Tag Archives: bacon

How I Started Eating Primal

About two years ago my now boyfriend introduced me to a book that little did I know, would have a big impact on my lifestyle.  That book was “The Primal Blueprint” by Mark Sisson.  I also started reading his blog at http://www.marksdailyapple.com.

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I am not a dietitian or nutritionist so I am not going to get all scientific on you.  Eating primal (very closely related to paleo) is based on eating and moving the way our ancestors did….yes cavemen.  Which is why this is often called “The Caveman Diet.”  After reading the book I decided to give it a try and started eating a new diet that consisted of mainly:

  • Meat, Fish, Poultry
  • Eggs
  • Nuts
  • Fresh Fruits and Vegetables
  • Minimal Dairy

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I removed from my diet the following:

  • Simple Carbs (White bread, flour, rice, etc)
  • Processed Foods

I began to see improvements within just the first month.  I lost some weight, nothing drastic, but it felt great.  I definitely gained more energy too which of course helped me want to stay active most days of the week.  This new diet combined with new activities including yoga and crossfit have put me in the best shape I’ve ever been in.

Humps to get over

When I tell people about my diet they are often pretty skeptical.  When I first started eating primal the hardest part was that I was starting to eat FAT.  Yes animal fat…from steak, from chicken, and from a lot of BACON!  I thought “no way.” If I was eating all of this FAT then I was going to gain weight, right?  Wrong.  Cutting out carbs and processed foods re-programs your body.  It will start to burn the fat you are introducing.  Think of the fat as your fuel.  This is the fuel humans were created to run on and burn.  Okay, that’s about as scientific I’ll get!

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The pictures above may not even look that different but all I know is adopting a primal lifestyle has made me the strongest and healthiest I have ever felt!

Primal Egg Salad over Spinach & Bacon Salad

Why do I like such smelly foods?!  While coming up with this concoction of a recipe I forgot the scent that would fill my kitchen.  I’m used to the bacon smell obviously…but mix that with hard boiled eggs and it’s not so pretty.  I guess now I know why I have so many candles in my apartment!

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This salad was super easy to make and tasted yummy.  I’m all about the simple recipes during the week.  After a long day of work, sometimes I’m just not in the mood to make anything that takes more than 15 minutes!

Ingredients

2 Hard Boiled Eggs

1/2 Ripe Avocado

2 tbsp of Dijon Mustard

Salt

Pepper

Organic Baby Spinach

Grape Tomatoes

Sliced Mushrooms

Balsamic Vinegar

Olive Oil

2 Pieces of Bacon

  1. Cook bacon in oven on 400 degrees for 15 minutes turning over once.
  2. In a separate bowl mix together eggs, avocado, dijon mustard, salt and pepper.  Use a fork and knife to cut up and mash the eggs and avocado.
  3. Put together salad of spinach, mushroom and tomatoes and drizzle with balsamic and olive oil.
  4. Spoon egg salad mixture over the spinach salad.
  5. When bacon is done cooking, let it cool for a few minutes.  Cut it up and sprinkle over the egg salad.

This is a great option for lunch or dinner!  (You might just be that person with the smelly lunch in the office!)

 

 

Take Me Back Tuesday – San Francisco Part Two

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Well it’s only been one full week since I’ve been back from my mini vacation to the West Coast and I already feel like it’s been forever!  Isn’t it funny how that happens?  The more I’ve gotten to digest the trip the more I want to go back – it was such a nice, relaxing, yet fun time! Here is the continuation of the fun stuff we did!

Day 3

Embarcadero, a NY Bar in San Francisco

Obviously on Sunday we slept in a bit and got a later start.  We went to brunch in North Beach at a place that had a TV because Andy couldn’t miss the first NFL games of the season.  We then met up with a friend of mine who I hadn’t seen in over a year!  It was really nice to see her and catch up over a couple of beers on the waterfront.

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Andy is a huge Giants fan so when we booked this trip I promised him I’d find a good place for us to watch their first game.  I found the only NY Giants bar in San Francisco and so we headed there.  It was called Aces (check out my Yelp Review here).  What an experience!  It was absolutely packed with NY fans.  It took a bit for me to get adjusted to this atmosphere but it ended up being fun!

Day 4

Run, Ferry Building, Mission, Dolores Park, “Sunset” Cruise on the Bay

Monday morning we woke up pretty early with the urge to make our bodies feel a little bit better.  We went for a run to the Ferry Building along the Embarcadero.  It was a little over two miles and seemed really difficult after not exercising much over the first few days.  The route was beautiful though and ended at a pier that had a great view of the Bay Bridge!

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Then we went in to market place in the Ferry Building.  This place is awesome!  They have all little local stands ranging from local olive oils, cheeses, meats, vegetables, chocolate, coffee….basically my heaven!  Especially since they have a ton of free samples – my favorite!  My favorite stand was Alfieri Farms.  They had the most amazing dark chocolate, coffee (or toffee) almond brittle.  I am so sad it’s gone I may just have to have some shipped across country!

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For the afternoon we set out to find a restaurant I had heard about on the news actually.  It’s called Bacon Bacon (check out my Yelp Review here) and they were shut down due to neighbors complaining of the food – how crazy is that?! Who would complain of a Bacon smell?!  Anyways, they are running the café out of a music hall and we were so so excited to find it.  Andy had the bacon grilled cheese that came with bacon jam – it was incredible.  I ordered the LGBT (lettuce, goat cheese, bacon, and tomato) which was also awesome. THEN we got to try their chocolate covered bacon! Heaven in your mouth I tell ya!

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After stuffing our faces we decided to check out a bar I had heard about from a friend called, Zeitgeist (check out my Yelp Review here).  To preface this bar, you should know that this is a very eccentric neighborhood.  I called this our “hippie” day.  Sometimes I secretly wish I was a vagabond hippie 🙂  The bar had a big beer garden outside with a ton of picnic tables, trippy art on the walls, and a “no photos” sign.  I secretly snapped a picture…I’m such a bad ass.

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To continue on our “hippie” theme we headed to Dolores Park.  I had been here one other time and loved it, so wanted to show Andy.  It’s this park at the top of a hill in Mission that gives you a great view of the city…but that’s not the only view.  It is a really fun people watching experience.  There are all different types of people who congregate here but there is one common smell and puff of smoke that everyone has in common!

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To end our last day in the city I thought it would nice to take a “Sunset Cruise” on the bay.  Well I should have remembered that the Bay is very often covered by gigantic clouds!  It happens almost every day at the same time…we just really lucked out the weekend we were there.  Of course when Monday rolled around it was cold and cloudy but the guys on the boat said we would still see a “sunset.”  Well we saw one behind Sausalito which looked something like this.  And yes that is a cloud over Sausalito.

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After Sausalito we headed back in to the fog.  After about another 30 minutes we looked up and realized we were under the Golden Gate!  It was pretty crazy how thick the clouds were but still a cool thing to see.

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And that concludes my San Francisco getaway!  It is by far one of my favorite cities that I have visited to date (okay I might say that about many).  I think our 4 day itinerary was a pretty good one and covered a good area for the short amount of time we were there!

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