So what?
Who am I? No one special really. I’m not on TV, I don’t have a podcast and I’ve never written a book (yet!). No, I’m just your run of the mill girl from the Midwest. Grew up with two parents, two sisters, we even had a dog.
I grew up during the ‘80s and 90’s during the height of the low-fat craze, margarine, Snackwells cookies, the whole deal. My mom hated to cook. Meals growing up were usually something out of a box or a can. Fresh veggies, unprocessed meats weren’t usually on the menu. We occasionally would grow fresh tomatoes, and corn in our garden, but that was a rare treat.
When I was in high school my dad was diagnosed with having high blood pressure and cholesterol. My family decided to eat healthy to support him. Really this meant bland, fatless, tasteless chicken breasts stir fried with bland, fatless, tasteless frozen vegetables. This was served alongside white rice. Yum! Dad lost a lot of weight, ended up in the hospital and I have developed a lifelong aversion to chicken.
I think the last time I was at a healthy weight was sometime around my birth. Out of all three of us kids I was the smallest baby, and that would be the only time in my life to date that I’ve held that title.
My older sister is petite, small shoulders, flat tummy. She’s always been athletic. My little sister is tall like a bean pole. She’s always had skinny little chicken arms and legs. Then there’s me- pleasantly plump and in the middle. Although, now that I find myself a stone’s throw from 30, the plumpness is not so pleasant.
Weight Watchers, Atkins, calorie counting, juicing, working out like crazy, not caring. You name it, I’ve done it. I’ve trained for half marathons and gained weight.
I’m done with that. I’m ready to be healthy, and happy. And hey, if I could fit into some skinny jeans I’d be ok with that too.
My Plan
I love to read food blogs. I love reading nutrition blogs. I also love reading blogs and books where someone takes on a personal challenge. So, my plan is going to combine the things I love- I am going to blog about food, nutrition, and my personal challenge to follow a paleo/primal diet for 21 days.
Why paleo/primal? Because it makes sense to me. The premise of the diet/lifestyle is to eat whole unprocessed foods- the kind of food humans evolved to eat. This way of eating centers around vegetables, grass-fed and pastured meats, nuts, seeds, occasional raw milk dairy…and butter, wonderful wonderful butter 🙂 I’ll basically try to avoid processed foods, grains, and sugar.
I’ve been toying with the idea of eating like this for some time now. I can’t remember how I first stumbled across the paleo lifestyle but for quite some time I’ve been following the big wigs of the paleo world- Mark Sisson, Rob Wolf, Sarah Fragoso, Dean Dwyer to name a few. I’ve done it in starts and stops but never really giving it 100%.
So, starting tomorrow- Tuesday April 24, 2012, I’m committing to 21 days of 100% paleo/primal eating. No more excuses. No more “oh, I’ll start right after this or that event.” I am putting myself first for once. My health, my life, my plans come first no matter whose birthday it is 🙂
As one last hoopla before I start my experiment I made nachos tonight. Tasty, tasty nachos. Corn chips, cheese from a jar. At least the beef was grassfed 🙂
Bacon Therapy 