Living in a house with non-primal...

druidqueen

So I just started eating primal at the beginning of last week. I'm a college student - during the semester I live in the dorms, where you're required to buy a meal plan that has 10 meals a week in the cafeteria. I'm going to have some problems working primal around that, but even worse is at home. I live with mom, dad and brother. They're not against me going primal, but they're not all that helpful either. Example, we had fried chicken livers for dinner the other night. I love livers, and to help with me going primal, my dad battered them lightly instead of the massive amount of bread we normally have on them. It wasn't that much flour. But it's little things. I babysat my cousins last night and they cooked fish sticks and macaroni because they wanted to make something special for me. Sigh.

I've read a good bit of Mark Sisson's stuff, and other blogs around the net. I'm doing this to lose weight, but even more so as a lifestyle change. I live in south Louisiana - everything is deep fried and covered in sugar. One of the blogs I read said that when you stumble, don't harp on it and get back up.

I'm not trying to harp on my mistakes, but does anybody else have this issue of school cafeteria and trying to work around what the rest of the house eats? Do ya'll have some suggestions?

mjbrenner

It sounds like your immediate family is being supportive and wants to be accommodating, which is great. One of the best thingfs you can do is to help them find easy ways to accommodate your new eating strategy. For example, my parents were visiting on one of the rare occasions we do have fried foods at my house. I had some garbanzo flour, and I asked my mother to use that instead of bread crumbs when breading the fish. She was happy to help, and I showed her how to do it. My (not strictly Primal) fish came out so good that my family now prefers to bread fried meats with garbanzo flour.

Extended family and friends can be trickier, because we see them less often. My friends I visit regularly know that "Matt tries not to eat grains" and they try to cook meals that can accommodate. I thank them and dig in when they get it right, and I thank them and have a small portion to be polite when they get it wrong. I always carry a baggie or two of diet-friendly foods in my car so I can grab a quick bit before or after a tricky food situation.

At school, salads my just have to become your friend. My experience with college is nearly a decade out of date, but I am not under the impression that things have gotten less processed at the dining halls.

druidqueen

They are really good about being accomidating, getting better as we get more used to it. I made a lot of deer jerky over the Christmas break, that should work to carry some in my purse for times of need. School, yeah...salads are going to be the basis of what I eat. They have a sandwich thing, so I can get meat from there to go on the salad. Thanks for the input.