A bunch of friends rented a log cabin and were nice enough to invite me up. Everyone had to prepare one meal for the group. All the food was great, but I am just not used to eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and huge portions at that. Since I've been caveman-ing, my eating habits consist of grazing all day long on small handfuls of nuts, berries, fruit and veggies, and then a big dinner of all organic ingredients, toxin, salt, and added sugar free. So obviously I just said to myself when I accepted their invitation, "Screw this, I'm gonna eat anything, and everything, and just get back on the caveman program again on Tuesday." But my body is not used to it, and I definitely felt a difference eating food with wheat, beans, salt, sugar, etc, all weekend long. Forget about whatever weight I gained over the trip, I'm not worried about that, once the caveman food starts again, the weight will fall off. But I still feel like a bloated whale. I had to dodge harpoons all the way back to LA. I have no energy, and all I want to do is sleep it off until I shrink back to size. I wish I was a Shrinky Dink right now (boy I'm really dating myself with that reference).
The first night we had delicious lasagna and garlic bread. Nothing a caveman could eat, but nothing this caveman could resist. There was salad too, but come on, when you see a plate full of cookies and cakes, and there's also a piece of fruit as a healthy alternative, chances are you're reaching for the pastry. By the way, there were also LuLu's cookies there, and they're my favorite oatmeal cookies too, so there was a never ending assembly line of them being carried into my mouth all weekend long. Oatmeal is not caveman friendly, but I was like an addict. If I could inject one into my veins I would. If you've never had one, here's the link: http://www.LuLusCookieShop.com/
Part of the problem was all my friends are good cooks, and I was praying one of the meals would be shitty so I could pass. But there wasn't a bad morsel to be found. Every breakfast included amazing bacon and eggs, homemade baked bread, frittatas, butter, cheese, and milk abounding! The dairy screwed up my system more than anything. One night we had mac n' cheese, one of my death bed meals, and I had two hefty helpings. Without getting gross, I was bound up all weekend. What I wouldn't have gave to produce a cheese log in that log cabin bathroom, but my bowels were not yelling "timber" anytime soon.
Actually lactose intolerant people are really the healthy ones. Humans are the only animal that eats and drinks other animals' milk, so it's not natural. It only started with cultivation of farm animals 10,000 years ago, but for millions of years before that, we never ate dairy. So when your body rejects it, it's completely natural. Now I've never been lactose intolerant, so I've eaten and drank dairy my whole life. But when you go 9 months with only eating it sporadically, and then you drench yourself in it for three days straight, problems arise.
I kept the meal I served simple, no experimenting with other people's food. I made burgers and tried to keep it as caveman as I could. The beef was grass fed, I made the ketchup, mayo, and thousand island dressing, and the lettuce, tomato, and red onion were all organic. Some of the kids were allergic to nuts, so I didn't bother with my almond bread, I just bought some organic buns (which were shit, so next time, just go for the wonder bread buns and be happy about it). I made onion rings with it, and told everyone I wouldn't be offended if they added salt to everything, since there was zero added to my food. After I announced that, I think I saw a couple of fights break out over the salt shaker. Some people went in the back yard and started digging a salt mine. But I'm not here to judge. I was one of them myself in the not so distant past. A happy hypertension suffering salt lover. My grandfather used to pour salt, and I mean POUR salt on his food before he even took a bite. I wasn't quite that bad, but I loved it. Everyone loves it. Because they're supposed to. It's an ADDICTIVE SUBSTANCE! Same with sugar. But it's bad for you, so try to cut back for your own good. Not as bad as heroine, but just as addicting, and over time, it can cause a lot of damage to your body.
I felt my body swelling as the weekend went on, gulping down BBQ pulled pork sandwiches, chili, kale soup (sounds healthy, but there was sausage with lots of salt, and beans in it, both unfriendly to a caveman, and despite it being one of the most delicious soups I ever had, it still wreaked havoc on my body). And that was just the meals, there was also lots of snacking going on. Cheese and crackers, homemade fig newtons, muffins, and cookie cookies, cookies! I brought organic unsalted corn chips and caveman salsa and guacamole as a good mini-cheat, but I still ate all the other crap too. I ate more salt this past weekend than I ate all year combined. There wasn't enough water in Big Bear Lake to quench my thirst, and stop my lips from puckering.
By Sunday night I felt like a Weeble. Then they busted out a LuLu's Cookie Cake for my friend's birthday, and believe it or not, I could not eat anymore non-caveman food. I was craving something simple and organic. After only a few days of going off the diet, my body was ready to sue for emancipation. While the others dug into the cookie cake, I got out the organic leftover thousand island dressing, lettuce, tomato, and red onion from my burger meal and made myself a little salad. The next morning I made a much bigger salad, but this time in the toilet bowl. I felt 15 pounds lighter. Talk about Labor Day, I felt like I just gave birth!
It's good to be back on the caveman diet today, although I still have a lot of cheating waiting for me this week. I'm going out to dinner tonight (more lasagna), and then Rosh Hashana dinner at a friend's house on Wednesday. But I think if I'm only eating one non-caveman meal a day, and not three, including all the snacking, etc, then I should be fine. I have a wedding in NY this November, and with all my food haunts there, I'm going to have to learn from this experience, and not overdo it. It'll be tough, but if I want Wo Hop, and Katz's Deli, and Lenny & John's (Brooklyn in the house!), then I'll have to learn to pace myself, and keep it to one non-caveman meal a day. Or I'll stuff myself until I explode like I normally do on a visit to NY. Either way, rest assured I will get back on the caveman wagon once it's over, and my innards will once again thank me. Sometimes if you listen to a happy stomach gurgling, it sounds a lot like, "Ugga-Bugga."
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