celtia

[celtia]

Hi, fellow tribemates!

I was thrilled to find the link to Primal Tribe on Richard Nikoley's blog a couple of days ago.

I'm on the Primal journey due to lifelong weight issues and minor health annoyances that have cropped up in recent years. I've found that eliminating gluten solves the annoyances and eliminating all grains and sugars allows the weight to drop off. I'm not 100% Primal, but I'm getting there in a 2-steps-forward-one-
step-backward kind of way. I figure the journey is just as important as the destination, so I don't mind getting there slowly.

I've been researching and studying lowcarb/primal/paleo nutrition for a couple of years now, but was in such a stressful job that I was never able to apply my knowledge for more than a few weeks before falling back into the old SAD ways. Now that I'm working in a much better place, I have the mental energy to devote to permanently overhauling my WOE and general lifestyle.

Off the top of my head and in no particular order, I've read & own Taubes, Sisson, Eades, Groves, Pollan, Gedgaudas, Atkins, Dangerous Grains, Life without Bread, and others that I'm forgetting. I visit many blogs and fora several times weekly, if not daily, and see some of you from my little lurkdom!

I'm glad to be here and look forward to getting to know y'all!

celtia

[livinghealthy]

Welcome Celtia! Nice to know that you are so well read... I look forward to having you in the community.

Like I said in my intro, I am a pre-med student, but I am not as well read in the primal arena...

Happy thanksgiving!

[chadwick]

I'm on the Primal journey due to lifelong weight issues and minor health annoyances that have cropped up in recent years. I've found that eliminating gluten solves the annoyances and eliminating all grains and sugars allows the weight to drop off. I'm not 100% Primal, but I'm getting there in a 2-steps-forward-one-
step-backward kind of way. I figure the journey is just as important as the destination, so I don't mind getting there slowly.


Welcome, celtia--good to have you! I like your philosophy...the journey is all that matters! Hard to live by 100%, but I try hard every day! Regarding eating primal, I like to imagine a graph trending upwards. There are always going to be peaks and valleys on the graph, but as long as it keeps going upwards over time, that is all you can ask for.

[celtia]

Thanks livinghealthy and chadwick!

And, yes, the upwardly-trending graph is what I'm going for. Climbing out of the valleys generates the most valuable learning experiences for me!

[Posy]

Celtia I can’t tolerate gluten either so I can relate to what you said about eliminating it. My story, wrapped in a nut shell, is on page 158 in the book Dangerous Grains that you mentioned. I started my paleo journey 12 years ago. Great to hear you have a less stressful job and can devote more time for your self now, yay! If things ever do get a bit bumpy again like that though, give us all a holler and we’ll do our best to see you though!:D

[celtia]

Thanks, Posy. I love hearing that 12 years into the paleo journey. That lets me know that it really is good for long haul!

[tribecalledfit]

Hi, Celtia! Nice to make your acquaintance.

I liked the mini-bibliography you provided by way of background. Realizing that you listed them "in no particular order," I wonder how (and if) you would prioritize them in terms of their relative value and the impact they've made on you. Might be an interesting exercise in reflection for you, and of course I have the selfish motive of wondering what I might want to read next...

See you around!

[carla]

Hi, Celtia, I just read Gedgaudas book, Primal Body, Primal Mind. Couldn't put it down.

[tribecalledfit]

carla, thanks for the feedback on Gedgaudas' book. Looking at this thread makes me think we should start a collection of book reviews. Whaddya guys think?

[BarbeyGirl]

Welcome, Celtia!

TribeCF, I think the book review collection is a fantastic idea!

[celtia]

Oh, gosh, tribalcf, that really is a reflective exercise!

For weight-loss plans: I think the Drs. Eades' Protein Power Lifeplanfirst, then Dr. Atkins New Diet Revolution. Both do a good job of explaining the science behind low-carb and how CW gets weight-loss wrong. Both have a good plan, with Eades being the more liberal (as in not as structured), but having an option that's essentially primal/paleo. I consider them gateways to Primal.

For general nutrition: Gary Taubes Good Calories, Bad Calories for the folks that like getting into the scientific literature. I was extremely angry after reading Taubes and seeing how we've been lied to all these years. Barry Groves gives the same info, but his writing is more user-friendly for those who aren't interested in lit review. The 2 books of his that I've read are Natural Health & Weight Loss and Trick and Treat: How healthy eating is making us ill. Nora Gedgaudas' Primal Body-Primal Mind is a lighter, quicker read, I think, and might be better for folks who read mostly at bedtime.

Dangerous Grains verified what I was already thinking about gluten and has great information, but I didn't think it was particularly well-written.

For real food, sustainable eating, and food politics: Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food are fascinating and angering to some extent. I would change his "Eat food, not too much, mostly plants" to "mostly animal", however. Lierre Keith's Vegetarian Myth you've probably all read about. Great personal journey stuff; just ignore the bitter man-hating parts. Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle chronicles the author's year-long experiment with keeping her family fed locally and sustainably.

And, of course, for all things Primal, our hero, Mark Sisson.

I consider Primal Blueprint and Good Calories, Bad Calories my go-to books.

In reading all of this, plus varying blogs and fora, I noticed that everyone seemed to have a slightly different take on the same over-arching concepts. So I quit trying to count, quit worrying about specific foods, and started trying to eat according to the concepts of man-made foods bad; grain/sugars bad; whole natural foods good in general, with specific foods probably bad on an individual basis. In other words, I quit sweating the details.

And, tribalcf, I think a book or resource review section would be great!

[celtia]

*waves to carla and BarbeyGirl*