Adventures in Paleo Baking

Today is my daughter's first birthday. It's hard to believe it was a year ago that I was having such mixed emotions - dread of the surgery (placenta previa forced us to have a c-section) and anticipation at meeting my daughter.

Today, though, my mixed emotions are for much lesser reasons. I have never been much of a baker - I mean, I can handle some chocolate chip cookies or a pumpkin pie. But Paleo baking - that is, grain-free, low-sugar baking - is a different kettle of fish. I've only attempted a couple of recipes. But I knew I wanted a special cake for this special day (even if Paige doesn't eat much of it).

I turned to Bill and Haley at The Food Lover's Primal Palate. Well, to their blog, at least. I've had success with a few of their recipes, so looked for something appropriate. I knew I'd found it when I saw their German Chocolate Torte. German chocolate is the favorite cake of both my husband and I; in fact, we had a traditional German chocolate cake at our wedding instead of a big white confection. The Paleo version isn't quite the same, but it features the same flavors.

 Baking the cake itself went well. My 4-year-old son helped me by cracking eggs and mixing together the dry ingredients. The cake looked great once it had cooled and been plated.  It looked pretty good at the ganache stage as well, even though I used 3/4 cup of chopped pecans rather than the cup called for in the recipe. Oh, how I wish I'd taken a photo of this stage.

 Something went dreadfully wrong with the whipped topping, though. I suspect I whipped the cream too long, which will teach me to multi-task by doing dishes instead of keeping an eye on the task at hand. It ended up with the consistency of whipped butter. I might have run to the store for another cup of whipping cream, but it still tasted good. And she's only a year old - she won't know the difference.

I toasted the coconut...just because I wanted to. No real reason.




I also piped the top with the left-over ganache. Obviously, I shouldn't give up my day job ;-)

The birthday girl is taking a nap, but I'm hopeful she will enjoy her mom's attempt at the perfect first birthday cake.

Reminders

I gave in to temptation last night and ate some of my son's Halloween candy. Yummy yummy candy that reminded me of so many things!
Many of the memories were good ones - of Halloween's from my childhood, of how for three years running I dressed as a hobo, wearing my dad's shirt and using charcoal to give myself a beard, of the freedom of going out with my sister and a pillowcase and roaming the neighborhood after dark. Reminders of a pretty darn good childhood.

Unfortunately, it also reminded me of adulthood and of some of the benefits I've been getting from this Paleo way of eating. It brought back the upset tummies, and the hyper-awareness of my intestines, and the knowledge of where the nearest bathroom is and how long it will take to get there.

It reminded me that I ALWAYS used to feel this way - gassy and bloated and on the verge of diarrhea. Brain fog and shaking hands. It brought back in a very real way my sweet tooth, to the point where I found myself seeking out sugar at the end of every meal.

I'm not going to regret sharing Halloween treats with my son. It is a memory to treasure, him holding out a Snickers and asking if I wanted it. How could I say no?

But it was a great reminder that I enjoy this way of eating, that I need it for my health and my daily well being.

What I eat

That last post might have you wondering what I do eat. After all, if you eliminate grains, sugars, dairy...what's left? No toast, no pasta, no cheese. Does it sound boring? Or like you'd lack energy?

The truth is, it does seem a bit boring at first. And hard! But after the first week, it wasn't either.

By getting away from my lipid-phobic ways, I opened my eating up for foods I had either always avoided and hadn't had in a long time. Real bacon! Steak - often! Full-fat hamburgers (organic). The day I found myself eating braised short-ribs for breakfast, I knew I'd really made the transition.

But that doesn't happen often. A normal day looks a bit like this:
Breakfast: 3 eggs, bell pepper and onions (or other veggies like zucchini) scrambled together in either coconut oil or pastured butter. (that's pastured, not pasteurized...two different things)  3 breakfast sausage links. I might add a quarter of an avocado, some salsa, and/or berries depending on what's in the house.
Lunch: Usually a big-ass salad, using whatever veggies we have in the house. Romaine, spinach, bell pepper, carrots, tomatoes, radishes, green onion. Add some walnut pieces. Top with ~4 oz. of some sort of meat (usually either steak or boneless chicken breast, but sometimes tuna). Homemade dressing of olive oil and balsamic or red wine vinegar.  If we're out of salad fixings or I'm rushed for time (i.e. feeling lazy) I might have leftovers.
Dinner: Here's where I can get creative! We used to eat basically two kinds of protein - boneless skinless chicken breasts or ground turkey. Occasionally lentils or other beans. But now we have steak, roast, meatballs, chicken thighs, hamburgers. Indian butter chicken. Beanless chili. Braised short ribs! (OMG those were yummy. Can't wait for the weather to cool so I feel like making them again.). Add in some veggies - braised kale with pancetta. Or mashed cauliflower (instead of potatoes). steamed broccoli and carrots. Anything really, except corn. Corn is not a vegetable!

But that's only three meals, you might say! What about snacks? Aren't we supposed to eat 5-6 small meals a day to keep our metabolism up? Well, that's actually one of the top diet myths, according to LiveScience. Along with "eating fat will make you fat" and "exercise will make you skinny," these are things we've long believed, things the media keeps telling us. But they aren't true!

But I need snacks! you say. If I don't eat every three hours, I get irritable! Or nausteated! Well, guess what? This used to happen to me, too.

On day 6 after making this change, I had plans to go to Costco with a friend. I ate a salad with tuna about 11:30. By the time we got to Costco, I was feeling kind of hungry. Plus, the clock was telling me I hadn't eaten in 4 hours; I "knew" I needed to eat soon or suffer the consequences. So I decided to get a hot dog. But the line was super long. I decided to wait. We shopped for about 90 minutes, and I was carrying my baby the whole time. It was late when we left, so I didn't stop to get one on the way out.

In the end, I went over seven hours without eating. That is the longest I've voluntarily not eaten during waking hours in...over a decade? And I did it without once feeling irritable, shaky or nauseated.

That was a huge revelation for me. I was hungry, yes. Tummy growling, feeling like I should eat something. But having none of those awful symptoms of low blood sugar and low energy? Totally awesome.

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The numbers, day 41:
Weight: 166.7 pounds
Waist: 97.5 cm
Hips: 105 cm
W/H ratio: 0.93
BMI: 26.12
Bodyfat: 29.5%

The First Step - Food

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

- Lao Tzu

It was time. I was ready, REALLY ready, to change how I was living my life. But I still had to decide where to start. I’ve learned from past experience that I do better with incremental changes. Now, as always, trying to make a big change is too overwhelming for me; it seems too hard, too daunting and so I give up.

I’m also a mom to a 4-year-old and a full-time breastfeeding baby, so whatever I chose to do couldn’t take too much time. I thought about simply starting to exercise more. The last time I’d resolved to “get in shape”, I’d taken up Power90 (the precursor to today’s workout sensation, P90X). I’d liked it, it worked for me, but 60 minute workouts, 6 days a week? No, thank you! Even getting to the gym seemed impossible, especially since my daughter was still too young for the child care.

I knew I needed some help mentally, and so I thought about counseling. That would only be an hour two to four times a month, and it had definitely helped me after my mom’s death. But counseling costs money, something else that was in short supply. In addition, my husband’s father had died suddenly in February; he needed the counseling more than I did.

So that left food. Grocery shopping, food preparation, and eating were all things I did every day already. I just did them very poorly.

I’ve already mentioned my “addiction” to McDonald’s cheeseburgers. I also had an “addiction” to bread, to cookies and cakes, and especially to chocolate. Oh, yummy chocolate! I knew this wasn’t good for my body. My IBS is triggered by sugars, especially fructose. And obviously I wasn’t at my ideal weight (whether you judge that by society/ the health industry’s standard of “ideal” or what I carried around in my head as my own personal “ideal”).

I knew what my body DID like, though. It liked it when I cut out sugars and grains completely. It sounds hard. Impossible, even. But I knew it wasn’t, because I’d done it twice before.

Four years ago, I suffered a tough case of thrush in my milk ducts while nursing my newborn son. Three months of conventional treatment only halted the infection temporarily, and I eventually went on an anti-candida diet – no grains, no sugars, no dairy, limited fruit. The thrush disappeared, and it seemed only a pleasant side-effect that I effortlessly lost 10 pounds. I put it all back on as soon as I went back to a standard diet, though. Sound familiar?

Two years ago, I was again at a point where I was unhappy with my weight, and especially, at that time, with my waist size. The same naturopath who had helped me through my ordeal with thrush told me she was worried that I was headed down the road to metabolic syndrome. I was worried, too. She was (perhaps still is) an instructor/facilitator for Transitions Lifestyles, a weight-loss system not unlike Weight Watchers, only based on the glycemic index. I started attending classes where I “learned” everything I already knew – sugar is hidden in everything from salad dressing to spaghetti sauce to sausages; sugar and low-fiber carbs spike blood sugars and mess with your insulin levels; and all of this messes with metabolism. Again, I lost weight and body fat, quickly and easily, by changing what I ate, and my exercise routine not at all.

At neither of those times did what I was doing feel sustainable. The first time I didn't think of it as a permanent thing; I just wanted to not have painful boobs and to be able to nurse my baby! The second time, the “plan” included a variety of supplements, some of which I could not take because I was still breastfeeding. Plus, those supportive classes and lessons wouldn’t be around forever. They didn’t even help me make it past Thanksgiving!

But this time…this time, I knew what I wanted to do, and how I wanted to do it. I had no one pressuring me, or even supporting me beyond my husband agreeing I should do what I needed to do. Still, it took me a while to build up the courage to go grain-free again.

While I was mulling through things, I had some conversations with friends who were having similar urges to get fit. Most were simply changing (or starting!) their fitness routines, but two were doing CrossFit. They told me about the push at CrossFit gyms to go grain- and sugar-free. They knew it as a movement called Paleo dieting.

I bought and read Robb Wolf’s “The Paleo Solution” (my first Kindle purchase!) and learned some of the science behind why this diet works, and not just for forty-something women whose hormones are getting all wacky. I soaked up his information about gluconeogenesis, fluffy LDL, and possible causes of Neolithic disease (cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure, etc.). I surfed the web and read more blogs about why the typical American diet doesn't work, and non-typical fitness regimens, and how to "go Paleo" with a family. I joined a discussion thread of other mothers who were – or wanted to be – grain-free.

(This is what I do. Research something to death before starting. Hey, it works for me!)

So on that day when I told my husband, "Starting next week, I am no longer eating grains or sugars," I knew exactly what I was getting into. I knew I’d probably have a headache for a couple of days. I knew I might have trouble resisting sweets. I knew I’d have to rid the house of my favorite snacks even though it meant depriving others. I knew I’d have a lot of explaining to do – to servers in restaurants, to my friends when we went out, and to my extended family whenever I saw them next.

What I did not know was how easy it would be this time, and the little changes in my attitude that would make it so. But that's a post for another day.

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The numbers, day 27:
Weight: 169 pounds
Waist: 96 cm
Hips: 101 cm
W/H ratio: 0.95
BMI: 26.47
Bodyfat: 29%

Baselines

I remember the first time I got pregnant, the doctor I saw (for a nanosecond) insisted I have blood work done as a baseline, a mark to measure things against as the pregnancy progressed. It seemed like a good idea then, and taking a series of measurements or baselines still seems like a good idea.

I've been thinking a bit about what made me desire change. What was it about my life that was making me unhappy and discontented? How would I know these changes were working for me? What baselines did I have with which to measure my progress?

On the day I told my husband, "Starting next week, I am no longer eating grains or sugars," I was a size 14, weighed 177 pounds and was around 32% body fat (according to my body fat monitor scale, which is perhaps not greatly accurate). Size, weight, body measurements - these are all good solid markers I can track with the tools at hand. But what about other, more subtle markers? How else was I feeling on that day?

I was sluggish. Everything seemed like such an effort! I would laze around all day, then rush to get the dishes done and dinner on the stove at the last minute. Or not, and ask my husband to get take out on the way home. If my son wanted to go out and play, I'd go out with him...and sit in a chair with a book, knitting, or iPod. Or all three. Pregnancy and a newborn were great excuses for a while, but even I was getting tired of hearing them.

I felt foggy. My mind was as sluggish as my body. I think I said, "Huh?" a dozen or more times a day. I would drift off in the middle of things; I think I preferred it, actually. I wasn't writing, I wasn't even reading much. I had no ideas for creative projects when my son wanted to craft. I wanted to do nothing more than sit and watch TV, or cruise FaceBook and play games on my iPod.

I had digestive issues. I've had IBS for 20+ years, thanks in part to a bout of amoebic dysentery when I was 18 or 19. I tried many things to cure it, and about a dozen years ago realized it came down to diet - increasing fiber while decreasing sugar made the "attacks" less frequent and less intense. But they'd never gone away entirely. I thought high-fructose corn syrup was the big culprit until I had ELISA testing 2 years ago, and discovered I reacted highly to cane sugar. So much for the "healthy" substitutes!

I sometimes got the shakes. This would happen a lot when I ate a "healthy" breakfast of steel-cuts oats with brown sugar, 1% milk, and walnuts. Ninety minutes to two hours later, I would start to feel hungry, then ravenous, then I would shake or feel nauseated. I felt that if I didn't eat, and eat NOW, I would surely faint. Or maybe throw-up. Especially during my last pregnancy, this all too often led me straight to the McDonald's drive-thru, and a repeat of the cycle two hours later.

I lied. I would tell people - and myself - that I ate a diet of healthy whole foods, eating only whole grain breads, lots of vegetables, leans meats, etc. In reality, I was eating fast food 3-5 times a week, some days ate no vegetables or only a few baby carrots, and sometimes ate a packet of ding-dongs while grocery shopping. Not that I would tell anyone that; I paid for them, and had the clerk throw away the package.

I didn't need blood work or a scale or even a mirror to tell me that I wasn't healthy. I could feel it each and every day, and I showed it each and every day with my actions and my inactions.

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The numbers, day 1:
Weight: 177 pounds
Waist: 104 cm
Hips: 106 cm
W/H ratio: 0.98
BMI: 27.72
Bodyfat: ~32%