Getting My Nutrients

So it was hard to mentally get back into the swing of things. But nothing helps more with that than by eating well. So today I ate all the right foods. I am feeling more motivated now. I am also glad to learn that my weight wasn’t effected at all.

I have been on this diet for almost two weeks now. Some days I find my nutrient levels are below the RDA but generally they are over. I thought I would check how my nutrient levels are looking averaged out over the last week to see if I am deficient in anything. Here are the results. The number is the percentage of the recommended daily allowance (RDA). So 500% would mean I am five times over.

Vitamin A: 541

Vitamin B6: 350

Vitamin B12: 471

Vitamin C: 188

Vitamin D: 702

Vitamin E: 242

Calcium: 97

Copper: 353

Iron: 354

Magnesium: 154

Manganese: 218

Niacin: 320

Pant. Acid: 179

Phosphorus: 355

Potassium: 127

Riboflav: 264

Selenium: 434

Sodium: 234

Thiamin: 244

Zinc: 264

So as you can see Im pretty much kicking ass in terms of getting enough nutrients. The only one that was slightly below 100% was calcium. But as Dr Loren Cordain says it is not that we need a lot of calcium it is more to do with the potassium/sodium ratio. Too much sodium and the calcium gets leached from your bones. Im sure thats the theory. However, just in case, I will start drinking milk (yes its not paleo I know).

Anyway this just goes to show that a balanced paleo diet really does give you a whole heap of nutrients. This is great for addiction also. Im sure that what my brain needs right now is plenty of nutrients to help get it past the withdrawal process. To feed it something good. But I guess I probably don’t need to focus on my nutrient intake so much now.

Meals:

Lunch: Almonds

Afternoon Snack: Mixed Berries

Dinner: Beef, Liver and Cabbage Soup + Cod Liver Oil

Calories: 2600

Nutrients:

Fat 58% (sat 15%, poly 8%, mono 35%)

Carbohydrates 11% (75g)

Protein 31%

Calories 2600

Hello Withdrawal

So I just watched a talk given by Kay Sheppard (which I have just posted here) about food addiction. It was very interesting and I can certainly relate. What I did find interesting was her emphasis on carbohydrates as the primary trigger for food addiction. Which further leads me to believe that a paleo diet is the best diet for detoxing. Of course that would mean you would need to cut down a lot on paleo carbs too I would imagine. She does say that high fat food is bad. But she pretty much emphasises processed fats, and she seems to leave animal fats alone. Looking at her website the fats she says to avoid as trigger foods are fried food, butter, sour cream cream, cream cheese, dairy products over 2% etc. You get the hint – processed fats!

What she also mentioned was that withdrawals will last from anywhere up to 10 days. But usually around the fifth day you start to feel better. I hope so because today has been tough. I feel similar to when I gave up smoking. I feel tense, agitated, bored, anxious, stressed, angry etc. I really really REALLY want to go and eat something I shouldn’t. I keep thinking about the pizza shop down the road. I have not stopped thinking about food since I got home. Also that little voice inside my head is sounding a little more crazed, convincing and louder. It tells me that I have fooled myself. That I will never lose weight and why try. That all this effort I am going through is me just lying to myself, and so a waste of time. That people (or at least me) can’t lose weight. So although I am hanging strong it is tough right now.

Meals

Breakfast: Berries and Yogurt

Lunch: Tuna Salad (Tuna, Spinach, Tomato, Olive Oil)

Snack: Cashew Nuts

Dinner: Veal, Broccoli, Potato (also had some Cod Liver Oil).

Macronutrients

Fat 49% (Sat 9%/ Poly 8%/ Mono 27%)

Carbs 21% (128g)

Protein 30%

I think the carbohydrates are a little too high been over 100g. After today I will make damn certain that they are lower than 100g tomorrow and hopefully that puts a bit more of a dampener on the cravings. All nutrients were above RDA except Vitamin E (80%), and Calcium (70%). I ate 2400 calories. I wonder if I should increase these a little to help me through the cravings?

The Late Dinner

First of all I would like to say that I am glad that I wrote the farewell post at Darwins Table. When everyone commented I actually felt regret that I had to let it go. But I think it is for the best as it had turned into something different that didn’t sit well with me. I was coming up with pro paleo posts, and yet I was having no success. I needed a blog that was more sincere, more about moi.

I can also honestly say that I was completely surprised at peoples reactions. I thought that people would just not want to know anymore. That my failure would be against the whole ‘magic pill’ that is paleo. I was happy, well not happy, but relieved to find that other people were also finding that paleo was difficult if you did not account for other factors. Factors such as the addictive nature of food. I am going to be looking into the science behind it, but a lot of it is quite heavy on the neurobiology, so it will take awhile to wrap my head around it. I will probably even have some paleo science posts spring up now and then, and if I do I was contemplating posting them over at Darwins Table rather than here. But we will see.

Today was less hard than I expected. But then I expected that (haha). What I mean is that a change of eating is always easy at the start. My body hasn’t realised its back on a diet. I am not bored by the food yet. At the moment I feel like I am doing the right thing and that motivation is strong enough to push through any problems. Having said that after lunch today I still wanted to shove more food in my face. Not in a major way but a little bit. It felt that the hunger was from my gut not my head. But my whole ‘am I hungry’ thinking is so warped at the moment. I felt that maybe I was been tricked by that addict in my head – “this is real hunger, you know you should eat….anything”. Because I did not know whether this was true hunger I did not eat. What is getting me through at the moment is thinking that I need to do this properly for three months. By then I would hope that if this is an addiction of sorts that the cravings would have lessened. For now thats what gets me through.

Then the real challenge began. I was going out into the field to do some fish sampling. It was an hour and half drive away and I had to be there by 7.30pm. Which means I wouldn’t be back at my house until about 10pm. Of course I had forgotten my dinner hadn’t I! I really didn’t want to buy food as I knew there would be nothing I could really eat. Yet again that voice appeared. “Its already not working, you have made a mistake, just EAT”. I decided to tough it out. At some point I did go to a gas station to pick up nuts to keep me going. By that stage my stomach was grumbling (bulls eye – real hunger!!!!!). There were only peanuts. I had to eat something! So I bought a diet coke. Yikes! Yes a diet coke!! Definitely not paleo but low in calories and enough to keep me going until I got home.

So diet cokes aside I drove all the way down there and back and then made myself dinner at 10pm. I actually wasn’t very hungry the whole time. I mean I was not mentally hungry. It did make me think that when my mind is occupied on a task that I can actually have a very late dinner and my whole world won’t fall apart. Now this is no small feat for me. Dinner is MY meal. I am always hungriest at night. So to have a very late dinner the way I did is nothing short of amazing. This may be a good behavioural therapy trick for me. Eat a late dinner once a week. It will teach me that I can skip meals and I won’t die. I think this would be very beneficial.

So if you are interested this is what I ate today.

All my micronutrients were above the recommended allowance. This is only because I have just worked out my nutrient intakes and found that my calories were below 2000, my calcium was at 85%, magnesium 93%, and Potassium 82%. I don’t want to be eating less than 2000 calories a day as I want to minimise real hunger, and I want my nutrients to be way over the RDA. I want to battle with my mental cravings for now and if I am actually hungry or craving a nutrient, I will think my mind is playing tricks on me and this could seriously mess with my head. AND THAT is what I am trying to heal. So I am about to cook another pork chop and have a cup of yogurt and this brings me over the calorie limit (2300 calories) and all my nutrients over the recommended RDA. I know the RDA is probably full of flaws but its a good goal for now.

Meals

Breakfast: Yogurt/Berries

Lunch: Chicken Soup (chicken breast, celery, carrot, spinach)

Late Dinner: Pork steak, Broccoli, Potato, Almonds

Late Late Dinner: Pork steak, Yogurt

Macronutrients

Fat – 48% (Sat 13%/ Poly 8%/ Mono 24%)

Carbs – 23% (137g)

Protein – 29%

In case someone is really paying attention. Yes carbs were a bit high. Im aiming for 100g or less. Again this could induce hunger so want to be on top of this.