Saturday, January 18, 2014

Coming Clean

Let the rain fall down and wake my dreams
Let it wash away my sanity
Cuz I wanna feel the thunder, I wanna scream
Let the rain fall down, I'm coming clean....

Remember that show The Hills?  That old Hillary Duff song was the theme song.  I miss that show.  I was pretty obsessed with it.  Now you're gonna have that song stuck in your head all day.  You're welcome.

Ugh, it is way too early for me to be awake on a Saturday morning.  Like it's still dark outside.  WTF body clock.  Not only am I awake but I'm already downstairs with my 'puter booted up and on my lap and ready to write a blog post.

So the theme for today is Coming Clean because.... well I cheated this week.  There's good and bad to that though.  Actually, no, there's really only good to that.  Let me explain.

This week's cheating was good for me for three reasons.  One - I got it out of my system and got right back on the Paleo train.  Two - I friggin' enjoyed it.  And three - I have learned now what kind of effect grains, specifically, have on my body.  And it really is enough to deter me - well, deter me enough that it will make me think about whether or not I want to put it into my mouth.

Grains make me bloated.  After I eat grains, there's like this pressure inside of my mid-section.  It's like there's something inside there trying to push outward in all directions (no it's not gas).  Kind of like being pregnant.  My first week on Paleo, I remember feeling a sort of hollowness in my midsection that was not hunger.  And now I know, it was the absence of grains.  When you eat grains every day, you probably don't even notice how they make you feel, you're just so accustomed to it.  If you were to sit down and eat a whole hoagie, you'd probably be stuffed at the end of it.  That "stuffed" feeling is the grains wreaking havoc on your digestive system.  

How do I know it's grains and not dairy?  Case in point:  Last night we went out to dinner.  I had a salad that had blue cheese dressing, blue cheese crumbles, bacon, and tomatoes on it.  And I had a small steak with some mashed potatoes.  And I had a flourless chocolate torte for dessert (Maraea actually couldn't stop eating it so I really only had half).  (PS I know I'm not supposed to have sugar, but we were celebrating our friends' joyous news, so it was an occasion.)  My only real cheat in that meal was the dairy.  And while I was very full from all that food, I did not have that pressure in my midsection.

Going into Paleo, I never would have said that I have a dietary issue with either grains or dairy.  But now I am starting to think, grains have been keeping me (and who knows how many millions of others) fat or plump or pudgy for my whole life.  All of this is actually enough to make me want to steer clear of grains whenever possible.  With that said though - sometimes a girl is gonna want a cheeseburger, and this girl will have a cheeseburger.  But it's helpful to know going into it that it will cause X and then it's right back on the health train.

I really like eating Paleo.  I like lots of the recipes we've made, and I could put them into our regular rotation.  But I really don't want to be so restricted when we go out to eat.  Which honestly, is actually not very often.  So I definitely think that I can maintain a Paleo lifestyle after January is over, keeping some of the simple changes I've made to take this extra step.  The question is: Can my bank account handle it?

Yo.  Paleo is expensive.  And I'm not even buying 100% grass-fed grass-finished organic protein either.  For one thing, I can't find grass-finished around here, even at Whole Foods.  But I'm buying the best quality possible, which to me - means buying protein at Whole Foods, organic or not.  Which is expensive.  I paid $10 for a pound of free range ground turkey yesterday.  TEN DOLLARS.  I could have bought regular ground turkey for like $4 a pound at Giant.  Organic produce adds up.  I thought maybe my grocery bills wouldn't be so expensive because I was pretty much buying tons of produce and some stuff from the meat counter.  Wrong.  My grocery bills have darn near doubled.  I love Whole Foods, but I may need to break up with them if I'm going to maintain this lifestyle.  I can get organic produce and protein at Giant, and it is probably cheaper.  Maybe next week I'll just shop at Giant and see if there's a price difference.  The good news of all of this?  There has been very little waste - we have literally been consuming everything we buy every week.  So that makes me happy.

On another note:  I lost an additional 1.6 pounds from last week.  I'm down about 7 pounds now total from the beginning of January.  And I'm 3 pounds away from having lost 20 pounds since I started Weight Watchers.  Which means I get another fancy ribbon I think.  :)

Sigh.  I talk too much.

So let's see.  What's on tap for this week?  Well I've got the cheating out of my system and I honestly, literally, can't wait to get back on track.  This week I'm only making a couple of things I haven't made before.  Here's the menu:

Saturday
Breakfast:  Dawnita's Pancakes (I like her recipe better.  2 mashed bananas, 1 egg, 1/4 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp vanilla, 1 tablespoon coconut flour.  So yummy and they flip easily.)
Lunch:  Not sure yet, but I will be home this afternoon and cooking so I will probably snack on whatever I've got around.
Dinner:  Paleo Chicken Chili

Sunday
Breakfast:  Eggs and Sweet Potato Hash
Lunch:  Devilled Eggs & fruit
Dinner:  Oven Braised Mexican Beef (YES!  So excited, we loved this dish.  I'm making some sauce toppings for it too.)

Monday
Breakfast:  Eggs and leftover Sweet Potato Hash
Lunch:  Leftover Mexican beef
Dinner:  Slow Cooker Beef Burgundy (new and improved - the last one I made didn't have enough veggies, so this time I'm pumping it up)

Tuesday
Lunch:  Chicken Salad

Wednesday
Breakfast:  Dawnita's Pancakes
Lunch:  Devilled Eggs & fruit
Dinner:  Paleo Turkey Crockpot Chili

Thursday
Lunch:  Leftover chili
Dinner:  Steak and Eggs Hash

Friday
Breakfast:  Dawnita's Pancakes
Lunch:  Devilled Eggs & fruit

Yo, on what other "diet" can you eat pancakes and waffles for breakfast multiple times a week and still lose weight?  THIS MEANS SOMETHING PEOPLE.  GRAINS ARE MAKING YOU FAT.  Just don't cover them with syrup and butter.  A little of each is fine if you want but let's not go overboard here.  You know what I did?  I liked having blueberries in my pancakes so much that I dumped a carton of them into a saucepan and cooked them over medium heat till they started to break apart and formed a jam.  Now I can slather that on top of my pancakes instead of syrup.  HEALTHY.

I love Dawnita's pancakes so much because of the mashed bananas.  I don't like eating bananas like most normal people do, but I will eat bananas if they are IN something (like bread, or cake, or pancakes or waffles, obv).  I feel like this is a good way for me to get some good fruit in.  

I think next month, I'm going to menu-plan for the entire month again.  But I'm going to make the dinners easier and cheaper.  Less involved, less ingredients.  Another thing I don't like about Paleo:  THE DISHES.  I feel like there is always a stack of dishes in my kitchen waiting to go through the dishwasher.  I need two dishwashers (and one more refrigerator, one deep freezer, and two more incomes) to sustain this lifestyle.  We have like 5 cutting boards and the other day I needed one and they were all either already dirty or in the dishwasher getting cleaned.  We can't keep up.  I'm going to figure out how to simplify all of this and make it more sustainable for next month.

Oh look, the sun is up.

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