Beets and a Paleo Problem

We are in week two of our Paleo Challenge.  I am not doing well.  Although some may think I'm doing extremely well since I lost 6 pounds the first week.  Which, to many, may be exactly what they want.  However, since I am still breastfeeding my eight-month old, it did not do well for me.  It affected my milk supply drastically.  Whereas my baby was waking around 2-3 a.m. to nurse before the challenge, she then started waking every 1.5 hours.  I was exhausted.

It's not that I'm not eating enough food ...or so I think.  I eat avocado at breakfast with eggs and always on any salad.  I eat bacon in the mornings.  I eat more beef than on a typical Paleo diet.  I eat more nuts than is recommended. I eat more protein than normal.  I eat more snacks throughout the day than recommended.  And STILL my body apparently needed more.  I freaked and bought some Nutella to eat. Not because I craved the sugar.  I actually am doing MUCH better this go around than before when the sugar cravings were killing me!  I got that because it was full of fat and at least I'd get a tiny bit of protein (yes, I realize it is made with lots o' sugar and milk) BUT let me tell you that the next two nights I slept so much better because my baby decided that my milk now was sufficient.  

I do not want to eat that much sugar.  So I found several other high calorie/fat snacks to add in.  I feel as though my meals are sufficient since I'm eating more than average with the proteins and fats, so I feel making my in between small meals as fatty and high calorie as possible may help.    Who knows.  It's just not something I'm willing to play around with.  I am eating very healthy...well, much healthier than I was, so at least my milk is better for my baby.  I'm hoping the new way to get fat/calories will work.  If not, I will absolutely eat some more Nutella.  I need sleep and my baby does too.  And if Nutella is a way to do it, then fine.  It's MUCH less sugar/dairy than I ever have consumed in my life, so I'm okay with it for now.  After she weans, I'll definitely go back at it super strict.

Now....onto a new subject.  Beets.  Beets are weird.

 

It's the first time I've ever cooked beets and the first time I've ever tasted them.  I wasn't very impressed.  Well...I wasn't impressed with the taste. I was very impressed with the incredible color that came out of them.  I can see why people use beets as a source to color other things.


 I roasted them and then made a balsamic glaze to pour over.  They smelled very 'earthy' as they were cooking.  When I put them on a plate to try, I admit I was not excited about putting them in my mouth.  I made my husband taste them first!  :)  He didn't think they were bad.  In fact, he ate them again the next day.  Maybe he was just trying not to waste food!  I tasted one and although it was awful, it's just not something I thought was great.  I'll continue to try them. But until someone else makes them, I may just hold off for now.


I tried...but I could not make them look appealing at all.

Late night coffee...with half & half

I am going to enjoy a half cup of coffee so I can enjoy my half & half in it before I go 30 days without.  That is truly one thing I know I will miss in this 30-day Paleo challenge.  BUT I know I can do it.  Maybe.

Tomorrow officially begins the challenge.  You know what the worst part is?  I have to get my fat pinched.  Measured.  Yeah...not good.  I will be going to the gym in the a.m. to get the fatness pinched and then do our first challenge which is something called Crossfit Total.  It is the total (weight I'm guessing) of your one-rep max of each of the following: back squat, shoulder press, and deadlift.  Considering I haven't worked out since the baby was born over 7 months ago, this should be interesting.  It's great to have a starting point (and photos...don't forget the horrific "before" photos that must be taken) but honestly this won't really let me know how the Paleo diet affects my workouts since I'm starting it all at once! Haha!  So I only have room to improve, right?

I went grocery shopping today.  I got all of the food for our first week.  Except almond milk.  Not at Publix.  Yes...I do realize they actually do sell almond milk there, however, read the ingredients.  So much crap in those that there is no way it is Paleo.  So I'll try the natural food store tomorrow while we're downtown.  We are still allowing our son to eat cheese but we're not buying anymore milk for the 30 days.  We'll slowly wean him off dairy since he ate so much of it.

Here's what he thought of the new and improved fridge contents:

Haha, just kidding.  He wanted to take a silly photo and this is what I got.  Just happened to be as I was putting the groceries away!  :)  Seriously, after our last challenge, he started eating more of the vegetables he'd gotten away from.  Now he sword fights me with asparagus spears before we eat them. That was one food he used to love and then after we let too many crackers, bread, etc. come into play, he has started losing his taste for veggies.  Slowly but surely we are bringing it back!

Well...off to have my last cup of coffee full of yummy cream and milk.  For 30 days at least!

Enough already

I've had it with these intense sugar cravings.  I'm over it.  I don't think I necessarily want to be over sugar forever, but I'd love not to consume it every day.

I overheard last night at the Paleo Potluck we had at the Crossfit gym where my husband coaches that  craving sugar could be an indicator you aren't getting enough sleep.  Well, that explains it.  Considering both of my children think it's hysterical to start out as newborns sleeping wonderfully and then after 4 months of age decide to mix it up a bit and start waking every 3 hours after going to sleep.  So yeah...sleep deprivation is definitely at play here.  I've never heard of a sugar craving having anything to do with it, so I'm definitely going to ask more.  It makes sense because it's been very strong after the births of each my children.  But...I also love sugar.  So it could just be that!

Anyways, we'll be starting our 30-day Paleo Challenge soon.  Yes...again.  However, this time we are giving up dairy.  One - I want to eliminate it to see if it helps with the congestion/allergies I've suffered from since being a kid.  Two - I've mentioned our daughter's skin issues.  So hopefully this challenge will help see if the dairy is the culprit.  We're getting a little help from the folks over at Paleo Plan.  They seriously make it too easy to NOT at least try Paleo for 30 days.  Such a great site. So very easy to navigate (and it has pretty photos, so that's always a plus in my opinion!).

I am also truly starting to workout again.  A friend of mine is currently doing the intro classes at the gym and she'll be finished next week.  We've already got our twice a week workouts on the calendar.  I really have no excuses.

So here we go.  Again.  I did it for 6 weeks last time...surely I can do another 30 days...with no dairy...which means no cheese.  Ugh.

Must. Focus.

As I sit here and eat straight out of the jar of Nutella with a spoon, I realize I'm not following the diet I started several months ago.

I did awesome on my 30-day challenge. I never cheated.  Not once.  I even made it to 6-weeks before I had something with grains/sugar.  Even after that, it was fine.  We continued to shop for good meats, veggies, and the good fats.  We did allow some grains/sugar back into our diet, but it was outside of our house.  That I didn't mind.  However, now Nutella makes an appearance *at least* once a week. We have snack bars for our son, cookies, ice cream...yeah...we lost focus.

Our son's behavior has also reflected it.  He's not a bad kid by any means.  He's 3, which sometimes makes me want to go hide away for the next year, but all in all, he's actually pretty well behaved.  However, getting the sugar and more grain back into his diet has also brought back the unfocused, poor listening, etc.  He doesn't even ask for bread any more at the house (we still don't have it here), but he is expecting sweet treats a lot.  And, yes, I know I can make sweet Paleo-ish treats, but of course busy lives take over and convenience crap products enter in.

So, we're back to having to refocus.  It's tough because you have it so together...you realize you CAN do this...and then you slip, which is fine, but then you do it again and again.  And then, because you and your husband are trying to work multiple jobs, keep the house at just above the gross level, entertain a 3 year old and a 7 month old, the food becomes back burner and you're back to eating pure crap.  Honestly, we still eat better than the SAD, but it's a noticeable difference when we were eating clean.

Now, we're considering taking dairy out.  At least I am.  Our daughter (7 months) has been battling eczema since she was 2 months old.  It's been awful on her cheeks.  We've realized we have to cover her hands at night to prevent her from scratching her cheeks so that has helped. But in reading, I've realized that much of the skin issues deal with eczema can come from food related issues.  Dairy is one of the major culprits.  So I'm going to try and try and try to remove it from my diet.  I LOVE dairy.  Love it.  It's one of my favorite things ever.  I've cut back on drinking straight milk already.  I am going to have the biggest issue with cheese....and cream in my coffee.  I am already OK with no sugar (thanks to my challenge in the summer of no sugar) in my coffee although I occasionally add a tiny bit of honey to change things up from time to time, so I am hoping to take the cream away may not be as difficult.  I know I can use coconut milk.  We'll see....

So, I don't even have a plan this time.  Basically our plan is to spend at least 30 minutes each week making a complete meal plan (to include all meals and snacks) so we have no room for error.  We've done it before so I know we can do it again.

25 Burpees

Try them...I dare you.

I bet you've never heard of a burpee, unless you are familiar with CrossFit! 25 burpees for time was my workout for today. It took me 5 minutes, 33 seconds to complete them. Those that know what a burpee is must not laugh at my time! My husband does 100 burpees in 6 minutes, 30 seconds. It took me almost the same amount of time to do a quarter of what he can complete!

As much as they sucked, my total workout time today was 5 minutes, 33 seconds. That's it. Nothing else. That in itself is motivating enough to stick with CrossFit. Now, some of the other workouts take longer, but still, it's worth it. If we lived closer to the CrossFit gym, I'd definitely go to the classes. My husband has built a CrossFit gym in the garage here, so we have pretty much everything that we need. There are a few key things missing like kettle-bells, but he uses dumbbells in place of them.

For those who don't know what a burpee is you can search "burpee" and "crossfit" on youtube. There are several different versions. I'll video my husband demonstrating them and post it in a few days. It'll be the proper one according to the CrossFit competitions.

So, try it out. 100 burpees for time is a workout, but if you can't do 100, just shoot for 25. I bet you'll beat my pitiful time! I plan on doing the workout again in one month and seeing if I improved. I'll post an update when I do.


Recipe share:

Paleo/Zone chili
again, borrowed from http://cfscceat.blogspot.com/

Ingredients:

2 lbs. lean ground meat - we used venison

2 T Italian seasoning

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp ground pepper

1 medium yellow onion, diced

3 cloves garlic, minced

3 green, red, orange, or yellow bell pepper

1/2 C red wine

15 oz. can dice tomatoes, no salt (we added another can)

8 oz. can tomato sauce, no salt

4 oz. can diced green chillies (we did not add this)

1 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp ground coriander

1/2 tsp chili powder

1/8 tsp red pepper flakes

Water

Green onions

Italian parsley

Brown ground meat (we added a little salt and pepper to the cooking meat), drain, set aside. When finished, deglaze pan with some of the red wine. Saute the diced onion and garlic. Add tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, diced chilies and chopped peppers. Add back the meat, and all other ingredients, and spices. Bring to a boil and then simmer until ready to serve. We simmered for about 3 hours. Add a little extra water if needed to get to desired consistency. Spoon into a bowl and top with some diced green onions and chopped flat-leaf italian parsley.

*** NOTE - we added 3 cans of beans (you can use any - black, white beans, kidney beans, chili beans (rinsed). We also added some leftover shredded carrots, black beans, chopped red onion...didn't want any of it to go to waste!

I don't have the proper zone blocks listed because frankly it overwhelms me, so if you go to the website we borrowed it from, it's broken down there.
We also improvised. Chili and soup in general is a great way to rid your fridge of any leftover vegetable that you may have stored. We always seem to have half of an onion or shredded carrots or some leftover celery that's just not being eaten. We've decided that we'll probably make soup every 7-10 days and even if we don't eat it that night, we'll freeze it to have on hand.

Portion Control...a learned habit

I struggle greatly with portion control. Seriously, the other night I ate two, count them, TWO dark chocolate candy bars. At least they were dark chocolate, right? Oh, and it was New Year's Eve...celebrating right? I deserve it, right? Ugh, although they taste SO good, it's so not worth it immediately after. Wes has a saying that I despise, but love at the same time. "Nothing tastes as good as being skinny feels." Well, I'm not so sure I necessarily want to be skinny, but the saying still stings when I hear it or say it. Because it's true...although I think I want to change it to "Nothing tastes as good as being healthy feels." When I was in shape, eating foods that weren't good for me wasn't satisfying...no matter how good they tasted. Because I was in the zone...I knew that immediately after I would totally regret it.

So, how do I get back to that point? I don't know really. As I mentioned before, I have several tubs of clothes packed away that I cannot fit into and I paid good money for those clothes! As my friend Anne said after having her son, "It's not an issue of vanity, but an issue of economics!" SO true. Since we're adapting our life to a less wasteful, more resourceful way, this is helping to motivate me to get into better shape so I don't have to buy another entire wardrobe at the size I am now. Which, by the way, is no fun. I hate even shopping for a shirt or pair of pants. And the bathing suit top I just had to buy the other day for our upcoming cruise...nauseating. Not just because I'm at the weight I am or the shape I'm in, but because I actually had to spend money on an article of clothing that is 3 sizes bigger than what I used to be. It was on clearance, but still $9.00 is too much money to pay for a swimsuit top when I have about 10-12 in a box packed away.

I've read somewhere that it takes anywhere from 11 days to a month to develop a habit. So that's my goal for the first two weeks of the year. To limit the portions I allow myself when eating meals or snacks. I know I can do it, I've done it before. I actually counted calories once. I tracked it with an online calorie counter so it made it look nice and pretty. I was aiming for 2000 calories a day because of still breastfeeding. It was so hard to do that first week, but guess what? I lost three pounds! THREE...in one week...eating 2000 calories! I was not only eating less calories obviously, but choosing better foods. Who says you have to only eat 1200 calories to lose weight? We need to focus more on WHAT those calories are.

Our society has continuously encouraged larger and larger portion sizes. We all know how fast food restaurants serve. But what about the nicer restaurants? Ever been to a steakhouse? Fine dining or Texas Roadhouse, it doesn't really matter because they often have 12-16 ounce steaks on their menu. What does the average person need with a steak that big? How does their body handle it? And that's probably not the only thing that person eats at that meal, I'm willing to bet. I'm sure there is a baked potato on the side, broccoli if we're lucky and I'm sure there's always the fried onion appetizer before.

My family has done pretty well in sharing meals when we go out. The other day, my husband, son, niece and I all shared one entree and one sushi roll and it was more than enough. We're also going to attempt to adopt the practice of as soon as our food is brought to the table, immediately box up everything over what we should eat in one sitting. Then we've also stretched our dollar that way because we then have at least one, possibly two, meals for the next day's lunch!

So, portion control is going to be my first focus as far as eating healthy goes. Yes, I'm still going to be choosing healthy, natural recipes and increasing our veggie servings, but I think portion control is a key factor is healthier eating. Basically we're going to use our hand as our guide.

Open hand with fingers spread - veggies
Palm of hand - protein
Quarter of palm - good fats


Note - we do not have grains/starches. The Paleo/Zone diet Wes likes to follow doesn't really focus on it. Although on the Zone diet, it does allow for grains, but the Paleo doesn't. Wes really likes the huge focus on the veggies. But, for breakfast we will do oatmeal. Never instant, always old-fashioned or steel-cut oats. We're still deciding on what we think is right for our diet. We are not telling anyone to eliminate anything from their diet, only to do your research and read as much as you can and decide for yourself!



Recipe share:
borrowed from http://cfscceat.blogspot.com/


Paleo Mediterranean Chicken

Ingredients:
4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts (trimmed, cut in half and pounded)
almond meal - we used wheat bran (just don't use white flour!)
14 oz can quartered artichokes - drained if in oil
dried parsley
14 oz can fire roasted diced tomatoes
2.25 can sliced black olives
1 yellow onion
8 ounces of mushrooms
1 cup chicken broth (make your own one day!)
2 tsp olive oil
2-3 T fresh Italian parsley

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Mix about 1/2 C almond meal with 2 T dried parsley.
After pounding chicken breasts, sprinkle both sides of chicken breasts with almond meal mixture
Heat olive oil in a skillet
Brown chicken breasts on both sides - about 3 minutes per side
Add to baking dish when finished
After all chicken breasts are browned, add chicken broth to skillet and deglaze pan
Add all other ingredients to pan and bring to a quick low boil, then pour over chicken
Sprinkle top with fresh Italian parsley and bake for about 30 minutes.

I'd give this 2-3 stars out of 5. I probably won't be making this again. It wasn't horrible, but it wasn't my favorite either. The chicken will be fine leftover chopped in a salad or wrap though. I'd rather have the Mustard Agave Chicken again!

It shouldn't be this difficult...

to obtain good, clean, whole, raw milk.



I just got an email that our monthly (yes, monthly is all we can get) delivery of raw milk is not happening next week because we don't have enough orders. I'm not frustrated with the delivery driver because he's got to make a living too, but I am angry with the law that makes it illegal for dairy farmers to sell raw milk or for anyone to distribute raw milk in Georgia.

I just do not understand why in the world I, as an educated consumer, cannot purchase the kind of milk that I want. Does that mean I think that I should be able to go to any dairy and purchase raw milk...no. I want a certified raw milk farm. Most have higher standards than commercial dairies because pasteurized milk is heated to such high temperatures that the milk doesn't have to be handled as carefully as certified raw milk does. So I absolutely do not want to drive up to some commercial dairy and pick up a jug or two of their raw milk.

As long as the raw milk farms adhere to the standards placed upon them, why does it matter to anyone where I buy my milk. I seriously have to drive across the bridge to the next state over to pick up my milk. The driver can't even cross the border into Georgia or guess what? He could be arrested. And, that's not all. If I were to pick up a friend's milk on pick-up day and take it to them, I could get arrested for distribution. Really?

Here's a link to an interesting story about our tax dollars at work helping to keep raw milk "contraband" out of our homes. I'm just sick that we devote this many resources to preventing people who are just trying to be as healthy as they can for themselves, their family and their environment and world. http://www.onlineathens.com/stories/101709/new_505698081.shtml

I'd like to talk about why my husband and I decided to begin drinking raw milk. That's a much longer post for another day.
Here's a picture of when we visited the farm where my sister in law gets her raw milk. She's part of a cow share (wish we could find that around here).




Recipe bonus:
I've decided to add my recipes that we try out onto my blog as I can. I was going to try to have the recipes relate to my topics, but eh, I can do whatever I want because it's my blog, right? :)

This is a recipe I borrowed from a blog I'm following: http://cfscceat.blogspot.com/
We are following it because Wes wants to develop a Paleo/Zone diet (more on this later because honestly, I don't even know how to explain it myself yet) and this website has great recipes and pictures, which I love. I guess I'll have to get on the ball and take a few pictures to put with my meals, huh?


I was apprehensive about trying this out. Agave? A sweetener...on chicken? But then again, honey is often paired with chicken, so why not try? I'd say it landed somewhere between 4-5 stars, with 5 being the highest. What's great is that with the leftover chicken, my niece and I chopped it up the next day for lunch. I had a salad and she had a wrap. So tender and juicy leftover!

Mustard Agave Chicken with Veggies
Ingredients:
4 skinless, boneless, chicken breasts (pounded and cut in half)
2 T olive oil
Garlic powder, black pepper, and sea salt
1/4 C chicken broth - best if you make your own
3 T agave nectar - we buy organic and keep it on hand to sweeten our coffee
1/4 C dijon mustard
2-4 cups broccoli crowns
1 small yellow onion - we cut into quarters

Sprinkle garlic powder, pepper and sea salt over chicken breasts and brown in olive oil, about 3 minutes on each side, then place in baking dish.
Deglaze pan with chicken broth.
Whisk together mustard and agave, and add pan juices!
Mix well and pour over chicken breasts.
Top chicken with broccoli and onions, cover with foil and bake for about 35 minutes at 350 degrees.

We had a salad on the side with homemade mustard lemon vinaigrette. YUM