I can't have nuts in my house...), and only one weigh-in day showing a sub-80kg weight! I'm trying to avoid the scale at the moment since seeing a 81.5kg-82kg figure come up just makes me want to burn all my pills and let my PCO do whatever it wants!

But, in the meantime, I have been tempted by the memory of how good I felt during my Carnivore experiment, and am hoping that getting back on the bus will help me regain my iron willpower and feeling of wellness. The plan: meat only during the week, adding in eggs and zero-carb dairy on the weekends if I want. And since I have a freezer freshly filled with organic beef, lamb, chicken and kangaroo, I'm all set!

So, my breakfast this morning - bacon! I was running late, so I whacked 200g on the grill, and let it cook slowly while I showered and blow-dried and applied make-up, and dressed (not necessarily in that order...)


Didn't need lunch, so when I arrived home (5:30pm) I cooked up a little more bacon, and some minced beef:


I have to start serving that on a plate, it really doesn't photograph well in deep bowls...

Fear not, the dinner I made for the boy will lift this post from snoring to roaring! Big call, I know, but it is my pleasure to present, for the first time, my Chicken Enchiladas!

Recipe: Chicken Enchiladas

Ingredients:

4 chicken thighs
4 eggs
2T pure cream
1t butter
100g feta cheese
1 tomato
3T grated Parmesan cheese
1T chopped parsley
Dash of chilli powder

Method:

1. Roast chicken thighs slowly in a moderately hot oven.

2. Beat eggs and cream in a small jug. Melt butter in a large, flat frying pan over moderate heat. Pour 1/3 of the egg mixture into the pan, and cook until top starts to set.


3. Remove chicken from oven (leave oven on) and slice thinly. Set aside. Meanwhile, slice feta cheese and dice tomatoes. Set aside with chicken.

4. Flip omelette, and layer feta, tomato and chicken along the centre of the omelette.


5. Once cheese has begun to melt, fold the outside flaps over the fillings, and press down lightly to set in place. Remove from the pan, and place onto oven tray lined with foil.


6. Repeat steps 2-5 twice, to make two more omelettes, placing them on the tray beside #1. Top with sprinkled Parmesan, parsley, and chilli powder.

7. Place in oven, and turn up heat to high.



8. When Parmesan has melted, remove from oven and serve to rave review! Even from the toughest critics...

Today's Tucker (Very Low Carb Edition) - 25/08/09

Breakfast: Scotch fillet steak, yum!!


Lunch/Dinner:


That's right, all for me! But I left the breasts for the beau.

Snacked on my favourite basil cheddar a bit later - the perfect end to a looong day!

Today's Tucker - A Touch o' Penance

It took a long time for any kind of hunger to hit me today. I resolved not to eat anything until my body told me that it had finished metabolising everything I had eaten over the weekend. Apparently, probably thanks in part to the freezing weather today, it was ready for more energy at 3:15pm, so I ate more basil cheese. Yum!

I was stuck at work until 7:30pm, but when I finally arrived home I threw some organic beef chuck steak on the grill, and whipped up some scrambled eggs with Parmesan and parsley:


Later I had a little haloumi since it was on it's last day of freshness, and some cream to get my fat intake up. But even so, I've left a decent caloric deficit, sans hunger, to hopefully get my weekly average back in balance. I've decided to watch my calories quite strictly during the week, with minimal carbs and no nuts or fruit, and then on the weekends I can have small amounts of nuts and fruit if I want. Since resuming my BCP I've noticed diminished self-control around nuts in particular, so it's best not to have any open packets in the house at all. I'd like to clear out of the freezer of all berries, but we stocked up when they were on special, so that will take a while! In the meantime, rules will help negate temptation! And here's hoping that the occasionally button or two of 100% chocolate will get me through my bad week of the month, now that I have those again. Damn you, PCO!

Primal By The Beach

Never mind that it's still winter (just), my folks rented a beach house down on the Mornington Peninsula, so the boy, the brother and I dutifully headed down the Eastlink to stay for a night. I took some primal food along, just in case, but it was completely unnecessary since my parents are awesome. Dad has always been more than happy to live on meat, eggs and cheese, and Mum has been very receptive of the outpouring of info coming her way, from me, over the past few months. She has even cut most bread out of her diet, and this is a woman who sometimes lived on toast until dinnertime!

On Saturday morning we headed into the city to do some swimwear shopping. I loaded up a small plate of leftover chicken and some fried haloumi for breakfast, and did the same for lunch after some successful shopping.


Dad bought a MASSIVE pork leg roast, and cooked it to perfection, with more crackling than even I could put away! Served with delicious pumpkin (found it hard to stop at just one hunk!) and a little silverbeet.


So a day of very good meals, but let's just skim over the fact that while we waited for the pork to cook fully, there was a bowl of macadamia nuts... And then there wasn't.

Sunday morning was almond pancake time!


Then it was off to a winery in Red Hill, where we waited eons for fairly decent food, except that all they had was grain-fed beef and fish, so I had to go for the flathead... Meh. (Photo coming soon)

Dinnertime - we started with my oysters, which is a simple explosion of flavour, created by frying some bacon until crisp, dicing it, shredding some cheddar, and sprinkling both over the oysters in their shells. Stick under the broiler until cheese melts, and serve while hot.


Then Dad cooked up some delicious racks of lamb, and I made Red Omelettes - the fillings were salami, bacon, cherry tomatoes, red capsicum, red onion, and a bit of basil cheese (not red, by the way, although my first round was in red wax, so I count it)!


Again, some pretty sweet, normal, primal meals... Accompanied by macadamia nuts, berries and cream, and cheeses (not shown, and not to be spoken of again...)

The highlight of the weekend, apart from all of the eating, was the trip to the Peninsula Hot Springs, one of my favourite places in Victoria. What's more primal than bathing in warm, natural mineral springs?

Today's Tucker (Very Low Carb Edition) - 04/08/21

Breakfast: Another generous breakfast to last me through til dinnertime - Porterhouse steak, and scrambled cheesy eggs


Dinner - Entree: Scallops stir-fried in coconut oil, garlic, rosemary, parsley & hot chili powder. Serve with baby spinach.


Dinner - main: Porterhouse steak and roast chicken.



Fabulous seeing the scales moving in the right direction again, especially with swimwear shopping filling my morning tomorrow! And then it's off to spend a couple of days down in Sorrento with the family. Fingers crossed we go out to places that serve excellent steaks!

Meanwhile, Don at Primal Wisdom has been doling out some well-evidenced and researched articles regarding fruit & vegetables, looking at whether we need fiber at all, and also examining "beneficial" phytochemicals. His work and honesty is all the more significant given his own published book, The Garden of Eating, contains many vegetables and fruits. Just goes to show how dynamic our understanding of the world needs to be if we are to remain open-minded and unselfish. I'm so glad that I have access to the work of someone as grounded, unselfish, and objective as Don, and not just because it helps me feel better about cutting back on my carbs. Of course, we all favour information which supports our own wishes and beliefs, but I would never have tried VCL, Zero Carb, or especially carnivorism had this kind of information not been widely available and ever more frequently asserting itself. Definitely material worth thinking about, and definitely a blog worth following.

Today's Tucker (Very Low Carb Edition) - 20/08/09

Breakfast: In a word - juicy!


Mmm, lamb forequarter chops fried in lard at 7:30am, beautiful! And when was I next experiencing any form of hunger?

5:30pm: tiny tin of tuna in water.

Dinner: Kangaroo steak, thinly sliced, served on red cabbage sautéed in coconut oil and grated zucchini sautéed in butter.


Definitely keeping kangaroo in my repertoire, although I had to have some veggies (was going to have a carnivore day) to use as fat vehicles! I have more roo arriving tomorrow, including diced steak, so I'll try roo & feta kebabs to up the fat a bit. And there's more mince coming, begging to be layered into egg & roo pattie brekkies! Lots more playing to come!

Today's Tucker (Very Low Carb Edition) - 19/08/09

Short and sweet tonight folks - we're off to Slava's Snow Show which, from all accounts, promises to be amazing!

Breakfast: Roo burger topped with a little cheddar cheese and a fried egg (interesting that burger + cheese = tar-like appearance in photo)


Lunch: chicken drumsticks, cooked last night when drizzled in lard

Dinner: odd, yet surprisingly good, bedfellows - grilled rainbow trout, and The Usual (ham and cheese omelette)


Washed down with my veg for the day (could have done without it, but it wasn't long for this world) - fennel! Yes, I ate it raw, like you would an apple. Mmmmm, the aniseed-iness; it's practically dessert!


And meanwhile, does anyone enjoy jasmine tea? We were given some along with a delicate tea set a while back, but since the beau and I both had our own teas, we didn't make much use of it. Last night I finished my last bag of white tea AND my last bag of green tea, and was in quite a panic as to what I would drink tonight! Oh, the stresses of my pitiable life! So when I went fossicking for any remaining green tea bags (no, not flavoured sencha thanks... No, that anything made by Lipton...) I was overjoyed to find the happy little tin of jasmine tea sitting pretty along the back wall! Green tea plus dried jasmine flowers? I can do that! And I am - yum!

Recipe: Roo vs. Moo - The Burger-Off

In my local supermarket, I found this:


Affordable, with ticks in all the boxes (except it being low in fat - read: cook it with lots of lard!)

The beau screwed up his nose at it, so I decided to buy it and have a taste test between the roo mince and the only source of organic beef mince available to us between Organic Direct deliveries (coming this weekend, woohoo!):


Ingredients:

500g beef mince
500g kangaroo mince
2 eggs
1 brown onion, diced
1t garlic
1t parsley
1t thyme
1t cinnamon
2T lard
1T coconut oil

Method:

Preheat oven to 180°C. Line two trays with baking paper.

Sautée diced onion in coconut oil. Add garlic and stir until fragrant. Remove from heat and evenly divide mixture into two large mixing bowls.

In one mixing bowl, add the kangaroo meat and half of the remaining ingredients. Stir well.


And in the other, the beef mince and the rest of the ingredients, and stir.


Heat some extra lard in a ceramic frying pan. Create burgers by grabbing handfuls of meat mix, squish it into a ball, then gently press it into a flattened burger patty shape. Fry in pan until browned, flip, and brown other side. Then place on lined tray. Repeat until tray is full, and then place in oven. Bake until cooked through.

I kept the roo and the beef burgers separate, in order to see whether the boy could pick the difference. Well yes, he could, since the kangaroo meat was delicious and utterly flavourful, unlike the comparably bland beef!


Smaller ones are the beef, larger are roo. Served with a little vintage Australian cheddar. I could only stomach one of the beef burgers after my first taste of roo, and went back into the kitchen to make a mega-burger with some of the remaining roo:


Made another mega-burger, all set for breakfast tomorrow. Yum!

Other eats today:

Breakfast - two eggs scrambled with a little cheddar.

Lunch - two pizza frittatas.

Snack - Babybel and ham.

Judging by the fact that my digestive system is running with a purr, my body is overjoyed that I've cut the fruit and nuts, and only consumed 3g fibre today (in the pizza frittatas). Tomorrow will be the same, with maybe a little fennel with dinner... Or not, who knows?!

A Few Thoughts, Floating In Space

I was caught in the position where I needed to explain why soy intake wasn't a good idea, but found myself struggling to find a way to point out that while many cultures have been consuming fermented soy for centuries, we really don't know whether it's not doing us harm. I ended up floundering and babbling about there being studies that showed it wasn't good... Smooth. But my heart wasn't really in it, as this conversation took place while I was preparing dinner for my friend, and I didn't want her to feel bad for what she eats. If only I could have whipped out this thoughtful and accessible quote from Fitness Fail:

The rationale behind this approach is that while we can’t replicate our evolutionary diet, we can eliminate foods that were clearly not present in that time. Until we can show that they are not harmful. No one credible is saying that all types of food that we did not evolve to eat are a problem, we’re saying that we don’t yet have sufficient understanding to know which are harmful or not. History is filled with examples of new, supposedly “better” products having big unforeseen surprises. The fact that hydrogenated oils used to be considered more heart healthy due to their higher EFA content is a great example of that. Is this approach overkill? In my opinion, it probably is and I suspect that a number of more recently developed foods will turn out to be healthy or at least fairly benign. Until then, I’d rather not be surprised by yet another unforeseen “gotcha”.

The other reason I didn't bother to engage full thrusters? She doesn't like the taste of red meat. She stopped eating my pizza frittata when she realised there was ham in it. Lucky I hadn't made up her cauliflower pizza at that point. So she only consumes fish and chicken, and tofu, and I'll assume eggs and dairy to round out her shamefully low protein intake. This is a friend whom I've known for five years now, who has always been very thin (and not totally happy about it, but no real body-consciousness issues that I know about), with little muscle tone, no visible body fat, and some strange ailments such as fainting (the cause of which has not been determined despite arduous testing). She doesn't exercise, so she's completely 'skinny fat', and I can only imagine the poor state her bones might be in, especially since she avoids the sun. And now she's cut out all red meat, because she doesn't like it. I really hope she's eating big bits of fish and chicken every day. But what do you do when someone simply won't eat something due to personal preference? It's totally her business, and I'm happy to give her general health advice if she asks for it, but somehow it's much more comfortable talking to someone who is overweight about healthy eating than someone underweight (even when naturally so). I know it would be mostly due to her metabolism and insulin sensitivity - she's the friend who used to share a bowl of fries and a slice of cheesecake with me as afternoon tea on a REGULAR basis. I'm actually amazed I didn't weigh more than I did, but she never put on a pound. So maybe she's just lucky, and cutting red meat won't harm her. I may need to start buying her some slabs of salmon as 'random acts of generosity'... ;)

Note to self - Much as I have been enjoying my lard as lubricant of choice for my animal-based meals, I need to up my coconut oil intake again; it has been a while since I've been eating fresh or steamed veggies of late. And now that I'm cutting back on them again, I'll have to find other ways to enjoy my coconut oil without the flavour clashing with my meat, etc. Goes quite well with lamb...

I'm heading to Thailand in September! We'll be staying near Phuket, so I have been scoping the local cuisine. I am a bit worried that it will be hard to get a decent feed whilst dodging the masses of rice and noodles, but I won't be caving. I can always fast... Anyone have any advice for dining in and around Phuket? I'm looking forward to getting a lot of beach time and a lot of massage, and maybe even some rowing which I haven't done in years! My shoulders were built to row... Ah, and swimming! I miss it! This also means I'll need to go swimwear shopping soon... Not a bikini just yet... But my old tankini was already unreliable when it came to containing my bosom in the water, so I can't risk it now that it's loose around the waist! Jets by Jessika Allen has the cutest one-pieces at the moment, very retro, very flattering...

Interesting post-apocalpytic (i.e. tummy upset) symptoms - my stomach twanged and ached a bit this morning, especially after breakfast. It's now nearing 1pm, and the last few pangs of pain have finally stopped, and have been replaced by major hunger pangs (my breath is telling me it's ketosis time, yay! It has been a while...) So I'll be eating two pizza frittatas for lunch very soon, but I'm a bit worried that I'll end up with pain again, which would suggest something has gone wrong in my belly... Did the berries on Sunday burn a hole with their acid??!? ;) Let's wait and see...

I think I've finally made me peace with the route alterations this health journey has taken since the beginning of the year. I started out as someone with some excess fat to lose, because I always ate too much. Now I have learnt that, thanks to polycycstic ovaries, I am likely to be insulin resistant and will have to go to some extremes (Very Low Carb at least (or most)) to help my body shake these last few kilograms. And now I'm back on the contraceptive pill, which encourages water retention and other inflammation. I think I've accepted my new scale measurement as my new baseline for any further progress. But it has certainly been a powerful reminder that the scale isn't the best measurement of progress, though it had been for me up until this point. I'm quite sad that my experience is no longer the 'everyman' experience, but hopefully my food journal is still helpful to those who are interested in this lifestyle, even if they don't share my individual obstacles and needs. But then I remind myself that 1 in 3 girls have PCO anyway, and could be battling the same issues unknowingly. So I'll keep doing it, since my commenters are so positive and grateful. And I love cooking! And writing! (And procrastinating - I am at work right now, meant to be marking essays...)

I am really, really looking forward to making dinner tonight - roo burgers and beef burgers: can you tell the difference?

Finally, it's time for me to start upping my physical activity, since the weather is getting nicer and my weight is not far from the level I want to end up at (after removing fat and gaining muscle, that is). It's time to tone up. My skin has retained its elasticity very well - huzzah for being young - so it's just firming and toning now. I have my Vibram KSOs (although I still haven't heard back about what to do with my broken Sprints) and am loving my walk to and from work, and I've been doing some little bodyweight exercises in the kitchen while I wait for things to cook. I'm not quite ready to invest in kettlebells, but we'll see... :)

Thanks for your time. End waffle.

End The Mini-Experiment, End It Now!!

Am officially cutting the carbs waaaay back again - but first, here's what I served up last night:


Pizza frittata! Muffin-sized, the perfect entree! Fillings: capsicum, ham, Italian sausage, feta, sun-dried tomato, and olives.


Cauliflower pizza! Same toppings as the frittata fillers, but with cheese (and cauliflower for the base, obviously)!

And then as a little experiment, I also made broccoli pizza!


The beau scored this one, and claims it is just as good as the cauliflower version. Right now, organic broccoli is easier to come by than organic cauliflower, so that's a win!

After partaking of frittata and pizza, and watching the show (the first four episodes of Psychoville, a brilliant new BBC comedy by two of the guys from The League Of Gentlemen), my friend wanted some dessert, so I served up some thawed berries with cream and walnuts. I didn't need any, but had some mainly so she wouldn't feel bad for having dessert. I hadn't had much in the way of carbs (in an 'upping them' context, anyway) so it was worth it for the experiment, if not my caloric intake management! However, even while enjoying my bowl of berries, I experienced little stabs of pain in my guts, and knew not all was well in the world.

This morning I woke up to, er, unpleasantness, which continued all day long, and have thus sworn to cut back on the carbs again, starting immediately! I'm retaining so much water too; even though my measurements haven't changed, it's bloody depressing to see the scale measurement going up and up... Hopefully going Very Low Carb (one cup of veg per day, max.) again should stop that, and maybe have things moving in the other direction? I'm watching the calories closely, since swimsuit season will be coming early this year, thanks to a trip to Thailand happening in just over a month! And off the physical results paradigm, I haven't been feeling all that great mentally since amping up the carbs again. I felt so great on the carnivore lifestyle, I might have to start heading back that way, with a little more flexibility if necessary... Organic Direct are delivering another month's supply of organic beef this weekend, so that will help!

Today, I managed to eat a couple of pizza frittatas for breakfast:


Then some roasted chicken drumsticks for lunch:



Still feeling less-than-flash, so I'm rounding out the rest of the day with tea. Tomorrow: I'm going to try kangaroo meat for the first time! The plan is to make beef burgers and roo burgers, and see if either of us can tell the difference... ;)

A Working Weekend. Yay.

Once every two months or so, this VCE Literature & VCE English Language teacher has to write-off a weekend to mark major assessment tasks. The good part - I love my job, I love the subject, and I love my kids and their enthusiasm for my subject and the texts. The neutral part - one of my classes ain't so crash hot, so marking their work can be pretty painful. The bad part - I like being lazy on the weekend! I don't want to feel like I was productive, pfftcha! But I'm doing well - finished off one lot (the weak class) yesterday, and have made a start on class number two today (the brilliant group, and they are creative pieces, joy!!)... Let's ignore the fact that I'm here right now instead of pouring over the next in a huge pile of papers...

The food that got me through yesterday's slog (after a very generous sleep-in!):

Breakfast/Lunch - two lamb chops and some scrambled eggs


Dinner - chicken Caesar salad with leftover dark meat, cos lettuce, grated carrot, anchovies, and a little Parmesan cheese


Today's breakfast/lunch (yes, another sleep-in) - The Usual!


There will be more food today, but I'll save it for another post, since I'm cooking up some exciting treats for a mate who is visiting - yay for movie night!

Mini-Experiment: Upping The Fruit & Veg

Two long days of work, peppered with the irritation of having to organise my passport application, but thanks to a good diet and keeping on my feet, I've hardly ever felt stressed. Just a little fatigued thanks to dropping an hour from my usual sleeping time. I'll be making up for it tonight, although I'll want to get up an enjoy the promise of a warm day tomorrow!

Thursday

Breakfast: a lamb sausage, a fried egg, and a little bit of haloumi

Lunch: a lamb sausage, and a leftover lamb chop

Dinner: grilled veg, duck sausage, & a porterhouse steak at Charcoal Grill On The Hill in Kew



All good thus far - lots of lamb, a few primal veggies, and an amazing, perfectly prepared steak! However, my day was lacking in fat, so I decided to take in a rare dessert - stewed blueberries, a blob of cream, and a sprinkling of walnuts



Friday

I realised that it had been a significantly long time since I had eaten any fruit, and really my vegetable intake had been around the 20g net carb mark at most, though it had been creeping up over the past few days. So I decided that today I would try pumping it up to 50g, using just fruit & veg, just to see whether I'd notice any digestion changes... We'll see...

Breakfast: small handful of walnuts (the only fibre I could grab on my rush out the door)

Lunch: a Babybel round (a surprise tucked away in my deli shelf from my last dinner party), and some more walnuts.

Dinner - Entree: cabbage sautéed in coconut oil

Dinner - Main: roast chicken rubbed with my homemade lard, scrambled eggs with thyme, a roast fennel bulb and a heft of roast zucchini!


Dessert: thawed blueberries and a dollop of pure cream

Totals: 1550kcal, 65g carb, 24g fibre (41g net carb). Not a crazy amount, but lots for me - I feel like I've been eating veg all night! So we'll see if I get hunger pangs later, or wake up with low blood sugar... That's if I can even recognise the sensations; it's been many months since I craved any carbs!

Meanwhile, Ryan Robitaille from Low Carb Fight Club made my day (week, month...) by listing me in his link love post, 5 Quality Low Carb & Primal Peeps to Follow on Twitter, along with Mark Sisson and Dr. Michael Eades! And there are a LOT of people in the primal Twitter community! Thanks, Ryan!!

My favourite part - Ryan's description of what I do on Twitter and on my blog:

Great primal blogger, food experimenter, carnivorous Chef and all-around Aussie Sensation.

I can live with that! (But can I live up to it...?)