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!