Paleo 30 day challenge: Day 5-7 (27-29th March 2015)

Yeah... that was pretty much it...

So if day 4 of my 30 day Paleo diet was to be a challenge, the weekend was going to be even more so - going away camping for 3 days.

Well I say camping, Sally 'doesn't do' tents.  We stayed on a sight called Woodclose Park next to Kirkby Lonsdale on the edge of the Yorkshire Moors, in what they call a 'wig wam'.  A wooden structure with beds, it would normally be called a camping pod.  This, I'm reliably informed, is referred to as 'glamping'.

With a comfortable mattress, fridge, lights and an electric radiator, I don't care what you call it, I like it!  As I'm writing this at home in Salford it is a beautifully sunny day (which as it happens is a pain, because I've got a comedy show tonight.  It's hard enough getting a crowd without having to compete with beer gardens.  Essentially sunshine is like kryptonite for comedy!).

However, last weekend when we were away it rained the whole time.  In other words, standard camping weather.  We were glad of the camping pod, and its heater!

Despite going away I was in no way deterred from keeping up with my Paleo diet.  For the last few weeks I hadn't been feeling too well though, and I believe this is the 'Paleo flu' I had been told to expect.  I was determined to carry on regardless though.

In preparation for the trip we took plenty of fruit, salad, nuts and seeds from home, so we would never be short of healthy, Paleo-friendly snacks.

On the first day we went for a walk in Kirkby Lonsdale, walking along the river Lune and up the radical steps to a view point painted by Turner and of which Ruskin said ‘I do not know in all my country, still less in France or Italy, a place more naturally divine.’

When we stood at the view on a bench next to us was a high school couple heavily snogging.  It was that inspiring!

The first stop food wise was the Crossing Point cafe.  Sally had coffee and cake and I joined her... with water :-(

But still, it was a lovely cafe, and the couple who ran it were really helpful in suggesting other places to visit and eat.  From their suggestion we went on to The Orange Tree pub for our evening meal.

This turned out to be perfect for me.  I got a beautiful big gammon steak that came with both pineapple and 2 fried eggs, along with a big salad.  I avoided the plentiful chips on offer, a number of which were taken gratefully from my plate by Sally.  She is SO supportive of me!

A note here was that it only occurred to me afterwards that I could have asked for no chips but extra salad instead.  Something to think about for the future.

In the past I would have cut the fat off, but of course I ate it all as fat is an important part of my diet now.  This is without doubt the hardest thing to get your head round in my opinion when adapting to this diet as I have spent so long avoiding animal fat.

The next day we returned to the Crossing Point Cafe and I had a full English breakfast.  No beans, and I said no to the bread, but with bacon, sausage, black pudding poached eggs, mushrooms and tomato this was a great meal for me (there could be question marks over the processes involved in making the meat products here, but I trusted their standards would have been very good in terms of how they sourced their produce).  Again, I would usually trim the bacon fat but now I ate it up along with everything else.

NOM!!

Over the weekend I had great energy, and I think my increase in fat consumption is the reason why.

The only disappointing meal on our trip was The Sun Inn.  This was fine dining, so we decided to have this on the last night of our stay.

The food itself was very nice I must say, but the problem I had was matching everything up with my Paleo diet.  For instance I had a starter of Ox cheek.  It listed the different veg it came with, and that all sounded fine.  However when it came it was in a large pasta ravioli, which was never mentioned on the menu.

Now, of course, if you have allergies you would say to your server, but I don't.  I'm just trying to follow a diet, but I did assume that the menu would describe better what I would be having.

The waiting staff were very nice, if a little confused as to what I wanted to happen with my food.  The main course was presented with a slightly sarcastic tone of "without starch".

That comment aside, the staff were very good and the food itself was excellent, I was just left a little disappointed with the overall experience.  Especially when you consider that it was almost three times the cost of what we had at The Orange Tree.

But still, it was a lovely weekend, and overall my Paleo diet didn't cause too much of a problem (although my girlfriend might wish to disagree).

Food aside, we had the pleasure of watching a local rugby derby match between Kirkby Lonsdale and Kendal, attended by what must have been at least 2000 people.  For a small village near the lake district that's a fantastic turn-out.

To add to the experience our temporary hosts in Kirkby won 14-0.  A unique, fun experience in a lovely village.