Look Ma, No Bruises? Paleo Strikes Again

My karate partners reported something shocking. Both women were cautioned by their doctors about domestic violence, given helpline phone numbers, and information about the women's shelter. Why? Because their arms are covered with "defensive wounds", aka bruises from our karate class. Their doctors thought their husbands had been whuppin on them. If that wasn't so sadly all-too-common, it would be funny.

So now the big question is this: why, when my partners and I have been hitting each other, our forearms colliding a few hundred times per class, are my arms not covered by bruises? Why, when I leave class with them red and blotchy and starting to purple do they look like this just a few hours later?

The answer came when I was browsing though a Paleo eating forum (there's a forum for everything, isn't there) and someone posed the question: "Does anyone else notice that they don't bruise easily any more?"

Yeah, as a matter of fact, I noticed that. My arms and legs used to be covered with bruises all the time. And now they're not.
One person had this to say in response:

Another aspect of the paleo eating lifestyle is that the blood vessels, veins, capillaries slowly become more pliable and elastic. Thus when the body is abused, the veins and capillaries have some give and do not break as easily to leak blood under the skin.

Also the vascular system is not as rigid due to some microscopic removal of plaque that had been layed down before elimination of non paleo foods such as wheat and sugar. Also the vascular system has opened up a tiny, tiny bit thus allowing more blood to flow with less effort by the heart muscle.

The resulting increased flow of blood, the pliability and less rigid vascular system due to changing to a paleo eating lifestyle are aspects of why people are able to correct their high blood pressure with diet alone.

Now that may be speculation, but it sounds plausible to me. For sure, my body feels completely different. It heals faster, I don't have the stiffness of beginning arthritis in my fingers that I've had for the last couple of years. My muscles are barely sore after tough workouts, and now my bruises barely appear and then they're gone. All evidence that the paleo diet is effecting change on a deep and cellular level in my body.

Paleo Challenge: Ground Zero

It's Moment Zero today for the 30 Day Paleo Challenge. I moved all of the chocolate and anything else tempting down to the basement cupboards. If hubby or the kids want some, at least I won't have to see it! I don't really like much in the way of sweet stuff, but giving up my daily dark chocolate habit will be HARD, no doubt about it.

I also went to Trader Joe's today and stocked up on veggies and nuts. Tried to get some different stuff that would be interesting palate-wise so I don't get bored. Also got some seafood and just in case I need a carb fix I got a small thing of figs. I figured one of those babies would do in a pinch ;-)

I'm not going to bore you with a daily blow-by-blow of Paleo eating, but my general plan (which is pretty much how I usually eat these days anyways) is:

Breakfast: Big egg/veggie scramble. I try to mix this up from day to day so I don't get bored. Mushrooms/spinach/bacon is one favorite combo, another is green pepper/zucchini/onions, and sausage/sun-dried tomato pesto in another.

Lunch: Often a salad. Lately it's been Lamb's lettuce with leftover holiday turkey. Sometimes I do tuna fish on celery, or other stuff. Usually some kind of fresh greens with some kind of meat that's not hot. Either that or leftovers. Today I had some leftover Turkey Soup that was really spicy and yummy on such a cold day.

Dinner: Variations on a theme of "How many different ways can I combine meat and vegetables and not get bored?" Stir fries are good, curries are also good, especially if mixed with coconut milk. Taco salad is my hubby's perennial fave. Mine is usually a good, really spicy pasta sauce served over steamed cauliflower.

Snacks: Some nuts, dried coconut, fresh snacky veggies like carrot sticks, and if I'm exercising I might have piece of fruit or some applesauce or yams.

That's it. It's not tough, though it can get boring. The rest of the family will probably complain some as I get very uninspired to cook things like my homemade Mac-and-Cheese or pizza for the kids when I don't even get to have a bite. Eventually after the challenge, I'll try to go back to my usual 80/20 or 90/10 eating, which is to say most of the time I eat pretty paleo, but I'll have half a piece of pizza or something when I feel like it. Plus the dark chocolate. Sigh. The dark chocolate, how I will miss thee!

Paleo Challenge for 30 Days, Who's In?

I am planning on re-dedicating myself to a strict paleo regimen in the new year after a few weeks of indulging in Christmas cookies and candy canes. I don't feel bad about the indulgence, mind you. For me that's part of the joy of the holiday season and with kids who love to do the holidays up big, I don't feel like being the Paleo Grinch who won't eat a bite. I also don't think a couple of weeks of eating a few cookies here and there is going to kill me. Still, I can feel that it's starting to wear me down (for one thing, I got my first cold in about 10 months, and I don't think it's any coincidence that it comes after two weeks of eating stuff like sugar and grains.)

With my new-found optimism about my improved thyroid function and the fact that even my lifelong battle with anemia rarely rears its head any more, I can see how much my health has improved during the months that I've focused on a more paleo-centric diet. Plus, I have a couple of friends who want to do a Paleo challenge, so this seems like an appropriate time to start.

Luckily, the folks over at Crossfit Love are doing a 30-Day Paleo Challenge starting on January 3. It's always nice to have some support and enthusiasm when you're challenging yourself, so I'm going to participate. They're doing to have interviews, give-aways, and recipes to keep us motivated. So if anyone's interested in joining me and seeing how the Paleo lifestyle can improve on your own health and fitness, let me know! Last year I started in Feburary after breaking my arm, figuring that since I couldn't exercise at that point, the best thing I could do for my fitness was to eat very very well. It made a huge difference in how I was feeling, so even when I could go back to exercising like I used to, I've kept most of the eating habit changes I made.

Here's the challenge details. Take a deep breath and jump in with me!

Join us for the THE WORLD’S LARGEST PALEO CHALLENGE.

Simply, 30 days of eating real food. Along with your high quality eating, you will have the ability to be a part of great giveaways, daily Paleo blogs posts, expert video interviews and much more. Expect to learn awesome knowledge, be ready for sweet giveaways and get an inspiring start to 2011.

Get Some.

On 1.3.11 you accept these challenge rules (Whole 9 Inspired):

1. Do not eat dairy. This includes butter, cheese (hard and soft), yogurt (even Greek) and milk (including cream in your coffee or tea). Dairy Penalty = 100 Pushups 2. Do not eat grains. This includes bread, rice, pasta, cereal, oatmeal, corn and all of those gluten-free pseudo-grains like quinoa and sprouted grains.  Grain Penalty = 100 Burpees
3. Do not eat legumes. This includes beans of all kinds (soy, black, kidney, etc.), peas, lentils, and peanuts. (No peanut butter, kids.) Legume Penalty = 150 Walking Lunges
4. Do not eat or add sugar of any kind, real or artificial. No maple syrup, honey, agave nectar, Splenda, Equal, Nutrasweet, xylitol, stevia, etc. Sugar Penalty = 200 Situps
5. Do not eat processed foods. This includes protein shakes, processed bars (like Zone bars), dairy-free creamers, etc. Processed Penalty = 100 Air Squats
6. Do not drink alcohol, in any form. Alcohol Penalty = 50 Pushups
7. Do not eat white potatoes. It’s kind of arbitrary, but one, they’re a nightshade, and two, sweet potatoes and yams are a more nutrient-dense option, so go for those instead.  (On that note, if you have serious inflammation issues like arthritis, you may want to consider avoiding all nightshades for 30 days.) White Potatoes Penalty = 20 min run

Each category has a separate penalty, if you break that rule please preform your penalty before rejoining the challenge. Penalties are cumulative. Ex: If you eat bread with butter, the it is a 100 burpees and 100 pushups.

Does Paleo Eating Improve Thyroid Function?

I'm a case study of one, so this isn't like a big medical survey or anything, but here are some interesting facts about my thyroid condition and its response to my paleo diet.

Background: I was a vegetarian for 20 years, went vegan, ate a lot of soy, started having all kinds of problems with my thyroid (did you know that soy is a thyroid inhibitor? I didn't!) which ended up with me having surgery to remove a large growth that had embedded itself in the thyroid gland so much that they had to remove half of my thyroid. Since then, I've been on Armour Thyroid medicine to replace the missing thyroid hormone.

Fact:  Since 2002 I have been on the same dosage of Armour Thyroid

Fact: The only problem I've had with my medication is when Armour changed their formulation a couple of years ago. Along with many other people, I experienced hypothyroid symptoms for a few months as my body adjusted

Fact: Other than this time when we had the medication glitch (and my weight shot up and I had to battle it back off), my weight has also stayed very stable. Basically, I weigh the same as I did when I met my husband 18 years ago. Also my exercise levels, sleep habits, etc. are very similar from year to year.

Fact: My thyroid lab results have been consistent through the entire time I've been on medication, until this year

Fact: I started eating Paleo in February 2010, and did my first post-paleo thyroid lab test in October 2010.

Fact: The lab work showed that we were hugely over-replacing my thyroid hormone. In other words, maybe my thyroid started producing more on its own.

Fact: The only thing that has changed in 2010 is my eating habits, changing from heavily carb-based to Paleo.

Conclusion: Could eating Paleo have suddenly caused my thyroid to start functioning better? My doctor has decreased my dosage by 25%. I would be so happy to get my dosage lower or even eliminate it altogether. I wonder if that's possible, given my change in nutrition.

Stay tuned and I'll pass on the results of my next lab (with my adjusted medication levels), which I'll be taking in six weeks. Also, if anyone else on thyroid meds has experienced a difference after switching to Paleo, I'd love to hear it!

A Sugar-Free Dessert for a Winter's Night

In the middle of a cold and rainy winter's evening, there's nothing better than some comfort food. But let's face it, most foods that come to mind are full of sugar and grains. In the last couple of weeks, I've been gleaning apples from trees around town that are just hanging with fruit. Getting to them before the real frosts set in is a must, since after that the apples will be useless. So far I've gotten about fifty pounds worth.

Applesauce may not be what springs to mind when you think of a comfort food, but the way I make applesauce it's more like a warm apple pie without the crust. I like to serve it steaming hot, with just a bit of fresh cream on top. Yumm! I don't add any sugar when I make it. I core and peel the apples, then dice them and throw them in my crockpot with a bit of water and some cinnamon and a dash of nutmeg or other spices. I cook it down until the apple pieces are tender, but not mushy like store-bought applesauce. As my kids say "this doesn't taste like anything you can get in the store!" Best of all, you can freeze it and eat it all winter long. I usually run out just about when the first spring flowers start to poke through. By then, I'm ready for early spring veggies and fruits.

The Paleo Rodeo is up

There are some great posts on this week's Paleo Rodeo. It's a Blog Carnival showcasing people writing about paleo-related topics, including recipes, exercise, and inspiration. Check it out here!

How I'm Pissing People Off This Thanksgiving

It used to be that I pissed people off at Thanksgiving by being a vegetarian. You know, I was that pesky person who brought their own Tofurkey to the traditional carnivore's feast. I was the one averting my eyes as they fired up the electric carving knife to saw through the sinews and muscle fibers of a large dead bird. But all that's behind me now, I can go to a Thanksgiving meal and dig into some deceased fowl with abandon. And you know what? I feel a lot healthier for it too. No more pale-skinned drag-through-the-day anemia. No more soy-induced thyroid cysts, no more grain-overdosed joint inflammation.

But, extremist that I am, I couldn't leave it at that. In the past year or so my personal pendulum has swung in the other direction and just kept swinging. Not content to merely jettison the Tofurkey, I've gone wholeheartedly Paleo, sending the grains and potatoes packing as well. So long stuffing, Auf wiederehen white bread, Hasta Luego mashed potato! You might say I'm taking Thanksgiving much closer to the meal that was probably enjoyed by the Wampanoag and the Pilgrims. I doubt they had Stouffer stuffing at their microwavable fingertips, though they did eat corns and grains.

So what exactly am I eating at Thanksgiving this year? Most of the stuff that everyone else is: the turkey, the salad, the green beans (which I like to make with a balsamic/maple/mustard sauce), yams (I add coconut, butter, and pecans), and I'm going to try this sausage stuffing recipe from Rational Jenn's website. One thing I like about this stuffing is I can make it almost 100% locavore since we have sausage in our freezer, fennel, onion, and garlic still from our garden, and local mushrooms coming out our ears at this time of year.

I'm saving all of my non-Paleo goodness for some real pumpkin pie. I'll make it with pumpkins from our garden, eggs from our chickens, and raw goat's milk from a local farm. I cut the sweetening in the old-fashioned Betty Crocker recipe way down, since my taste buds are not used to too much sweetness, but do use some raw sugar. And real whipped cream of course!

So hopefully no one will be offended if I pass many of the dishes right on to the next person and just enjoy the parts of the meal that make my body feel great.

Ironmom's Locavore Breakfast and the Dark Days Challenge

Locavore: yet another internet word that has popped up in the last few years. The dictionary manufacturers couldn't even keep up if they ran their presses night and day. Then again, who buys dictionaries anymore when you have Wikipedia at your fingertips? If some terrorist plot took out the entire internet, schoolchildren would fall to their knees in despair at not being able to look up words. I admit, I'm one of those moms who actually makes their kids look things up in books from time to time, just for kicks and grins. If they still kept the Dewey Decimal cards in those little wooden drawers somewhere in the library, I'd probably torture them by making them look up books that way from time to time as well.

But locavore is a good word, a word that wouldn't have a reason to exist a century or two ago, kind of like the fact that there's no word for faith in the Lakotah dialect. If everyone has something, there's no need to name it.  But now locavorism (is that a word?) is a great first step toward food security, environmental stewardship, fostering community, and most important to this Ironmom, eating healthier. Food that comes from local sources is naturally higher in important stuff like Omega-3s, vitamins, and minerals than food that is processed and shipped from far away.

For instance, eggs from chickens who free-range have 20 times more Omega-3 fatty acids than conventional eggs. They also have 10% less fat and 34% less cholesterol, they produce HDL or "good cholesterol" and help lower bad cholesterol. This helps to explain why despite eating eggs for breakfast almost every single day, my cholesterol numbers are far lower than when I was a vegetarian and even a vegan.

So here's what went into my locavore omelette today:

Eggs from our lovely lady chickens. As you can see, we treat them very well! This one, my son's chicken "Voodoo" had a foot problem, so she's getting a spa treatment.  No, I'm not kidding! We treat our chickies very well and as a results they have very few health problem. We let them out to free range around the yard and they take care of our ants and garden grubs, among other things.

Milk from a local goat farmer. We buy this on a weekly basis in 7 big glass jars. This photo is my daughter actually hand-milking one of their goats. She's pretty good at it! We have had a relationship with these folks for many years now, not only just purchasing milk but going out to their house when their goats had babies or their dog had puppies. This is not the same at all as picking up a gallon of milk in a plastic jug at the store. Building relationships within your community strengthens not just your physical health, but emotional and mental health.

Spinach and tomatoes from the garden. I wasn't much of a green thumb when I started vegetable gardening (my house plants tend to even look anemic and wilty) but I've found it's not as difficult as one might think. Even just growing a few of the things we love to eat provides a big wallop of nutritional benefit over produce picked green and shipped long distances.


There's also local pork sausage in my omelette. I don't have a photo of the pig, but we bought part of it (a third to be exact) from the contractor who helped us with our sunroom last year. He just so happened to mention he was about to slaughter his pig (doesn't that come up in everyday conversation around your house?) and we filled our freezer with  a bunch of pork chops and sausage.

The last ingredient is some chantrelle mushrooms. These grow all around the woods in our part of Oregon, and local folks harvest them and sell them by the side of the road or at farmer's markets. Luckily, these are very easy mushrooms to harvest, with no poisonous relatives that your local mushroom gatherer could get confused. They make a very tasty addition to my morning eggs and give a seasonal flair to any meal you add them to, since they're only available right now and not at other times of the year. There are very few things you can say that about any more, with produce shipped from all over the globe, so I look forward to my little seasonal treats. Some year I want to go out in the woods and actually pick some.

Last year I participated in the Dark Days Challenge, which is to cook four meals each month (1 per week) focused on SOLE (sustainable, organic, local, ethical) ingredients with only local foods. I'll be doing it again this year, and if anyone wants to join me, I'll post some updates here with links to your posts about eating local!

The Ironmom Extra Mile:   Jason from Life of an Aspiring Triathlete asks "Where are those goat farmers here in Dallas?" In answer, the website RealMilk.com is a terrific resource for connecting with local farmers wherever you live. In their "Where Can I Find Real Milk" page, I found that there is a goat dairy in the Dallas/Fort Worth area that sells goat's milk by the gallon. The dairy's page is: www.lattedadairy.com. There is also a dairy in that area that sells raw cow's milk. Additionally, this website has dozens if not hundreds of listing for raw milk (cow, goat, and sheep) for all over the U.S. and for other places in the world. It's a terrific resource. So if you want real milk with real nutrients (pastured, raw, and not full of antibiotics and other nasty crud), check out this site.

Paleo Report Card

So I think I've hinted at this somewhere along the line, but for the last month I have "gone Paleo" in my eating habits, (mostly) only consuming things that a paleolithic person would ingest. Of course, a paleolithic person wouldn't be able to eat a fresh mango in February, but I have definitely allowed myself the luxury of not keeping to strictly seasonal eating in the bargain (which in my climate would mean a vegetative diet of kale, and well kale at this time of year). That being said, the environmental wacko side of my personality has definitely tried to keep the out-of-season produce in check, and as always I endeavor to eat as locally as possible with non-local foods in the "treat" category. Fortunately, my corner market is very sustainability-oriented and they mark their meats, eggs, dairy, and produce so that you can tell which is local and which is not. In the local category for me: 85% of meat, 100% of eggs, 100% of milk (raw goat's), and at this time of year probably 30% of produce (closer to 100% in summer as I try to eat from our garden and the farmer's market).

For inspiration and information, I visit and read at:
http://robbwolf.com/
marksdailyapple.com/

And I was inspired to start by CrossfitPortland's Paleo Challenge at:

http://www.crossfitportland.com/services/paleo-challenge-rules-requirements-faq

and by reading this article


I am especially trying to adhere to the Paleo Challenge's first couple of "commandments":

First, you must eat meat (fish is fine) at every meal.

This is a Paleo Challenge, which means you are consuming “meat and veggies, nuts and seeds, some fruit little starch and no sugar.” We will not accept Tofu or any other soy product, beans and rice, or dairy as a protein source for this challenge.

“Eat meat that once had a face and a soul” – Robb Wolf

Second, you must consume vegetables.

You don’t have to like them, but you must eat them, ¼ to ½ pound per meal.

So there's what I've been doing in a nutshell, now how has it worked out so far? It's been one month to the day today. In weeks two and three I felt pretty crappy and I noticed that my harder workouts (anything over Z2 - Z3) left me feeling like I was almost immediately bonking. No carbohydrates stored up, so that wasn't surprising. This is the point at which I've stopped before when I tried to eat paleo. But reading that article convinced me this time around to give it a longer go, especially the parts where they discuss historic occasions on which people have switched from carb-based to more paleolithic diets. For instance, the article quotes Lt. Frederick Schwatka about the 1879–80 arctic expedition sponsored by the New York Herald and the American Geographical Society:

(The expedition) departed from the west coast of Hudson's Bay in April of 1879 with 4 Caucasians, 3 families of Inuits, and 3 heavily laden dog sleds. Totaling 18 people, they started out with a month's supply of food (mostly walrus blubber) and a prodigious supply of ammunition for their hunting rifles. After covering over 3000 miles on foot over ice, snow and tundra, all 18 members of the original party plus their 44 dogs returned to Hudson's Bay in March of 1880. Once their initial provisions were depleted, the expedition's only source of additional food was hunting and fishing, as there were no other sources of supply along their route.

In one notation, Schwatka provides an interesting insight into his weaning from their initial supply of carbohydrate-containing food.

"When first thrown wholly upon a diet of reindeer meat, it seems inadequate to properly nourish the system, and there is an apparent weakness and inability to perform severe exertive fatiguing journeys. But this soon passes away in the course of two or three weeks."

For me, the three week point was the turning point as well, and for the last 10 or so days I've been feeling better and better in my workouts despite the lack of what most triathletes exist on: massive amounts of carbs.

So now down to the nitty gritty: how has it affected my body composition? So far, in the one month of the Paleo challenge, I've lost nine pounds and 2.5 % body fat. That's kind of astonishing to me since at the level of general fitness I'm at I've found it extremely hard to effect any kind of large-scale change on my body. Especially with the complications of only having half a thyroid gland and being on mandatory thyroid medication, metabolism and weight are constant issues for me. So, the report card on Paleo so far is an A+. The weight loss has really leveled off to about a pound a week in the last two weeks, so I don't think I'll be dropping meteorically from here on out, and I always have the option to add in more calorie-dense foods like nuts if I feel like I'm going below where I should be at. I will also have to keep a close eye on how I feel as I begin to enter a more competitive end of my season, and I have to figure out what my racing nutrition strategy should be as well.