As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I was slow to take the Primal Blueprint seriously because it too closely resembled one of those weird miracle diets, like these:
I thought of it as a diet, and dieting was for people older, fatter, less inclined to exercise, and more in need of discipline than me. But at the same time, it had been years since I’d enjoyed a late-night snack. I purchased zero-fat dairy products and I truly believed that eating peanut butter every day was good for me.
Turns out I was on a diet.
I mean, if I wasn’t, I’d be shoveling ice cream into my mouth by the tubful and I probably wouldn’t eat brussels sprouts, even if they were roasted in olive oil and tossed with sea salt. (Because honestly, if you didn’t care a speck about your health and you had to choose between a velvety wedge of chocolate cheesecake and a plate of brussels sprouts, what would you do?) Gradually, along with the discovery that what I put into my body affected how it looked, I began to change the way I ate. My eating habits became defined by a strange set of rules I’d acquired through various sources, from friends to “scientific findings” in mainstream magazines to Kelly Ripa.
Here are just a few of the dietary “rules” I’d absorbed and was attempting to follow at the time I first learned about the Primal Blueprint:
1. Avoid carbs for dinner
2. Allow at least three hours for digestion between dinner and bedtime
3. Eat leafy greens every day
4. Peanut butter is a sensible substitute for protein, especially when consumed with nonfat yogurt or cottage cheese
5. Bagels are healthier than bacon
6. Oatmeal is healthier than eggs
7. Don’t snack. Ever. (If forced to, refer to #10 immediately)
8. Try to eat all meals within an eight-hour window
9. Coconut milk is bad for you, probably
10. Oops! Ate too much junk food? Go for a run, preferably a long one
Meanwhile, I was keeping all of this a secret. No one was allowed to know about my growing fear of carbs and meats, and for the most part, people allowed me to eat my weird little peanut butter-nonfat yogurt-lettuce concoctions in peace. For years I lived with with the daily anxiety that I would be forced to break one of my rules and eat a meal I considered unhealthy.
So when I decided to make a month-long commitment to the Primal Blueprint, it felt like more of a relief than a challenge. The Blueprint’s eating strategy contains rules, to be sure, but they’re not complicated: avoid grains, legumes, and refined sugars, consume dairy and alcohol in moderation, and eat as much protein as you can cram into your cram-hole. (Here’s the definitive guide to the Primal Eating Plan.)
Moreover, the opportunities it opened up seemed limitless. In addition to the eating plan, the Primal Blueprint maps out a healthy lifestyle with advice about footwear, sleep, sun exposure, stress management, and more. According to this post on Mark Sisson’s blog, as long as I ate the right foods I could totally get away with eating just before bedtime:
Your body has no idea what the clock reads, so your ability to metabolize food will be no different whether you’re sitting down for dinner at 6 p.m. or 10 p.m. What is more important when dining late at night, however, is to eat healthy foods – including lean meats, healthy fats, and plenty of veggies – both to ease digestion and best fuel your body for restorative sleep!
Suddenly I stopped caring about keeping my eating strategies a secret. I told my friends and my parents, who reacted about as I’d expected them to:
Finally, I told my boyfriend, who is a 5’11″ barrel-chested builder with a penchant for pizza. I can’t remember his exact words, but they were something like, “So you’re saying bacon and avocado is healthy on this crazy diet? Okay, let’s do this.”
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