As paleo as it gets...

Yep, that's Mt. McKinley, aka Denali, aka the Great One. It's a stupendous mountain, and when it's "out," which is what Alaskans call it when the clouds part and you can see it like this, it's cause to stop the car and pay respect.

Auto-immune Paleo?

Striving to do a stricter, auto-immune version of the diet, and find myself - for the first time - really struggling. My go-to foods for the past six-plus months have been: eggs, nuts, more nuts, almond butter. Of course, I eat all the other stuff, the fish, the meat, the veggies, berries, reasonable fruits. But when I have the munchies, it's been nuts and almond butter. And a hefty plate of eggs has started virtually every morning since I started this on Feb. 1 this year.

But this morning I started with some chicken and baked yam. And tomorrow will probably be salmon and broccoli. It's weird and not entirely filling. Maybe it's just a matter of getting used to it?

Julianne's Paleo & Zone Nutrition Blog was my inspiration. She's having great luck with it. I shall persevere.

A little taste of where I live. This is the view just down the hill from my house. That mountain far in the background is named Mt. Susitna, but we call it Sleeping Lady. There's a Native Alaska legend about a woman who was waiting for her young lover and fell asleep while she waited. He never returned and there she sleeps still.

Another Paleo blog, seriously??

Well, yes. This one, you see, is from Alaska, and if there's anything we know about in Alaska, it's eating good, wholesome food straight from the land...

Actually, that's a lie. We're just like anywhere else. We eat crap, and plenty of it. And we have the waistlines to show for it. Our kids are overweight and obese (those are two different things, and the only reason I know that is my job. More on that later) in record numbers. My fellow adult Alaskans have been packing on the pounds in recent years, too. More to the point, we - like the rest of the U.S., like the rest of the world... except, apparently, France - are overweight AND unhealthy. Fat and sick. Lovely.

That's where the fun ends. Because while I like to nosh as much as anybody, I do not like rheumatoid arthritis. And that's what I've got. One nasty surgery later to repair tendons severed by the sharp edges of a bone eroded by this stinking disease, I decided I had to make some changes.

Long story short, those changes led me to Paleo. Where, I might add, I'm very happy. And, to hear my blood tests tell it, healthier too. My hands don't swell and hurt like they did. I don't hobble on sore feet like a little old lady through my office parking garage. I just, in general, feel a lot better.

I'm learning things all the time about this new way of eating. What works, what doesn't. And more importantly, why. This blog, I hope, will be a place where I can share some of that info - and ideally learn from others, too.

If you've found this blog, welcome. I hope to make reading worth your while.