Chewsday

I was so exhausted after going to see Bonnie Prince Billy (who is in love now, so he kinda sucks) at the Fillmore last night, and then going to Rock n' Roll Trivia night at Minx (which used to be the Red Room, on Sutter) that I plain forgot to have my usual late-night snack.

So this morning I was starving! I leaped out of bed at the ungodly hour of 7am and cooked up an unholy trinity of chicken, eggs, AND steak... yum!


Just kidding!* Suckaz! I go to work on Tuesdays so the steak was for my lunch. See?



I know what you're thinking... "Chicken for breakfast, steak for lunch... which lucky member of the animal kingdom is he going to eat for dinner?"

Okay, I've got a train to catch. No rest for the wicked!

*like I was about not writing in this blog so much

Unbelievable

I wouldn't believe it if I didn't witness it first-hand...

So Emma and I ran 14 miles yesterday, and I went for 2x 4mile walks as well (not for the exercise but... just coz I'm lonely).

This morning I woke up and had 2 oranges for breakfast, about 10 strawberries and a handful of almondalia. Power Yoga at lunchtime, then a smallish bowl of veal livers and onions, and a smallish bowl of coleslaw with avocado and celery.

I just ran 10 miles easy peasy. Like easy peasy like. I was half expecting to fall over dead.

Something has made me way more efficient.

I wonder if it's the Paleolithic Diet?

Okay, so I concede this blog is getting a bit repetitive. Maybe I'll start posting a little less frequently, so hang in there.

Summary Bullets:

• So far I think the Paleolithic Diet is all it's cracked up to be, and more.

• The benefit of immediate consumption of "sugars" (sports drinks, raisins etc) after rigorous exercise cannot be understated! For me at least. It makes a HUGE difference. I think this is really the only time that they're 'good' for you though...
  

No Problemo Muchachos

14 miles on 2 boiled eggs and 2 bananas. No problem.

Okay, so there was a problem, we (Emma and me I mean I) were meant to run 16 but I got too hot and felt funny so I called it at 14. Just for the record, Emma - who I persuaded to run her first marathon in May with me - could have kept going.

Actually it was a beautiful run, incorporating the Presidio, the length of Golden Gate Park (closed to cars on Sundays), Ocean Beach, Land's End, the GG Bridge, Crissy Field, all on a spectacular San Francisco day! What a weekend this has been! (Yesterday I hit the Farmer's Market and Saturday in Dolores Park for the first time.)

Add to that the feeling of extreme self-righteousness I can now enjoy for the rest of the day!

Lunch. Omelet. That's enough eggs for one day. I think tonight for dinner I'm going to have... wait for it.... PORK you porky porksters!

In other news, I have two followers!

Big shout out to Megan and Stephanie for subscribing to my drivel! Woot!

Dinner

Pork it up you porky porksters! Gimme a P! O! R! K! PORK!

Confirmation Affirmation Ratification

I think I've cracked it. I just got back from a my fastest 10-miler of the year! Not only my fastest since I started the PD, but all year. I was flying! I knocked 4 minutes off my previous '09 best. And this was after 90 mins of one of the toughest yoga classes this morning, and both yoga and a 10-miler yesterday.

The only difference? Last night after the run, and this morning after yoga, I immediately pounded one of those sugary electrolytic sports drinks. Then I concentrated on eating high-glycemic foods for the next hour or so. Nothing crazy, just some raisins, fruit, coconut juice.

It's all about recovery. Gotta get the flux capacity back into the muscles immediately after depleting it all, with some liquid sugar.

I'm so happy I could punch an old lady.

WOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOO!

Okay, I Think I Have This Worked Out...

As I mentioned yesterday I have re-evaluated my approach to this diet. I have now re-read, in its entirety, the section on tweaks for athletes.

Turns out you do need to consume carbs, in the form of glucose drinks, and maybe even the odd potato. Horror!

It also turns out that I had read that bit before, but because I am a certified maniac, I ignored it.

So, a more deliberate and mature James has gleaned the following, ordered into 2 (two) bullet points. The logical extension is explained afterward:

• The Paleo Diet is adequate to maintain glycogen (carb) levels in the muscles, if one is not exercising.

• Immediately after exercise your body is much more receptive to carbohydrate restoration, the good kind. Not the turn-it-into-fat kind.

So, here's what this means. You don't so much carbo load as you do carbo compensate. You 'break' the paleo rules during, and immediately after exercise. According to the theory, this is the best way to make sure tomorrow's run goes well.

(Note that I am not talking about wussy exercise, like going for a 'hike' in Marin, or riding your carbon-fiber bike between coffee shops in your spandex. No, I'm talking about real gutbusting exercise, like running until the screaming pain drowns out the screaming demons, or doing yoga until there's a moat of sweat around your mat on the nice hardwood floor. That's right, the tough kind of exercise, the kiwi kind.)

So it's not about eating carbs in advance, it's about filling the hole afterward.

So I wrote up a wee cheat-sheet and pinned it to my fridge. I can and should consume glucose, simple carbs (like potatoes and pasta) within a certain window (of time) after exercise (an hour or two), and then return to the PD proper.

Right, sorted.

My cheat-sheet is posted here.

Oh Sinnerman, Where You Gonna Run To?

I have been procrastinating writing in my blog today, for reasons that will now become apparent.

Forgive me Father, for I have sinned.

Last night I allowed rice to pass my lips. Rice and beans. Oh the shame! Oh the excruciating dishonor! It wasn't my fault, I swear, there was nothing I could do. I was helpless before the Devil himself (who took the form of a small Mexican man at Poncho Villa's. - again!). There was an order mix-up and my all-meat and avocado dinner was served with rice and beans on the side.

I was not able to resist temptation, and I fell upon the starchy and leguminous abominations like a pack of rabid wolves. Once the delicious ambrosia of Satan's seeds touched my tongue I was no longer in control of my corporeal being. Positively possessed, I pitched the polysaccharide plagues into my pie-hole until there was nothing but plate.

Coming around from my daze I slowly began to realize the horror of what I had done. I considered inducing vomiting, but that's so passe!

Waking up this morning I knew I was at a critical juncture in my noble paleolithic quest. I reaffirmed my mantra, restated my credo, hardened my resolve, and brushed my teeth.

Then I ate eggs and fruit, went for a punishing yoga class fraught with self-castigation. I considered practicing with broken glass in my undergarments, but demurred on the grounds that I sweat enough on the floor at International Orange without adding blood to the mix.

Lunch was salad. Salad with chicken.

My name is James Flynn and I am back on the Paleolithic Diet.

I was up at 5:30 this morning! Probably because I was fast asleep by 9:30 last night. I was so exhausted! Getting to sleep does not seem to be an issue on the PD. I felt like I'd been tranquilized. However, I did go to work yesterday, and do a hard-core power yoga class with IO's hardest corest yoga teacher. Both were a shock to the system. Combine that with 0 carbs and I am the walking dead.

I'm waiting for it to get a bit nearer to dawn then I'm going to hit the pavement. I think watching the sun rise while running the GGB sounds like a good start to the day.

Breakfast this morning was delicious. I read somewhere that you're better off eating (whole) the stuff you put in a smoothie, so I did that.

1 banana
1 peach
1 cup microwaved strawb's and blueb's
1 boiled egg
1 cup lady grey tea

(this would make a pretty nasty smoothie anyway)

---update---

Okay, so something needs to be done. I couldn't run the 10 miles I had planned. I felt awful. Like I'd been kicked all over by homicidal mules. I managed to scratch out 6 miles and, to my utter humiliation, was overtaken by a milf at the end.

That's 3 consecutive runs where I've felt like crap. So I went back to my book and found this bit, which I had apparently read before... "modification of a strict Paleo Diet is necessary for the serious athlete."

I have decided that 6 hours of yoga a week, and 50 miles running, qualifies me as such.

So, I'm not going to start wolfing carbs or anything, but I'm thinking I'll have some on Saturday night in preparation for the half-marathon (training) run I have planned for Sunday. The book says I can! The book says I should. The book says.

Until then I will keep crawling through the mire.

P.S. Belter lunch! I left a beautiful pork loin to slow cook while I was at yoga, then chopped it up onto a salad with avo, crrt, tom, cuc, grns, lemj, evoo. Washed it down with a disconcertingly straight banana.

Steak Overlord

That was meant to say 'Steak Overload' but I couldn't bring myself to correct the typo.

So last night my cousin Bob, who is a cop in Vallejo, came into the city and took my aunt (Pru), another visiting cousin (Della), and me (James) to Harris (Steakhouse). This couldn't have been more perfect. It's 4 blocks from my house, I was starving, and I had a hankering for steak that just wouldn't quit.

To make a long story short I devoured a 30 oz rare aged porterhouse, half Della's rare filet mignon (with foie gras) (I think this is the best thing I've ever had in my mouth) and about 4 oz of Bob's rib-eye. I reckon, conservatively, I ate my own bodyweight in premium rare aged beef. Infraction alert: I couldn't resist sampling a little of the Cakebread Cellars wine Bob brought along. Just a weenie bit!

I think this rated as one of my all-time greatest all-meat gastronomic experiences.

I also ate some vegetables of little consequence. And I stoically avoided the bread, potatoes, butter and desserts! (Not so hard with half a cow inside you) .

Needless to say I'm feeling a little steak-weary today. Bloodshock? Fatshock? Anyway, this morning I downed a berry/oj smoothie for breakfast and hit the Caltrain down to work.

Feeling great!

"It's Been One Week Since You Looked At Me" - the cheese in my fridge

Actually, I've worked out that if you shred cabbage and sprinkle it on top of your lunch, then squint a bit, and shake your head around, it looks a bit like cheese... see?


And in case you're wondering what my lunch is today, it's the cheapest fattiest ground beef I could find slathered all over green stuff. I call it 'bubble and squeak'.

Actually, one week in and here's what I've learned about the Paleolithic Diet, as applied to yours truly:

Hardest Thing I Didn't Expect: Getting enough calories!! When you can't eat any more than 40% of your calories from protein, and you aren't eating carbs, this presents a problem! I seek the fat! I'm a regular lard-hunter. It's funny at the meat counter looking for the cheapest fattiest cuts and positively salivating over them!

Hard Thing I Did Expect: Thinking of things to make! Not getting bored. I have quickly started to look further afield for recipe ideas. Meat, veges and nuts seems a small palette from which to paint culinary masterpieces. However, I enjoy the challenge, as evidenced by today's luncheon fare.

Thing Wot I Expected To Be Hard That Aint: Not eating dairy and sugar. They're really easy to avoid! Pshh, dairy and sugar, dairy and sugar. You are NOTHING I tell you. For so long you ruled my life with a creamy sweet iron fist... of butter. I can get everything I need without you! Begone you delicious delinquents! Haha!

Thing That I Thought Would Be Easy That IS!: Being totally preachy and self righteous! Yeah! Just like a duck to water!

Sunday Run Day My-Legs-Weigh-A-Ton Day

Wow, that was tough. I don't think I ate enough yesterday, despite my late-night snack of hot sardines with carrot and lettuce all mixed in a bowl... I got up this morning and went to my first DSE Runner's Club Race of the year on an empty stomach. It was a cold and windy 12k. Portentous clouds loomed... and shit.

I felt I was dragging an anchor from the very start, and finished 3 minutes slower than last time. I was even beaten by... *gasp* a slightly overweight person! For shame!

Afterward our club-within-a-club; a sub-group of elite DSE runners breakfasters called the B'Fasts - went for breakfast, because that's what we do. I can safely say I felt no different after eating than I did before. I was still starving and felt like the tank was completely empty. I could hardly muster the energy to talk on the trip to the airport to drop Ra off!

Upon returning home I cooked up a big feed of broccoli and chicken, with onions, zucchini and the ever-present carrots. I'm eating it right now and I can actually feel the life returning to my long-suffering corpus. Phew!

---update---

Turkey burgers over green stuff with a side of 'sparagus. Woot!

Saturday Rest Day

Breakfast is the easiest meal to eat out, for us Paleos. Ra and I took a bus to the Mission and met his friend Bosco for breakfast at Bugaloo's.

Sensational. Omelet with bacon, avo, tomato and shroomage. Ref! Substitution! Home fries OFF, Fresh fruit ON. Play on amigos!


Bosco, Ra and I then walked through the Castro and hit the Academy of Sciences.




When Ra and I got home from all that walking and science, we were famished, so we cooked up a huge feed of coleslaw (with flaxseed oil dressing) and veal calve's livers with onions and mushrooms for Africa. I must say, Ra, who is my uni friend visiting for the weekend, has really embraced the Paleo Diet.

Liver 'n 'slaw:

Day 5 - The Reckoning

So I feel pretty darn tired today. Almost trembling-tired, like hypoglycemic. I watched a guy eating a croissant at the coffee shop and I almost mugged him for it. Also reeeally irritable... hmm...

I look at all the food I have and nothing really appeals as would a big fat PB&J. I need to lie down.

I think the other shoe is dropping.

Incidentally, I don't know how much, but I've visibly lost weight in 4 days... at least a couple pounds! Yikes! Far too fast!

---update - later that day---

What a turn around! After a good big meal of halibut over steamed broccoli, and a 3-banana chaser, I ran 10 miles with my good friend Ra biking along beside me! I felt fine. What a wonderful jaunt over the bridge!

The life-reaffirming meal...

When we got home we had a roast leg of lamb, some roasted rutabagas, pumpkin, onion, garlic and leeks! Infraction alert: 1 glass wine, 1 glass Jameson's! Ow! Did someone say man date?

Um... Thursday

My appetite seems to have changed, fundamentally. Gone are the troughs and peaks of extreme burning hunger at one end, and distended-belly bloat at the other (Mmmm!). I woke up this morning, after another good long sleep, expecting to be ravenous. I usually am after such a day as yesterday.

Instead I happily ate a peach, a banana and about 5 Brazil nuts and ran to yoga, without a care!

I think there is something to this diet... something quite deep...

So it turns out humans have been on earth, in more or less their current form, for 2.5 million years. They started farming about 10,000 years ago. So we mostly evolved eating (let's assume) one way, for about 100,000 generations, and then, a mere 500 generations ago, we started eating very differently. The amazing thing is there are still hunter-gatherer peoples alive today. I won't say they're prospering, but I don't think their diet is the problem.

Anyway, enough about peoples and more about me. I was sorely tempted today, at a lovely cafe in Larkspur, with some... bread. It looked so delicious! But "Avast ye!" I proclaimed to the bread, and instead ate a beautiful steak tartare with a quail egg cracked on top. This was my third meal of the day, and was definitely not my last. However, as I've said before, I'm not on this diet to lose weight...

I'm on it to transcend the generations and make contact with my ancient forebears. By eating. I am building a bridge through time, out of whole meats and root vegetables.

I've often thought that a lot of the issues we have today arise from being poorly evolved for our current situation. This diet is a way to give further evidence to this theory, for me... just in case you were wondering.

---update---

Dinner

13oz Grass Fed Eye Fillet Steak. Rare. Topped with onions and shrooms. Beauty!
2 lbs parsnips, yellow squash, carrots
Mixed greens and tomato side salad.

Captain Caaaaaaaveman!

El Día Tres

Consistency. That's what I have to report. I've only been on the Paleolithic Diet for about 60 hours, but so far I have never been all that hungry, and never all that full. This is despite very much concentrating my eating to 3 intense bursts a day... supplemented by the occasional piece of fruit, dried flesh, or nut. So far so good.

I've also managed a fairly intense amount of exercise in that time. I was expecting to have to pull back a little with that, because a lot of sources predict increased lethargy at the start of this diet. However, I have made sure (I am very fortunate to have this luxury) to get loads of sleep each night, and take naps if I feel like it. I slept 10 hours last night! However, this was interrupted by no fewer than 3 trips to the toilet to pee! This was a big surprise and must have something to do with the diet, because I rarely, if ever, would even get up once in the night to pee. Maybe the diet coincides with me making a quantum leap into old age...

This morning, when I eventually did get up, I had an orange, a cup of tea, and a 3-egg scramble with onion, mushroom and tomatoes. I feel as full as a boot!

My apartment still smells of Chilean Sea Bass. That is one delicious fish!

---update 4:17pm---

I've had a tummy ache all day... ever since I drank a tiny bit of red wine last night... just a tiny bit!

Late lunch, after yoga:

Pork loin over brussel sprouts, leeks and carrots...


---update 10:12pm---

Damn tummy ache all day. I don't suppose my dinner of coleslaw (I made the mayo myself with flaxseed oil!) with cold pork loin is going to help. This Paleolithic diet is a cinch. I ran 10 miles today easy like.

This blog is hella boring. I need to think of some way to spice it up.

Did you know that in the lab they feed peanuts to rabbits to give them atherosclerosis (inflammation of the arteries) so they can test drugs on them? No, I thought you might not. But that's what it says in this here book:

"David Kritchevsky, PhD... ...showed that peanut oil lectin (PNA) was most likely responsible for the artery-clogging properties. Lectins are fairly large protein molecules, and most nutritional scientists had assumed that digestive enzymes in the gut would degrade it to its component amino acids... ...But they were wrong. It turns out that lectins are highly resistant to the gut's protein-shearing enzymes... ...PNA gets into the bloodstream intact in as little as 1 hour after participants ate a handful of roasted, salted peanuts... ...Lectins are a lot like superglue - it doesn't take much."

I figure there has to be some reason heart disease is the nation's #1 killer... maybe it's peanuts!

Needless to say, peanuts are OUT in the P-LD.

Day 2

Breakfast this morning:
1 banana
1 orange
1 cup Lady Grey tea (it's a great choice if you're going cold turkey on the milk and sugar, as I am)
1 chicken breast, chopped and fried in EVOO with mushrooms and celery

I also made my lunch because I go to work on Tuesdays. Wait for it.... it's a salad!

Mixed greens, cucumber, carrots, almonds, wee tomotoes, avocado, celery with 6 oz of rare filet mignon and a flaxseed oil / lemon juice dressing.

Still feeling great! Not tired at all.

Also, inspired by my running performance yesterday, I signed up for The Avenue of the Giants Marathon, oooh, in about 6 weeks!

---update 9:33pm---

Biked to work and back (about 12 miles), ran another 6 and did a hard-out 90 mins of yoga! Still feeling great. I'm really wondering when the fatigue is going to hit. I kinda dozed on the train, but trains do that to you...

Dinner tonight was Chilean Sea Bass on top of a mountain of steamed veges; courgettes, carrots, asparagus and broccoli. That is one delicious fish! I'm starting to enjoy cooking. I think the trick was to start simple. I'm learning to cook!

Snacks today: Brazil nuts, small amount of all-natural beef jerky, banana, apple, 1 can coconut juice.

Day 1

I must have been really excited this morning. I woke up at 5:30 and went for a 6 mile run. In the rain. And in the dark. Maybe it was the half loaf of bread and slab of cheese I ate last night in a ritualistic ecstasy of fumbling.

So far so good. It's 8:20 am and I have so far consumed:

1 banana
1 cup tea (black of course!)
1 cup chopped canteloupe, whatever that is...
1/4 cup blueberries
Scramble made from 3 eggs, 1/4 onion, 3 mushrooms and 1 tomato.

I can't help but feel there's a gaping void between me and lunch...

Other than that I feel fine. Slept well. Onward ho!

---update 1:44pm---

Made it through to lunch easy peasy! I was pleasantly surprised, even after doing yoga at midday. One black coffee was all I had and I had none of my usual tummy-rumbling late morning. I reckon I could have gone another couple of hours without eating... but let's not be silly about this...

Just made lunch, a salad:
6oz chicken breast
mixed greens
tiny wee tomatoes from Mexico
1/2 avocado
some carrots
some sliced almonds
olive oil
lemon juice
pinch salt (athlete's license)

I just ate it and I'm full! Let's hope it lasts.

Oh, and I took a nap from 9 to 10. I felt very tired but I'm fine now.

---update 8:54pm---

I don't think I could have had a better start to the Paleolithic diet! I haven't felt hungry all day. I went for ANOTHER 6 mile run and managed to do it faster and stronger than the one in the morning. I very rarely run twice in one day. 12 miles and an hour of yoga!

The only snacks I had in the afternoon were a small amount of beef jerky and an apple.

Dinner was steamed rutabagas, parsnips, carrots and asparagus. I slapped a seared Ahi Tuna Steak on top.

WTF Are You Up To Now?!

In my never-ending search for extreme courses of action, for my entertainment and experimentation, starting tomorrow, March 16th, 2009, I am going to switch my diet - as closely as possible - to that of Paleolithic humans. Because I do a moderate amount of exercise, I will be using, among other resources, 'The Paleo Diet for Athletes' - by Cordain and Friel.

My initial plan is to try this for 1 month, come hell or high water. I will be documenting what I eat and how I feel on this blog. According to this here book, I can have up to 5% of my calories come from non-PL sources, so there is a little breathing room. However, I will try to stick to it as much as I can.

From what I have read it is very tough at first, but gets a lot easier after a couple of weeks. I am very interested to experience this!

Here is a brief summary of the Paleolithic Diet (borrowed from Dr Ben Balzer's page):

Eat the following:
· Meat, chicken and fish
· Eggs
· Fruit
· Vegetables (especially root vegetables, but NO potatoes nor sweet potatoes)
· Nuts, eg. walnuts, brazil nuts, macadamia, almonds. No peanuts (a bean) nor cashews (a family of their own)
· Berries- strawberries, blueberries, raspberries etc.

Eat NONE of the following:
· Grains- including bread, pasta, noodles, rice
· Beans- including string beans, kidney beans, lentils, peanuts, snow-peas and peas
· Potatoes
· Dairy products
· Sugar
· Salt

Try to increase your intake of:
· Root vegetables- carrots, turnips, parsnips, rutabagas, Swedes
· Organ meats- liver and kidneys

Sounds tough? You betcha!

So, it's Sunday night and I'm back from the store... I've put all my no-go items away in a back cupboard and bought a few more things... I tell ya, it's easy to shop for! You're basically limited to the meat counter and the produce department!