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!

Thrifty Fish Oil

Now for a bit of thrifty hunter/gatherer fun. I take a ton of fish oil everyday, as does the Big Guy AND both of the dogs (the boy just because it's good for him and his fabulous fur, the girl because she prone to inflammation & just done with a round of chemo for Mast Cell Tumor) We've been burning through a bottle of 320 capsules in just a few weeks. That's 25 bux. That is a lot of money for someone who had her pay cut to the bones. What to do??
My hunter/gatherer nature led me to start shopping at CVS and doing some serious coupon collecting.

CVS regularly has fish oil on sale buy one, get one free. CVS also regularly sends out coupons that are get $5 off a $25.00 purchase (or $4/$20 or some other permutation) I can also always track down coupons for said fish oil. Also, CVS gives out what are called Extra Care Bucks, if you buy some product (razors, soap, make-up, etc) they give you a coupon for a certain dollar amount good for your next purchase.
Here's how I was able to get 640 fish oil capsules for $8.00
$25.00 each x2
= $50.00
-$25.00 (buy 1 get one free)
=$25.00
-$5.00 off a $25.00 purchase
=$20.00
-$2.00 in coupons
=$18.00
-$10.00 in Extra Care Bucks from another purchase
=$8.00

It doesn't always work out that well, but at the least, please shop around for your fish oil capsules. If you find a name brand that's available at a standard chain type drug store, check their website for sales. They *all* put this stuff on sale at least once a month. You should always be able to get it at least buy one get one free. Sign up for their email sales notifications and a lot of times they send you coupons etc that can really bump up your savings.

I used to use a lot of coupons for food. Now that I've changed my eating habits, there's not a lot of coupons available for carrots and fresh meat. :-) I'm one of those coupon geeks who really gets off on plunking down a whole pile of stuff and having the cashier say "59.95" and I hand over the wad of coupons and watch their face in disbelief as the total drops down to practically nothing.

So, why do I share this info? I don't want anyone to fail at changing their life because they couldn't afford a bottle of fish oil. Right now, I am broke. There will be no grass-fed meat for me, I simply can not afford it due to the pay cut. But I will find a way to make this work and I will share the info here. We can do this.

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)