freebyrd wrote:

>Ok, I haven't started Paleo yet. I will be grocery shopping on Monday and am
>trying to put together a grocery list for a week of meals. Is celery ok?
>
yup. you can subdue celery with nothing more than a sharp stick.  And
you can eat it raw
(though you don't have to).

>I also ran across something on the Paleo website on how to figure out how
>much protein you should eat per day. Of course I am not able to find it now.
>It said to take your goal weight, divide it in half, and you should eat that
>in grams.
>
>
>
>I happen to be 138 pounds overweight at this time, and if I figure my goal
>weight at 150 pounds, dividing it in half I come up with the number 75. Does
>anyone know if that 75 is the number of protein grams I am to eat per day?
>Or because I only know pounds and ounces is it figured differently? I also
>found a chart that said 1 dry ounce = 28.3 grams. Would a dry ounce work for
>a piece of meat? Using this figure, 75 grams divided by 28.3 grams = 2.65.
>Would this mean that I am only allowed 2.65 ounces of meat per day? That
>doesn't seem like much at all.
>
Remember, meat is NOT solid protein, not even lean meat.  It is mostly
water.
Raw ground beef lean has about 5 grams/ounce,
regular has about 4.5 grams/ounce. Cooked (having driven off
some of the water) ground beef has about 7 grams/ounce.
The story is about the same with poultry or fish.  Meat that is
quite fat has even less protein (because the fat takes up part
of those ounces).

75 grams of protein sounds good for your size.  This is more like
11 ounces of cooked lean meat per day.  If you have three 4-oz servings
of cooked meat, that would fit the formula.  More if it is fatty.

>Should I worry about the 75 gram protein thing right now when starting out,
>or just try to make the change to Paleo without thinking in measurements to
>start off.
>
The general philosophy of eating paleo should not involve lots of
measuring and counting, and shouldn't even provide the exact-same
amount of each macronutrient for each meal or each day.  If you're
coming from a vegetarian or junk-food background, do a little
measuring at first so you can eyeball a reasonable portion.

    Lynnet