Hi and good luck.

In addition to the other great advice you've gotten, I'll throw in there organization. Literally organize your kitchen, and organize your goals. Something that gets me off track is having too many goals and then ending up with information overload. It sounds to me like the absolute most critical goal is getting off gluten and sugar, and healing your gut. So forget about the other things for now: forget about calories, forget about weight loss, don't worry about the coffee, I wouldn't even worry about giving up dairy for now... focus on the top priorities.

Turn into a kitchen geek pronto. You don't have to be a chef. Don't get sidetracked or discouraged if/when you see other people around here making complicated recipes. Keep it simple if you're not a huge fan of being in the kitchen. But you have to learn to be creative. You said you get sick of all the meat and eggs: that's where the creativity comes in. I've just spent the last two weeks eating near zero carb - and nothing was boring about it at all. Chili tastes nothing like a (bunless) bacon cheeseburger, which tastes nothing like taco meat, for example. And that's just ground beef. Deviled eggs have a completely different taste and texture from omelet. Chicken soup is nothing like chicken salad or hot chicken fajita-style meat.

Now, the key to making that creativity actually work is to keep your kitchen well stocked with your staples. (Here are mine.) That's critical.

Make your freezer your best friend. You can cook a whole package of bacon, sausage, burger patties, etc and store them cooked in the freezer. Same for soups, quiches, and other foods. That makes it so easy to just grab what you're in the mood for.

One of the most important keys to me staying on track is absolutely LOVING the food I eat. It's so awesome, I don't miss flour or sugar one bit.

I wish you success in silencing your inner "lizard" (to borrow Nancy's term ) or as I call it, the inner two-year-old.

(ETA) Oh - the saying in my sig sort of applies to you. I put that there because over the summer, I just couldn't seem to get my act together. So you have many people here who can sympathize.

Great blog post, Nancy! Thanks! That one's a keeper.



I think it's mainly laziness about cooking. If I'm going to cut out large categories of foods, like grains, I need to replace them with something. I have not been very creative about my cooking - I always make chicken the same way, always eat the same veggies in a salad, etc. When I'm not getting variety from grain, this gets old really fast. I think about eggs again for breakfast, or a piece of meat, and it's completely unappealing. Buying non-paleo groceries somehow seems like more than a commitment than going to a restaurant or deli for a meal, which I convince myself is "just this once". Before you know it, I'm eating out for every meal! Besides being unhealthy, it's very expensive!

It doesn't help that I live in the restaurant capital of the world and dozens of delicious options are a stone's throw from my front door. My cooking has to compete with some serious deliciousness.

Plus there is another "variety" issue because I live alone. If I buy a lot of different vegetables, the food goes bad. Either I eat the same thing every day for a week, or I buy a bunch of different things and throw most of it out.

I need to spend some time on meal planning and learning new recipes. I think that's the solutions.



I know I sound like a broken record. Thanks for talking to me anyway. Every time I come up with the brilliant idea that I should follow a paleo diet to help my colitis and share that insight with my sister, she reminds me that not only have I said this before, I actually did try it for 6 months and it worked.

I'm still doing okay today - so far so good.

Hi Kristine!



Yes, setting priorities helps quite a bit. I'm trying that now - cutting out the sugar and grain but still eating some dairy for the time being. When I cut out too much at once before I've figured out alternative yummy things to eat instead, I just go out and have a bagel.

The "organize your kitchen" advice reminded me of another reason I tend to eat out. I don't have much of a kitchen. I live in a teeny-tiny apartment, and cooking here is cramped and difficult (not to mention my undersized refrigerator and freezer). I can do it, but it can get frustrating and annoying.



Right!!!! That's what I have to start doing. I have not been very creative in my cooking. Just the ideas you list here are helpful. Is there an idea list somewhere for quick and tasty recipes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner?

Yup, sounds like Kristine hit the nail on the head. You need some kitchen skills, some planning, some organizing. Things don't happen without a good plan in place.

Low carbing turned me into a much better cook. I was only so-so before. But I realized I was going to have to really figure out how to keep my mouth entertained if I was going to stick to the diet. And that investment in learning really paid off. It's become a major hobby now. I don't lament the foods I can't have (or won't have) because I have got a large repertory of great foods I can have!

One thing that helps immensely is cooking in advance. For instance, I cooked a duck yesterday and cut it up. I'll eat that for the rest of the week. I made a brisket and took some of it and made "hash" out of it. If you get your veggies cooked up you don't need to worry about them spoiling, just buy what you need for the week and cook it up with the meat.

A lot of people aren't eating loads of veggies and seem to be doing fine, that's another thing to consider. I go a little nuts without them though.

Do you get Food TV Network where you live? You might want to start watching some Alton Brown, "Good Eats" episodes, maybe "Chopped" and "Iron Chef America" will inspire and teach you. I learn so much about how to combine flavors or hear things that I then look up on the Internet. I like Chopped because they have to take a bunch of crazy ingredients and make something good out of it.

Also, if you've got a little cash around you might want to look into getting the equipment for Sous Vide cookin g. It is super convenient and the results are amazing. Link is in my signature. It sounds like with your living situation this might be ideal.

Go hang out in the cooking sub-forums and drool over the recipes there. You will find some tasty, easy recipes thatcould become staples for you. And the people in the Kitchen Talk area will happily answer any questions you might have.

I found the tool on this site useless, too, and I'm sure a lot of people do. The omega ratio sounds pretty reasonable to me.

Either way, to get you down to a rough start I'd say, really, write everything down. From snack to meal - it really helps what you need to replace and avoid.
~
The omega ratio can be kept under control by limiting your consumption of omega 6's to 4% of your calories, at most. In case you don't feel like doing the math - if you're on a 2000 calorie/day diet, then that's around an effective 8g of polyunsaturated fat per day. That's a little more than half a tablespoon. Taking a good amount of fish oil/omega 3 will naturally balance out the ratio.

For logging what you eat in a sane, organized way, I recommend using Nutritondata.com. They provide some info on inflammation reports for you and take a lot of factors into account. Put most of what you eat on any given usual day and you'll get all of how much omega 6 you eat, how much carbs, etc.

Supplementing with antioxidants like selenium can help with oxidation. Taking vitamin K2 helps with the gut. Vitamin D very useful for most diseases - at around 5,000 IU per day at least.

You don't have to give up dairy. I eat grass fed ghee that I make at my house everyday. It can help you a lot more than it hurts if you eat grass fed butter and dairy. They have properties that puts cancer at bay. Raw is even better.



-I'm sure you can beat this if you just try. It'll be a struggle coming up, I'll admit. The thrill of the victory is just so worth it, though.

I found this in a blog and it's extremely interesting:

Rule #2: Eat the same few meals over and over again

The most successful dieters, regardless of whether their goal is muscle gain or fat loss (or health), eat the same few meals over and over again. Mix and match.

and also this on primal paleo website:

"This may sound crazy, but eating the same exact thing, like say scrambled eggs or steak with butter, chicken drumsticks, for a whole week and only when your hungry could help you looking at food as a more functional thing rather than something to binge on."

This worked wonders for me, I 100% reccomend it!

Good morning.

First, I just have to say thank you to all the people who have answered my message! I really appreciate the support. This is a great forum.

I did pretty well yesterday. I had no grain and my carbs were pretty low (I didn't count). I'm slightly worried because I had tahini dressing on my salad and that's high in omega-6s, but it was the only omega-6 food I ate, and I'm taking omega-3 supplements.



Exactly! This is what I need to do. The first time I went on a paleo diet I did this, but at the time I was living in a house with a nice kitchen, so cooking was easier and more pleasant.

I tried something new this morning. I made pancakes from leftover winter squash, eggs, and almond flour. It's good - even without syrup on it. Maybe if I lay off the sugar for a while, my taste buds will readjust.

But I'm worried about the almond flour because of omega-3s. I wish you could buy walnut flour and walnut butter, but I haven't seen it anywhere. I wonder why no one makes it.



I used to do this where I lived before, with a real kitchen and a full-sized freezer. I used to make tons of stuff in advance and then freeze the cooked meals. That made it very doable. But I don't have a large enough freezer for that now. It's filled with the grassfed meat (raw) that I buy at Farmer's Markets when it's available.



I guess I'm picky about my veggies. I like salads, and when I do cook the veggies it's very lightly and I can really taste the difference between fresh and leftovers. I guess if I plan better there will be less waste.



I thought of doing that - and actually tried it. But then I felt really bereft about what was in the refrigerator and ended up going out to eat.



Great idea - I'll check it out.



Hmmm... I would not say I have a lot of extra cash, but I'll take a look.



Also a good idea - will do!

Nancy, you are a gift to this forum! You have helped me so much with answers to my questions and concerns. I am very grateful!

Well, I will just be happy if I can rescue you from the SAD!

You might want to think about your priorities for your diet a bit. I think sometimes people get worked up about things that in perspective aren't perhaps as important as other things.

For instance, don't get so worried about the omega-6's in Tahini and nuts you go eat grains and sugar. O-6/O-3 is an advanced topic, IMHO. People who can consistently stay low carb without issues of dealing with cravings and stuff can move onto that. Just take a bunch of fish oil capsules to get your O-3 up and worry about the minute amount of O-6 later. You're not getting anywhere NEAR the amount of O-6 most people are taking in with their diets.

Your first goal is to make a complete adjustment to low carb before you start adding more rules, IMHO. I just feel like sometimes people are like jugglers adding more and more balls to juggle before they're ready for it and then it comes crashing down.

Baby steps!

You're right, I should do that. I was doing it for a while and even have a notebook for it, but I didn't log my food yesterday. I'll do it today.



Hmmm... My understanding is that the absolute amount of omega-6 is not what matters - only its ratio to omega-3s. Ideally it should be 1:1, 3:1 at most. The typical Western diet is anywhere from 10:1 to 25:1. In Israel it's 25:1 and they have extremely high rates of heart disease.

I should log at least for a while if only to get a sense of the omega-6 and omega-3 content of foods. I don't have a feel for that.



Yes, I came across that site googling the omega-6/omega-3 content of food. It's a great site.



I take krill oil as my omega-3 supplement because it's also very high in antioxidants, which (as you know) is important with omega-3s which oxidize easily. Also, no fish burps with krill oil. I hated those fish burps, and also the fish oil capsules were so large I'd gag on them.



I have some reasons for thinking I'd be better off without dairy. I was completely dairy intolerant as an infant, and many gastroenterologists recommend that IBD patients limit dairy because it's mucous-causing. But I can't do it right now - I have to take this slowly or I won't do it at all.

I've been trying to find dairy from grass-fed cows, but that's not so easy in a city. When I lived in a more rural area, I could get milk warm from the (clearly grassfed) cow and make my own yogurt from that. (I tried cottage cheese once but it didn't come out well.) I don't know where to get that here. All the milk, yogurt, butter, and cheese I see here - even in the organic stores - comes from grain-fed animals (at least so far, that's all I can find). The best I can do is no hormones or antibiotics, but that's not good enough. I usually buy skim milk because I can't get milk with good fat and I don't want to add to my omega-6s.



Thank you!! I am very touched (and helped!) by the support here. (Also, I just noticed all those cool smilies! )

I can see this would be a good strategy if your primary goal was weight loss - do this as a temporary measure. But my primary goal is not weight loss, it's health. Also, I'm viewing the shift to paleo as a forever thing - how I want to eat for the rest of my life. So, like Nancy said, it's gotta be tasty or I simply won't stick to it. I need to make sure I have enough deliciousness and variety in my diet that I don't get frustrated and eat things that will harm my health. (I have a serious health problem that can be helped by a paleo diet.)

I know I need to be careful about piling up so many restrictions that I rebel and go eat grain and sugar. But in my case, the omega-6/omega-3 thing is of first importance. Too much omega-6 in the diet causes inflammation, and studies have shown there is a strong association with ulcerative colitis (which I have). Also, studies show that too much omega-6 versus omega-3 (it's the ratio that matters) allows cancer to grow, and I have pre-cancerous changes in my colon. I read about a study with mice where they transplanted tumors under different dietary conditions. The tumors grew quickly in mice on a high omega-6 diet, but did not take at all in mice on a high omega-3 diet. I'm terrified of colon cancer. Omega-3s will not only calm down the inflammation in my bowel (which is what's causing the precancerous changes), it will prevent the progression of the precancerous changes. So I care very much about my omega-6 versus omega-3 ratio!

I know it's also important to keep the carbs down - and particular to avoid quick-digesting carbs. When you overload the bowel with carbs, they spill over from the small bowel into the large bowel and feed the growth of harmful bacteria. This also can cause inflammation. Plus this isn't just theory for me. I have symptoms when I eat too much sugar or quick-digesting starch. (I've spent a fair amount of time researching the relationship between ulcerative colitis and diet.)

So in my case, I need to care about omega-6s as well as carbs. My goal is to not get colon cancer. I need to have a follow-up colonoscopy in 6 months (5 months now) to see what's happening with the indeterminate dysplasia found in the October colonoscopy. If I can stop the inflammation in my colon, the dysplasia could go away on its own. If the April colonoscopy finds the dysplasia has progressed from indeterminate to low-grade, my doctor will want to "have a conversation" (he says) about removing my colon. I do not want to lose my colon. I do not want colon cancer. I'm quite terrified.

Maybe I should print out this message and read it again any time I have an urge to eat something that could worsen my inflammation or promote the growth of cancer - get my head out of the sand.

Right but in the scheme of things eating the carbs and grains is doing FAR FAR more damage to you than the minute amounts of O-6 you get in a little tahini and a few nuts. In fact, I'd say after you make the adjustment to low carb, which is fairly rough, the next thing to tackle is probably the dairy. It can be really bad for IBD.

But adjust to low carb first and get yourself organized, adjusted and ready to take the next step. What the next step is is of course up to you.

Nancy, I took a look at the NY Times article on cryovacking. All this stuff about how it changes the cell structure and chemistry of food makes me nervous.



I try to stay away from highly processed food, even when I'm the one doing the processing. You never know how foods altered from their natural state will affect the body. Certainly our bodies aren't adapted to cryovacked food. Some people even say microwaves change the cellular structure of foods in ways that are unhealthy. (I can't give up my microwave, though - too convenient.)

That said, perhaps I'm overreacting to the phrasing in the NY Times article. I googled health risks associated with high-pressure vacuum sealing and found nothing at all. I do have a Vita-Mix, and cave people didn't have those, either.

But in any case, I can't afford the equipment!

Cooking changes cell structures, causes proteins to unfold and refold in a different manner. Nothing new about that. It must not be too bad because we've probably been cooking for 140,000 years or over a million by some accounts. Sous vide might actually be a good thing because you don't have to cook foods to such a high heat that you do with stovetop or oven cooking. As far as processing that they do in food production industry, who does that in their kitchen at home? The best thing I've had SV is a simple steak. You can use a relatively cheap cut of meat and cook it at 130' for a few hours and it lets the connective tissues that make it tough dissolve. Then sear it quickly, if you want, for a crust on the outside. That doesn't sound processed to me.

I had another thought for you. Find about 3-4 things you really, really like that suit whatever diet you decide to follow. Make sure it's easy to cook and you can have it on hand all the time. For me a staple was always having bags of pre-washed lettuce on hand and I'd throw in some chicken breast and other things I like on salad. If I really like the food I'm eating I can eat the same thing day after day for a looong time. Then from there start to add to your repertory of good things to eat.

Are we related Nancy? Because it sounds like your sister and mine are twins.