i've recently enlisted in the military and going to BMT this fall, anyone have any advice/stories on being paleo and in the military?
I dont know what to expect and really hope I can pull off paleo while being in the service.
When you are in BMT the options are limited none of the food will be wild or pastured, but you will have access to meat and vegetables at every meal. Once you graduate BMT and are in tech school you will live in the dorms and depending on where you are may or may not have a kitchen in your room. If you don't have a kitchen in your room you will probably have a community kitchen. I would recommend you stick to making paleo meals at the chow hall because the military will be automatically subtracting your BAS every month to pay for your share of the Chow Hall food. Might as well eat what you are paying for. If you don't mind taking the $220~ a month hit and want to buy quality pastured meat you can always use the kitchen but make sure you do a thorough job cleaning up after yourself because there are periodic dorm inspections that can result in restrictions if you fail. Once you graduate Tech School and get to your first duty station paleo will become easier to do.
I just got back from AF basic training (for officers, it is called Field Training) yesterday.
I would say that my ability to be paleo would have been about 70% if I tried quite hard; I ended up being closer to 60%. The first day I arrived, dinner was a box lunch and it was a sandwich. There was nothing else to eat. I ate it.
I stayed away from the french toast at breakfast and ate the eggs and bacon and sausage, but I have no idea what was in the sausage and the eggs came out of a carton.
For lunch we had MRE's two weeks in a row. Sometimes I was able to find an MRE that I could eat, sometimes not, but I also don't need to eat the entire MRE to not be hungry. Some of the boys were starving pretty much the entire time they were there; so if you need more calories you're going to have to eat the wheat snack bread.
For dinner I was usually able to stick pretty close, but a couple of times all they served was pasta or stew with noodles. I ate it.
My husband is a Drill Sgt. here at Ft. Jackson. I have eaten in the DFAC and I know while not being 100% paleo you can squeeze by at the 70-80% range. In the field there are typically one of two options. Either Hot A's or an MRE. For breakfast last week I loaded up on bacon and eggs skipping the french toast and for lunch I skipped the rice and took only the broccoli and the chicken. I know if there are left overs after everyone has eaten they will do a second call but you better move fast. The MRE is hit and miss. There are some you can pilfer down and make it kinda paleo/primal and some that will just make you gag. Trading food in MRE's happens all the time as well. Not to mention they now come with M&M's, Twizzlers, Tootsie rolls and Skittles. My husband and the rest of the DS made the Privates turn all of that in tho. Just remember it will be hit or miss and don't sacrifice eating because you will need all of the calories you can get and the DS do watch what you eat.
At Army AIT. Basic was really hard to do paleo. I was at Fort Sill. Especially the MRE's. I went in the summer time where it hits 115 degrees on the regular so i had to consume a 60/40 ratio. If i went full Paleo i probably would have passed out. Now I'm at AIT, the DFAC is pretty damn easy to eat paleo in. there is always chicken, fish and veggies and salad bars. usually some nuts or trail mix too.
Eggs, eggs and more eggs. If you have them hard-boiled, stash as many as you can. They can survive even heat and will provide enough fat to keep you energized most of the time. Very portable in a natural "package" of protein and fat.
I'm active Navy, at Corpsman school right now. I've been in the Navy for 7 months and have been keeping it low carb since boot camp. While it was possible to be low carb in boot, it would have sucked since almost all that was available was starches and grains.
I've been to 6 different commands-- almost all of them are set up the same. Main entree line with various choices of cooked vegetables and meats (some breaded, which I avoid), and a salad bar of which most of my meal is built from.
I find that while I can keep the combined items on my tray almost completely under 5-10 carbs per meal, the amount of dressing required to make government spinach paletable is beyond satisfactory levels. At this command, which is a joint Army-Air Force base, there is no vinager or olive oil that I can access at the DFAC. I am currently trying to limit my dressing as much as possible. Sugary dressings can be the sole reason why you will not maintain the level of body fat you want.
We're allowed to carry backpacks into the facility-- I'm thinking I'll carry my own dressings into chow. It'll look funny, but so does over half your tray being covered in spinach, lettuce, tomatoes, olives, onions, and brocolli.
You gotta do what you can. I can't do paleo-- govt. food is low end and most of the time you can't construct a complete paleo meal with what they serve that day. Low carb works for me and since the military wants to reduce the amount of fatties, they have a pretty nice selection available.
Steve here from wild mountain paleo market. I just wanted to let you know that we just started a standard shipping program of all our dry goods paleo products to APO/FPO/DPO. We've had a lot of requests but it's taken some time to get it implemented. At least you have that as an option to make things easier. Please read the shipping section on the site for details. Cheers!