Eating like My Ancestors, Moving, and a New Project

In my last post, I mentioned something about waltzing (or was it walking?) over to the anthropology department from the nutrition science department…well, I failed at my attempt to be metaphorical (which is why I don’t belong in the writing department). What I meant was that my most recent nutritional changes have been geared toward an anthropological standpoint rather than what the nutrition science departments of the world (5 of which I am employed by) stand for.

Interestingly, this shift in my habits has been 100% effortless. In the past, I have worked really darn freakin’ hard to make “improvements” to the way I eat. I feel like I’ve been physically full but perpetually unsatisfied for at least the last three years (maybe five or eight, but it’s hard for me to categorize my actions during the aftermath of losing my sister—I could call it sad or lost…or in the Twilight Zone—I ate a lot of Easy Mac and drank a lot of Michelob Ultra).

Now. I’m satisfied. 100%. You couldn’t pay me to eat my delicious poisons.

{skip to the pics if you don’t really care about my dietary/health exploration}

I remember back in 8th grade science class, sitting at my desk and being completely in a fog. I wasn’t happy, but I wasn’t upset—somewhere floating in between. Apathetic, and living in glue. It wasn’t all the time, but it happened sometimes. Over the next 15 years, I developed this tendency to have hangovers when I had not been drinking. Occasionally, I’d be in bed for a few days with this, unable to swallow water (once it happened when I worked for the Air Force when I was at a Protocol — aka Military Ettiquette — conference in Dallas. I tried to swallow some pretzels and water from the mini bar with no success. It made me realize how awesome it was when that sh*t happened at home instead of traveling). I attributed it to systemic candida “die off” and was never diagnosed or helped by a doctor. One time, when I lived in Boston, I asked my doctor if she thought avoiding sugar would help. Her response (shrug): “You could try it.” {here’s another prescription}

I’ve had undiagnosed swelling problems, skin issues – breakouts and melasma, and brain fog—doctors tell me my blood is fine. So I’m fine. But I sure didn’t feel fine all the time. I like to think I rallied—let’s not call me unproductive or anything—I’ve done things, I always went to work when I had to, earned a Ph.D., and dragged myself through glue whenever necessary.

With my new way of eating, in a matter of 24 hours, I lost 3 pounds of inflammation (self-proclaimed here, I don’t have health insurance but I do have a really fancy scale for wellness coaching). I also felt really fantastic. So I continued. It’s 12 days later, and I’m a new person.

I cleaned up my diet in a new way, and it works for me. I also have some clients, friends, and family who are giving it a shot. The thing is, I am not ready to promote it yet as a professional, so you’ll see evidence of it here, but I’m not going to explicitly and directly put it out there as “the best method” or “I will guide you with this method” until I consider myself an expert who has read enough about it. So far—4 books, and I am sold on the science. But thanks for waiting while I do my due diligence.  If you have to have a peek into it, it’s low-carb (no grains or sugar), no vegetable oils, a foundation of veggies (as usual), fermented and cultured foods (I make them), raw dairy (in small amounts–I never had a dairy problem even though I tried to find one), the clean best-karma kind of animal products. Books I’ve read include: Deep Nutrition by Catherine Shanahan (review coming soon), The Paleo Solution by Robb Wolff, Primal Blueprint by Mark Sisson, and the Paleo Athlete by Loren Cordain. Even though it sounds like it, I’m not doing the Paleo Diet. I’ve made up my own based on blending what I’ve learned from these sources and other research studies (which I’ll mention later). My approach? I’m calling it Traditional Nutrition {with a tagline of Simplify Your Story…which will make more sense later}.

{Ok, done with that topic now}

 

Local. Free range organic eggs are important--they don't have the icky stuff from the sicky chix, and they roam around eating bugs in the grass--this translates to your health (and wouldn't you rather have the chicken eat the bugs for you?)

 

Eating eggs is not eating baby chicken fetuses. If the egg is not fertilized, which these are NOT, then it's just an egg---no chance of it becoming a chicken baby. Plus it's super high in protein and choline (among other things). ...Choline makes you smart.

 

I'm moving. My mom called me one day and said she had a bunch of boxes for me---I went and picked them up and they were the smallest boxes known to man. I am still using them, but I'll have to hire a smurf to help carry them in and out to make them worth it.
I ordered boxes online from this place--they came in one day. Overpriced, probably. But cheaper than UHaul, and I'm saving the planet. No clue what I'll put in the extra large boxes...probably will become a fort for Matthew.

 

This is here for two reasons. 1. I wanted to buy a local wine b/c I'm going to invite you to Wine Friday. But then, I also wanted to buy organic, and the only local organic wines were not ones I wanted. So I ended up with Chile and California. 2. That's my first book underneath them. Ok, really it's a copy of my dissertation. You won't want to read it, even my mom didn't read the whole thing. But it's another hint about what I have coming up in the near future. Combining methodology expertise with my professional passions (do those two words even go together?). Anyway, it's another "stay tuned" message.

I have more pictures of Matthew helping me pack up the kitchen (that lasted all of 45 minutes) and random things I found while packing…But my camera battery is almost dead so it won’t let me upload the pics…and the charger and other battery are packed away somewhere (with the toaster, probably). We ended up playing Kinetica on Playstation 2 (he found it), and I totally kicked his butt. I like it that he’s old enough now to not through a fit if he doesn’t win–it’s way more fun for me to win sometimes. We also went to the playground, and I went to the grocery store twice (because I forgot my wallet the first time).

I have a lot more to say about anthropological bases of food and eating. Also, I’m buying an iPhone (my speakerphone and bluetooth stopped working on my droid and I hate holding that thing up to my head) and an iMac. Time to upgrade. MacBook is lovely, but I’ve bogged her down with my multi-tasking tendencies…

How is your week!?  Do you have any big things happening?

Stay tuned for more about Wine Friday (you won’t have to come here to participate, I promise).

 

19 thoughts on “Eating like My Ancestors, Moving, and a New Project”

  1. Lauren@Spiced Plate

    Wine Friday sounds fabulous to me!  Last weekend we hosted a bring-your-favorite-wine-or-cheese party, and it was lovely to get to try so many different things.

    I’ve been thinking a lot about eating like my ancestors, how I’m 100% Italian and can’t eat gluten, although a lot of Italians are celiacs (although I’m only gluten intollerant) and how in America, we over emphasize the pasta while in Italy, they’ve all got crushes on vegetables.  I do love my olive oil, though.  I’m interested to see what your anthropological bases of food and eating are.  I’m curious to see if you mean your own specific genetic background, or just not eating anything that our ancestors wouldn’t recognize (i.e. splenda)

    Hope you’re well!

  2. Wheeeeee I lovahhhh you!! I feel like a million bucks. Seriously. I want some fucking sausage right now. Excuse my nonchalance but I really do. When we get together let’s do sausage and eggs for breakfast, something equally delicious for lunch, and something even better for dinner. Can you tell I’m hungry? <3

  3. GREAT to catch up with you, lisa! i love when you talk about matthew (his *help* with packing, playing playstation 2 together, etc) – he’s older than my oldest niece, so i can see what lies ahead!
    i am excited to hear more about your new traditional way of eating! totally can see why you want to wait a bit before sharing everything – i’d love to read the paleo diet books!
    laughing over the mini-boxes your mom gave you…moms are so cute!
    enjoy your day – it’s gorgeous here!

  4. Matthew is at a great age right now—we can do so much STUFF! And coincidentally, we went to walmart today to buy him a bike (which still cost a lot…b/c I let him pick out the one he wanted instead of the most economical one). We went bike riding….he promptly fell off, and now we’re watching Pete’s Dragon and icing an elbow.
    Every age is good, but when your nieces get a little bigger, you’ll be having a blast!

  5. OK, I’m kind of embarrassed…because I got all goofy excited about anthropology in your last post.  Maybe the issue isn’t that you don’t write metaphorically enough; maybe the issue is that some of your readers – ahem, me – are much too literal. 

    I’m very intrigued by your “return to roots” approach to eating.  I would really love to learn more.  I hope that you’ll share more on your blog over the next little while.  Does fruit have a place in your new diet?  I know that you were avoiding too much fruit sugar before.

  6. I think maybe my post was just a little too cryptic altogether…but hey, it made me look cool for a bit—I kinda wish I was being literal about the anthro too 🙂
    There is room for fruit in my new plan (just not much of it). I’ll definitely be expanding more with the details of the new way of eating!

  7. Hey, Lisa! Very nice! May I also recommend the DVD set, What Should I Eat? Nutrition, The Autonomic Nervous System and Health, by Nicholas Gonzalez, MD (a NYC cancer expert). It’s a recording of one of his lectures and fascinating. You can find it on his site http://www.dr-gonzalez.com/index.htm. Or I’d be happy to loan you mine. Gives you more stuff to think about. 

  8. we eat local eggs and love them! we are actually thinking about trying eating the yolks raw again, we did it once. We have heard a lot about raw egg yolks and did not really notice anything, but then again we only did it once, haha

    Our second older sister is trying to follow the paleo diet, she seems to like it, but for her is more stress that makes her sick, ugh But we are happy she is not scared of eating real food again.

    and love wine 🙂 

  9. we eat local eggs and love them! we are actually thinking about trying eating the yolks raw again, we did it once. We have heard a lot about raw egg yolks and did not really notice anything, but then again we only did it once, haha

    Our second older sister is trying to follow the paleo diet, she seems to like it, but for her is more stress that makes her sick, ugh But we are happy she is not scared of eating real food again.

    and love wine 🙂 

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