Who am I? My name is Miriam and this is my blog about life, green living, traveling in our vintage Hymer or on my electric bicycle and whatever else happens to fall off my keyboard onto the blog. Originally I started writing about food related matters as I was making the transition to paleo aligned eating back in 2011, I’m a little more fluid in my food choices now.

Where am I? I live with my partner off-grid in the north-west of Ireland. Off-grid for us means that we get all of our electrical power from the weather around us. We don’t use utility power at all, I am typing this on a computer powered by the wind and the sun – yes, even in Ireland!

We use a home-built wind turbine and solar electric or PV (photovoltaic) panels to harness the power of the sun. We teach people to build their own wind turbines so that we can share our passion for renewable energy, our skills and experience in off-grid living.

Unconventional living has it’s ups and downs however I wouldn’t swap this lifestyle for a conventional one – not that I have anything against conventional, it just doesn’t rock my boat. From childhood I preferred camping to hotels, swimming or playing barefoot with cardboard boxes in the garden to watching tv.

What is Paleo about? I changed to eating Paleo back in Oct 2011. This means that and I eat fresh veggies (organic when possible), healthy fats, grass fed meat (again – when possible), wild-caught fish, nuts and seeds and fruit. I am trying to once again not eat any grains, processed food and no refined sugars.

How did I find out about eating this way? By chance I saw a blog post by someone whose blog I and followed at the time, she was writing about having changed her diet and the positive impacts that this change was having on her life. What struck me most strongly was when she said that she had cleaned out her freezer and was surprised to find that there was still some of her favourite ice cream in there. The pertinent point being that she had forgotten about the ice cream – before switching to Paleo the ice cream would have been calling her name all the time, she would never have forgotten that it was there or even how much was left in the tub! This really struck a chord with me and I immediately started to do some research, beginning with Marks Daily Apple which was where she had started.

I changed how I ate that day, cutting out all sugars, rice and all wheat from my diet, at the time I really couldn’t bear to let go of my morning porridge. Three days later The Primal Blueprint by Mark Sisson arrived in the post and I devoured it like it was a strawberry cheesecake resulting in my being able to let the oats go too and become fully Primal.

At the time I didn’t really know that there was a difference between Paleo and Primal so now I’d say that I am really more Primal as I do use dairy products from time to time, for me that’s the most obvious difference between the two. There are a few differences between being Primal and being Paleo however I don’t concern myself greatly with the fundamentalism.

Why do I eat this way? I am so much healthier now than when I was eating grains. So far I have lost over three stone in weight, that’s 42lbs or about 20kg. I have more energy and engage in more outdoor activity than I did when I was carrying that extra weight. There are family members who have/had diabetes, alzheimers, arthritis and numerous allergies so it made sense to me to try to become healthier in order to avoid serious illness later in life.

I am no longer a slave to sugar in all it’s forms – I used to inhale ice cream, cheese cakes and lots of foods which contained sugar, now I can make treats that are healthier for me and still satisfy that hunger for something nice. I just don’t eat these things as often as I used to, I don’t suffer cravings for these sorts of foods on a regular basis. If I have a craving it is now a signal to me that perhaps I’m feeling stressed, maybe I’ve neglected to drink enough water or I might simply be hungry.

I’ve been off the Paleo wagon for a while however I’m hopping back on again as both my health and weight could do with some improvement. I’m now cycling regularly and am hoping to start running again next spring.

I have some affiliate links scattered throughout some posts. This means that if you click on the link and buy something, for example a book from Amazon, I get a very small proportion of the sale. Please note that you do not pay any extra!! But you can help to support the website by doing so and I will be very grateful.

Not everything that I link to is an affiliate link, many of the links are simply to websites that interest me and that I think may be of interest to you too.

You can catch up with me on Pinterest, Twitter and Instagram.  Just click on any of these links and you should land on the social media page for me – please say hello if you do as I enjoy the odd chat.

Unless otherwise stated all the photos in use on this site are my own.