The winz, the failz, and the uglyz

I'm gonna start with the wins today because it'll make me feel better about the other things.

Winz:
Today I successfully made Hollandaise sauce. This was after my epic fail making Bearnaise sauce, which made for a tasty but very runny and fully separated buttery eggy mixture - which made a great topping for a steak. I don't have a double boiler so I tried just holding a pan over another pan with simmering water in it. It didn't work so I ended up setting the pan into the boiling water and my egg yolks scrambled. At that point I gave up, stopped trying to clarify the butter and just threw everything into the bowl with a hand mixer. Lol... this is supposed to be the winz section... Anyway, I watched a video on making Hollandaise, cut the recipe in half, and got to work with my little glass bowl over the simmering water. It worked perfectly and tasted AMAZING. I made eggs Benedict with real bacon instead of that Canadian garbage, and I skipped the English muffin of course.

Another win of recent times involved my other sister bringing me a large portion of beef steaks and roasts and ground meats that she butchered herself (totally brutal). The beef is really good, and I have only made steaks so far. Looking forward to some epic burger patties and roasts soon. Most important thing: free good meat.

Another win involves workouts and is also kind of a fail. When I first switched to this diet it was a week before finals (lol y u so stooped?). Definitely not the best choice... But anyway, when I first switched to the diet, I swear that I felt more energy while I was working out, was lifting more weight/reps, running faster/longer, and feeling less sore afterward and blah blah blah (let me be the first to cry placebo effect). But I only went a week on the diet and working out before the stress of finals overwhelmed me and I stopped going to the gym during finals week. Then the storm of laziness that is Spring Break overtook me and I spent another week of not going to the gym. When I first went back, I felt weak and couldn't finish the workouts I was doing comfortably before my extended vacation, even while lifting less weight, running slower, and for a shorter period of time. I'm the first person once again to be wondering to myself, "maybe it's because I'm not making enough glycogen because I'm not eating carbohydrates." Which is entirely possible, but there are too many variables - a two week break is a two week break and time should be allowed to make things normal. The point here is that it's dumb to draw conclusions from such a small sampling with so many other variables - what I experienced very likely could have been experienced exactly as I experienced it on a normal diet; there's no reason to associate my feelings with the diet unless I can show that the diet truly had the effects I noticed.

Failz:
Well, aside form the Bearnaise sauce, which I already explained (which at least still tasted good) there is also the issue of the marrow bones I tried to eat.

I've seen people devouring marrow straight from the bone; I've even done it myself, though admittedly only with slow cooked ribs that I cracked open (which don't have much bone marrow). Since I've heard people like Anthony Bourdain talk about how much he loves marrow, I decided to try making marrow bones like some famous chef does, only he recommends serving bread and herby lemon juice with them. Since I'm not eating bread, I skipped the other stuff too. But I still cooked the bones the same way in my temperamental oven. I cooked the bones for 18 minutes at 450 degrees, like the recipe said, stopping when I noticed juices running out of the bone and the ends of the marrow looked nice and browned. I had mine with bacon but there was only one slice left... and I at most of it while waiting for the bones to finish... So the first bite was amazing, slathered on top of a small piece of bacon - it seemed to just enhance the flavor and make the bacon melt in my mouth. The next bite was the same, only less unexpected, and sad because I was out of bacon. For the third bite I hesitated - the piece of marrow I pulled out looked and felt a little... raw... and the bad smell (I forgot to mention the offputting smell) was starting to get to me. It didn't feel like anything I'd ever eaten before - perhaps like stiff, unmelting jello without the sweet flavor, and with more connective tissue. I uncomfortably choked it down. The fourth bite was my last, and I barely managed to get it down - the smell, the texture and the mental images of raw animal product were too much for me. I had to throw the remaining bones away and clean the dishes to get rid of the bad smell asap. However, I have not given up on marrow. Next time I'm going to slow cook it, at maybe 300 or 325, and screw the stuff that melts out. I wanna cook the connective tissue down until it tenderizes what's left into butter. Then I'm gonna make sure I have something to put it on.

Uglyz:
If there's one thing that has been tough for me as far as following this diet is concerned its been getting enough fat. I have always liked leaner meats - I like lean beef, I love poultry, and I love white fish and tuna. This is not to say that I despise all fatty cuts, but I always prefer white meat. Given a choice, I would take turkey breast over thighs, halibut over salmon, and would trim the fat from my steaks. Of course I still love cheese and butter and eggs, which is why these things have made up such a large portion of my diet - there's no way I could enjoy eating this much fat without them (unless I just ate bacon every day). This doesn't mean I don't like steak, it just means that the way I enjoy it wouldn't technically be appropriate for this diet (unless it was covered in Bearnaise sauce).

One more uglyz. When I tried to find real, good information on eating this way I found a lot of dumb websites filled with tons of anecdotal evidence, feel good crap, and buzzwords. I hate seeing people call this a Paleolithic diet - and I hate the reasons they give for why they think its good even more. The fact that early humans never ate nightshades because they come from the New World does not mean that nightshades must not be part of a healthy diet. For that matter, the fact that early humans ate things in the Old World does not make them healthy. Anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is either an idiot or a liar. I read one website with a claim that the Paleo diet cured someone's BO... maybe I have magic BO but mine is no better than ever. These people remind me of hipsters.

It's late and I'm tired, so time for input/output.

INPUT
Breakfast: 6 eggs scrambled in bacon fat, 4 slices of bacon, shredded cheddar cheese, 4oz milk, Vitamin D, multivitamin
Midmorning: half a cookie, small bit of regular cheddar
Lunch: 4oz milk, 4 poached eggs with Hollandaise sauce and three slices of bacon
Afternoon: 12oz Americano with cream
Dinner: 4oz milk, steak with leftover Hollandaise (tastes weird leftover), and a little more steak
Dessert: some oil-toasted walnuts with cinnamon, 4oz milk

Lotsa water

Tomorrow... will be a day of walnuts as I won't be home to cook much.