Below are day-in-the-life samples of the primal lifestyle. They're not intended to be exemplary for everyone -- just honest snapshots of what's working (or not) for one Idaho farmgirl. Use them to get a feel for what primal living looks like on a daily basis, as a jumping-off point if you're on the edge of taking the primal plunge, or as creative sparks for primal veterans.
Feel free to share your own tallies in the comments. We could all use a few fresh ideas!
Tuesday's Food as Fuel:
Banana.
Scrambled eggs and broccoli. Cottage cheese with mixed fruit.
Spinach salad with canned salmon, garden tomatoes, black olives, and southwest dressing.
Two hard boiled eggs and crudites with yogurt-dill dip.
Trail mix (Nuts, dried fruit, and a few white chocolate & butterscotch chips that made me crave carbs for the rest of the day. Bad idea. Better to stick with just the nuts.)
Stifado (Beef simmered with red wine, onions, tomatoes, and warm spices. This is a Cooking Light recipe that I highly recommend. I made the recipe as written, with one exception: I didn't have beef broth, so I subbed vegetable broth plus a couple tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce.)
Coconut cream and 1/2 ounce extra dark chocolate.
2364 calories, 201 g carbs, 108 g fat, 161 g protein
Tuesday's Workout:
3x max-out sets of push-ups, air squats, pull-ups, hanging leg raises, and overhead presses.
Farm chores and horse training.
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Friday's Food as Fuel:
Peach.
Spinach salad with 2 hard boiled eggs, avocado, jicama, carrot, broccoli, alfalfa sprouts, mushrooms, and lemon-dijon dressing made with olive oil.
Chicken cacchetore (no pasta -- just chicken, marinara, and parmisan) with garlic-sauteed zucchini. (Next time, I'll forgo the cheese, as it made me feel slightly bloated all afternoon.)
1.5 ounces of almonds and walnuts.
Primal Dessert Salad with Berry-Orange Dressing.
Balsamic roasted carrots, zucchini, onions, mushrooms, and garlic. Leftover stifado.
1/2 cup mango with coconut cream.
2129 calories, 179 g carbs, 114 g fat, 120 g protein
Friday's Workout:
Rest day from formal workout.
4.5 miles brisk dog walks, with a bit of running thrown in for fun.
Extra farm chores (raking and shoveling) in anticipation of hay delivery.
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Saturday's Food as Fuel:
Hay Day Hash with two eggs over easy.
Banana with almond butter.
Spinach salad with grilled chicken, avocado, broccoli, carrot, jicama, mushrooms, and lemon-dijon dressing.
Trail mix (Yes, the kind with the candy chips. In the midst of intense physical labor, that bit of sugar isn't a major problem, health-wise, but I still found it hard to put the stuff down. Good thing I ran out. I won't buy it again.)
Baked spaghetti squash with marinara.
Peach with coconut cream.
2314 calories, 194 g carbs, 131 g fat, 113 g protein
Saturday's Workout:
5 hours unloading and stacking 100-lb bales of hay. That'll do a girl in!
But, there are still chores waiting...
Thoughts on the week:
I'm still experimenting with the right number of carbs for me. Tuesday was quite high (in anticipation of stacking 2,800 lbs of hay on Wednesday morning), as was Saturday (more hay hauling!) I felt energetic all week -- more than when I kept carbs below 150 -- so it may be that this diet was appropriate for the week's effort.
But what's with all the dairy? Cottage cheese, yogurt, and some hard cheese? Sure, it totaled less than a cup of dairy all week, but that's more than I'd normally eat in a month. Blech. I feel better without the stuff, even though I'm of Swedish descent and not particularly lactose intolerant. It just makes me feel slightly bloated and "heavy."
This week's workouts were strange, too, considering the unusually high quantity of real-world labor in place of formal workouts. I feel like I didn't do enough squats and pull-ups, but that's a mental issue, not a physical one. You can bet your booties I did more than enough pushing, pulling, and lifting to compensate...and isn't functional strength what it's all about? I train most of the year so I can do real work when it needs to be done.
Cheers!
3 comments:
Since I just got the strange looks and comments from coworkers about my chosen breakfast (steamed broccoli with my eggs and tomatoes) I'll bite.
I have given up pasta , oatmeal and rice but have continued eating dairy at this point. It's not much, a greek yogurt with nuts for my snack and either goat cheese or cheddar once in a while. If I do a protein smoothie for breakfast, I use milk.
I will list a couple of recent dinner choices I have whipped up.
Monday nights dinner; ground beef with sauteed green peppers, onion , garlic and mexican spices, like cumin, red pepper. I served this on a bed of fresh greens and topped with fresh tomatoe and cilantro, splash of lime juice, and a wedge of avocado and a dash of pepper jack cheese.
Sunday night dinner;
Chorizo burgers with Pobano garlic mayo. Mix 1/2 lb ground pork with 1/2 lb ground chorizo , add 2 teaspoons Worchestershire and 2 gloves of minced garlic, pas out into burgers (enough for 4 good sized burgers) grill these and servie with a slice of pepper jack cheese and whatever fresh veggies you prefer. I usually serve adill cucumber salad or fresh greens. The poblano mayo dressing is just a roasted poblano pepper, garlic , lime juice and mayo or vegganaise mixed and chopped together in a food processor. YUMMM! The sauce also serves as a great veggie dip for peppers or carrots!
Tuesdays dinner; Roasted chicken , Garlic mashed red potatoes (a little high in carbs but I usually don't eat these, they are for the other half) a green salad or steamed green veggies of some kind.
Other nights for ease, so I don't spend my evening in the kitchen, my meals consist of green salad or steamed broccoli with grilled steak or chicken. We are not a big fish eater so I rarely prepare a fish dish. I am allergic to shellfish so that takes that out of the equation as well, although I would give alot to taste lobster again someday!
Lunch is usually a big salad with a meat of some kind. My favorite these days is canned chicken with lime juice, spring greens, cilantro, olive oil, tomatoe and olives and mix it all together in a bowl and enjoy.
I don't get a lot of time to think out the meal planning and usually just whip something together last minute. Eating this way has actually simplified things for me in the kitchen. I thought it would make it more difficult but I just keep a good variety of my favorite greens and produce on hand and go from there. It's one of the few times I can use what little creativity I can conjure up!
Thanks for chiming in, Jonna! I'm curious: how do you cook your eggs at work? Or are they hard boiled?
Plenty of primals eat dairy. :) I gave it up (mostly -- as you can see, I do use some) long before I discovered the primal lifestyle, and personally feel better without it, but I doubt you'll die from a bit of cheese and yogurt.
Those chorizo burgers sound fantastic! I'll have to try them -- thanks!
I agree that meal planning is actually easier this way. For one thing, leftovers are really easy. Chilled, grilled meat over spinach, anyone?
At work, we have a full kitchen equipped with a microwave, stove, fridge, sink .. if I happen to run out of hard boiled eggs, I have been known to fire up the stovetop! I have even , in desperate times, nuked the eggs but it's kind of gross and it's a bit difficult to do without making them explode in the microwave. LOL!
Definitely give the Chorizo burgers a try. They are from Emerril (sp?), the Bam guy...A little salty but nice and spicy too!
Yes, love the leftovers..A good sized roast will last me a week and I can mix it with anything...Spinach, broccoli, Kohl Rabi, and turnip greens...(ok, that last part was from a country song that was dancing around in my head...)
Have a good one..
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