Monday, July 1, 2013

June 28 - June 30



June 28, 2013

I had a minor freak Friday this morning when I entered the food that I was planning on eating into my calorie counter. I had to step back and realize that I’m counting calories only as an experiment. I still ate the food despite the slight nagging feeling I have that is telling me that I was eating too many calories. Calories don’t really matter in paleo. Food quality and moderation count. I am moderating my food and I don’t feel like I’m eating too much, though I know I didn’t need that popsicle last night.

I still had that feeling of happiness. Maybe it is because I have a goal that I’m working for, giving me a sense of purpose. Maybe it is because I’m eating wonderful fresh foods (thank you, summer!). Maybe because it was Friday and the weekend was upon us. Maybe it is a placebo effect. Whatever the reason, I don’t care. I’m glad to feel happy. I am going to report the feeling of also being more alert. I don’t know if I am, but I think I might be.

Friday’s meal plan is as follows:

Breakfast:
½ grapefruit
Blood orange Greek yogurt
Beef Jerky

Snack: raisins and almonds

Lunch:
Leftover salmon
½ avocado

 

Snack: dates with peanut butter

Dinner: Leftovers from last night (chicken with red pepper sauce and cole slaw)

I realize I never posted the recipe for that chicken. Here it is:

Chicken with Red Pepper Sauce
2 medium tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped
1 small onion, chopped
1 medium red bell pepper, chopped
1 Tablespoons parsley, chopped
1 Tablespoons basil, chopped
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/4 teaspoon pepper
 4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts
2 Tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup white wine

Put the veggies and spices in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for about 20 minutes. Put it all together in a food processor or blender, and puree until smooth. Pour back into the saucepan and keep warm over very low heat.
In a large frying pan, heat oil. Add chicken breasts; cook about 3 minutes a side until chicken turns white. Add wine; reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes, or until done. Spoon red pepper sauce on plate and arrange chicken on top.


Breakfast: It is true – grapefruit makes you not feel like eating anything else. I didn’t want to eat for about another hour. That was okay with me because I ate that fairly early. Unfortunately, that did make me hungrier earlier in the day – 10:00 AM. I waited until 10:40 to eat my raisins and almonds.

Lunch was as delish as it was on Wednesday. I just love salmon. I felt pretty full afterward, and no wonder! That is a fatty meal.

Dinner was great! My family came over and ate with me and they all liked it too. They also brought over watermelon for dessert.

Saturday and Sunday:

Breakfast:                                                         Breakfast:
2 scrambled eggs                                              Chobani pineapple yogurt
Banana, blackberry, raspberry smoothie            Apple with cinnamon

Snack:                                                             
Raisins and Almonds

Lunch:                                                              Lunch:
Leftovers of chicken & cole slaw                      Scrambled eggs with ham, green peppers
Tomato, basil, mozzarella salad                         onion, and tomato
                                                                        Unsweetened iced tea

Snack:                                                              Snack:
Dates w/ peanut butter                                      glass of white wine
                                                                        popsicle

Dinner:                                                             Dinner:
Ratatouille with ground turkey                           Leftover ratatouille

Dessert:                                                            Dessert:
Popsicle                                                           Dates


I weighed myself on Saturday and I was down a couple of pounds. That makes me feel pretty good. I don't feel like I've lost much weight as of right now (Monday morning), but I didn't weigh myself.

I did get a horrid sunburn on Saturday. I tried treating it with tea as someone suggested, but that didn't work at all. Last night I put aloe on it and I think it looks better today. My chest is still very pink, though. Next time I will bring my own sunblock that is SPF 50 or higher. Oh well. Anyway, I feel very tired right now, but I have a feeling that is from the sunburn and not from the foods I'm eating.

Ratatouille recipe:
(I didn't really follow the recipe I had)
1 Onion
2 cloves garlic (optional)
1 Eggplant
fresh basil
fresh parsley
thyme
other herbs/spices you think might be good
1 Green pepper
1 summer squash
1 zucchini
3 tomatoes
1 lb ground turkey

chop onion
cook the onion in oil for 5-7 minutes in a BIG frying pan - I used 12 inches. While that is cooking chop up eggplant and squash into cubes.
add eggplant and herbs and cook another 5 or so minutes. While that is cooking, chop up remaining veggies.
add the peppers, squash and zucchini cook for about 10 minutes
add tomato and cook for another 5 minutes or until you think it is done.
Brown turkey in a separate pan (only because it didn't fit in mine). Add to vegetable mix.





Thursday, June 27, 2013

June 27, 2013



June 27, 2013 - Happy Birthday to my most wonderful sister, Andrea!! :)

Ah, day two. Not always the best day, but probably better than day 3.

I rode my bike to work today. According to Google it is 3.2 miles from home to work. I know it isn’t much, but it is better than driving the three miles. The great thing is that it takes about as long (or short) as driving does if I park for free by my cousins’ home. I have been riding my bike to work since April, but more steadily since May, and my legs have gotten noticeably stronger which makes me feel good. I also took a quasi-leisurely bike ride on my lunch break for about 40 minutes. I have ridden my bike 11.8 miles today.

Speaking of feeling good, my trip to the bathroom was not as good as I had anticipated. I do recall this from my other jumps into paleo eating. Hopefully my body will adjust quickly, but in my past experiences there is about a one week time period of intestinal upset. Is paleo worth this experience? Yes. As Dr. Loren Cordain has said of the paleo diet, “People lose body fat, gain muscle, strength and endurance while virtually all indices of health improve.” Let me repeat that last part – all indices of health improve. I don’t know if this is entirely true. Others say that we should eat whole grains, low-fat dairy, and legumes to maintain a healthy diet. Admittedly, the paleo diet is lacking in Vitamin D. That is likely because our ancestors had plenty of that from the good old sun. I’m taking supplements.

Today’s meal plan is as follows:

Breakfast:
2 egg omelet with chives, tomato, cheddar cheese, parsley
½ grapefruit

Snack:
Red grapes

Lunch:
Tuna (5 oz can) with lemon-pepper salt
Tomato
Celery with peanut butter

Snack:
Berries (rasp and black)

Dinner:
Chicken with red pepper sauce
Apple Honey Cole Slaw

This is what it looked like:


Okay. So? I had cheese. It was a small amount. I’m stating right now that when I do paleo, I still eat cheese because if I didn’t, I’d be a very sad person. I don’t eat a ton of it, but I do eat it. I assume you caught the other two non-paleo items, the lemon-pepper salt, and peanut butter. I have no excuse for the L-P Salt other than to say that it was better to eat that than mayo with the tuna. The peanut butter - we have all natural peanut butter in the house right now and I’ll be damned if I’m going to spend $10 on a jar of almond butter when we already have peanut butter. Once the PB is gone, I’ll switch to the other. In fact, I saw that with a gold coin at Big Y, you can get a jar of Barney Butter for $3.49, so I’ll be going back there within the next few days to get that deal. My Grandma gave me a gold coin. Awwww she loves me. J

I was more satisfied with today’s breakfast, though I was still feeling hungry around 10:30, but not terribly hungry. I waited until about 11:30 to start eating my grapes. I ate slowly (for me) and didn’t need lunch until 12:50 – a vast improvement from yesterday’s hunger pangs at 11:30.

I also ate lunch slowly. The tuna was pretty dry, even with tomato in it, and I found myself kind of forcing it in. I guess canned tuna isn’t my favorite food anyway. I enjoyed the celery/PB quite a bit, but didn’t finish it all during lunch because I was too full. Probably because there was so much tuna. I didn’t feel the need/want to eat the berries until 4:00. When I initially looked at my meal plan for the day, I was nervous that I was going to be hungry. I was wrong.

Dinner took about an hour to make, but it was excellent. I have invited some of my family to try some tomorrow for dinner.

After supper I went to go for a walk with my mom as my hubby was sleeping. Then I had a popsicle… not paleo, but refreshing. I did get ones made with natural fruit. It tasted very sweet to me. All in all, I’d say this was a successful day. My mood is much improved… like a depression cloud is lifting. That is wonderful since I’ve had a slight depression since October. Happy on paleo!

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

June 26, 2013, A Fresh Start



June 26, 2013

Two years ago my waist was 26.5 inches. I worked pretty hard to get it there by eating paleo for a month or more. I did this to fit into a costume that had been made for me in 2009.

One year ago, I ate whatever I felt like and didn’t care much about gaining weight because I was going to hike the Appalachian Trail with my fiancé. We hiked over 1,300 miles of it and had horrid eating habits, but it was kind of necessary to keep pack weight down. Calculating calories per weight was a big deal, so we ate Pop Tarts every morning (at the end 4 every morning!), a cheese or peanut butter sandwich at lunch, and Ramen Noodles every night. We drank water and when we were in town, soda. Other town foods included pizza, burgers, Chinese cuisine, chips, cookies... anything fatty we could find. By the end, we were both definitely craving vegetables and fruits. We did carry apples sometimes, but they are heavy. I lost about 15 pounds on the trail and was pretty much at my ideal weight. I suspect if we had healthier foods, I’d have been the healthiest I’d been in my life.

Currently my waist is 29.5 inches, but I am getting a gut which is below my waistline. My hips are 42 inches. I weigh approximately 144 pounds (or more), the same weight I was in 2007 when Rox and I started our month long paleo experiment. You can read about that in the LiveJournal, “Milovia” if you are curious.  It starts in July 2007. I’m six years older now and I’m pretty sure my metabolism has changed since then.

I’ve been exercising more than I have been since October (when we stopped hiking), but eating too many processed foods; gaining weight, hanging on to fat. I mostly cut out soda and candy, but since then I feel like I've gained even more weight. So, what next? Paleo it is. Healthy, feel good, difficult to maintain paleo. Starting today. Perhaps not the greatest day in the world to start since I only got about 6 hours of sleep, but if I don’t start now, I might not start at all.

I am going to post my progress and recipes that I have made and if I like them or not. Today’s meal plan is as follows:

Breakfast:
1 banana, sliced
½ peach (it was rotting), cut into chunks
¼ cup walnuts
1 Tbsp honey (approx)
Mix all together, eat
Tea ... it was black, but I will start drinking green tea as I hear this can curb appetite and help prevent fat from settling in.

Snack: baby carrots

Lunch:
½ avocado
Lemon juice
2 hard boiled eggs
1 Tbsp parsley
1 stalk of celery
Ground pepper to taste, more parsley on top

Mix avocado and lemon juice together until a paste. Add other ingredients and serve over lettuce. (I used Boston lettuce. Can also use endive)

Snack: berries (rasp, black, and straw)

Dinner:
1/3 lb salmon
Ginger root
Honey
Olive oil
Make marinade out of ginger, honey, and oil. Marinade salmon for ... however long you feel like it. Wrap salmon in foil, place on baking sheet, and bake at 350F for 20 minutes or until cooked through – it will flake.

Kale

Dessert: apple

Breakfast: was great, as I already knew it would be. It kept me full for about 2 hours. I’m usually hungry by 10:30 anyway, so at that time I had my snack of baby carrots, hoping that it (and water) would stave off my hunger for another 2 hours. It didn’t work completely. I had about 24 oz of water and had to pee 3 times in those two hours. By 12:30 I was pretty darn hungry.
This is a note to self: eat more filling foods in the morning!

Lunch: the egg/avocado salad wasn’t bad. It could have used some salt, though. The original recipe called for bacon, and that would have been an improvement. My husband even made bacon this morning (jalapeño bacon), but I didn’t use any. Because I was so hungry, I ate very quickly which made me feel kind of sick.
A NY Times article states: A 2008 study in The Journal of the American Dietetic Association examined the feeling of fullness in 30 healthy women when they ate fast and slow meals on separate days. The fast meals resulted in higher caloric intake but less satisfaction.
Another note to self. Fast eating is not healthy.

Dinner: SO DELICIOUS!! There may have been a bit too much honey, but it was really good. I made Krispy Kale and it came out really well. I was very pleased with our supper.

Today’s meal plan puts me approximately 300 calories over what my other weight control program had me eating. Honestly, it is difficult to believe that my meal plan for today would pack on any kind of pounds. I understand that walnuts, the avocado, and olive oil are high in calories, but they are healthy foods in my book.

All-in-all, I feel great! Tired (from lack of sleep, I assume), but great. I didn’t do any exercise today, but I will tomorrow. I’m looking forward to tomorrow.

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

The Challenges in Staying Paleo

When Paleoleander and I tried strict paleo last time, our biggest challenge was not resisting all the cookies and pizza that jumped out at us from supermarket aisles and restaurant menus, but rather hanging out with our families. Our eating habits worked great when it was just the two of us, and they were okay when we had people over, but when we were invited over relatives' houses for dinner, holidays, etc., we usually had very little choice as to what was served.

I am facing a similar dilemma today. Yesterday I called up my aunt and asked her if she would like to go out for dinner this evening, as I was going to be in her neighborhood and had to return a coat that I had borrowed from her. She agreed, and we decided to meet at her house at 5pm. Then this morning while I was at the gym she left a voicemail on my cellphone saying that she had decided to cook dinner instead, and that we would be having chicken parm, couscous and butternut squash. So what should I do? I'm a little nervous as to how my stomach is going to react to the onslaught of grains and dairy after eating relatively low carb for the past few weeks. And my stomach was just starting to straighten out, too! But I DON'T want to be one of those annoying family members who is always trotting their dietary restrictions out in front of everyone at family get-togethers, a la vegans. So I have decided to eat as best I can during the day, enjoy the forbidden fruits (well, grains and dairy), and see how it goes. I thought I could at least bring some kind of paleo dessert, but what kind of dessert can you get at the Stop and Shop that is paleo? I'm at work and don't have time or tools to prepare anything.

This will be an interesting exercise, because I feel that it was these kinds of situations that derailed our paleo eating last time. Every time I would indulge in sweets, pasta, or other non-paleo foods, I'd have to go back through the awful withdrawl symptoms when I went back to paleo, and after a few times I just got sick of it (literally!). But I don't want to be an actual cavewoman, holed up in her house and becoming more antisocial because I don't want family events to turn into confrontations. What have other people done to maintain their paleo lifestyle without alienating friends or family?

Monday, January 11, 2010

New York Times Article "The New Caveman Lifestyle Has Found a Home in the City"


Read the article here.

These guys are pretty intense. Having lived in the city, I know that Central and Inwood Hill Parks are glorious sources for wild edibles, and foraging is pretty easily done (Steve Brill even leads wild edible tours in the parks). I regularly came home with burdock, sassafrass, garlic mustard (considered an "invasive" by the parks dept., but it's delicious!), mayapple, even Kentucky Coffee Beans! Hunting in the parks I never tried, though. Several years ago Green Phoenix Permaculture was working with a parks dept. employee (and GPP member) to create a food forest garden in one of the parks, but the powers-that-be put the kibosh on it at the last minute. A lot of hard work down the drain, sadly.

Paleo Plate: Curry Butternut Squash and Ground Turkey Ragu

I've been exploring paleo recipes online for a long time, but I recently decided to start experimenting with my own. Here's attempt #1: Butternut squash with curry, cloves and spinach, and ground turkey ragu. Both recipes are very simple, don't take much prep or cooking time, and don't require long lists or hard-to-find ingredients. Check out the finished product!

Friday, January 8, 2010

My Story: PaleOlivia

Since Paleoleander has posted her background, I thought I'd do mine. I came to paleo by way of primitive skills, which I'd been interested in for a while prior. In researching indigenous cultures and their lifestyles, I began to uncover information on the hunter-gatherer diet and it made a lot of sense to me, so I decided to try it out. I joined Paleolander's challenge and saw significant changes in my energy levels, ability to concentrate, sleeping habits and general well-being. As a self-admitted sugar junkie, I did have to weather the initial symptoms of sugar withdrawl, which were very trying (as Oleander can attest, I became exceedingly grouchy!). Once that passed, the effects were very positive, with the exception of one important aspect: Our social lives became much more difficult to navigate. Going out to eat was often a chore, with most dishes incorporating some kind of starch or sugar in them. Visiting with my Sicilian-American mother was near impossible, and the inevitable work situations arose. I would love to have some discussions with other people who have been in similar circumstances and worked through them.

After the trial period we went off strict paleo, and I eventually went off paleo altogether, with predictable results. I've since become "paleoccasional", always meaning to get back off the sugar but never quite managing to do it. I started exercising regularly over the past year, which has helped me a lot health wise, but my diet seems to be the missing part of my whole health equation. So I'm ready to take another shot at it! Looking forward to feeling good again.