I am a fantastic cook.

I have been on this bandwagon for 18 days now and I haven't had the same Paleo dish twice.  I might start putting recipes on here.  My strategy is to build my imaginary dinner plate in my mind before I go to the store.  I have been sticking to the rule of one serving lean protein always served over a big salad of leafy green stuff, and one or two side dishes of some sort of legal vegetable dish.  I have found that putting the lean protein over the salad forces me to eat it because as I cut the meat, I'm subconsciously forcing leafy green stuff onto my fork as well.  I don't feel like I've been eating ridiculous amounts of salad EVEN THOUGH I have been.  I even put my 'fried' eggs or omelets over salad, too.  MMMM, lettuce.

Not much to report other than I've been trying to play tennis.  I apologize to those on the nearby road who have dealt with tennis balls zooming past them... those court fences aren't high enough.  In all actuality, I'm really tired.  I'm getting barely enough calories/day to be sedentary, let alone be 'moderately active'.  I still can't talk myself into drenching everything in fat/oil and eating lots of meat because that still makes my stomach hurt.

Day 16, con't. July 23, 2012
Lunch:  One chicken caesar salad from Planet Sub, sans cheese, croutons, banana peppers (gross), dressing on the side.

Dinner:  My parent's house served tacos, so I got out a bowl and put in a heaping pile of shredded lettuce, some tomatoes, green onions, red bell pepper, and some of the seasoned ground turkey.  I topped it off with salsa.
NOTE TO SELF: How to survive debate room hospitality on taco day.
Picture:  The yellow things are tomatoes, not peaches.

Day 17, July 24, 2012
Breakfast:  Kind Granola with milk (carb loading for my tennis excursion)

Lunch:  One banana.  Bad.

Dinner:  One pork loin chop over mixed greens, asparagus, sauteed mushrooms and peppers, prepared in olive oil.

Day 18, July 25, 2012
Breakfast:  none.  woops.

Lunch: Chipotle hard tacos with chicken, mild tomato salsa, guac.

Dinner:  Chicken breast over baby romaine, portobella mushroom cap with spinach/roma tomato filling, balsamic reduction vinaigrette.

Gluttony!

In my last post, I wondered if I could survive the weekend.

The answer is, "No."

Thursday went well.  I made it all the way to the end of the day, at which point my supposedly supportive dieting friend coerced me into a cupcake.  It actually gave me a really bad headache.

**Warning:  Non-diet ranting ahead.**
Friday wasn't much better, but I didn't want to be a funsucker.  My sister and I traveled to St. Louis (pronounced 'street louis' if you are my husband) to catch a free Offspring show, my most favoritist band ever.  EVER.  I have been to their shows before and it's usually a high-impact cardio work out.  I had an Amy's organic spinach pizza for lunch, and my sis and I shared a small pizza for dinner at the first available restaurant that had a table open in downtown STL.
We went to the show and I wanted to live-tweet during the experience for all of the ridiculous stupidity I saw... but it was a free show, so I guess I can't complain...?  I actually couldn't live-tweet because my phone sucks, so here are my observations and guidelines if you should ever decide to go to a punk-rock show:


1st Guideline:  Do your homework.
The Offspring is a great band.  They use a lot of profanity, which I like.
One lyric from the song 'Bad Habit':  "...[y]ou stupid dumbshit goddamn mother fucker!"
Don't get offended.
Also, when listening to a recording of a Nirvana song play while the show sets up, don't loudly comment how much you hate The Foo Fighters because they stole away Dave Grohl.  Are you f*cking kidding me?

2nd Guideline:  Understand your surroundings.
Don't bring your girlfriend (everyone hates the defensive boyfriend), and especially don't bring your 5 year old child to a punk rock concert and plan to safely stand in the front.  Even if you're not sure about The Offspring, do take note of the plethora of drunken college frat boys around and their intention to ignore the "NO MOSHING" signs.  There's a reason why everyone pushed you into the fence when the show started.  I don't mind moshing, but I got stuck next to over-protective-dumb mom who was screaming at everyone to stop standing near her and her small daughter. (Lady, I would love to move, but I am smashed against 20 other people who aren't moving.  I don't have a lot of options here.)  I ended up playing half-mosher/half-bodyguard by holding on to the metal fence and trying to push the crowd away from the 5 year old WHILE jumping around and singing along to every song.  I might not agree with the mother's choice, but I didn't want the kid to get hurt.  It's not fair your parent's are dumb.  At least she thanked me for helping.

3rd Guideline:  Don't show up if you're homeless.
The show was free.  Anyone could come in. There were two guys having a hell of a time during the opening band.  From my own observation, they looked a little rough.  And, they didn't really fit in with all of the...well, rich white people. Security escorted them out TWICE, and even I have no idea why.  They didn't do anything besides dance along with the music and smoke legal substances.  Whatever.

In the end, the band played for 1.5 hours, and if you read my 2nd guideline, you can understand that I had one hell of a cardio/upperbody workout.  I wasn't concerned about anything I ate Friday because concerts are great workouts!!!

Saturday and Sunday were another story.  Epic Fail.

Day 13, July 19, 2012
Breakfast:  One cranberry-nut Kind bar, one bag of almonds, coffee (QuickTrip breakfast!)

Lunch:  Iceberg lettuce, tomato, watermelon, banana.  (Debate clinic!)

Dinner:  Chicken sandwich sans cheese/sauce/bread, salad.  Newcastle. (Old Chicago!)

Late night snack:  Vanilla bean cupcake!  (AMC 30 Fork & Screen, and Trey Witt is a terrible influence.)

Day 14, July 20, 2012
Breakfast:  Water, red velvet cupcake. (Leftover from the night before, and my sugar headache frenzy just wanted food.  And it was just sitting there on the kitchen counter, beckoning me to enjoy it.)

Lunch:  Amy's Organic Individual Low-Sodium Spinach Pizza (was meant for Josh, but oh well.)

Dinner:  Half of a small cheese pizza and one coke. (Still combating the cupcake headache, caffeine helps.)

Workout:  One punk rock concert.

Day 15, July 21, 2012
Brunch:  Crepe with sausage, cheese, apple syrup and some weird spicy aioli sauce.  We went to a fancy pants restaurant in downtown STL.  Might not be Paleo, but it was fanTASTIC.

Dinner:  Royals game.  I shudder to share this:  Two turkey hotdogs with cheese, doritos, skinny girl margarita.  One vodka/soda once inside.  We made s'mores while waiting for the traffic to clear.  S'mores are my favorite, so of course I had one.

Day 15, July 22, 2012
Breakfast:  Slept through it.

Lunch:  Salad with chicken, avocado, tomato.  (Hooray!)

Dinner:  Papa John's pepperoni pizza.  (BOO!)
**This gave me the worst gut-ache.  Like, clutching my stomach and cradled in the fetal position in my bed.  Josh ate it too and because he's been so good with low-sodium, this meal gave him and awful headache.  Like, he had to go lay down in the basement where it's really cold and near a bathroom, because his migraines make him nauseous.  So much for our date night! :(

Day 16, July 23, 2012 (so far)
Breakfast:  Mixed green salad with mushrooms and one 'fried' egg (The pan was dry, but I don't know how else to describe it.)

Chocolate!

I just made chocolate sauce from 1 tbs. local honey, 1 tbs. cocoa powder, and a splash of scalding hot water.  And I'm eating it on strawberries.  I just shut up several insane cravings with this mixture, and I don't feel that I'm cheating at all.  I guess cocoa powder is technically processed cocoa beans, but hey, give me a break.  There's no white processed devil sugar, right?

Day 11
July 17, 2012

Breakfast:  omelet with peppers and spinach.

Lunch:  carrots and almond butter.

Dinner:  One bbq-ed chicken drumstick that my mom made (I took off the skin), salad, tomato/cucumber/red onion salad.

Evening snack:  My sister talked me into going to get fro-yo.  They have a pineapple option that is dairy-free, so I got an itty bitty serving of that topped with cashews, strawberries, blueberries and mango.

Day 12
July 18, 2012

Breakfast:  one egg over-medium over sauteed spinach.

Lunch:  tomato/cucumber/red onion salad, and a handful of grapes.

Afternoon Snack:  One carrot.

Dinner:  Chicken soup made with one chicken breast, one carrot, one celery stalk, one green onion, s/p, garlic, water.  I served it over baby spinach.  I ate it by myself, because no one in my family would eat that many vegetables in one sitting!  But this did open a nice debate between my dad and me about carbs.  I did also have a couple spoonfuls of my banana/avocado/blueberry 'ice cream', and it's dang tasty.  Next time I want to use an ice cream maker so it's easier to eat.

Evening snack: Strawberries with the chocolate sauce mentioned above.

Tomorrow begins a long 'weekend' of activities that will be temptation overload - I hope I can stay on track!  It's been easy so far... but then again, I've been at home the whole time.

Still going!

Can't believe I've been doing this for ten days.  Hooray!

As long as I'm paying attention and can stay motivated, this might be a life style change.  I feel great.  I finally have a mental aversion to junk food... hopefully I'm not calling it too soon.  You shouldn't pick a winner in the 1st inning.

Day 9, con't.
Dinner:
Shrimp Soup: shrimp, carrots, onions, celery, jalapeno, garlic, curry powder, coconut milk, water.  It was fan-frickin'-tabulous.

Day 10 July 16, 2012
Breakfast:
Smoothie:  strawberries, cocoa powder, splash of coconut milk (leftover from last night's soup!!), ice.  I forgot to add honey, so it was just okay.

Lunch:
Sbux black unsweetened iced tea w/skim milk  (BAD NATALIE)

Dinner:
Chicken Cobb Salad with Avocado from Panera w/o cheese (wish I would have asked for no dressing... the avocado was plenty.)
Apple
Iced Tea

I also made some avocado/banana/blueberry/honey/coconutmilk 'ice cream', but I haven't tried it yet.  Hopefully it's delish.

I've got the shakes!

I have survived to Day 9!  I feel really good except for the shakes.  No, not the chocolate shakes I wish I was consuming...  In the mornings, long after my gluten-free granola but right before lunch, I feel shake-y and weird.  I'm not sure if that's because I'm eating granola for breakfast or if my body is withdrawing from my usual calorie intake, OR some wild combination of both.

I think that I've been able to stay faithful to Paleo because I haven't really gone anywhere all weekend... I've just been dog-sitting.  Literally, I'm sitting and watching dogs.  Plus there's no booze here so I can't binge drink all weekend.  Just kidding.

Day 8
Saturday, July 14, 2012

Breakfast:
Kind cinnamon granola, splash o' milk, coffee

Lunch:
Mixed Lettuce Salad with mushrooms, red bell pepper, two carrots.

Afternoon snack:
Smoothie with 2 apricots, blueberries, raspberries, almond butter, ice.  BTW, my parent's blender sucks.

Dinner:
Chicken soup with 1 chicken breast, one stalk of celery, one carrot, Louisiana Hot Sauce, dried onions.  Made with water, not stock/broth.

Calorie count from myplate.com : 913
(Still not comfortable with this, but not sure how to add calories without adding MORE fat/sugar.  I'm eating as much protein as I can handle w/o grossing myself out.)


Day 9
Sunday, July 15, 2012

Breakfast:
Same ole granola, milk, coffee.

Lunch:
1egg/2eggwhite omelet with chicken, 1/2 red bell pepper, on a mixed green salad.  I feel ethically bad for eating an omelet with chicken... (SCREW YOU, MR. ROOSTER.  I ATE YOUR WIFE AND YOUR UNBORN CHILDREN!  BWAHAHAAAA.)

Dinner:
TBD

Slowly getting used to this...

Survived another day.  Let's see if I can survive the weekend!

Day 7 July 13th, 2012

Breakfast:  Kind cinnamon oat granola, itty-bitty splash of 2% milk, coffee.  (I honestly do consume only the 1/3 cup recommended serving size with a tbs of milk to give it some palatibility.)

Lunch:  a Spicy Thai Wrap turned into a salad at Twisted in Shawnee.  Basically a salad with chicken breast and a spicy pico de gallo type relish on top.  Didn't use the dressing.  Scraped off as much cheese as possible... didn't know Thai food came with cheese.  Irregardlessly, it was dang good.  Also, lunch included a free therapy session.  :)

Dinner:  Chicken breast, salad, sauteed carrot/red bell pepper/mushrooms.  Then, a small bowl of blueberries/raspberries/1apricot w/honey.

myplate.com claims I've only consumed 795 calories today, and that concerns me.  Not sure how to increase calories when I'm so full of salad... I'm not hungry.  WELL I probably will be in about an hour.  HA!

Me vs. My Parent's House

I knew this day was coming... the day I would experience the #1 killer of all diets-- the carb-abundant pantry at my parent's house.  While driving over here, I repeatedly told myself that I better go to the store and load up on snacks before my 4-day dog-sitting excursion, but I decided to put it off until tomorrow.  Silly me.  Upon arrival I found chips and cookies and cakes, oh my.  And my evening snacking craving arrived on schedule around 10p.  After lots of internal criticism and debate over which of the 6 boxes of cereal would be better, the fridge instead granted me my dad's recently expired jar of almond butter, a bag of celery sticks from ??? and some blueberries from the 4th's bbq.  And that's what I ate.  And I'm really goshdang proud of myself... as long as I don't get food poisoning.  Just kidding, everything looked/smelled/tasted non-life threatening.  I would say it tasted fine, but I hate celery.

-------------------
July 12, 2012
Breakfast:  same as yesterday... granola/half/coffee

Lunch: two egg omelet, spring mix salad, salsa.  Some almonds.

Dinner: chicken breast, stir fry vegetables (found them lurking in the depths of my freezer!), blackberry/mango 'ice cream'.  It really wasn't ice cream, just a blended mess of frozen fruit I found in my freezer with the last bit of half and half in the fridge, with some honey and lemon juice for flavor.  Myplate.com said it was only 86 cal/serving, so I don't feel too bad.  THE HALF AND HALF IS NOW GONE!!... to the dismay of my husband.