Thursday in Caveland

It's a very long work day. Which also means it's a convenient intermittent fasting day. I started with strong coffee and coconut milk and now it's tea and water until 7pm.

The sun is shining and I am at work, waxing nostrils.

I say, completely free of irony, that life is good.

Tikis, Sauce and Le Chocolat Chaud

After yesterday's fasting day I had a few-hour window of tasty delights. I went to my dance class and felt okay about a bit of improvised choreography. I purchased two lovely hip scarves from my gorgeous and witty teacher and, feeling cute, walked to Hayes Valley to meet my sweetie for dinner. I had hanger steak and eggs with a side of asparagus and a starter salad of brussels sprouts and ham. Yes, please.

Sauce in San Francisco has long been my favorite restaurant. The menu features an delicious selection of sauce-covered comfort foods that are not particularly friendly to the Paleo plan. But a little tweaking (and not a bite of the tremendous doughnut holes with butter dipping sauce) and I fared just fine. 

Just beyond this door. . .doughnut hole heaven



After dinner we walked a bit and after that I was still a bit hungry. (Do you notice that when you remove all the assorted sauces, potatoes, grains, buns and soups, that protein and veg leaves a lot of room in l'estomac for more protein and veg?)

So we stopped in at a cute little kabab place and got a skewer of kofte for the short walk to a friend's amazing tiki bar. (For the sake of my anonymity I won't say the name of the bar because said friend is a heck of a businessman and he has a little radar that goes off everytime someone mentions its name online. It's true.)

Rum-based delights in a perfect tiki bar. Who would drink vodka in a place like this?

No dispenser of packaged Mai Tai mixes, the bar specializes in handmade concoctions, perfectly spiced, with freshly squeezed juices and gorgeously garnished with fresh fruit. Me? I drank a shot of vodka. Sometimes eating by a plan means not having the special of the house.

Today the special of the house is a Chocolat Chaud, almost-paleo style.

For mine, I melt unsweetened chocolate and add a small touch of stevia powder, plus some nutmeg, ginger and vanilla. A bit of hot coconut milk, fill with boiling water and it's done. Today it is poured in a large mug that ironically reads, Vegan. I giggle when I read it and sit down to share this silly post about food and drinks with le Blogosphere.

Delicious.

You know what they say about elegance

Ms. Chanel said that "elegance is refusal." Today, as planned, I am choosing to fast until dinnertime. I'm here at the midday mark and feeling just fine on a cup of coffee and a few tablespoons of coconut milk. Fenugreek tea has followed, and later on I plan to go wild and have a kombucha if the place next door has one without added fruit juice.

Today will be busy with physical work and a not-backbreaking dance class. While I'd love to be snacking on something right now I did consume enough food this past week to keep me alive for a very long time.

It feels good to be back.

Intermittent Fasting

It is time to embrace that which I have successfully done (and also, lately, very successfully avoided like a plague bearing chocolate bunnies and too many ham products): it is time to get reacquainted with intermittent fasting.

Work days (for me Tuesday, Thursday and Friday - sometimes Saturday), my plan is to drink a coffee with coconut milk in the morning, tea throughout the day, and paleo foods from roughly 6 to 10pm.

Wine needs to be limited to a glass or two a week. Sleep needs to become a bigger priority.

Tomorrow is a 6pm dance class followed by a 7:30 work meeting. 8pm date with husband, at which time it will be Steak City, pop.: Me.

In-law wedding and a fabulous dress await on June 4th. I have a month. I've slipped and I really must get back on the paleo-barre-running plan.

Cave Mayonnaise

Already I feel so good. Because of Sunday's prep, yesterday was so easy. Breakfast was a hard-boiled egg and three wee slices of boar bacon with a big side of broccoli and onions and a cup of coffee with coconut milk. That carried me through with not a single pang of hunger until 3pm. I want people who struggle with weight and food and hunger and all of that to understand this point, and to see why a breakfast as yummy as eggs and bacon is a very good thing. (Just make sure it's nitrite-free, organic bacon - we don't want to poison ourselves while we're trying to get healthy - and maybe limit any kind of bacon if you're avoiding processed foods or watching your salt.)

I don't know about you but when I eat a carby breakfast, even (or especially) something like that big bowl of oatmeal that Doctors Ornish and Oz and Weight Watchers and all say is so healthy and so filling-- you know what I get? Hungry by 10, in need of more coffee, moody as hell and panicked about when my next meal is coming. That's because blood sugar spikes and dips with carbs. Even with "good carbs." Even with added fat from butter or coconut oil. Whereas protein keeps you satisfied longer and without the headaches that come from all that spiking and dipping.

In the evening I acheived mayonnaise! I used a a whisk and a bowl and an adaptation of an adaptation of  Julia Child's recipe . (The original was discovered on a stone tablet somewhere in the caves of Lascaux, I believe.) Mine subbed apple cider vinegar for lemon juice (since I had used all the lemon juice in the previous day's failed mayo experiment.) The fats were mostly coconut oil with about a fourth or so total olive oil, with a bit of bacon grease for tasty, tasty flavor. I got the kid to take over some of the wrist-breaking manual work (see photographic proof if you want to consult someone about child labor laws but I bet dollars to donuts this crummy camera pic won't hold up in court). I tossed the finished product into a salad of mixed greens, pre-shredded broccoli slaw from a store that sells some organic and many pre-shredded things, halved red grapes, a thimble-full of boar bacon bits, and dry roasted unsalted almonds. Ghosts of the blogosphere, let me tell you that this was the home-run salad of the year. Holy cow, that and a side of chicken tossed with kale braised in some broth cubes I had in the freezer and you've got yourself a meal.

So yesterday was successful from a dietary standpoint. Physically I did little more than take a short walk, so that aspect can use some work. But I had energy to burn, prepped today's lunches, made sauerkraut from Sally Fallon's Nourishing Traditions, cleaned the kitchen top to bottom and even found a really great use for some of the dried beans we have left in the cupboards.