Food combining as Paleo?

A number of years ago, I found myself extremely overweight, at about 310 pounds. I had just moved back from Arizona and I was huge. I happened to come across a book titled "Food Combining For Health: Get Fit Eating Foods that Don't Fight" by Doris Grant and Jene Joice. This was the first time I had come across the idea of food combining, but it wouldn't be the last.

The premise seemed pretty straight forward. As the doctor, William Hay, who came up with this particular system wrote about 100 years ago, one should "eat only those things intended as food for man, in their natural state and only in the amount necessary for present need." So this cut out pretty much all processed foods, extra sugar and so forth.

The basics are simply that you do not eat concentrated carbohydrates with concentrated proteins in the same meal and meals of different character should be spaced out by about 4 hours or more. The book provided 3 columns of foods. You could eat column 1 and column 2 in the same meal or column 2 and column 3 in the same meal, but not column 1 and 3. So pretty easy.

The way I applied this system evolved into something of a routine that worked something like this:

"Breakfast" (usually around 11:00am)-
2 medium/small baked potatoes with heavy cream and butter in the skins
an ear of corn with butter
green beans
1 or 2 slices of whole wheat bread with butter
banana with raisins, sliced almonds and heavy cream

"Lunch" (around 4 or 5:00pm) -
1/3 lb of ground beef with cheddar cheese and ketchup
winter squash
garden peas
parsnips
maybe an apple or an orange

"Dinner" (around 9:00pm after work)
Large bowl of fruit - a whole grapefruit, an orange, an apple and about 5 ounces of grapes.

I plugged this typical day into FitDay and it gave me this:

Calories 2205
Grams Calories %-Cals
Fat 90.6 801 36
Carbohydrate 311.3 1160 53
Dietary Fiber 44
Protein 65.2 243 11
(Just a note that is is pretty close to the macro nutrient ratio for the Kitavan diet. A little low on carb and high on fat, but close.)

I pretty much always ate the fruit as my last meal of the day, but the other two meals tended to flip back and forth as to their character. This was because I would cook enough for "lunch" to have for "breakfast" the next day. So I'd cook 4 baked potatoes for example, eat 2 for "lunch" and the other two chopped up and cooked with onions in a pan with butter for "breakfast" the next day. In looking at the timing I was also doing something of an intermittent fast everyday, with 14 or so hours between "dinner" and "breakfast."

In looking at this from the perspective of my current lowish-carb paleo, I'm pretty horrified by the amount of carbs I was eating, not to mention the grains. Though because they are limited to one meal a day, I was eating quite a bit less of those than most folks would be. Most of the carbs were vegetables, fruit and potatoes. I didn't do anything to restrict seed oils or dairy and didn't eat a lot of fish, so my omega 3 to 6 ratio was probably pretty bad.

What were the results of eating like this? Believe it or not, over the course of 9 months I lost over 130 pounds, averaging half a pound per day during that time. I don't recall having any great hunger during this time either. I do recall periodic cheats, typically of ginger ale and potato chips eaten in the evening after a carbohydrate "lunch". All in all I felt great, was relatively fit from losing the weight and doing 30 minutes of tai chi like exercises everyday. (Well, I didn't start off at 30 minutes, more like 5, but I built up to it.) I recall becoming fairly active during that time.

I don't know what led to the rapid weight loss.
Was it the separating of concentrated proteins and starches?
Was it getting rid of added sugar and processed foods?
Was it limiting grain consumption?
Some mix of all of these?

Looking back on this has led me to wonder what the effect would be if you tackled food combining from a paleo-ish perspective. Get rid of the grains and seed oils and potato skins. Eat more fish for the omega 3 ratio fats. Eat more grass fed meat and or omega 3 rich eggs.

Frankly I am a little scared to even contemplate it at this point, but it does provide some interesting food for thought.

Updated My Progress Page

I've updated my progress page with my latest numbers and photos.  I'm still very pleased with how things are working doing the unweighed and unmeasured lowish carb paleo approach.  I am pretty much just eating when I'm hungry and only as much as I want at the time.  It can be a little tricky to do that when you have to prepare food to eat at work since you have to guess how hungry you will actually be.  Sometimes I am pretty close, other times not so much.

Been eating a bit more fruit these last couple of weeks since it is blackberry season and I can get all I want from the bushes outside my house.  Usually it is less than a cup per day, though a couple of days I've eaten a couple of cups.

I've also been mulling a couple ideas for longer blog posts which I'll hopefully get out soon.

For my workouts, I'm into the second week of the "Power Block" for "You Are Your Own Gym" plan of body weight exercises.  I'm really liking the program so far.  Even the lower body stuff can be challenging even though my legs are quite strong, especially compared to the rest of me.  For upper body, my body weight definitely is providing enough of a challenge, and the movements are adaptable to increase or decrease the load as needed.  To an extent at least.

Next week starts the 4 week Undulating block where each day I'll be doing a different style of workout for each body part.  So one week might be Ladders (muscular endurance) for upper body push, Interval sets (strength) for lower body, Super sets (power) for upper body pull and tabatas for core.  The next week everything might shift one.  In addition there will be a 5th workout day which will be stappers which are 20 minute blocks of doing as many rounds of a lower body exercise, upper body pull and an upper body push, with as little rest as possible.  Should be interesting once I get to it.

Quick Update

So I have just about completed the first two weeks of doing unweighed and unmeasured paleo and I was kind of curious how I was doing.  I had hidden away the scale and not used it for 2 weeks, which has been sort or liberating.

I was a little nervous because I had stopped weighing everything and only had a general record of how much I was eating.  I just ate until I was full when I was hungry.  This has usually been 3 times per day, but sometimes 4.  Some days I have felt hungry and I've eaten more as a result.

I was pleased when the scale showed 202.6lbs, which is down 4 since the 1st, or 2 lbs per week.  So for now I don't need to do anything different I think, as it seems to be working fine.

I've also finished my first week of the basic program from "You Are Your Own Gym".  The program is pretty challenging, especially for my upper body days.  My legs are fairly strong so the lower body days are easier in comparison.  For upper body I hit a limit where I will fail and have to go back down the ladder, and sometimes back up and down and up and down.  For my legs though, I haven't hit a top of the ladder yet.  The workout is challenging, just I am strong enough to keep going and increasing reps.

It will be interesting to see how it goes in weeks 3 and 4 when it is interval sets where you should hit muscle failure in one of the 3 sets for each exercise.  I may end up needing to add weight to see that happen in the lower body.

Unweighed Unmeasured Paleo

So I've completed my fist week going with an unweighed and unmeasured approach to my diet.  Just keeping to paleo choices (wild caught fish, grass fed beef, pastured pork and veggies) as much as possible.  I do still eat some amount of chicken and grain fed beef and pork, but as much as I can I am shifting towards the better choices.

It is quite a change for me in a lot of ways.  A little nerve wracking and a little freeing as well.  I am not getting caught up in how many calories, or how much protein or anything like that, at least not specifically.  I just try to have a good amount of meat at each meal and eat when I'm hungry.  Some days that is 3 times, other days it is 4, but I try not to get too worried about it.  I feel that at this point after being pretty low carb for over 2 months, my body is maybe a bit more in tune with what I need (or rather I am more in tune with my body) so that if I am feeling hungry (that ache in the pit of the stomach feeling) then I probably do need to eat something.

Couple other changes I've started.  At the same time I started the new eating strategy, I also put away my scale.  Haven't stepped on it in over a week.  My goal is to only drag it out the first of each month when I do my progress photos.  I feel like I really need to get away from using the scale to quantify my results.  Each week I do try on the next size smaller of my clothes to see how close I am getting to being able to wear them. This week I was able to pull out a pair of shorts I have not been able to wear for several years, so I know progress is being made.

On exercise, I've changed things yet again, hopefully for the last time for a good long while.  Came across the book "You are Your Own Gym" by Mark Lauren, which appears to be a nicely periodized program using just body weight exercises or using equipment you can find in your house (box of books or a backpack for example).  I really like the variety of exercises and the progressive nature or the programs.  The book contains for programs ranging from basic to pretty advanced.  Each program has 4 phases: Muscular endurance, strength, power and undulating periodization.  The exercises and how you group them change from phase to phase which should keep the programs challenging and interesting.  I've committed myself to at least doing the 10 week basic program and we'll see how that goes.

Ah, almost forgot.  Also started taking some Gotu Kola each day (2 450mg capsules, one in the morning and one in the evening) after coming across a comment about it on the Robb Wolf forums.  It is supposed to help with collagen production and restoring elasticity to skin, among other things.  Hopefully this will help the loose skin I have from weight loss to snap back so it isn't hanging around.  Literally.

Also, tested my blood pressure the other day.  It is basically the same as a month ago, with a reading of 119/67 compared to 121/66 last month.  Not much difference I'd say.

The past week

So this week I've been listening to a ton of Robb Wolf podcasts, which I find very fun and informative.  I especially like that his take on most things (other than gluten) is a try it and see type view.  His view is once you have a baseline of cutting out all the problematic stuff (grains, legumes and most dairy) and are eating a lowish carb diet from whole foods, then you can start "tweaking" things to suit your situation.  I find this a very cool approach.
This week I also worked out my own strength training routine with two workouts to alternate between.  This week I did each one time, though next week I think I will do 3 workouts a week and just alternate back and forth.  I am using body weight and the few dumbbells and kettle bell that I have, so on some movements I am almost certainly not getting enough stress to build a lot of strength, especially for my legs.  For upper body stuff, I definitely weigh enough and am untrained enough for that to be good for awhile.
This current routine I am focusing mostly on upper body strength, so where I can I choose the variation of body weight exercise that limits me to 3 to 6 reps per set.  For those exercises I do what reps I can for 5 or 6 sets, resting for about 2 minutes between sets.
My two workouts are:
Workout A
Elevated push ups (feet on a chair, hands on Perfect Push up handles) - 6 sets of ~5 reps
Lunge with Rotation with 20lb dumbbell - 2 sets of 15 reps
Bent over rows with 30lb dumbbells - 3 sets of 10 reps
Single leg Romanian dead lift with 30lb dumbbells - 3 sets of 10 reps
Front and side planks

Workout B
Inverted press (feet on chair but butt high and hands close to the chair so it is almost like doing a handstand push up but easier) 5 sets of ~4 reps
Goblet squats with 53lb kettle bell - 2 sets of 15 reps
Pull ups - 5 sets of 3 reps (one leg assisting as little as possible to get out the 3 reps per set)
Dumbbell dead lift - 2 sets of 15 reps
Mountain Climbers for 1 minute

Both workouts take about 30 minutes.

Food wise I been doing mostly the same, though trying to slowly ramp up the carbs a little and add more protein as per Robb Wolf's recommendation of 1g protein per pound of body weight.  This has upped my calories a bit, though I am dropping the fat a little now.  My calories are about 120 per day higher (more or less) but that is all from increased protein (40g more per day on average) so I'm not worried about that.

All in all things are going well and I feel like I'm making progress.

Tasty Pork Roast

Today I cooked up one of my favorite foods, pork roast.  It is relatively inexpensive, tastes great and provides lots of good protein.  Since I'm trying to up my protein a bit these days, which is surprisingly hard, this last is a good thing.
This time I used a pork loin roast of about 4 lbs (bone in), but in the past I've used the even less expensive shoulder or butt roasts.  The secret to the roast is brining.  Brining is simply soaking the meat in a salt water solution for a few hours.  Most brines I've seen call for sugar, but since I'm avoiding sugar like the plague, for a long time I've just used salt.  Kosher salt specifically.
To make the brine I use 1 quart of water (more or less) and 1/4 cup of salt (more or less) for each pound of meat.  Today that resulted in about 1 gallon of water and 1 cup of kosher salt.  Just dissolve the salt in the water and add the meat and stash in the refridgerator for about 1 hour (more or less) per pound of meat.   You can go longer, but I've read not to go more than 8 hours.  You can some herbs or fruit juices or sliced apple if you want, this is supposed to draw the flavors into the meat, but I've never noticed much effect from that.
Once you've brined the meat, you will want to drain it and dry it off to help make sure you get nice crispy outside.  You can also add some spices at this point.  Today I added a BBQ flavored rub I made from a recipe in the new Atkins book which is quite nice.  Put the roast on a wire rack on a baking sheet.
Preheat your oven to 500 degrees and once it is hot put the roast in and set a timer for 30 minutes.  This first bit of cooking is to get a nice crispy outside, which is especially tasty if you have used some sort of spices.  Once the timer goes off, turn down the oven to 350 degrees and continue cooking until the internal temperature of the roast is about 150 degrees.  For a 4 pound roast, this takes around an hour.
Once the roast has reached the desired temperature, remove from the oven and cover with foil to let it "rest" for 5 or 10 minutes.  I can never seem to wait that long but it is supposed to help keep all the juices from running out of the meat when you cut into it.
You can also cook whole roaster chickens using this same method.  I've found both chicken and pork come out very juicy and tasty this way, even poorer cuts of pork like the shoulder or butt roasts.

Trip to the Farmer's Market

It has been quite a long time since I visited the Farmer's Market here in St. Johnsbury, and I'd never been since I'd started eating a low carb/paleo (off and on at least) last year.
I expected that things would tend to be more expensive than regular "store bought" food, and by and large I was right.  However, I was somewhat surprised to find things like grass-fed ground beef that were not all that much more expensive than store bought.  Warden Farms was selling grass fed meats, though the pork did use some organic grain feed and really the prices were not that bad for some cuts.  There were several options at around $5 per pound or less.  The ground beef was $4.50 per pound (unfortunately they were out) while the ground beef in patties was $5.25.  Not quite sure why the extra cost for the patties, but I bought some anyway.  I compare this to the $9 per pound that I paid for ground bison last night at the local grocery store and pretty much decided I'll start going to the Farmer's Market earlier on Saturdays to see what meat there is before I buy stuff at the grocery store.  I don't think I'll start buying eggs at the market since they are almost twice as expensive as the omega-3 eggs I've been buying at the grocery store.  I can't see doubling the amount I spend on eggs each week when my budget is limited.  I do like the idea of getting twice as much grass fed meat each week though for roughly the same amount of money.
Stuff had been pretty well cleared out by the time I got there, less than 15 minutes before the market closed, so hopefully if I go earlier there will be more selection.  Not sure if there is a lot of benefit buying the locally grown stuff for vegetables depending on the cost, plus right now it is mostly greens and they appear to be quite a bit more expensive than at the grocery store.  We'll see how prices go as the season goes on.  I'll likely be able to get good deals on summer squash and zucchini later on as those tend to produce a ton.