Beef Jerky

This past year I made some pretty successful beef jerky. Although I didn't use a particularly good cut of meat, it still came out fine.

The marinating sauce contained:

• 3/4 cup semi-dry wine
• 1/3 cup lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons worcester sauce
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• 2 teaspoons garlic powder
• 2 tablespoons Jim Beam

Then, it is marinated for twenty hours or more, put into the dehydrator, and, voila! Beef jerky!

Passover is coming

I've been pretty good about not eating any flour-containing products, and the most interesting thing I've noticed is that I'm having fewer bowel movements. I was typically pretty regular at one each morning, but now it is one every two, or even three days. It is more solid than before, but nothing that metamucil can't take care of.

By the way, my doctor prescribed metamucil (once per day) to relieve some difficulties I had in the past. I completely recommend this!

Passover presents a whole slew of different problems. First, on Passover itself, I must eat Matzo. Now, it probably won't be that much of a problem, since (1) I don't enjoy matzo and (2) I can simply minimize the amount, similar to what I did with Challah on Shabbos.

I have no problem with all the meat/chicken/fish, but I guess I'll be eating a lot of potatoes and potato containing products of the kitchen. I'm not exactly sure where potatoes fit in to the paleo-lifestyle, but, I will attempt to measure my weight before and after YomTov.

The big problem right now, is that our kitchen is between modes. We've kashered the burners and the oven in the stove, but are not using it. We've still got the chometz microwave and a fair amount of non-KFP (Kosher for Passover) food in the refrigerator. So, I can't make scrambled eggs (no stove), but, I can take some ground beef and nuke it in the microwave. Yum, Yum! Grease city. The wife has bought a fair amount of Passover cakes that contain matzo meal (for before the holiday itself, since we don't get our matzo wet on Passover) or potato starch. She buys these so people will have something quick to eat. But, they all contain lots of sugar!!!

So, I think when I go to the store today, I'll be getting more ground beef and turkey wings, and probably a lot of nuts.

Regular workout

This past Monday, I was at 276.2 pounds and did a typical workout.

My workout routine is fairly simple. Treadmill for 30 minutes, then some pull-downs, abdominal crunches, and pull-ups.

For the treadmill, my attempt is to get my heart to 134 beats per minute for most of that. Yet, I cannot run or jog (my knees won't take it). So, I set the speed for 3.0 MPH, and adjust the incline accordingly. My goal is that if the incline is greater than 5.0 degrees at the end of the treadmill session, then I will increase the speed to 3.1.

The gym at work has a lot of exercise equipment. Now, I've not got a lot of upper-body strength, so what I'm doing looks kind of wimpy, but it taxes my strength. For the pull-downs I'm pulling down about 26 pounds in three sets of 12. At the end, the last two or three really are difficult as my muscles complain "Hey, I don't wanna do this!"

Then, there is the abdominal crunch machine. This is also set on the third position, and I'm crunching about 26 pounds in three sets of 12. I'm about ready to increase the weight on this one.

The most fascinating piece of equipment is the pull-up machine. I can set the offset on it to 240 pounds (the maximum). By "offset", what I mean is that it offsets the body's weight by the amount to which it is set, then you climb onto it, kneeling on a pad, and do the pull-up. I can get through the first set of 12, but on the second set, I can only get about eight of them done before my muscles cry "Uncle!" For the third set, I'm lucky if I can get to six.

Shabbos is Difficult

For a Paleo-eater, Shabbos is difficult. Not impossible, but difficult.

First off, to properly observe Shabbos, I cannot be 100% paleo. So, it becomes a matter of minimizing the problem foods.

Kiddush Friday night: The wine I make kiddush on is a semi-dry wine. It does contain some fruit sugars, but still this has to be minimized. For Hamotzie, I try to take a minimum amount of challah. I should probably investigate what the minimum is, but for now, it is half a slice. I will admit that I ate some things I should probably leave alone. It was my son and daughter-in-law's first wedding anniversary, and my wife make lots of food. The shepard's pie had a potato topping (which I only had some of), and the baked turkey wings had some rice.

I did not DID NOT eat any of the cake, gefilte fish, etc.

Shabbos day: At shul, we had a kiddush sponsored by one person who had a yartzeit and in honor of another who had an aufruf. {The kiddushes at our shul are more than just a grab-a-nosh, there is a fair amount of food, and the talks go for a while. While shul ended at 12:15, the kiddush doesn't end until 1 pm (or sometimes later). So we don't get home until nearly 2 pm} After the Rabbi makes kiddush, I'l have just barely enough of the crackers to make it a makom seudah, a couple of raisins (for the brachah ha'eitz), some carrots (for ha'adamah), and seltzer water ( I used to drink the diet coke, but now that my doctor doesn't want me to have caffeine, pretty much all I'm left with is seltzer). Then I'll have some of the fish. Now, I know that store bought whitefish salad had sugar in it, but I didn't have too much.

At home it's pretty much a repeat of Friday night. Kiddush and Hamotzei. But, then I have some home made bean soup. It's a mixture of kidney and pinto beans, black eyed peas, chick peas, small lima beans, lentils, quinoa, and barley with garlic and cayenne pepper spices. I start it up erev Shabbos in a crock pot, and by the time the daytime meal comes around, it it perfectly cooked.

So, in all, I think with some adjustments, the paleo-lifestyle can be compatible with the Shabbos lifestyle.

Day two. Still on step one.

Step one is to not eat any sugars and any food that contains flour. Well, I've done that, sort of...

I had scrambled eggs for breakfast and some leftover chicken and beef for lunch, but I still had some oranges and apples. I have to figure some way to have something else. Some replacement for them. But, I'll not eat cheese. Yuck!

My weight drives me crazy

I weighed myself before working out today. 280.4!

Where did this come from? Who knows? Last Thursday it was 270.8. It's impossible to gain ten pounds in four days. It is probably water gain, and the sweating during the exercise got rid of some of it (I forgot to measure myself at the end. I should really do that.) But, my weight has wild swings that have little to do with my actual weight, but a lot to do with water retention.

I'm sick of it!

I've been fat all my life. Diets and exercise didn't seem to help.

I've been to a nutritionist. I measured all my foods. I was HUNGRY all the time. The calorie restriction did force me to lose weight. But, at a certain point (if my memory serves, it was after about nine months), the nutritionist said that since I was doing so well, I could stop measuring and measure-by-eye.

What a disaster! I gained all the weight back, plus more.

The most weight I lost was on a modified Atkins-style diet. I lost forty pounds and got under 200 pounds. But, I was rarely ravenously hungry. And, I didn't binge eat.

That was ten years ago. Since then, I've gained it all back with interest.

So, here I am, 53 years old and weighing 280 pounds. (I'm 5'9".) I was diagnosed with osteoarthritis when I was 16, and it has just gotten worse each year. Now, my cholesterol is up, my liver functions are elevated, I'm "pre-diabetic". What a mess!

I bowl once a week and I go to the gym twice a week. Now, just doing that I've lost about eight pounds over two months. That's pretty good, but, I'm not feeling any better.

So, I've been looking at Free the Animal. At first I thought it was a bit kooky. After all, the first article I read was on not using any soap. So, as a test, I stopped using any soap on my body. I would really scrub my scalp with my fingers in the shower, and make sure to rub all the "stinky" spots (i.e., armpits, genital areas) to get them water-clean. I shower Fridays (before the Sabbath), Mondays and Thursdays (after the gym). My wife (who usually is very picky about these things, and has made me take a second shower occasionally) never mentioned anything. And, I've been going soapless for two months now.

So, I've been looking at the paleo lifestyle. Over at PāNu, there is a twelve-step to paleo program.

It goes like this:

1. Eliminate sugar (including fruit juices and sports drinks) and all foods that contain flour. 

2. Start eating proper fats - Use healthy animal fats or coconut fat to substitute fat calories for carbohydrate calories that formerly came from sugar and flour. Drink whole cream or coconut milk.

3. Eliminate gluten grains. 

4. Eliminate grain and seed derived oils (cooking oils) Cook with Ghee, butter, animal fats, or coconut oil.

5. Favor ruminants like beef, lamb and bison for your red meat. Eat some fish.

6. Get daily midday sun or take 4-8000 iu vit D daily

7. Try intermittent fasting or infrequent meals (2 meals a day is best). Don't graze like a herbivore.

8. Adjust your 6s and 3s. Pastured (grass fed) dairy and grass fed beef or bison minimizes excess  n-6 fatty acids and adjusts your 6:3 ratio without excess PUFA. A teaspoon or two of Cod Liver oil daily is good compensatory supplementation if you eat supermarket beef or no fish.

9. Proper exercise - emphasizing resistance and interval training over long aerobic sessions

10. Most modern fruit is just a candy bar from a tree. Stick with berries and avoid watermelon which is pure fructose. Eat in moderation.

11. Eliminate legumes

12. Eliminate all remaining dairy including cheese- (now you are "Orthodox paleolithic")

Now, on top of this, I keep kosher. So, I can't have butter on my chicken. So, I'm thinking that I can substitute, and keep track of it at the same time.

So, here I am. Fat, old, and weak from 53 years of the SAD (Standard American Diet). I'm hoping to change all that, and keep a record of what I'm doing. And, if possible, provide a kosher way to institute the paleo-diet.

So, the first thing I'm going to do is to eliminate sugar and all foods that contain flour. OMG! No more bread. During the week it won't be that hard, but, what do I do about Shabbos challah? Perhaps, I can figure out what is the minimum amount to be eaten, and only eat that amount, but no more.