Giveaway!

Kitchen Stewardship is doing a giveaway of fermented cod liver oil from Green Pasture. It's a very generous giveaway with 20 winners. I like her website. It's not totally Paleo (nor does it claim to be!), but there are lots of great ideas here and lots to learn about. (I came to Paleo through Nourishing Traditions and still use a lot of the NT ideas and fermented foods) So, if you're brave and want to try a great way to get your fish oil on board, without taking a ton of capsules, FCLO is the way to go.
Here's the link to the contest. Good Luck!

Robb Wolf says.....

So, I've been driving the big guy crazy lately by starting virtually every sentence with "Robb Wolf says..." I really can't say enough about the guy.

I've subscribed to his blog for a long time but never downloaded his podcasts before. (I do most of my computing at work and my PC there is made of wood. Really. There's no sound card, videos won't play etc. It's just a block of wood that's good only for spreadsheets and hurling invectives at.) In the weeks before we left for Olympia, I downloaded ALL of the podcasts and I've been slowly making my way through them one at a time. (10 hours total on the plane to Vegas = lots of Robb Wolf/Andy Deas time)

I've been applying a lot of the suggestions that he makes and I'm starting to see results. Just before we left for Olympia, I added Vitamin D to my regiment. In the 15 days since starting that, I've lost about 3 pounds. Now, some of that is due to stepping up my workouts again. However, my workouts have been as good as possible considering how absolutely crap I feel most of the time. Since starting the Vitamin D, I've felt better than I have in a long time, hence I've been able to step it up. Losing weight has been a supreme struggle for me since the splenectomy surgery and all the prenisone I was on while I was sick. (2002 through 2004) I gained over 35 lbs while I was going through all the treatments - partially from the medications and partially from not being allowed to workout because I could have literally died from it. Plus, I have Hashimoto's Thyroiditis which makes weight loss a heart breaking struggle. On top of that, I suspect there's some other autoimmune thing going on or some type of "energy deficit" illness (mitochondria malfunction or some such happiness) It's like I have a very limited energy budget and I can spend it training or functioning in life, but I can not do both. (which is why when we travel, I am usually incapacitated from blowing my energy load on the actual travel and have nothing left when I get to the event! Sucks!)

The first time I put *all* my new tools in effect was in June when we traveled to Atlanta. I took along 80% of my own food, expecting to supplement it with stuff that I knew I could get in town. I took a ton of fish oil each day and creatine (Just plain, unflavored creatine monohydrate) I made sure I had a lot of healthy fats (coconut, avocado) and I came though that event like a champ. The big guy was shocked. Not only did I have energy but I didn't get all weird and emotionally withdrawn like I usually do. In other words, I was fun to be around.

I've been keeping up these original changes and have been slowly weeding any other problem areas. I've cut my milk intake down to about 1/4 of a cup or less per day. (I'm only having 1 cup of coffee per day and it's gotta be with milk. Or someone will die and it won't be me. Murder would ensue) I still have great difficulty accepting that I have to give up my home made, slow fermented sourdough bread. I've laid off of it for a few weeks though and I can't say that I *feel* better, but I'll give it some more time. Other than that, the only grains I'd been eating was rice, maybe every 2 weeks. (I laid off pasta,etc about a year ago) I do know that I usually feel ok if I have my own bread once or twice a week and NO OTHER GRAINS AT ALL. If I have my bread and some rice and a hot bog in a bun and some ice cream and....BLAM, it's a big autoimmune explosion. Sore joints, swollen knuckles, exhaustion, etc. It makes it easier to avoid all that stuff when it comes with built in aversion therapy. (Not to mention, when Robb Wolf says... "it's a gut irritant" it sounds really disgusting and so becomes even easier to avoid!)

So, It's a work in progress. I'll keep updating here as changes are made and will try to figure out what is working or not.

One more thing, I'd be remiss if I didn't add in here the other people who I quote to varying degrees. I some times have been know to say

• "Mark Sisson says" (despite the naysayers on his 80/20 rule, if it hadn't been for him, Primal would have seemed too overwhelming and I wouldn't have started it. Once I saw that it made me feel better, I was able to put 80/20 behind and make it more like 99/1)
• "Melicious says" (For her sheer gumption and stick-to-it-tiveness and determination and inspiration. For when I need to hear that yes, this can be hard and yes, it can be ok to whine and cry. But do it anyway. Because I am worth it. Roar!!!!) (and because we have the same taste in boots.) (And music) (and I am a goofy fan girl for Roller Derby gals!)
• "the folks at Whole9 say" (It was the Whole9 folks who gave me the idea to bring all my own food to Atlanta and stick to my guns while doing it)

Back from the Olympia

What a great freakin' trip! It was perfect in every way. The only thing that would have made it better would have been more gambling/spending money in my pocket. :-)

The people who organize the Olympia and specifically the Ladies that we dealt with in registration/check in/questions because we were confused, etc, were fantastic. The athletes were, for the most part, super gracious and patient and willing to interact. Only one of them was a bit sketchy in the friendliness aspect and even he ended up apologizing to ALL of us on Sunday morning. So, I forgive him and, in fact, I won't even tell you which on it was. :-)

I managed to stick to my meal plan pretty closely, with the exception of forgetting my faux-Lara Bars, which I am now calling "Ayla Bars". The big guy and i hit the buffet for a majority of the meals. Breakfast was pretty darn good there. Lunch ok, dinner was also pretty good. I utilized the Mongolian stir-fry stations but also pulled vegetable items off the salad bar and the Mexican food stations to give me more variety. I was pretty happy with that. I also loaded up on fruit for snacks and breakfast for the couple of days when we were pressed for time. My only serious deviation from the plan was a few sips of root beer to accompany a tasty hamburger that was on a bun, sorry - I couldn't bear to wrap that puppy up in lettuce. I wanted the whole burger/bun/toppings experience that I haven't had in months. And it was delicious! :-) I never did have the dessert I planned for. Never found one that I wanted. I think the hamburger bun took the place of it.

We managed to hit the pool area 3 days out of 5, sat in the hot tub for hours. Lounged in the sun. It was like a real vacation. Started taking Vitamin D before the trip and I think between that and some massive sun exposure it helped big time with feeling so darn good. No aches and pains, no hip torture, awake early, not cranky.... overall feeling much better. (Plus the massive doses of fish oil! Magic pills!)
More later. Lots of photos to post too!