Back by unpopular demand….IT’S ME!! Actually, there was no demand. In fact, I haven’t even got one email, Facebook wall message, or Twitter response asking when I’m gonna start writing again. So if no one cares, why bother? 2 reasons: 1) My website views have dropped from over 200 per day to about 150 per day, and 2) I’ve had this list of food up on my fridge for the past two weeks now. Suck it!
As I’ve eluded to in my past couple of posts, although few and far between (partly due to awesomeness, partly due to laziness), I follow a primal/paleo diet most of the time. I usually allow myself a cheat meal or two throughout the week, which, by most standards, are disgustingly huge and amazingly delicious. In fact, here’s one from about a month ago (yes, I really do take pictures of my food): an order of sesame chicken and rice, an order of pork dumplings, a spicy tuna roll, and a bowl of hot and sour soup. (Yes, I really do love most things Asian.)
Anyways, not the point. I’ve had people ask me about losing weight (if you can believe that). They usually give me 82 reasons why they can’t bring food with them, why they don’t have time to prepare it, and why they “just can’t”. You’d be amazed at the number of them that say sh*t like, “I can only eat about twice a day so I eat a yogurt cup and a banana for lunch, and a Lean Cuisine for supper. Why can’t I lose weight??”
Well, basically, because your body is storing most of those 800 calories as fat since it has no idea when you’re actually going to feed it again. So what the hell does a primal/paleo diet have to do with anything??
As I mentioned in my “Bread” post, I don’t think our bodies are set up to efficiently digest most of our Western Diet. Along with that, all-natural, whole foods have few calories so you can eat TONS of them (relatively speaking, of course) WITHOUT eating a TON of calories. Ya dig?
I’ve posted my actual menu for what I’m eating during the week before, but this time, I’m just going to give you a list of everything I ate. Ready for this? Let’s go…
1lb. – beef brisket
3.2lb. – boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1lb. – ground sirloin
11 – eggs
4 – egg whites
1 – meal replacement shake**
1/3C. – rehydrated beans (black and red)
3.5C. (uncooked) – brown rice
1C. – Pancake mix (actually turned into real pancakes, obv)
1C. – Old fashioned oatmeal
6 tortilla shells
8oz. (by weight) – Whole wheat fettuccini noodles
4 bell peppers
3 small onions
8 bananas
2 oranges
3 apples
2C. – Spinach
Some broccoli and cauliflower (not really enough to mention, but, meh)
1 can ‘o’ cream of mushroom soup (obv not paleo, l.o.l)
3 girl scout cookies (carmel delights to be exact, om nom nom nom nom)
A monster sandwich from my work cafeteria (it was free)
A small caesar salad with more dressing than lettuce (pre-made, from the cafeteria)
~ 1,000 calorie dessert bar (again, cafeteria food)
When you list it all out like that, it looks like an absolute sh*t ton to the untrained eye. But to anyone that knows calories and actually takes a second to look at it, they’ll see it’s not really that impressive. But then again, that was only over 5 days, not 7.
So anyways, there you have it. Eat more, eat quality, lose weight. Oh, yeah, I actually did lose a pound that week.
Night-night, kiddos. Well, not quite yet. I have to figure out how to change the font size on here. Apparently someone refuses to read it because it hurts their eyes. Sheesh! The stuff I do for you!
** =
Where do you buy the whey protien? Is it necessary?
Whey protein isn’t required, but some form of protein powder is.
spinach??
1. The spinach is a great idea. I’ve heard from others that it’s tasteless in shakes.
2. I think the best way to eat more and lose weight is to have many small meals during the day. Space out your food and your metabolism is spaced out more too. Starve yourself and your body holds on to any food it gets!
There’s a big difference between calories & nutrients.
Eating Paleo means you get lots of nutrition with less calories.
The Standard American Diet provides little nutrition with lots of calories.
Keep bloggin Paleo brutha
@Tony
Ya’rly!! Not only spinach, but I’ve recently started adding celery. Can’t taste it. However, I tried asparagus. DO NOT WANT!!
@Michael
As I just said to Tony, I can’t taste it. I still only taste the fruit, cinnamon, and vanilla. Soooo good!
@Douglas
Right on, homie. Nice site you’ve got there.
Me thinks your list is missing a few key quality ingredients, such as bacon, bacon, and more bacon. mmm… BACON!
Your nutrition stuff is awesome more writing prrrrrrrrreeeeeez 😀
@Rosa
While bacon is technically a paleo food, I like to save it for my cheat meals. I once ate a whole pound of bacon in the form of BLT’s…on bread…with Miracle H-whip. True story.
@Ciaran
Thanks, homie. Plenty more nutrition stuff coming. I just worry that the next step is to start arguing minutiae and citing research studies. I hate that, and have a post planned about that. Stay tuned…
@ Michael, there are several new studies out disproving the theory that eating more frequently will “boost” metabolism vs. eating when you’re hungry. In fact, I think Dave actually has posted (if only tweeted) about intermittent fasting and the reasons you don’t suddenly get fat by not eating so often. Of course, I still tend to eat about 6 times a day, but only because I’m hungry and still routinized.
@Dave. Curious, man, how much different is Paleo from Primal? I ask because, based on what I know, beans and oats fall under the “do not eat” parts of both Paleo and Primal philosophies. I’m guessing you had them as part of your cheat meals. But just wanted to be sure.
Ps. I like when you write. I just prefer to not tell you that. Your head is big enough as it is. 😛
@Scott (and Michael)
As you know, I’ve recently changed my mind about the small meals and agree with you. However, I think there is still some psychological merit to it. Kind of like a placebo effect since the underlying principle (which has nothing to do with ‘metabolism boosts’) is still being followed.
The differences between Paleo and Primal are pretty small. Can’t remember which one right off the top of my head it is, but one is more lenient on dairy (I think paleo) and the other is more lenient on certain grains/legumes/fruits. The reason I said “mostly paleo” in the post is that I try to eat only whole food that is unprocessed and can be found in nature. That includes rice and beans. And since I don’t have any underlying allergy/intolerance/digestive conditions, there’s no reason for me to NOT eat them if I want to.