Jeff and Dee Online

In the first part of this 2 part series on how we moved to a low carb Paleo lifestyle, we described the series of events that led us to discovering a feeling of hope about our weight and health. In this part, we want to continue on that theme as well as dive deeper into our personal story.

After that day in the hospital and during the next week each of us did research on Atkins as well as various other “diets”. We borrowed the latest Atkins book from Jeff’s sister and then scoured the internet for related topics and bumped into various other methods such as the HCG diet and Zone. We compared the pros and cons. Dee talked with Jeff’s sister about it and after discussing the idea more, we decided to implement a modified Atkins induction phase in late July 2010.

In the beginning we spent a large amount of energy on planning out meals carefully because we felt we had to really focus our attention and take it seriously. The actual transition to low carb foods was not as difficult as we had anticipated because we already had the basic items in the house. The previous two years we had purchased a ½ beef and more recently a ¼ beef so our freezer was already outfitted. Our family LOVES cheese so that was a staple we could really enjoy. Lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower and other above-ground veggies were no stranger to our plates and continue to use them liberally.

Our weekly shopping, in the beginning, was an adventure of reading labels and learning what foods had what amount of carbs. It’s amazing how much sugars are added to food and in the various forms. We weaned ourselves from relying on prepared foods such as salad dressings because of all the ridiculous nonsense added to them.

Regarding the cupboards and fridge, we needed to turn our attention to all the carb rich foods we already had because we didn’t want to fall off the wagon and be tempted to resort to our old ways.

Looking at the foods that we no longer chose to eat and probably wouldn’t for a long time was sad at first. During the first month we didn’t do anything about the foods in the cupboards because most of what we eat comes out of the fridge so it was easy to ignore the pantry items.

Since we picked a date to actually start eating low carb, we were able to use up some of the food in the fridge so it wasn’t wasted (we really dislike wasting food, must be our parent’s fault – you know the line about starving kids in some far away land, pick your country, and we had heard about them often during our childhood).

We managed to fill up the garbage pail many times over in the next few weeks as the realization sunk in that we were not going to eat the items in the next 6 to 12 months so they’d most likely be spoiled anyway. Shunning the milk and yogurt was probably the hardest because it was always a staple in our house. But out it went.

Over the course of the next few weeks, it became easier to toss food or give it away because of the research we had been doing on the effects of carbs on our insulin and other physiological processes. The fridge no longer contained any culprits, but those pesky cupboards still did.

The pantry was really the hardest because Dee was always finding something that we had used as a staple and was usually a no-brainer, fall back items for getting the family dinner. There they were: mac and cheese (organic, but still processed), various organic pasta and organic pasta sauces, different varieties of rice and all the baking supplies that represented the worst of the carbs: flour and sugar (all organic and Dee had several months on hand at any given time). But the deed had to be done so that we could move forward into this new lifestyle.

Dee bagged up all the unopened pasta and rice, sugar and flours, and other carbs from the pantry. The food bank donation barrel at the grocery store was almost full when we walked out that day and our cupboards pretty bare. We even had emergency ration pasta and sauce stashed away but eventually gave that away also. Perhaps we should look in to a low carb Paleo approach to WTSHTF or TEOTWAWKI, as the survivalist/prepper circles call it. But that’s another challenge we will discuss on the blog when we figure that scenario out.

As of the writing of this post, we have kept the carbs at about 20-40g per day, except for a couple of days during a trip we took to Napa in Sept. During the time since July, our ravenous appetite for information on how to tweak or improve what we were doing with low carb replaced the ravenous hunger of eating carbohydrates.

The cold turkey approach we took to eliminate all grains and sugars proved to be almost nearly as it’s described all over the net. Our low carb flu didn’t mean debilitating headaches, just minor ones with some carb cravings. The cravings were kept at bay by L-glutamine and we compensated for the lack of carbs with protein and fat. There’ve been only a few times we were exceptionally hungry and that was due to forgetting about having a meal (forgetting a meal RARELY happened on a high carb diet because we were ALWAYS hungry and ate at shorter intervals).

Most of the time we can go 4-5 hours between meals WITHOUT the need of snacks. Drinking water when you get that little twinge of hunger between meals usually does the trick because your body is really telling you that it needs the water.

Over the last 5 months we have adopted a more Paleo approach to low carb eating. Dining out doesn’t appeal to us anymore because we have grown to truly enjoy our own cooking and we do not use any low-carb processed products. It’s hard to give up dairy, so that’s one area we could change to become full Paleo. But for now we don’t seem to have any issues with dairy so we plan to continue using heavy cream, cheese and sour cream.

Thus far this is working for us and we don’t suggest that it’s the only way to get healthy or lose weight but it’s working for both of us for now and we are experiencing better results than with anything else we have tried.

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Kidney stones are something most people want to avoid ever having. And of course that’s what Jeff would like to do for the rest of his life. However, the last attack of his stones was one of the worst he’s ever had, but produced some very pleasant and unrelated results.

OK, so there’s NOTHING pleasant about kidney stones. However, we are of the mindset that our biggest problems are our greatest gifts, so bear with us as we try to explain.

First of all, Jeff has dealt with the agony of kidney stones for at least 9 years. Don’t worry, this post isn’t about his ordeal with kidney stones for all these year or how to treat them. We will save that for another time/place. What we do want to emphasize is that taking a new look at something can yield a surprising yet beneficial outcome.

The silver lining of the last bout of Jeff’s kidney stones back in July was the not-so-totally unexpected trip to the emergency room. Not every flair-up sends Jeff running to the ER but this time was really bad. Dee left her work to meet him at the ER because she knows the drill –he won’t be released to drive himself home due to all the drugs he’d be receiving.

While Jeff was being pumped full of pain killers and waiting for a CAT scan, Jeff’s sister, who works for the same hospital, happened to be making her way through the ER. He texted her to tell her he was there and she came to visit him. It was good to visit with her and we asked her about her obvious weight loss — she attributed it to following the new Atkins book. So far she had lost 30 pounds in about 2 months.

We were really impressed. For years she’s been yo-yoing on weight watchers. The weight came of very slowly and went back on much faster. Our faith in “diets” was really non-existent after seeing several people we know do the same thing only to end up frustrated and heavy again. We got to the point where felt doomed to be obese and it was our fate to end up with any number of related health conditions.

We had all but given up on losing weight until that day.

There was a little spark of hope in what Jeff’s sister said and in what she has accomplished — and that’s all we needed to fuel us towards a better understanding of how we can get healthier. For some reason, we had a hunch that we were on to something that would change our lives.

Please leave a comment and share your thoughts about having hope, losing hope or just giving up on finding that healthy person inside of you. Stay tuned for the part 2.

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Since doing low carb paleo, we’ve had to come up with some well-liked staples in the kitchen. One of these staples is the very versatile meatball. It can be used in various ways and because they are pre-cooked, can be stored in the freezer for a while or packaged up in zippered sandwich bags for easy defrosting of a package every few days. Our son loves them in his lunch a couple times a week instead of lunch meat or other protein.

Meatballs are great on salads (we like to cut them in half) or if you want to put some sort of sauce on them they are a quick and easy dinner. You can slice them and broil cheese over them (if you do dairy, that is) or just eat them as they are. Yum!

Dee makes fabulous meatballs from scratch which the whole family devours without hesitation. That’s probably why she makes up a big batch each week. Supply and demand, you know.

Because we purchase ½ beef each fall, there’s plenty of meat to make oodles of meatballs. Although most of the time we have the more tough cuts turned into hamburger patties, we sometimes we end up with more pot roast or chuck steak than we’d like.

Utilizing those cuts of meat by removing all the bones, she cuts the meat and fat into about 1 inch pieces, whips out the grinder attachment for our Kitchen Aid mixer and goes to town stuffing the chunks down the hopper.

The grinding process takes about 10-15 minutes at speed 8 on the mixer, using the grinding plate with the largest holes in it (verses the other one that gives a finer grind). Your time may vary depending on how much meat needs to be ground. Dee usually grinds anywhere from 3-5 lbs of meat at a time.

She sets aside about 1.5 to 2 lbs of the ground meat and puts the rest of it in the freezer in approximately 1 lb packages.

After removing the grinding attachment, Dee uses the mixer to mix the meat she set aside and adds equal amounts of country sausage or ground pork to the beef and mixes thoroughly while adding any seasonings or other goodies to the meat. Dee likes to use a little hot sauce and mustard but once in a while she will use just granulated garlic, salt and pepper. Shredded parmesan cheese is also a great addition.

Once the meat is mixed, she lines a baking sheet with foil (to catch any juice or grease) and starts scooping out meat with her scoop. She places the meatballs really close together because they will shrink upon cooking and usually not stick together. She puts the filled baking sheet into a hot oven at 425 degrees for about 15 minutes.

Viola! Meatballs for the week — although they could get snarfed down right after they come out of the oven by those who endured the wafting of the meatball fragrance during the cooking process.

Do you have other ideas about how to use meatballs that is low carb and/or paleo? We’d love to hear about it so please leave a comment.
Until next time when we share something about our journey—

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