Primal Project

Day 7: One week completed!

Been Paleo for one week now. I’m curious to see the effects of staying paleo for much longer. Need to limit the dates and cashews at the moment, as I’m eating way too many.

What I ate

Breakfast

• 2 egg omelet, with bacon, mushrooms and tasty cheese
• 5 dates, an apple

Snack

• Handful of cashews

Lunch 

• 2 x beef patties with salad

Dinner

• 2 x chicken breast fillets, parmigiana style with tasty cheese

Snack

• Handful of cashews, and some dates

Moving about

90 minute soccer game.

Day 6

Keeping Primal mostly, even though I had some alcohol, and am probably overdoing the nuts a little bit.

What I ate

Breakfast

• Chicken stir fry, an apple

Snacks

• Dates, handful of cashews

Lunch

• 3 Lamb souvlaki, vegetables with olive oil

Dinner

• Lamb, chicken, beef, peas, roast pumpkin, greek salad and grilled eggplant.
• Glass of Smirnoff North with lemonade

Moving about

Played a tough, 90 minute soccer game.

Day 5: Building up momentum

So it’s Day 5, and I feel like this is coming easier to me now. I still realise how important it is to plan ahead when it comes to making myself nutritious meals. This is probably the biggest concern for me. Which is why I’ve set myself the task of coming up with a few quick and easy meals that I can prepare quickly. I’ll look at this over the weekend.

I also noticed a bit of bloating today. Could it be the cashews? Or maybe not enough veggies?

What I ate

Breakfast

• 2 poached eggs with dolmades (vine leaves stuffed with minced beef and rice). The rice content is pretty low so I ignored it.
• An apple
• 2 x fish oil tablets

Snack

• Handful of cashews

Lunch

• Half BBQ chicken, large Caesar salad (store bought), garlic dip

Dinner

I actually didn’t feel like dinner today, since my lunch was pretty massive (and late). So instead of eating according to the clock, I decided to eat according to my hunger. No hunger, so no food. 

Moving About

No training today. Well deserved rest day.

What did I do well?

• Plenty of protein and fat
• Listened to my body in regard to how hungry I was

How can I improve?

• No rice in dolmades
• Make my own salad instead of buying out. It’s cheaper too!
• More veggies, again!

Day 4: Going steady

Woke up feeling a bit sluggish. I realised I probably need to eat a bit more food, especially with the weight training and soccer. It’s been freezing cold as well, and the last thing I want is to end up sick or run down from not getting enough healthy food into me.

I also had an awesome afternoon nap for about one hour. It really recharged me. I can’t believe how important sleep is, and how often I fail to get enough.

What I ate

Breakfast

• 3 scrambled eggs, 2 pieces middle bacon, leftover salad, 1 large mandarin
• 2 x fish oil tablets
• 1 x multivitamin tablet

Lunch (post-workout)

• Chicken souvlaki, steamed vegetables with olive oil

Snack

• 2 x handfuls of roasted (unsalted) cashews

Dinner

• Rib eye steak with cauliflower mash (with butter)
• 2 x fish oil tablets

Moving About

Hit the gym today and felt really good, even though I had a bit of muscle soreness and some slight pain in my back from a bad deadlift on Tuesday. I lifted:

• Squats: 3 x 5 @ 85 kg
• Bench Press: 3 x 5 @ 70 kg (new personal record)

What did I do well?

• Got plenty of sleep
• I’m really starting to listen to my body. I’m feeling really in tune with it at the moment
• Getting closer to the Primal Blueprint ideal

How can I improve?

• Always have healthy meals prepared, or at the very least some tuna and frozen veggies on hand.
• Research cashews - are they as good as other nuts like almonds and macadamias?
• Read Starting Strength to learn more about proper weight training technique.

Day 3: The small successes

So I had some cravings for sugar today. So I poured myself a tall glass of Coke Zero. Right before I went to drink it, I thought, “Even though there is no sugar in this, it’s not Paleo. And this isn’t teaching my brain/body to avoid sweet foods”.

So I tipped it down the sink. Awesome. How’s that for some willpower.

What did I eat?

Breakfast

• 3 egg omelet, with mushrooms, bacon, and ~30g of tasty cheese. Apparently, cheeses aren’t so bad because they have minimal lactose.
• 2 x fish oil tablets
• 1 x multivitamin

Lunch

• Garlic butter roasted chicken, with steamed veggies (+ olive oil) and garlic dip. The dip had some vegetable oil, so maybe I should make my own with a more healthy type of fat.

Snack

• Half an avocado with salt (I forgot the pepper!)

Dinner

• Flathead fillets pan-fried in garlic butter and greek salad
• 2 x fish oil tablets

Moving about

Had soccer training tonight, and while I try to avoid chronic cardio, this is a more ‘play’ kind of situation. We don’t take it too seriously and just have fun.

What did I do well?

• Resisted a glass of Coke Zero and drank water instead
• Probably >90% compliance to Primal Blueprint, which is awesome

How can I improve?

• Watch out for condiments, dressings, etc that are not strictly primal
• I could probably eat more food. I was quite hungry between meals today - it could be the ridiculous cold at the moment.
• Eat full fat cheese instead of low fat varieties, and try to eat more aged cheeses - the stronger flavour means I can use less and it’s also better for you. I could even grate the cheese, as this helps make a little bit go a lot further.

Some goals worthy of aspiring to…

I’ve been thinking about my goals for a little while now. I think the best ones for me are:

1. Follow the Primal Blueprint for optimal nutrition, health and wellbeing.

2. Keep lifting heavy weights. I aim to:

• Deadlift 180 kg (396 lbs)
• Squat 135 kg (298 lbs)
• Bench 90 kg (200 lbs)
• Press 70 kg (154 lbs)
• 20 bodyweight Pull-ups

I think that building strength is an incredibly hard thing to do. There’s no shortcut. I’ve never really been disciplined and stuck to lifting consistently, so I’ve never seen massive strength/muscle gains. I’m looking forward to see what I can achieve in the coming months.

Day 2: Smashing through the cravings

In my house, my family like their sweets, their junk food, and tend to eat a lot of carby, floury crap. Avoiding these foods is hard. Even though it’d be doing them a favour, I can’t insist that they upend their lifestyle for me. They aren’t believers yet. 

I figure that the best I can do is to let results speak for themselves. Tell them nothing about what I’m doing, except when they finally say, “You’re looking great. How did you do it?”.

In the meantime, I need to make sure I’m well fed (with all good, whole foods), well hydrated, well rested, not stressed, since these things seem to trigger cravings for sugar, flour-products, and refined carbs.

What I ate

Breakfast

• 3 x scrambled eggs with diced onions, green peppers, mushrooms and bacon, cooked in Ghee
• 2 x fish oil tablets
• 1 x men’s multivitamin tablet

Lunch (post-workout)

• 1 piece of chicken thigh fillet, 70g of ham, some lettuce, a boiled egg, and half an avocado, topped with full fat caesar dressing. Nom Nom!

Dinner

• Braised marinated beef stew with onion, carrots and broccoli. There is a bit of cornflour in the sauce (about 1/8 of a cup), so it’s not completely Paleo, but it’s not a bad effort.

Snack

• Pumpkin seeds

Moving about

I was still a little sore from soccer. The DOMS is taking forever to go away. So I went for a ~50-55 min easy walk around my hood. I went to the gym to lift some heavy stuff too. Today I did the following:

• Press: 3 sets x 5 reps @ 45 kg
• Deadlift: 3 sets x 5 reps @ 115kg

I’m slowly building back up to my personal records of 50kg press and 130 kg deadlift. I should be there in a few weeks.

What did I do well?

• Plenty of exercise, and added more weight to the bar
• Took the time to prepare nice meals for myself
• Resisted temptation and cravings

How can I improve?

• Cut out the pre-made dressings. It’s better to make my own so I can be sure there’s no sugar or other crap in it.
• Eat more vegetables
• Get my coach to have a look at my deadlift technique. I find it hard to ‘hump the bar’ at the top of the movement.
• Don’t eat salted pumpkin seeds - too much salt = no good.

Thanks to the new followers!

Thanks to all of you who have jumped on board and followed. I’m new to Tumblr, and having this kind of support feels really good. As much as I need to battle these demons on my own, knowing that there are people out there cheering me on gives me a little extra motivation.

I feel like this is my time, and with a trip to Europe coming up in 8 weeks, I want to be well on my way to living a healthy lifestyle by then.