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.

Half Timer, pt. 2

Back again.  I forgot to mention the granola I had for breakfast with a small splash of half and half SINCE there's no milk in the house.  I'm doing my best to try to remove the dairy from the house.  I like the granola we buy made by Kind which is gluten free and minimally processed.  It begs me to ask - Is Paleo grain-free or gluten-free?  I haven't read a specific yes or no on the blogs I've read, and I'm too cheap to buy the books.  Did the cave man and his dinosaur eat quinoa, oats and the sort?

____________________________________________________________________
Day 5, updated. July 11, 2012

Breakfast - 1/3 cup Kind Blueberry Vanilla Granola, 1 tbs half and half.  2 Ibuprofen.

Lunch - See previous post.

Dinner - 4 oz Cod.  Green beans.  Broccoli Florets.  1/2 of a carrot.  Strawberry/blueberry tumble with a squeeze of honey.  2 more ibuprofens.

HOPEFULLY I HAVE NOTHING TO ADD TO THIS TONIGHT! :)

Half-Timer

Day Four and Five are singing the same tune as One, Two and Three; I can stay consistent part of the day, but the other parts are a cheater's paradise.  Of course, I have heaping multitudes of excuses to rationalize my food selections.  Who doesn't?  I think we all go through these issues when we try to make lifestyle changes.

Here's the issue I am currently working through, and the issue I always combat when I try something "restrictive" with dieting and food:

I start the day on-diet.  I can usually get through the day on-diet.  Usually, the dinner is on-diet or mostly on-diet.  So in the evening, I feel great!  Then, this internal dialogue takes place: "Woo-hoo, go me!  I did it! I stayed on track!  I'm so awesome!...I'm still hungry!  Oh my gosh, I'm starving! If I don't eat now, I'm pretty sure I will die!  Ok, I won't die, but tomorrow I am gonna feel terrible because I didn't eat anything today, so I better eat something now so I can stay on target tomorrow.  Yeah, that makes sense.  [Raid Kitchen] Well, all the food I have is for tomorrow, and I don't want to eat that because I need to eat it tomorrow, so I'll eat [insert unhealthy thing lurking in my pantry], and it's okay because I was on target all day, and this will keep me on target tomorrow.  I win!... "

Or do I?

After a couple days of this, I am so disappointed in myself that I throw in the towel and eat whatever I want. Usually this occurs during the time of my mother nature attack and I crave all things fatty and salty and chocolaty.  TMI, I know, but hey - the world is +/- 50% female, so deal with it.  This is the time of the month where I like to use the term 'hangry', anger out of hunger.

Since today equals Day 5 AND I'm dealing with the monthly gift from mother nature that my husband sarcastically calls 'happy-fun-time', I am in the right place to have this cycle of dieting come to a close.

Luckily, I am confident this will go a little longer because my husband is more-or-less on board and I have some other people in my corner who are more or less going through the same thing.

I guess if it wasn't this hard, everyone would do it.

We shall see what happens through the rest of this week.

___________________________________________________________
Day Four: July 10th, 2012 

(Natalie Only, Josh said he went to Wendy's but wouldn't divulge)
Breakfast/Lunch:  One egg and a giant pile of sauteed spinach, black coffee

Happy Hour:  One glass of red wine

Dinner:  One hot dog and one cup of Sheridan's frozen custard (I was watching the All Star Game at Crown Center)

Late Night Snack: One Amy's Organic Rice and Bean and Cheese Burrito, Low-Sodium (it was meant for Josh) with salsa.

Day Five: July 11th, 2012
(So far only for Natalie... It's only 1:55pm at the time of this post!)
Lunch:  Grilled chicken breast marinated in lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, dill, S&P.  Sauteed mushrooms.  Raw Carrot Sticks.  Black Coffee.

Fine. I'll start dieting.

Day 3 of my attempt to try this Paleo Diet, so I guess I'd better start blogging about this so I can keep track of my thoughts, feelings, and most importantly, the food I eat.  I blog like I think and talk and not necessarily in the most proper MLA/APA formatting.  Here we go!

My husband recently came home from the doctor with a prescription for a low-sodium diet.  Coupled with my incessant desire to try new diet fads, we are trying the Paleo Diet (eat like a caveman).  The diet is made up of things that a caveman would have eaten back in his day.  I personally don't remember that interview on 20/20; but supposedly the caveman only ate things they could hunt and/or gather.  I'm assuming dinosaurs did the same thing.  My husband's research found that we can eat all the grasshoppers we want.  Yay.

In all honesty, we are both terrible eaters.  We like comfort foods too much.  We like dining out at very not-healthy restaurants too much.  We both kinda look lumpy.  We've tried other diets, but they didn't last long. Either they were very boring or limited so much that we couldn't survive in the Midwest.  I personally think a lot of diets are a little risky because they cut out some important nutrients, and that keeps me from jumping on bandwagons.  For instance, I can remember a long time ago I knew a girl that went on a diet that wouldn't let her eat things that were crunchy.  I challenged her diet and asked her if she could eat raw carrots, and she replied, "No."  That ain't right.  This Paleo diet seems more legit because I don't think there's anything wrong with a diet high in vegetables, moderate in low-fructose fruits and meats, low in fats, and opposed to carbs and dairy.

Wait... wait... wait.  No carbs?  That's correct.  The diet refutes the agricultural revolution, and the diet argues that our bodies aren't capable of processing carbohydrates from grains.  NO DAIRY???  Right... rationally speaking, the diet says that we humans are the only species on the planet that 1) drink milk from other animals and 2) drink milk past infancy, and so we really shouldn't be consuming it because I guess that's just taboo to a caveman.

That leaves lots and lots of vegetables, meat, and berries and nuts.

I feel like I should go outside and start foraging.

So how will my husband and I tackle this life-style change?  I decided (because I'm smart) that I wanted to go the all natural, "clean" route and buy organic and local.  On Day One, we went to the nice local natural grocery store by our house and stocked up on lots of vegetables and lean meats.  And that was dang expensive.  I'm kind of glad that he has to have low-sodium because that makes it incredibly hard to indulge in the processed foods in the freezers AND that it probably will save me money.  However, even with that high ticket grocery store run, we have cheated every single day during our three day journey.  Baby steps, right?


Here is the abridged version with full details below:


The first day we had a strict Paleo-lunch, but then went to a party and ate... and drank... and got Taco Bell.

Epic Fail.

The second day we had a strict Paleo lunch and dinner... followed by 3 beers for my husband and one adult beverage for myself.  Plus late-night popcorn.

Fail.

Today I attended a concert-festival-type-thing and had two hotdogs... Plus a Pepsi.  My husband went to work and he did better than me at a salad bar, but confessed he had a helping of pasta salad.  I'm not calling it a fail yet because I refused all adult beverages and opted for water all day during the concerts.  PLUS I came home and made both of us omelets with just eggs, mushrooms, spinach and organic salsa.  I've only had water since I got home despite the vodka calling my name in my freezer, beckoning me like Fabio with his margarine spray.

Mild Fail.

We shall see how it goes from here!

__________________________________________________
Day One
July 7, 2012

Breakfast (Wife only, husband skipped breakfast.  BOO!)
1-egg omelet with mushrooms, prepared in vegetable oil

Lunch (Both)
Sauteed Shredded Carrots with a sprinkle of dried dill, a slice of tomato, some microwave broccoli florets.

Dinner (Both)
Chicken Sausages with buns, corn salsa, homemade tomato salsa, Natalie had vodka-sodas, Josh may have had a PBR.

Fourth-Meal (Both, insert sadface)
Josh = Gordita + Double Decker Taco
Natalie = 3 Doritos Tacos
(the honesty is killing me)

Day Two
July 8, 2012

Breakfast (Both)
Coffee (woke up a little late from the taco-hangover)

Lunch (Both)
Grilled Chicken Breast, spring-mix greens, carrots, strawberries, balsamic reduction.  That was dang good... plus we ate the extra strawberries from the pint.

Dinner (Both)
Salmon Burgers (gluten-free), more spring-mix greens, and a green bean/mushroom side dish that I whipped up.

Late-night Snack (Both)
Popcorn
Josh = 3 Beers
Natalie = 1 shot of vodka

Day Three
July 9th, 2012

Breakfast
Natalie - small tater tots and a medium coke from Sonic (I needed something before the concert {sad face})
Josh - coffee

Lunch
Natalie - Two hot dogs with mustard, one medium Pepsi, four Aqua Finas
Josh - $8 worth of Hy-Vee Salad bar...

Dinner (Both)
2-egg omelet with baby spinach, mushrooms, green onions, salsa, prepared in olive oil.