Hello, everyone,

I am new to this list and new to using this kind of list, period, so I
hope you will bear with gaffs I may make as I learn to use this service.

I am writing because I am having so much difficulty following the Paleo
Diet, as I have read about it in the book The Paleo Diet, that I am going
"nucking futs", as they say, and I'm hoping some of you who have more
experience than I can help me get things straightened out.

My problems are the following:

1) I feel unsatisfied with my food, especially not having salt, to the
point where it is impinging on my functioning.

2) This is a very expensive diet, and I'm afraid I won't be able to keep
it up.

3)  This diet is very time-consuming , to the point where it is hurting
my relationships.

So if any of you have any wisdom in any of those areas, I am eager to
hear it.

Below I will go into more detail:

Problem #1, Feeling Unsatisfied.  I started the diet in late November.  A
friend called and said he had been doing it since last spring and felt
the best he had ever felt in his life.  He told me "No grains, dairy,
legumes.  Eat only meat, vegetables, fruits, nuts and berries."

I started immediately to try it, and although I felt my body craving
carbohydrates, I also noticed that my anxiety level dropped noticeably
and I had more mental clarity and focus.  Anxiety, fuzzy thinking, and
poor focus have been chronic problems for me that I have been struggling
with my whole adult life, so this was a blessed development and made me
want to stick with the Paleo Diet.

I learned to deal with the craving for carbohydrates by having squash,
the highest-carb vegetable I know of, at every meal, and this way I was
able to find some feeling of peace in my body regarding the lack of
grains in my diet.

Then I got the book The Paleo Diet, and learned that the recommendation
is for lean meat only, almost no fat, no vinegar, and worst of all, NO
SALT.  Since I started trying to eat my food with little fat, not
vinegar,  and no salt is when I started to go nucking futs.  My food
tastes so bland I feel positively crazy.  I never feel satisfied with my
food.  I am back to craving grains in a way that makes me feel absolutely
crazy -- it's actually impinging on my daily functioning.

Here's the worst part: I have been in recovery for 10 years from the
eating disorder of compulsive overeating; I joined Overeaters Anonymous
and was able to stop binging on sweets and other food, and my life
actually began to have direction and focus.  I have seen, as I progress
along with the Paleo Diet, how fat and salt make me want to eat more than
I need, so the Paleo Diet has the potential to help me keep from
overeating -- yet, I feel so unsatisfied with my food that I do what a
compulsive overeater does when she's unsatisfied -- I overeat, trying to
find something that will calm the raging dissatisfaction.  I don't have
power to stop.  This is definitely not what I want.

So how do you all deal with cravings for grains and with dissatisfaction
from bland food?  Believe me, I have tried pepping my food up with herbs
& spices and lemon juice/citrus fruits, but herbs can’t hold a candle to
salt, and I can’t put lemon on everything, it just doesn’t work with
everything.  Any secrets to success?

Problem #2:  Expensive!!    I’m trying to follow the book The Paleo Diet.
 I’m following the menus and recipes, since otherwise I wouldn’t know
what to do.  It calls for fresh everything – fresh fruits and vegetables,
which really add up in cost if you eat a lot of the; fresh herbs for the
recipes, and the herbs are expensive and you only use a snippet of them
and then they just rot in the fridge; and then, off course, there’s the
meat, and not just the budget cuts, it has to be lean – like breast of
everything.  And flax oil !!  Holy Moses, it’s like $15 a pint.

Yes, yes, I know, it’s my body and my life, and I should spare no expense
in the service of my health and wellbeing, but realistically, my budget
has limits.  I’m an apprentice in a trade, barely scraping the bottom of
the middle class, have to pay my own health insurance, live in the most
expensive city in my region, etc., etc.  . . .

What do you all do about this?

And finally,

Problem #3: Time-consuming!!   Preparing all these meals from scratch
uses up my whole evening and a significant portion of my weekend, leaving
me little time for anything else.  My boyfriend is actually bringing up
time and food as an issue of difficulty between us – I’m barely
available, so busy am I trying to get my food right.  And as for friends
and family, I’m not sure they know if I’m still alive or not, I’ve been
spending so much time on food.

If you made it this far, I thank you for hanging in there.  I'm assuming
my future postings will not be so long.

That’s it for my kvetching.  Any words of solace, anyone?

Melinda