I have finally got around to reading the chapter on ‘Effortless Weight Loss’ in the Primal Blueprint by Mark Sisson. I was under the impression based on what I had read previously that all you needed to do in order to lose fat was to stay in the 50-100g carbs a day range. I keep hearing on Robb Wolf’s podcast that when you’re following a Paleo lifestyle that calories don’t matter. It seems that is not the whole story…
Archive for the ‘Health & Fitness’ Category
2012 Starts Here and Kettlebell Swing Challenge Increased!
January 2nd, 2012 
Caroline Middlebrook The Christmas and New Year celebrations are over and now I am back to my as-clean-as-possible Paleo diet & lifestyle. This week I’m low on the carbs, no tubers, lots of protein and daily exercise in the form of my January Kettlebell Swing Challenge.
Tomorrow night I have the first social event of the year – a meal out with friends. I simply can’t bring myself to go off-diet this soon into the New Year and so even though I said I’d always cheat if I was going to eat out, this time I have given my partner strict instructions to choose a restaurant at which I can eat Steak & Salad! I’ll let you know how that goes!
Week 4 (Christmas Week) Slight Gain
December 31st, 2011 Caroline Middlebrook Ok last week when I said I wouldn’t be disappointed if I didn’t lose fat in Christmas week it appeared I lied! It would have been fantastic if I’d lost or at least stayed the same but I have put on 0.4lbs. Ok it’s not exactly a disaster and overall over the last month I’m down 3.4 lbs which is not a lot really but usually at this time of year I’m easily putting on 7lbs or so.
Posted in Health & Fitness 
Tags: christmas, cravings, grass fed beef, headaches, new year, weekly results 
1 Comment »January 1500 Kettlebell Swing Challenge
December 27th, 2011 Caroline Middlebrook I’ve been playing with the Kettlebell Swing of late and I think it’s a fantastic exercise and I was lucky enough to get two new kettlebells for Christmas :-) So I want to put them to good use… I also want to make exercise a habit as I’d already discussed but now seeing as we’re coming up to January which is traditionally the month where we all push ourselves to try to do something new I thought I’d make the Kettlebell Swing into a challenge!
I Survived Christmas!
December 27th, 2011 Caroline Middlebrook For me, Christnas was 2 days. I ate Paleo right up until the day. On Christmas Eve I had two social engagements with food & drink involved and somehow managed to stay completely Paleo. On Christmas & Boxing day a big help was that I had breakfast at home and made sure it was a large breakfast with a heavy dose of protein. So this helped avoid the desire to snack.
Week 3 (Skewed) Results – 1lb Down!
December 24th, 2011 Caroline Middlebrook I totally forgot that I was intending to weigh today before the Christmas indulgences so unfortunately by the time I remembered I’d already eaten a large breakfast, and drunk 2 cups of coffee and a pint of water – most of which is still rolling around in my tummy! The good news is that despite that, I’m still down by 1lb! I had actually weighed myself a day or two ago as my trousers were feeling loose and I was down by 1.6 lbs then so it’s been a good week!
More Paleo Variations… Including Rice!?
December 24th, 2011 Caroline Middlebrook I’m continuing to come across even more variations on the paleo diet. One blog that I came across is called Living in the Ice Age and I absolutely love this one because the food is presented beautifully (some of the dishes are quite chefy heh!) and also, the author is British! He hails from Yorkshire and as such he has traditional English meals like Bangers & Mash and even a paleo version of a Doner Kebab! For you non-Brits reading, this is a typically late-night, post-drinking-session takeaway that is often greasy and pretty disgusting but it’s extremely popular over here and I’ve never seen anything like it in all the US blogs & recipe books that I have.
Ooh, Peas (fresh) Are Back on the Menu!
December 22nd, 2011 Caroline Middlebrook Just a few hours after lamenting about peas being classed as a legume, not a vegetable, and therefore non-paleo, it would appear that despite this fact, as far as nutrition goes, they are actually rather good for you. Mark Sisson of Mark’s Daily Apple posted a detailed post about asking the question, are green beans and peas healthy? and came to the conclusion that they are. Good enough for me!
Alas I still need to ditch the dried peas but it is another vegetable (legume, whatever!) to my limited arsenal! And hey, they’re green!
Posted in Health & Fitness Tags: green beans, legumes, mark sisson, marks daily apple, paleo, peas No Comments »Clarifying my Diet
December 22nd, 2011 Caroline Middlebrook When I first started to change my diet I was really unsure on what I was doing as I had started out following the Body Transformation plan that my neice was following (but that was based on also doing a ton of exercise) and then drifted towards Paleo but even within that there seemed like a lof of variation. So being a bit further along now and having read a lot more information I now have a very clear idea of what I am doing.
- Grains – avoiding completely. All bread, pasta, rice, noodles, anything made with flours from these grains. Corn unfortunately falls into the grain category
Free Paleo Resources Online
December 21st, 2011 Caroline Middlebrook I’ve been doing a lot of reading about the science of Paleo itself and also, looking through a ton of recipes for ideas. In this post I’ll list some of the resources that I have found really helpful.
Ebooks
- A Paleo Diet for the 21st Century: by Douglas Robb
- Everyday Paleo: by Sarah Frogosso
- MDA Reader Created Cookbooks: recipes submitted to Mark’s Daily Apple and made into ebooks
- Paleo Food Cookbook: this is an online recipe book rather than a download
- Paleo Made Simple: by Gerilyn Burnett
- Primal Blueprint Fitness: by Mark Sisson, author of The Primal Bleprint which I highly recommend
Caroline Middlebrook is an entrepreneur based in the UK. This is her personal blog where she talks about anything that comes to mind!