Glad We Came This Far

We are well past the 30 days of grain free and feeling oh so very much better. More energy, less ouchies, just better all over. I am amazed that I don't miss bread, I do make some biscuits and such with coconut flour and almond flour and other breadish things, but for the most part it's not something I think about where before I would start meal planning with what kind of bread I wanted to eat and what I should put with it. I am amazed at how fresh and yummy my food tastes and well pretty too.

Just Over the Half-Way Mark

Our 30 day grain-free challenge is just over half done and we have definitely found some things out. We both have issues. Mark's gut has hurt his whole life, it is getting better by the day. I have more energy and my joints are feeling better. I actually was able to walk up the stairs yesterday without having to lean on the handrail to make my hip work right, I wasn't skipping up the stairs by any means but it was so so much better than it has been in a very long time. We are eating tons of veggies and fruit, along with meat and good fats and learning to cook with coconut and almond flour. I have a serious need for chips, corn chips specifically and hope to get past it with out indulging. I don't know that the corn chips would hurt anything, but would prefer to wait out the 30 days to see. We have not added in exercise, actually we have talked about this and we both HATE exercise, it sucks and seems pointless kinda like manicured grass that nothing is eating, personal prejudice, but ours so here we have it. So instead we are finding more things to work on, mowing, cleaning, etc., actual work just feels so much better than exercise, we'll see how that goes.

New Information and an Update

So we've made if for yesterday and today without both grains and sugar. Is it having a result? Well, it's probably too soon to know much, but I do know this, I made it through yesterday and today without a nap, that's pretty cool, especially since John hardly slept last night at all and consequently neither did we, and we've spent all day in Columbia and John is napping right now, so I could be asleep if I wanted to, but well I'm tired, but just not so very tired that a nap is a must. So, so far so good!

Today I was getting ready to give books back to the library and decided that I needed to flip through Good Calories Bad Calories and came across some information that was too helpful to return the book yet. First let me give you the author's conclusions listed in his epilogue and then some thoughts of my own from what I read as I glanced through the book today. I will tell you upfront that this is no pleasure read, it is heavily footnoted, it is full of facts, quotes, and documents to fill out the author's research.

As I emerge from this research, though, certain conclusions seem inescapable to me, based on the existing knowledge:
1. Dietary fat, whether saturated or not, is not a cause of obesity, heart disease, or any other chronic disease of civilization.
2. The problem is the carbohydrates, their effect on insulin secretion, and thus the hormonal regulation of homeostasis -- the entire harmonic ensemble of the human body. The more easily digestible and refined the carbohydrates, the greater the effect on our health, weight, and well-being.
3. Sugars -- sucrose and high-fructose corn syrup specifically -- are particularly harmful, probably because the combination of fructose and glucose simultaneously elevates insulin levels while overloading the liver with carbohydrates.
4. Through their direct effect on insulin and blood sugar, refined carbohydrates, starches, and sugars are the dietary cause of coronary heart disease and diabetes. They are the most likely dietary causes of cancer, Alzheimer's disease, and the other chronic diseases of civilization.
5. Obesity is a disorder of excess fat accumulation, not overeating, and not sedentary behavior.
6. Consuming excess calories does not cause us to grow fatter, any more than it causes a child to grow taller. Expending more energy than we consume does not lead to long-term weight loss; it leads to hunger.
7. Fattening and obesity are caused by an imbalance -- a disequilibrium -- in the hormonal regulation of adipose tissue and fat metabolism. Fat synthesis and storage exceed the mobilization of fat from the adipose tissue, and its subsequent oxidation. We become leaner when hormone regulation of the fat tissue reverses this balance.
8. Insulin is the primary regulator of fat storage. When insulin levels are elevated -- either chronically or after a meal -- we accumulate fate in our fat tissue. When insulin levels fall, we release fat from our fat tissue and use it for fuel.
9. By stimulating insulin secretion, carbohydrates make us fat and ultimately cause obesity. The fewer carbohydrates we consume, the leaner we will be.
10. By driving fat accumulation, carbohydrates also increase hunger and decrease the amount of energy we expend in metabolism and physical activity.

This author also discusses what we have evolved to eat as does the author of Primal Blueprint I have said before that this doesn't bother me, and for the most part it doesn't, if they were religious authors writing for my church I would be appalled and offended, but they are not and so they can only write and interpret their findings through their own lens on life and that is, sad for them, evolution. As for me I know that God is my creator and redeemer, and I am free in this life to use research discovered by evolutionists to better manage my health.

I have always thought that being fat was my fault, surely some of it is, but maybe, just maybe the info I received all along was wrong. Armed with this new info I look forward to going forward and seeing what happens.

30 Day Challenge

I have quickly grown weary of hearing people talk about how old they are and then looking and finding that they are my age, or some even younger. I am raising a 7yo, one who will likely need a few more years in the nest than others and who needs me to be very active in his life to make sure that he does finally get to leave the nest, in a good way and for all good reasons, not that other people don't need to do the same, but this is what I need to do. Lately I have been hearing my friends talk about their diets, my friends have great influence over me, not because of peer pressure, but rather because I travel in an e-pack that does a lot of research into anything and everything that they are involved in and come to conclusions based on way way more than just emotion. I followed these friends when they were discussing Nourishing Traditions and it helped, but it still didn't help enough. Mark and I are still both achy and tired more than we would have liked and we have other issues going on that lead me to believe that trying a Paleo - Primal Blueprint - Perfect Health Diet, kind of approach is at least worth trying and taking seriously. I don't personally care what someone's opinion of what cave men ate or didn't eat was, I don't care whether we evolved (we didn't) to eat certain things and frankly I don't really even care what we were created to eat (creation is broken, as are we), I also know full well that we will die, no matter what we eat, how we exercise or anything else eventually we will all die, no 'right' food will fix that. What I really care about is just how crappy we both feel. At this point we are often taking ibuprofen to deal with aches and pains that we did nothing to get, I have always reacted to carbs badly, which is why so many foods around our house are called coma foods, and Mark has had GI issues that have plagued him his whole life and no matter what we have tried over the years we have not been able to make them significantly better. At the bottom of all this we just want to feel better, and we want to figure out what diet works for us and for our house, and then eventually move John onto a blenderized diet of the same. I don't think that I will post here daily about how this is going, I might, who knows, but I will post occasionally and I will definitely post at the end of 30 days.

For the record the 30 days are going to be a mix of the paleo/primal people. Grain free, sugar free, but we are still going to have milk, I don't think that milk is our issue and we have such a nice clean source of raw milk that I hate to even think of giving it up. We want to add in exercise, and will, one of the most encouraging things that I read from friends who are going down this road is that they actually feel good enough that they want to exercise, that's been a while, and I'm really looking forward to this part. Any amazing recipes we find I will post here and other than that we'll just see what happens, we couldn't possibly feel worse than we have been.

So I Grew Compost...

Okay, make that 2 tomatoes, 1 teeny tiny bell pepper, 1 puple hull pea and 1 green bean, lol, that is still 500% more than I have grown in the past several years but maybe next year will be better :)

Gardening, really, are you sure?

Yes, I'm sure. You see I have for years and years and years killed garden after garden, oh I have always loved the idea of having a garden and garden fresh food but the carrying out of that idea was just beyond me. This year, as a homeschool idea for John, Mark built a gardening bench along the front of our house and as much as John loves it, well it's really ended up being my joy. We started so late that I'm not sure that we'll get much out of this one, food wise that is, but what we are getting, what I am getting is a sense of peace, a belonging, an inner calm that thus far has only come from knitting and handwork of that nature. I'm amazed at how much I love this, and yet it's constantly on my mind and I just cannot wait to go back out there and I definitely need more plants because I've done all I can with these for the day way way before I'm done with the enjoying of it. So Mark has plans to build more benches that John can access, I have better ideas about this container part of our garden and I keep eyeing spots in the yard that would be great to grow corn, and cabbage family stuff, and garlic and onions, and carrots and hey how about some raspberries or grapes or well do you see where this is going, yep, obsession, but it's an obsession that gets me outside in the vitamin D giving sunshine, makes me feel good and makes for good eats, well eventually when I get better at this.

Ode to Bacon

If I were a poet or songwriter this would probably come out in verse, but since I'm neither it will just be a mish-mash of all the wonderful things that I've learned about bacon!

If you are a vegetarian just skip this, ok and most of my blogs and practically all meals in my house, not that I don't like ya, just that I don't get ya.

So on to the fine attributes and uses of bacon:

Bacon needs to be cooked slowly - you can rush it if you must, but often it ends up burned and it never renders up it's full flavor, nor the full amount of bacon grease that can be used for so many other things.

Bacon is yummy all by itself but it adds a richness and depth of flavor to so many other dishes that it's a shame to only ever eat it solo.

Bacon comes in versions, Proscuitto etc, but really I have found that good old American bacon fits beautifully in any recipe from any country, from Chinese food to Italian all of it is better with American bacon.

American bacon all tastes different, but that's because even though the process of making it is the same, each maker has his own twist, his own wood, or timing or spices. The best bacon we have found comes from small independent processors, like Patchwork Farms in Columbia that is getting hogs from family growers that are growing a few pigs here and there and then processing them mostly by hand. It's certainly more expensive bacon, but bacon like chocolate and shoes is often reflective of the price paid for it. If you haven't found a bacon you love, you just need to try more bacon!

Bacon needs not come in huge quantity to make a huge impact. Because we buy relatively expensive bacon on a pastor's salary we tend to stretch it as far as we can. A few pieces of bacon cut into lardons can flavor an entire dish, and the fat that was rendered from it can either add more flavor to that dish or flavor a whole other dish.

Bacon shouldn't just be used in the traditional places. Everybody in America (normal people) knows that bacon is good with eggs, muffins or biscuits, it's breakfast fare for sure. Bits of bacon (or nasty little soy flavored ones) go on salads and strips of it onto cheeseburgers, or other sandwiches. But bacon makes an awesome pizza, adds notes to mac & cheese and other white pasta dishes that bring them up the scale of yumminess by miles, adds richness and depth to any dish that has an onion or tomato in it and well basically there just is no bad place to have bacon! If you're cooking something and it just seems to be lacking flavor, depth, or a certain you-can't-quite-put-your-finger-on-it add bacon, if it doesn't fix it, it will still have been worth the experiment. Here is even a recipe for bacon ice cream which I haven't personally tried but is on our list.

So I guess my whole point here is bacon is amazing, in a culinary sense it can go anywhere, do anything, and it just makes everything better. Even dishes where it's not up front and center you can always tell there's a little yummy bacon in the background making everything better.