Day 4

Paleo egg muffins are a God-send. 

I am not a morning person so I needed a healthy breakfast on-the-go. These last for a few days in the fridge so I was stoked when I found a recipe on these 2 websites:http://www.primal-palate.com/2010/07/breakfast-on-go-egg-muffins.html and http://everydaypaleo.com/2010/03/24/egg-cupcakes/

I did it a bit differently though so here's the recipe-

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PALEO EGG MUFFINS 

*Note these aren't my exact measurements. In fact I made way too many veggies which I've stored in the fridge for eggs later this week. This is what I think may work better for 12 egg muffins.

Ingredients:

10-12 eggs whisked well

1.5 cup broccoli

1 cup spinach

1 green pepper 

6 pieces bacon (or sausage) FULLY COOKED

coconut oil

other suggested ingredients from websites I saw: onions, zucchini, egg whites, roasted red & yellow peppers

Instructions:

-Preheat oven to 400 degrees

-Grease muffin pans with olive oil

-Saute veggies in a frying pan over medium heat with the coconut oil.

-Cut off sauteing process about half-way through cooking. Veggies will finish in oven

-Mix the veggies and bacon 

-Divide veggie/bacon mix evenly between muffin tins

-Stir veggie and egg mixture briefly to disperse evenly in tins

-Bake the egg muffins in oven for approx 20 minutes. Cooking time may vary depending on the tin and oven

-Let the muffins cool and store in your fridge...They typically keep for about a week

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For a snack I made the strawberry banana almond butter smoothie. delicious again. I stored it in my work fridge. Then for lunch I had a work meeting at a restaurant and just about the only think I could order was a grilled chicken salad with oil and vinegar for dressing. For a snack later I had a few raw almonds. 

So for dinner I had the pulled pork and paleo bbq sauce...the pork turned out great but the bbq sauce tasted like nothing. There has to be a better paleo recipe. 

Here's what I did for the pork:

PULLED PORK

Ingredients: 

2 lb. pork tenderloin

2 cups broth (I used chicken) 

1 onion

2 cloves garlic 

full cloves (which I completely forgot) 

Instructions: 

1. Cover bottom of crock pot with onion, garlic and broth. I chopped the onion but the recipe didn't specify

2. Pierce tenderloin with cloves

3. Cook on low for 7-9 hours

And I suggest finding a good bbq sauce! 

I made zucchini with this. I heated some coconut oil and seasoned the zucchini with rosemary, oregano and pepper and sautéed for about 10-15 minutes. delicious! 

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For exercise today I walked around my neighborhood for 20 minutes.

I go to Trivia every tuesday at an Irish pub and it was rough! I wanted a beer but passed, then my table ordered homemade chips with blue cheese crumbles...ugh...I passed again. 

I still really want chocolate, I don't think this craving will ever go away. 

Day 3

I feel like I ate too much today and I made my first mistake but I'm going to be way more careful now.

For brunch, I had my leftover frittata again, 2 mini paleo pancakes, and a small orange/tangerine. Drank coffee with some coconut milk.

Around 5:30 I had leftover chicken enchilada bake but this time I topped it with avocado and it is DELICIOUS! I also ate half an apple.

This is where I made my mistake. ugh. We went to a bbq with lotsa yummy food so I ate a hot dog with no bun and a hamburger patty. I topped both with a tiny bit of chili. The hot dog was too processed and the chili is probably not paleo whatsoever. It's only day 3 but I feel gross after that and I'm going to be way more careful now. blah. I haven't eaten anything since.

For exercise I went to the YMCA pool and swam 50 lengths or 25 laps. I don't know if it's a 25 meter pool or olympic sized but I'm guessing 25 meter. I did that in about 40 minutes.

Right now, in preparation for tomorrow and possibly the week, I'm making paleo egg muffins and did the prep work for pulled pork with paleo bbq sauce. I'll share the recipes tomorrow and hopefully I can get my pictures up!

Lesson learned today: DON'T cheat, even if it's not that bad and wasn't that much. It's just sitting in my stomach. yuck.

Day 2

Today was a lot less cooking due to the massive amounts of food I cooked yesterday. For breakfast I had my leftover frittata (and there is still enough for tomorrow) as well as 3 mini paleo pancakes. All delicious still. I also still have some pancake batter leftover for tomorrow. I also drank black coffee which I accidentally spilt at church and was totally embarrassed when small puddles of it formed by the family in front of me...

Lunch was rough because everyone after church wanted to go to Mi Pueblo, a delicious mexican restaurant with the most delicious cheesy burritos. Not to mention chips n salsa, diet coke... But I kept reminding myself of my weight and chub (haha) and ordered unsweet tea...in the south it's either unsweet (or what is considered regular iced tea where I'm from) or "sweet tea" (sweetest tea ever), and a guacamole salad which was lettuce, tomatoes, guacamole, and I ordered grilled chicken to top it. No cheese, no dressing.

A few hours later I tried my first paleo smoothie to try and subside my chocolate and sugar cravings. I thought it might be good to try it with some almond butter. Inspired by some recipes I looked up, this is what I made:

STRAWBERRY/BANANA ALMOND BUTTER SMOOTHIE
3/4 cup frozen strawberries
1/2 of a banana
about 1 cup of almond milk (I didn't really measure, it's kinda something I just eye)
2 tablespoons almond butter
a few iced cubes

I put it all in my awesome magic bullet and it turned out SO good. I probably shouldn't get used to putting almond butter in it there because it's so expensive. Do any of you know a place with reasonably priced almond butter?
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I also had some leftover chicken enchilada bake which I'll probably eat some more of later and tomorrow :) I was also thinking I'd record my workouts for my sake as well as accountability. Yesterday I didn't do anything because I shopped and cooked so much then had to work at 5:30. Today me and Aindrea went walking for about 40 minutes with our dog and I'm going to do some crunches as well.

Day 1...part 2

For dinner I made a Chicken Enchilada Bake. Instead of writing out the recipe I'll put a link: http://cfscceat.blogspot.com/2010/05/paleo-chicken-enchilada-bake.html

Be warned, it is SPICY. If you like spicy you'll love it. If not, I recommend still trying it out but putting less spices and the chipotle peppers. It also makes a lot so it's great for leftovers. It took me about an hour and a half total from start to finish, but that's a bit longer than it should take because I forgot to boil and shred the chicken first thing.

I already seriously miss chocolate! And diet coke. I don't know what is going to replace chocolate but I'm drinking iced tea way more now instead of diet coke. Hopefully after the first few days I'll stop craving chocolate/sugar so much.

My roommates and I are going out and instead of the usual beer I'll get red wine. I don't think that's really party of Paleo but Cristin did it so I'm doing it ;)

Day 1

The last day or so I've been preparing to start this Paleo 30 day "diet". Which reminds me, I should never call it a "diet", according to my boss Sherry, because guess what the first 3 letters spell? DIE. She believes we should call it a life change, or way of living, or whatever. The thing is Paleo doesn't seem like too much of a diet to me...yet. I will miss chocolate and sweetning my coffee. But I am very excited to see how it feels to cut out all the carbs and sugar. Something I eat makes me feel bloated and I'm guessing it falls into that category.

Last night and this morning I went to Lowe's Foods and Wal-Mart. I spent way too much money but I got a ton of food- meat, fruit, nuts, veggies, coconut oil, almond butter, eggs. No gluten, bread, grains, sugar stuff, candy, cheese, anything dairy, not even beans.

If I wasn't a dork before, I definitely am now. I printed out the paleo stuff Cristin sent me and organized it into a binder with different sections. I also semi-planned the meals that me and Aindrea would eat for the week. It's pretty tentative though because the recipes I plan on making don't have a serving size so I have no idea how much each recipe will make.

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Today I made brunch- Frittata and Paleo Pancakes.

FRITTATA: (the way I made it, not exactly what the recipe said)
Ingredients:
12 eggs, beaten
1/2 red onion, diced
1/2 bag spinach
2 green peppers
7 pieces of bacon, cooked and chopped
4 pieces of sausage, cooked
coconut oil

There were more onions & mushrooms in the original recipe but I don't like mushrooms and the amount of onions in it was absurd. Although I wish I had green onions, those would actually be pretty good.

Instructions:
1. Saute all vegetables (except spinach) and meat until vegetables are tender. (Before this it took about 10 minutes to cook the bacon, and I bought pre-cooked sausage that needed to be microwaved). Takes about 10 minutes to saute veggies.

2. Add 1/2 bag spinach. Cook until the spinach has cooked down. Spread veggies evenly over bottom of skillet.

3. Pour eggs evenly over the veggies mixture. DO NOT mix once eggs are poured on top.

4. Cover and cook on low heat for about 20 minutes. It's done when it's solid.
Now mine was a bit burnt on the bottom but perfect on top. I think it's because I accidentally heated it over Medium heat, now low heat.

5. Drain excess liquid. Flip onto a plate and slide back into skillet so that the top side cooks for about 5 minutes. Maybe you'll have better luck here than me.

*Next time, unless I have a huge party, I'd do about half the ingredients because I have a ton of leftovers! This turned out really good and it's a great brunch option. It takes kind of a long time though.

PALEO PANCAKES:
Ingredients:
2 eggs
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/2 cup almond butter
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
coconut oil

Instructions:
1. Mix all ingredients except coconut oil until you have a uniform batter.

2. Use a bit of coconut oil to grease a non-sticket skillet.

3. Spread some of the batter into a skillet to form a pancake. (Smaller pancakes are easier to flip) Then cook over low/medium heat.

4. Flip after 1-2 minutes being careful not to burn.

5. I didn't put any toppings on it, but the recipe recommends apples & cinnamon, heated blueberries, or unsweetened applesauce & cinnamon

*This turned out pretty good! I made 2 small ones and am saving the batter for the next couple days.

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I also need to get used to drinking coffee without sweetner, and it's not bad. CJ predicts I'll soon like it better than with sugar. We'll see!

Now I might make chili since it has to simmer for a few hours. For a snack I may make a smoothie but I am REALLY full right now.

So far, so good but it's only been half a day. Oh and per recommendation from Cristin, I weighed myself and am going to measure myself and check again in 30 days. Definitely have some motivation.

To Paleo or Not to Paleo

30 days is just 30 days. I'm pretty sure the previous 30 days were stolen from me, I'm not sure where they went. So if I did strictly paleo in 30 days, wouldn't it be over before I know it? The last diet I was on I lost weight, it's true, but it was never sustainable and extremely strict. Looking at paleo recipes I'm fairly excited. All the meat I want. Fruits and veggies. A recipe that looks like a real brownie. Dairy makes me feel gross anyways and I'm sure carbs and wheat are what makes me feel bloated. If I can feel a difference in a week I'll make it through the rest.

Since I have this blog, I thought it'd be fun to record my 30 days. I don't know when I'm starting, but after stepping on the scale tonight I'm pretty sure it'll have to be ASAP.