Paleo Food Experiment

Success is all in the preparation.  For this part of the food challenge we have been largely unprepared.  Never mind that my world was tipped upside down from my recent Advanced NSA Seminar, the food challenge must continue!  

Day 21- or Day Zero- I delayed the start of this portion of the challenge so that it wouldn't coincide with my day of travel and airports.  Which meant it was a part-Vegan day, a little bit of cheat day, merging into some meat later in the journey.  When I say cheat, all I mean is I had some yogurt with breakfast, had an incredibly stressful morning so barely ate anyways, and then cleaned out the fridge (Vegan) for lunch.  I had my first meat at the airport with a taco salad (yes, I am in the US) and wine-great combo.  

Day 22-25 (Days 1-4) I have very little recollection of food this week-Scott has cooked 3 dinners and we also went out for one.  Relatively standard-meat and vegetables, although we are figuring out this diet.  He accidently cooked a ragout with beans while we debated if we should eat it if we were paleo (no).  And we've cracked a couple times with cheese-I really don't recommend keeping it in the house.  For the record, a strict paleo would not eat dairy, but some feel it is ok to eat yogurt, cheese, or other aged/ fermented products.  

Otherwise, it's going ok.  I'm not an eggs for breakfast daily, so I've been eating about 1 1/2 pieces of fruit with hemp, flax, pumpkin & sunflower seeds, and coconut.  (Chia would be great but we're out until our food coop on Sunday).  My usual non-food experiment breakfast is fruit, yogurt and granola, so you can see what I'm trying to replicate.   

Lunch-Big spinache salad with vegetables, avocado, boiled egg, hemp, olive oil.  (This is fine for the moment but I could not do salads forever).  Sometimes soup.  I frequently eat omelettes for lunch, but it seems to heavy for me at the moment.  

Dinner-Easiest meal as we frequently eat meat.  Paleo has been the easiest to "eat out" with-meat, vegetables, potatoes, skip the bread, and cheat on dessert so I can have cheesecake.  It was gluten free though!  

Snacks- Nuts, seeds, boiled egg, leftovers, hot dogs sans bun...Avocados of course.  

We've still managed to stay off the refined wheat/ bread.  I have had a piece of Manna bread (sprouted grains).  As usual, I'm finding that I'm hungry at lot.  Scott has been juicing daily which is completely impressive.  

See how I'm cheating so far?!?!  I've also LOST 3 pounds since I've been home.  My body LOVES paleo!  I even skipped the gym this week.  In comparison, my weight kept jumping up with vegan, although it did end up finishing the same as I started.  

I'm on the weekend now, so if I find some spare time, I'll look for some snack-paleo recipes.  

On a side note, I have commented before on how our emotions are tied to our food.  What I'm seeing at the moment is that with every diet "switch" it throws an element of uncertainty into my world.  I hadn't known that I would react to this, but I am seeing that I have a huge emotional tie to this certainty.  It is normally a stable area in my life that provides constancy to other craziness.  (No worries, I've had a lovely week.  It was only busier than I expected.)

Day 26/27 (Day 5/6) - Ah, the weekend.  We've followed a few recipes from www.paleoplan.com.  I indulged in some chocolate cupcakes, which were still paleo congruent.  

Paleo flour-less chocolate cupcakes!

Our experiment within the experiment...Burgers from our local drive thru, but just skipping the buns.  We indulge and usually feel sick afterwards, but this time, definitely "less ill" than with the wheat!   Yes, we still had fries with that, although that's probably not paleo.

The week ahead-we have a stocked fridge and more recipes to rely on.  My travel lag is done and we're all set to go for the next four days!