Primal Eating and Breaking the Bank

Back before Christmas (and then in my resolutions after...) I made the announcement that my diet and exercise would be a priority.  I did awesome....for about 3 weeks.  And then Christmas rolled around.  And again, I was crushed by my wagon as I fell off and it rolled over me - backed up- and did it again.

A few weeks ago a friend posted a picture of herself on Facebook and she looked good, really good.  Not that she didn't look good regularly - but she'd had a baby within the past year and I knew she'd been paying a lot of attention to her diet and exercise recently.  She looked really good and she seems really happy.  So I thought to myself, self.... you need to get yourself together.  I reached out and asked her what she'd been doing - because I knew just from seeing posts on her Facebook that it was a specific type of diet. 

She responded back that she'd been following what was called the "Primal Eating" movement, another 'diet' that closely resembles it is also called the Paleo diet.  In researching over the past week, I've found that it's called Primal or Paleo because it is suppose to get us back to eating what early man ate - back when the only option for food was what they could hunt or gather...No McDonald's just down the road, no Pizza Hut easily delivered. 

Basically, this diet means that you no longer eat grains, wheat, flour, gluten or processed sugars.

  It is also recommended that you generally stay away from processed foods altogether.

Frozen dinners be gone.

Fast food options no more.

So the hubs and I went out grocery shopping this weekend in hopes of stocking up on foods we can eat this week since today marks our first day of attempting to cut out all of that stuff.  It was recommended on this diet that you purchase grass fed meats and dairy products (Paleo doesn't recommend dairy products at all, but Primal is a little more lax about it)  

Well, let me tell you.  That stuff ain't no joke.  Organic products in general are expensive -- but grass fed?  Through the roof.  6 bucks for a carton of eggs.  SIX WHOLE DOLLARS.  Needless to say we didn't stock our pantry with all organic veggies and grass fed meats and cheeses.  I won't be breaking the bank over it.  We got a couple of organic things here and there - but I think we'll just focus more on eliminating the grains, flour, and processed sugars and worry about getting to the heart of "natural" eating when we can afford to do it.

Anyway -- just to make myself accountable, I'm putting it in writing... Or, I guess it should be typing it?  Whatever. I'm saying it here.  Today is Day Uno of "Primal" Eating.  We'll see how this goes.  Lunch: Organic Salad with Roast Chicken.

Dinner will be: Grass Fed hamburger patties with onions and mushrooms with a side of asparagus.

Yummmm (that's partially honest and partially sarcastic.  While I love a good salad and then hamburger with onions and mushrooms...I love some good old mashed potatoes as a side, so this will be an adjustment, haha)

My Organic Salad for lunch today :)