I did it!

About every week or so my husband and I go to our favorite restaurant, Taqueria del Sol. I absolutely LOVE their chips-- and by love I mean I do not leave unless all chips are eaten (which equates to over-eating and feeling sick)! With my brother-in-law an his girlfriend in town, we wanted them to experience the deliousness known as Taqueria del Sol. But we haven't been there since we started eating Paleo- and I know chips and tortilla's on not on that plan! I was a little apprehensive about going because I would have to be so picky about ordering and didn't want to make our company uncomfortable. We had explained our lifestyle to them the first day they arrived, so they didn't judge or pester us and it went well. So we went and I ordered two tacos (and only ate the meat inside) and a side of coleslaw--NO CHIPS. Now our company of course had the cheese dip with chips, but I didn't even steal one...not even one!! This is a milestone-- a huge, huge milestone. (of note, I did tell my husband I am having taqueria chips for my birthday at the end of the month=)

Small Success

I got on the scale this morning and have lost about a pound or so since I started this Paleo lifestyle. I am celebrating this success because I have a goal of one pound a week to keep it realistic and not expect too much from myself. With a smile on my face I was off to the gym at 5:35am (I actually got up)!

After dinner tonight my husband said, "I really like this Paleo diet" and of course I had to correct him, "Paleo lifestyle." After all, a diet is a fad, and Paleo is here to stay!!!

Water+Laptop BAD Vacation GOOD

Sorry for the absence-- my computer crashed after I knocked over my water bottle on my macbook:( It was a very sad day (especially since the next day I dropped my phone in the toliet-oh but it's working now!). So without a laptop it is harder to do convenient posts from my kitchen table.

On a positive note, my husband and I took an early anniversary trip to Charleston, SC! We had a great time aside from getting burned sea kyaking due to forgetting the sunblock. We are both very proud of ourselves for staying 80% Paleo while down there. It was easy to eat seafood, cutout the starch by asking for double vegetables, skipping an appetizer, and even dessert! Of course we had some drinks, but it is our 2 year anniversary and I don't feel bad about celebrating that at all!! At breakfast, I resisted delicious french toasts, pancakes, biscuits and gravy for a nice omelete, fruit, and bacon. We both felt so good, never too overstuffed that I didn't want to do anything. And after attempting to find a dessert stop around 10:30pm and finding everything closed, I realized that I didn't really need the dessert-- it was just habit kicking in. So now that I have had success skipping dessert and feeling good, I think it will be easier. Having a partner to do this with sure makes it easier!

Planning is a MUST
After we got home around 7 pm Sunday night, I had to think about the next day-- first day of the summer semester for me. I am in my last semester getting my Masters in teaching Math. Because I have class MW 8-4 and TR 12-4 I will have to pack many meals and snacks.
I made more egg muffins and tuna salad for the week to prepare me.
Breakfast: egg muffin, frozen berries in container
Lunch: tuna salad, almonds, small apple
Snack: walnut dip, red bell peppers for dipping

I am excited to see me planning everthing out. The planning continued to dinner
Mon: Chicken curry in crockpot with cauliflower and side of butternut squash
Tues: Stuffed bell peppers with brocolli

My husbands brother and grilfriend are coming to stay with us Wednesday night through Saturday so we had to think about what we will cook for them so we have it on hand. I had thought maybe I should put a startch on the meal plan, but decided, it is my house and vegetables are great!!

So here is to a great week of Paleo eating:)

Food Processor

I forgot to tell you that I bought a 12 cup Cuisinart Elite Food Processor to handle jobs of the recipes I've been trying (my mini 3 cups just wasn't big enough). It is simiply amazing. Food goes in, bam: all cut up! And it handles very nicely:) I plan to leave in on my countertop all the time to make it easy to use (My excuse for 'I have no where to store it and it weighs a ton to be moving it all the time!')

Damn Package

Got the mail today and sure enough my mother-in-law sent us a box. There is always some kind of sweet in the darn thing and this time it happened to be jelly beans (my husbands favorite). I looked once at the little sack begging me to take it out of the box, and turned the other way:) So why the 'Damn Package' title to this post-- because she sent a huge bag of pistachios and 2 packets of beef jerky. I do consider these paleo (beefy jerky is debatable by some), that is not the problem: it is my pre-Paleo habits that instinctively took over. Was I hungry? Nope. Did I want to eat some nuts and beef jerky because I had not had them in a while? Yes. So I had half a package of jerky and a handful of pistachios. Not terrible. But then before I came up here to blog, I grabbed the pistachios back out of the cupboard to have some more. While standing up eating them I told myself, okay take a drink of water between every 2-3 pistachios thinking I would fill up with water and stop eating. Nope. Instead I ended up drinking all my water and only then made myself stop eating them. Now I have a belly ache from being so full and bloated. That is terrible.

I hope I figure a way to stop this problem soon because eating too much of the clean stuff will still prevent me from reshaping my body!

Day 3 meal plan

Breakfast: Leftover Egg Muffins with blueberries
Lunch: Chicken Cabbage Slaw
Dinner: Leftover Meaty Mushrooms

Will This Really Work?

I feel like I am eating so much food. Will I really lose weight by eating Paleo? Interestingly I feel like at meals I am getting full...and I actually LEFT FOOD on my plate. But even so, I am not really watching my portions and of course am not counting calories so how can I be sure this will work? Ideally, I want my muscle to show, but I still have that weight loss goal in my head. To lose one pound a week I need to cut 500 calories a day and I certainly don't feel like I am doing this, especially when I snack on nuts! I really need to relearn to read my body's hunger signs and to honor them.

Well on a positive note, food today was delicious:) Here are the recipes below adapted from everydaypaleo.com:

EGG MUFFINS

12 eggs whisked well

2 green onion

2 zucchini

3 big handfuls of spinach

1/2 a jar of roasted red and yellow peppers (no liquid)

8 slices of COOKED bacon

sea salt and black pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350 and grease with olive oil two muffin pans. Whisk all your eggs in a big bowl. In a food processor throw in the green onion, zucchini, bacon, and peppers and process until finely chopped but NOT smooth (yuck…). Add this mixture to your eggs. Throw your spinach into the processor and finely chop and also add to your eggs. Mix the egg mixture well and using a 1/4 measuring cup, fill the muffin pans (you’ll be able to make 20-22 cupcakes). Bake for 20-25 minutes or until the eggs are set in the middle.

This next recipe called for coconut flour or almond meal, neither of which I had. I saw almond meal at the store-- a whopping one pound bag for $12.00. YIKES. So I opted out, and figure 1/4 cup in a 4 serving meal wouldn't be the worse thing. I did it, I used Panko instead. I think I'll take to the internet to find some cheaper almond meal.

My husband would not stop raving about these!

MEATY Mushrooms (sorry the photo doesn't do the meal justice)

4 BIG Portobello Mushrooms

1.5 lbs ground beef

1 lb ground spicy Italian turkey sausage

3 celery stalks diced

½ green bell pepper diced

½ red bell pepper diced

1 red onion diced

Diced mushroom stems

1 tsp paprika

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

2 tbsp dried basil

1 tbsp tarragon

6 crushed garlic cloves

Pinch of sea salt

Black pepper to taste

1 egg

1/4 cup olive oil

1/4 cup coconut flour (or I’m sure almond meal would work just fine too!)

Preheat oven to 400. Use a moist paper towel to gently clean the mushrooms. Remove the stems and set them aside and carefully scoop out the feathery insides of the mushrooms with a spoon. Rub the outsides of the mushrooms with olive oil and place cap down in a large glass baking dish. Dice the bell peppers, onions, celery stalks, and mushroom stems. In a large soup pot brown the sausage and ground beef, add the bell peppers, onions, celery, and mushrooms and cook until the veggies are tender. Move the meat/veggie mixture to a food processor and add all the spices, the egg, olive oil and the coconut flour. Process until the mixture is finely chopped but NOT mushy, it should be chopped fine but still chunky. Scoop mixture into the mushroom caps – make them really full. Spoon any remaining mixture around the mushrooms and cook your stuffed mushrooms in the preheated oven for 20 minutes or until brown and bubbly.