Thank you for the progress report!  Often it's instructive to remember that eating those foods always made us feel terrible...we just defined the resulting misery as "normal".  For instance, I thought that falling asleep after lunch was an inevitable event -- not a consequence of food-to-go made mostly of bread, "cheese", and HFCS.

The cessation of the urge to snack is, to me, a reliable indicator that one's metabolism is functioning reasonably well.  And yes, peer pressure (or, usually, our perception of it) is often a greater danger than our own cravings.  Whatever you have to do, do it!

AHS was only three days...but I was still on the road for the following week, after which I took some well-deserved time off.  It's good to be back.

JS

"If skipping breakfast works for you, then by all means keep doing it!  For breakfast eaters, I always recommend a high-protein, high-fat, low-carb breakfast, for the reasons you describe: carby breakfasts always seem to leave one hungry all day."

I've have now been breakfast-free and following a "functional" Paleo lifestyle for nearly 4 months, choosing to eat a high-protein, high-fat, low-carb breakfast somewhat later in the day...usually brunch around midday! And, sticking as far as practical to the majority of the other recommendations in the "Eat like a Predator....." article, has worked well for me both in the weight-loss department and with my feeling better in myself. Certainly,these days I am nearly always not the first to suggest that it's time to eat, and, I no longer reach for the snacks during the day.

"...yes, it's awkward socially for a while. Don't worry about trying to 'convert' anyone else: just be comfortable with your own choices. It's like quitting smoking, or drinking, or any other habit: the people you hang around who still indulge will try to get you to join them, because you always did before. After a while they'll get the message.

The real proof regarding some of the earlier problems I encountered came when I made an exception! My non-converted acqaintances invited us for dinner and I decided (unwisely as it turned out) to indulge in whatever was going. I had the pastry bound starter; I ate the peas and corn (served with a completely unrecognisable meat dish...it might have been pork, or maybe chicken, but I can't certain); I accepted the 'Slimming World' 'healthy' dessert (all sweetness and little flavour), and finished on copious amounts of low-fat cheese and biscuits. I spent most of the next day occupying the bathroom. It actually took just 2 days for the aftermath to go away, but, it proved something to me....Don't do it again! Pick and choose! Follow your own feelings and, don't listen to the 'friendly advice'. I guess I'm just going to have to pull out the 'acceptable truth' again and play it as my best card when eating with friends.

"If sugar causes you gut problems, I suspect SIBO might be an issue. This should resolve itself over time as you feed the bacteria less bread, sugar, and other simple carbohydrates...and as SIBO usually goes along with acid reflux, you'll probably start to lose that too. I recommend being strict about that particular avoidance for a while."

I did some reading on SIBO and hoped it had gone away...and, maybe it has, seeing as I recovered so quickly from my 'one-off' night out.

I am soooo delighted I found this website...

Well done at the AHS, and welcome back...was beginning to wonder how long it was going on for.

ExVeggie

JS -  thanks for the reminder of Goering's words.  I, too, am a student of history, and see so many parallels from today's events to the past.  So much of our modern society in so called "first world" countries is reminding me of the end times of the Pax Romana.  Including our Government/corporate partnership pushing "Bread for the masses" in the form of GMO foods and grain-based everything.  I also appreciate your point that our job, now that we have come home, is to create awareness and pockets of survival for when the end, inevitably, comes.

There are advantages to a government job with seniority in these uncertain times.  Gnolls have no concept of nobility or redemption through suffering: you survive however you can.  Revenge and other bold gestures are for your time of haouka.

That being said, if it's truly sapping your will to live, do what you must.  But it's best to carefully investigate your alternatives beforehand so you know what you're trading for.  Exchanging one form of wage-slavery for another less-secure version is a downgrade...unless you're doing something you enjoy much more, or working much less.

DT:

"Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."

-Hermann Goering

JS

This is a fantastic point and one of the ways modern life is discordant with what it means to be a human. There ARE many predators and parasites and it's sometimes hard to tell who is a threat and who is not. There's very little community anymore. Sure, tribes used to(still do) wage war on each other, but at least they would've know who their enemy actually was. Not so much today.

The instincts are still there, though. And that's another one the govt takes advantage of in creating enemies that dont truly exist. Humans still need the hunt and we still need to bind together around a common cause. Just not against each other to the extent it is done today.

Our common enemies used to be hunger, the elements, rival tribes, and other predatory animals. Now those things have been relegated to the fringe of our efforts in exchange for basically anything else the govt and mass media can make up to replace them. Makes me sick.

Rats, I do work for the Federal government, just waiting here for the common mediocrity to take me over like most of the others.  I could say it was the fatalism of a big grazer while the pack tears it apart but there is no bloody ending, just walking slower and slower until you die.

I'm the only one that can deliver myself from this sorry fate.  Doing what I need to do and ignoring how it may make others uncomfortable.

Cheers.

The modern economy has finally exposed "job security" as a classic bait-and-switch: break yourself on behalf of the corporation now, for the promise of being taken care of by the corporation later.  (Which somehow never happens, unless you work for the federal government.  Even local governments are going bankrupt and defaulting on pension obligations.)  Even personal savings is no guarantee of safety, as the government/banking industry slowly inflates it away by creating money out of thin air to cover their own overspending and bad bets.  Heads they win, tails we lose.

We are all animals in the wild.  Cities and suburbs are wilderness, just like the jungle or the savanna.  They are full of predators and parasites and other dangers -- the only difference is that they all wear human skin.  And we all know that the entire system is crumbling and the center cannot hold.  

Our task is to find or create niches in which gnolls can survive, and to build something better out of the wreckage.  TGC is many different things and affords many different interpretations, and one of them is a survival manual: not of specific tasks, as those depend intimately upon local circumstances, but of readiness and understanding.

Welcome home.

PS: Yoga's fine to start with, but it's mostly an excuse to not exercise while pretending you're exercising.  If you really want to improve your quality of life, get strong by learning the basics of strength training, e.g. barbells, and improving your performance on the basic lifts.  (Kettlebells are also acceptable to start and as an adjunct -- but the only way to get strong is to lift heavy weights.)

DT:

Congratulations on your new life!

JS

You are right about the job thing-that's why I went independent. And if Obama thinks I'm signing up for insurance, well, he's sorely mistaken. Lol but that's material for another time....

I've said this a bunch on this forum but....the mental aspect of "paleo" is so damn important and TGC nails it. We need more than diet and exercise plans and ideas to really execute a lifestyle change and, most importantly, make it stick.

Good luck!

I came across your site while searching for recipes then all of a sudden I was reading the preview, then ordering the book, then devouring the book, then sitting back and digesting on a hot rock. 

The feeling of being trapped and not knowing EXACTLY what to do about it is maddening.  Wear a  loincloth, live in a ditch and hunt dogs and deer until they haul me away?  Chuck the current job and hope for a new position, which is really no more than a new cage with fresh wood chips? 

I know that freedom is defined by whatever is freedom to you and not someone else but after so many years of struggling for some kind of security (Funny that we are kept animals and still must struggle to survive?  The illusion of choice, I guess.) I read this and feel again I have gone completely the wrong way.  Willingly, completely, whole-heartedly and with no hesitation or doubt I have succeeded in being the FIRST one into the kill chute.

<sigh>

I'm grateful for this book, this story, this forum.  Now I know it is a matter of looking around, realizing how far off course I am, getting a new bearing and heading out in a new direction with all pistons firing. 

At least now I have already started eating Paleo in addition to walking a lot at work I'm starting yoga next week.  If I had not started all this I would not have been looking for recipes and would not have ended up coming this far.

Cheers.

If skipping breakfast works for you, then by all means keep doing it!  For breakfast eaters, I always recommend a high-protein, high-fat, low-carb breakfast, for the reasons you describe: carby breakfasts always seem to leave one hungry all day.

And yes, it's awkward socially for a while.  Don't worry about trying to 'convert' anyone else: just be comfortable with your own choices.  It's like quitting smoking, or drinking, or any other habit: the people you hang around who still indulge will try to get you to join them, because you always did before.  After a while they'll get the message.

If sugar causes you gut problems, I suspect SIBO might be an issue.  This should resolve itself over time as you feed the bacteria less bread, sugar, and other simple carbohydrates...and as SIBO usually goes along with acid reflux, you'll probably start to lose that too.  I recommend being strict about that particular avoidance for a while.

JS

No breakfast has very quickly become normal. After reading your article about it I had a 'light-bulb' moment when I realised the connection between having toast or cereals for brekkie and wanting more for the rest of the day. I was eating, at least, 2/3/4 slices of bread more as the day went by accompanied by overwhelming cravings for pastry, of any type. To not eat breakfast and find that the craving had gone was amazing and wonderful. Whatever else you suggest I do, going back to eating toast, or cereal, at breakfast time will not be acceptable. This one thing has freed me from the desire to 'have a snack' at any old time.

The problems I have had are little enough price to pay for the benefits of sticking to the suggested eating style. Firstly, I have been low-carb(ish) for some years, always choosing the fatty cuts but with a fair amount of chicken and pork and, no oily fish. The major problem appears be dinner with friends! One of whom is a slimming worlder and thinks everyone should do it. Another is a baker who believes that meat comes wrapped in a pie. I have use my 'acceptable truth' with funny results. My baker friend is having a hard time with that and the slimming world lady hasn't got a clue what gluten is or where it is. It's going to be a struggle with them. All that said, I haven't denied myself the occasional treat. I now believe my gut problem is associated with sugar as each bout of sleep disruption or diarrhea has followed an indulgence. Avoiding sugar has meant losing some of my favourite treats but, I shall persevere for the time being and hope the problems are a temporary 'flu'. Thanks for your comments.

Halifax

I found it! Not at the nearest Tesco, but I definitely found it. Some company calling themselves by a weird name...and talk about expensive, whoo! Can I save coconut oil and re-use it?

Living in a village has some advantages...we have a great butcher who sources locally reared grass-fed beef (and lamb), free-range chickens and eggs, and, who sells beef dripping. What's more he makes his own gluten-free sausages that are really something. His cheeses come from the same herds and we have recently started buying them as well.

I had to laugh when I asked Tesco's deli assistant for the ingredients list on some of their ham...every single one had added sugar!!!

It's good to know that there is someone else not too far away.

All the best, David

Eating according to our instincts and impulses is a release. Guiding those impulses to real food is a joy!

You're just over the border from me (Halifax, UK) and I can tell you that Tesco carry a pure coconut oil in the more ethnic stores. There'll be one near you. Being a northern lad, I'm going to say this quite loud so you can here me from here (and I'm in Queensbury and can see the windfarm over Burnley from here!) ... WE HAVE DRIPPING!!!

Dripping is a light, hard fat. Dripping is our life-blood as northerners; we are the last bastion of real eating folks in our land and we have a duty to live right.

Cook with dripping.

To be absolutely honest, after a year or so of paleo eating, I'm slipping away from the fat, fat and more fat thing. I enjoy meat, however it is, but rarely add more fat. I do like to wet up my veggies with a little fat and I have a block of Britannia in the fridge along with a jar of coconut oil. Guess which goes down quickest 😀

Here in the UK, we have an abundance of farm shops. Try not to read too much into things - J wrote a cracking article about anti-nutritionalism and it really struck a chord with me. Food is food! Do not deconstruct it! If you eat real food, that's all you need to know. Our farm shops are stocked with good meat and veggies - get some, put it together and enjoy.

'Eat Like a Predator' saves us from all those modern "fails" like nuts, seeds and other crap which we get anyway from eating meat. If you enjoy them, eat them. I often put pumpkin or squash seeds with cabbage because I like it. I often sprinkle pine nuts over and avocado because I like it.

Moving beyond paleo, into "gnoll" or the "Perfect Health Diet" or the "Free the Animal" way of thinking is about taking a template and applying it to your life. Principles guide us.

I'd say, drop the obsession about understanding how the water flows and just get rowing ... you can look at the scenery when you're not concentrating on the water ...

Are you eating breakfast at all?  Breakfast skipping is usually more of an advanced technique, after you've been adapted for a while and genuinely aren't hungry...and some people always feel best with breakfast.

Any abrupt dietary shift can cause digestive distress, and I see two common sources when someone "goes paleo": an abrupt shift to a high-fat diet can cause a bit of trouble for someone having eating low-fat for many years (your pancreas and gallbladder need some time to catch up), and an insufficiently acid stomach caused by years of a low-meat diet can take some time to catch up.  The cure for the first is to moderate fat intake for a while: for the second, it's some HCl supplements and perhaps some digestive enzymes (meat tenderizer works fine and is quite cheap).

Don't be concerned about glucosamine: it's not free glucose.  Although if you're gluten-free it might not be doing you much good.  Warfarin is a blood-thinner, right?  You probably don't want to be taking huge amounts of fish oil, then...but the ELAP recommendations are relatively conservative.

Keep in mind that while certain groups of people are less poorly adapted to an agricultural diet (I've never had an overt issue with gluten grains), there's no adaptation AFAIK that changes the effect of gliadin fragments on gut permeability (i.e. "leaky gut").  Some MHCs are just less prone to creating autoimmune reactions from the results, and those have indeed been selected for.

JS

David