2nd rebirthday

In May of 2009, I got an email from my wife about how beer bellies are actually wheat bellies. It made a lot of sense. Ironically, I was eating a buttered bagel at the time. That turned out to be the last bagel I've had ever since. I used to start every day with a bagel or a danish. Now, that's all gone, although we do have occasional cheats - particularly when we are traveling to the South. Also, Mexican food is something that we can't give up. There is no rice in our house, although we do indulge in sushi now and then. I love reading from experts about how this diet is unsustainable. The advantages of weight loss, ending snoring and far less reliance on antacids make this a lifetime choice for us.

Matching jackets

My black leather jacket from five years ago was starting to hang off of me like a used parachute, so we went shopping at Marshall's. For years I'd been trying to get Donna to buy a matching jacket, but this time she did it of her own accord. It turned out that I'd gone down two jacket sizes. When I talked to my mom the other day she asked if I was still on my diet. She doesn't get it. This isn't some fad diet that you drop after losing a little weight - it's a changed lifestyle.

Bringing Home the Bacon

In my last job I was sent to Ireland four times working on a historical research project. While there, we got to know quite a bit about the food - we'd always rent cottages and bring back groceries from TESCO. The most common meat staple there is cured pork loin, known as boiling bacon. This always came in giant slabs weighing a couple of pounds. You won't find this in American grocery stores or even in Irish restaurants, but thanks to Tommy Moloney's online store out of Queens we can get four pound portions of something that is just like our Irish product. Since there are just the two of us, we always cut this in half and freeze the rest. You cook it just like you would corned beef and cabbage, and it's done in 90 minutes. Sheer heaven. We take the leftovers and make them into breadless Reuben non-sandwiches. There are different syles, but the real thing looks like this:

I Discovered Paleo!

Donna here. Yes its true, I discovered paleo...of course I didn't name it paleo or much of anything, because I thought it was just my whacky new way of eating. I should explain. Last February I had a partial thyroidectomy for a large nodule caused by childhood irradiation. When your throat is cut, you feel very restricted, foodwise. What made me want to gag was bread, cereal, pasta, and anything of substance, which was interesting because I always had at least one, if not two bowls of cereal daily. At first I ate applesauce, puddings, popsicles, and anything soft. As I grew stronger and hungrier, I graduated to pureed stews of meat and vegetables. At the time I had been almost vegetarian with whole grains and muffins as my "health foods." But a weird thing started happening. The more stew I ate, the more weight I lost. Not only that, but I wasn't taking my usual ration of prilosec and tums. I knew I wasn't doing Atkins (the idea of which always disgusted me ) because I wasn't eating dairy or fatty meats and cheeses. It wasn't until I was perusing a thyroid website that I learned that the foods I was eating were "paleo" and that there was a whole story behind it! I'm glad that so many people are eating the way that makes ME most comfortable-I love raw crunchy veggies, fruits and berries, and nuts. I had to get used to eating more meats, but thats coming along well too. And to not have to worry about my weight and still lose, eating what makes me happy...whats wrong with that!

The Right Stuff

A few weeks ago we were in a fall kind of mood at the grocery store and added a 6 pound turkey to our cart. Yesterday, we decided to cook it in the evening. What to do about stuffing? Before I got on the plan I loved the stuffing more than the turkey, but it is almost entirely bread. Fortunately, when I went to Google and tried "Paleo turkey stuffing" I get several useful recipes. The main ingredients tended to be vegetables such as cauliflower, mushrooms and onion. One of them called for bacon and sausage, so we went along with that. At the end, we had something that was a hit with both of us. I should have taken a picture, but I was too busy eating. Bring on Thanksgiving and a crustless pumpkin pie!

Meeting other paleo folk

For months I have been subscribed to an online meetup group for paleo eaters in New York. The group is large and very active, but the first few meetups also involved physical fitness, so we held back for something more age appropriate. Saturday we got that chance when group leader John Durant hosted us at his rooftop apartment in the upper east side. Seemingly the only guests over age 35 we were out of breath when we arrived at the walkup apartment. The reason for the party was a book launch for a book called the Paleo Solution by Robb Wolf. Since we got there early, we were able to spend 10 minutes or so chatting with Wolf who was articulate and very knowledgeable. Anything we'd experienced such as the elimination of snoring was something he already knew about. He has also seen others with my biggest problem - losing pant sizes but not much weight. He said that bone density and muscle can compensate for the lost waistline - some people even gain a few pounds.

What I hadn't realized was that Durant has become a legendary figure in Paleo since the night he went on Colbert and shut down all efforts on the part of the comedian to turn this into a joke. He managed to get his entire point across that night. We had to get back home to Long Island so we missed a brief talk by Wolf, but we're now diving into the book, which we can highly recommend already.

When I'm 64

Last week I had that birthday made famous by the Beatles. Part of my modification with caveyness is that once a year I can have birthday cake, so I set out to find the best on the island. That turns out to be Sweet Karma in East Meadow. We told them we wanted a Beatles theme to it, and you could see the baker's eyes light up as he thought of the possibilities. A week later we picked it up, and it was fantastic. Otherwise we were having people over and wanted to make things as paleo as possible. We had tamales flown in from Texas, and I suppose that is beyond the plan, but I don't care. Our biggest accomodation to our guests was to make hamburgers and hot dogs with buns. My son went out and bought chips, but otherwise we had an excellent and in-plan offering of beef piziolla, zucchini casserole, spinach salad and broccoli salad. It certainly made our guests happy because the last one left after 11 - well past my bedtime.