Nutrition in 100 Words

Back in April, I ordered a few items from Steve's Original which included some PaleoKits and PaleoKrunch cereal.  Both were very tasty, but what I loved even more was a card they put inside my box that sums up my experience over the last year and how my mindset has changed in regards to food.  It was titled "Nutrition in 100 Words" and I thought I'd share it on here.

Eat real, unprocessed food,

as close to nature as possible

and listen to your body.

Pretend the modern supermarket doesn't exist.

Choose foods that could be grown, hunted, or gathered -

nothing packaged or processed.

Support local farms when possible.

Eat animals, marine life, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and

fruits.  Eat plenty of healthy fats from pastured animals,

fish, coconut, avocado, olives, and cold-pressed oils.

Drink water.

Incorporate traditional, nutrient-dense foods:

fermented vegetables, organ meats,

and homemade bone broths.

Above all, ditch the "gurus", "programs", and "diets"

and get back to basics.  Connect with your intuition

and allow it to guide you.

I love it and just had to share!

A Week Around Our Table

Whenever I tell someone that we've gone Paleo, one of the comments early on in the conversation is "Well, what in the world DO you eat?"  Are you kidding?  We eat a TON of stuff!  And, might I add, we eat good-sized portions.  I eat until I'm full, but that doesn't mean I gorge myself.  Without all of the fillers that I was used to, I have become extremely aware of my body and what it is telling me.  When I am full, I know it.

OK, that was a side tangent, but the purpose of this blog is to copy what I found on Everyday Paleo when I was first starting out.  Seeing all the great stuff she made in a week made me understand how delicious and attainable this lifestyle truly was.  If it does it for you, great!, but if not you can hopefully enjoy a few of the recipes whether you are Paleo or not.

Note:  We eat breakfast and dinner together everyday, but our lunch is usually leftovers from the day before.

Saturday

Breakfast:  Scrambled eggs with local eggs, local pork sausage, paleo grits from my Paleo Comfort Foods cookbook (awesome gift from my bro/sis-in-law), and a nice cup of black coffee

 

Lunch & Dinner:   Creamy Cabbage & Double Smoked Bacon Soup made with local pork and bacon.  This was so good that we ate it for both meals.  You HAVE to put the spicy brown mustard on it.  Like Oktoberfest in a bowl!

Sunday

Breakfast: Sweet Potato Latkes (with local eggs & bacon), grilled bananas, avocado, and a cup of black coffee

Lunch:  We had lunch at my parents house.  My mom has gone Paleo (woo-hoo!) so we had some awesome ribeye steaks, roasted vegetables, and a great salad.  Yum!

Dinner:  Paleo Lasagna made with local beef and pork.  This makes SO much.  We ate on it all week which comes in handy when your husband likes to eat 5-6 meals a day!

Monday

Breakfast:  Sweet Potato Hash made with leftover sweet potatoes and local sausage

Lunch: Leftover "lasagna"

Dinner:  Pizza Soup made with local sausage, Applegate pepperoni, mushrooms, green peppers, and black olives.  Don't add as much liquid as they suggest if you like your soup chunkier/heartier.

Tuesday

Breakfast:  Sweet Potato Hash again (I was really feeling this dish this week!), unsweetened applesauce with cinnamon added, avocado, peppermint tea

Lunch: Leftover Pizza Soup

Dinner: Spiced Chicken with Pineapples and Peaches and broccoli (forgot to get a picture of it at dinner)

Wednesday

Breakfast: Scrambled eggs with local eggs, local bacon, unsweetened applesauce with cinnamon added, Earl Grey tea

Lunch: Leftover Spiced Chicken

Dinner:  Paleo Fried Chicken and Collard Greens (both from my Paleo Comfort Foods cookbook) and Fried Apples

Thursday

Breakfast:  Paleo Oatmeal, local sausage patties, avocado, Earl Grey tea

Lunch:  Leftover fried chicken, greens, and apples

Dinner: Beef Goulash made with local beef and chocked full of veggies

Friday

Breakfast:  Bacon, scrambled eggs, banana...lame, I know, but I was in a hurry

Lunch: Leftover Goulash

Dinner:  Made a stir fry with venison, onions, and green peppers (made it with cauliflower rice last week and it was so good!), roasted sweet potatoes, some mango slices, and a glass of wine.  

Whole30 January was over so I enjoyed a nice glass of wine and also made a little treat for our small group that night...Raw Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Bites  Certainly a treat and not something I'd eat every night, but what a great occasion to share them with friends.  Good thing we shared too because I could have eaten them all just by myself!

So, there you go!  That's a glimpse into a week of our life.  I will say, this past week didn't have nearly as many veggies as we usually eat.  I love to get veggies in any chance we can and you'll see them mixed in a lot of stuff, but I usually like to have more than I had this past week.  

Life...As I Know It

Shoo! Anybody out there still? I can't say I wouldn't blame anyone for taking me off of their Reader. Gotta update every once in a while, right?

Alright, so here I am again. Completely inspired by my friends who update on a regular basis so I actually know what's going on with their lives. Sorry. I can't promise I'll be back to what I use to do, but I figured updating more often than every 6 months would be a step in the right direction!

There's been a few events that have happened since I last updated that have kept me a bit busy. Some of these events happened before my last update, but I never got around to blogging them. I realize EVERYONE is busy, that's my I give major kudos to all of my friends who are able to do this on a more regular basis. So, those events...took a trip out to California to see our niece, Noa, got a attend a training on classroom management...in Disney (tough life, right?), we gained another beautiful niece, Avery, I won Teacher of the Year (yay!), started going to a new church, the husband started (and is getting ready to finish) paramedic school, I went into full drive with school and graduated with my Masters (woo-hoo!), and I celebrated my 7th year of marriage (hard to believe).

Didn't know where to start back into things so I'm going to continue on from my previous post and give you a little more about our switch to Paleo. I still get questions all the time about it, so I'm going to share some personal effects it has had for our life.

First change we made was getting rid of our microwave. WHAT?!?! I know, I know, why would you get rid of that? We weren't using it when we eat everything fresh and let me tell ya, that sucker was taking up a lot of space on our countertop. Look at life without it...Huge shift in our lifestyle change was getting rid of all things non-Paleo from our cabinets and refrigerator. You all know I love to bake so that was A LOT of stuff. Here is the cleaned out spice cabinet in our house....

That shortening shouldn't be in there, but everything else is Paleo-friendly.

Now, I had a hard time throwing it all out since a lot of it was brand new and I was worried that we may change our mind and then I'd have to go back and buy all of these flours and supplies again. I stuffed them all up in the top two shelves of my cabinets (the tea is Paleo-friendly) but I can honestly say I've only had to get something down 2 times and that was when I pulled out the rice to put in a bowl to dry out the husband's iPod when I washed it. Oh wait, did I say 2 times...that would be because I also washed his cell phone. Oops! We are all about cleanliness here....or just not checking our pockets.

Since then, we have stayed pretty strict on Paleo and have not had many of the side effects that many get from going Whole30 but I believe that's partly from going gluten free for some time initially. Anyway, I wanted to share the results of going Paleo/Whole30/Raw...whatever you want to call it. I don't have a bunch of great pictures mainly because I didn't want to capture my weight gain over the years, but let's take a look at the changes.


This is me at the heaviest that I weighed in the summer of 2009. I really got myself to a point of being apathetic. In my head, I had "tried everything" and eventually just decided that God had made me this way and I didn't need to feel unhappy so I should just quit trying to fight and enjoy life.







At the end of summer 2010, I gave up gluten and started working out my husband training me.  I did end up losing a little over 20 lbs over a year's time which was so exciting, but I could not get under a certain weight hurdle.  I hit the wall and I hit it hard.  That spring, gluten started creeping back into my life slowly and things got busy so the gym was low on my priority list.  I ended up gaining about 10 lbs of my original weight back.



So, this past summer, we switched to a  Paleo lifestyle, as I have already described, started making the gym a regularly occurring event (2-3 times a week), and started making sleep a priority (6 hours crucial, 8 hours preferred).

Flash forward 6 months and I have lost those 10 lbs again and have kept going an extra 20+ lbs before my graduation.  These pictures were taken in December and I've actually lost an addition 9 lbs since then (5 lbs thanks to Whole30 January).  So, if you're keeping track, that's 53 lbs. since those Summer 2009 pictures.

First off, I look back and am extremely grateful that I have a husband who loved me regardless.  He still saw me as beautiful everyday and always let me how much he loved me.  I am so thankful for our friends, the Cracrafts, that showed us how Paleo fits for us.  I am an avid "foodie" and my whole view of food has grown and matured since I've started using food primarily as fuel.  The husband and I say all the time, "Man, we eat REALLY good!"  Seriously, finding enough to eat is not a problem (blog to come).

Finally, I am so thankful that I didn't settle with the thoughts that this was all God had in store for me...a terrible metabolism where I was just going to have to deal with the cards I was dealt in life.  I am not saying that I could not be happy without the weight loss, but there was a tugging after a while that I was personally using that excuse for me to eat what I wanted and not to give God the glory for who He made me.  I got my life in order and God has been able to bless me tremendously since then...extra energy, a strengthened marriage, a renewed appreciation for life, and a renewed appreciation for Him.

Paleo Intro

*Please note: I am not trying to convert anyone! I believe in this 100% but food is a sensitive subject and people are entitled to eat what they want.

Several people have asked me to share our new Paleo lifestyle, so I'm back to blogging with information about some big changes we've made since I talked to you all last. As most of you know, a little over a year ago, we gave up gluten in our house. That was definitely a big change for us, but the results were fantastic. We both noticed how much more energy we had and we didn't feel nearly as sluggish.

Around that same time, our dear friend Faith and her husband told us about their plans to go paleo. When she first told me about it, Mark was all about it. He wanted to dive right in, but my first thoughts were the same that I've heard many others say to me when I talk about going paleo: "There is no way I could go without grains/all forms of bread or pasta/dairy/cheese/corn/beans/sugar!" After listing those ingredients, I already know I have some people who have checked out. I honestly don't blame you, it's hard at times!

Faith shared the following video on her blog and it was a real eye opener for me. The creator of the video says they are frustrated with repeating themselves over and over again and I am not, but I think this video sums up most of my reasons for switching over.



Another conversion factor was when I started exploring the Everyday Paleo website (also suggested by Faith) and I started to see all of the things that you CAN have! We love to eat fresh or organic any chance we get so this lifestyle seemed to fit pretty well with us. I am also really happy to have the least picky husband ever! He will eat anything I set in front of him and he'll eat a ton!

Our dinners usually consist of some type of meat and LOTS and LOTS of veggies (3 or 4 a night). I would like to in the future give you a week long list of what we eat to give you a better idea of how it works for all meals of the day, but for now, you can check out the one that Sarah did on Everyday Paleo. Her "required reading" section gives her testimonial and lots of other good info (how to do paleo with kids).

Also by request, I am going to list all the things that are staples in our house and things that we have gotten rid of.

Staples:

Organic meat (beef, pork, chicken, seafood)

Every type of vegetable we can get our hands on (easiest being broccoli, asparagus, cauliflower, green beans, spinach...we have a variation of these every week)

Nuts (almonds, walnuts, pecans, pistachios)

Every type of fruit we can get our hands on (bananas, apples, pears, dates, plums, kiwis, mangoes, strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, etc.)

Avocados (we eat at least 2 a week)

Eggs (lots! from our CSA)

Almond milk

Coconut milk

Coconut oil (you'll hear me talk more about this later. This and olive oil are all I cook with)

Honey

Vinegars

Lots of spices (be cautious of blends...sometimes there are hidden chemicals)


What we steer clear of:

Dairy (milk, cheese, yogurt, sour cream)

All grains (bread, pasta, rice)

Peanuts

Beans

Corn (Boo! You know how much I love it!)

Potatoes (Double BOO! I'm Irish! Although several articles I've read allow sweet potatoes)

Ketchup

Sugar


Biggest challenge: Eating out!

Greatest benefit: Probably the healthiest I've felt in my entire life. Not that weight should be a key factor at all, but I have lost 10 pounds in the last month since going paleo. I get very full from meals, but never feel gross.

Do what you will with this information, but I will be sharing recipes that fit within this lifestyle that I find delicious. You can take it or leave it!

If you have questions, lay 'em on me! I love answering questions about going paleo!