My phone died :(

I'll be back soon, as soon as I figure out my phone situation. Still eating paleo, still doing crossfit :)

Though I will probably stop with the daily menus because I'm sure that gets boring, especially since all my cooking will have to take place on a BBQ for the next two months because I will be kitchenless.

Adaptation.

Daily eats and week one Paleo results

WOW! Thursday was a long busy day, out of the house from 8am - 9:30pm. 

Breakfast

Breakfast: 3 thin slices of uncured all natural hickory smoked bacon and 1 egg. I need to figure out a better way to cook bacon, im a newbie. Do you drain the oil? How often? Is it better to bake it in the oven? 

Right after breakfast I wanted something sweet, a piece of fruit, but i told myself to wait a half an hour and if i wanted it, I could have it then. Half an hour later the craving was gone and I was to busy to care. I got so busy I couldn't even stop for  a second to have a morning snack.  I could probably address this by better meal planning, including finding more snacks to have on hand. There is always room for improvement.

Paleo Egg Drop Soup

Lunch Homemade Paleo egg drop soup

Paleo Snack

Afternoon Snack Granny Smith Apple w/  almond butter + coconout oil. I was hesitant to try this combination, but its SO GOOD. I think if I add a pinch of cinnamon to the dip next time it will be even better.

Second afternoon snack- raw almonds (10)

I was in a meeting until 7 pm and literally and to run, ok fine run out the door, then drive, to make it to Crossfit by 7:30

Got home at 9:15.... made a salad of: avocado, brussel sprouts, tomato, cucumber, bell pepper, lemon and dried mint, + glass of coconut milk

Fast Forward to Today

It felt like I barely slept last night, maybe I got 5 hours.  I'm not sure why this is happening Is it because I'm working out too late or because my body is so sore?

Paleo Smoothie

Breakfast: A slight variation on my Paleo Smoothie: Kale, Mango, Banana, Peach, Coconut. 

This combination is starting to taste too sweet for me though, I think I need to adjust the kale to fruit ratio.  

You know what would be awesome?  A Blendtec or Vitamix caliber personal blender... the size of the magic bullet or something. I could take it to work, or make smoothies in my bedroom when our kitchen gets demolished on Monday, and I'm left without a kitchen for 2 months. Yikes!

I stopped by the box at noonish to get weighed in before I grabbed lunch.

Results of Paleo Challenge, Week one: 2.8 lbs down, .5% body fat gone. YAY! 

Lunch: Customized Chicken Bowl from Baja Fresh: No rice, no bean, substituted with cabbage and grilled corn; 3 oz of guacamole,  1 oz of salsa.

Breakfast for Dinner

Eggs, folded over. +

Sweet Potato Hash with : Bacon, spinach, tomato, garlic, Anaheim pepper, and Serrano

Dessert: Dried apricots + sunflower seeds

Repurposing leftovers

Last night I hit myself with a sledgehammer. No, it wasn't on purpose -- I was told to hit a 200 lb tire. (Crossfit, duh). I think it might have been Karma.... I was thinking of a certain someone, I thought it would be therapeutic :: Shrugs::

 So the combination of a swollen shin + tridiculous sorenes from benchmark workouts the day before means I was in too much pain to fall asleep right away. I feel my sore abs every time I take a deep breath, cough or sneeze. 

I went to bed at 10:30, didn't fall asleep till 12:30 --- slept in till 8am.

8:30 am I remember feeling hungry in bed last night, but I was not very hungry this morning, at least not for real food. I decided to get my daily fruit in as the first meal of the day and got my paleo smoothie of kale, coconut, mango and banana.

I went home for lunch only to find out that our running water was shut off and we were out of eggs! So much for that idea. You know whats going to be interesting? To see how I stick to Paleo when our kitchen is demolished on Monday. 

1pm - I ended up buying lunch, 5 oz tri tip and salad greens with balsamic dressing. It was meh, but I was actually hungry ( probably because I didn't have a morning snack), so I appreciated the protein and the veggies very much. 

3:30 pm Snack of raw almonds and walnut

5:45 Dinner - Remember the Paleo Panang Curry from yesterday? It was much too rich for me then, especially since I find myself craving light foods these days, So I set about to repurposing the curry. I simply put a big tablespoon of the curry into a cup of beef broth, added some corn kernels and brought it to a simmer. Talk about fast fod! Less than 5 minutes and I had an amazing dinner. 

Yes, I worked out today, swollen shin and all :)

Addicted to crossfit much???

Paleo + My first crossfit casualty

Protein fills me up pretty fast! I used to wonder how people managed to eat 5-6 small meals a day, but that is exactly what I find myself doing naturally on the Paleo diet

8 am Breakfast - 1 scrambled egg with green onions, topped with Siracha. OMG that stuff is spicy, but so good! I ate maybe 2/3 of the egg this time? I'm really missing the fluffy eggs I used to make with a touch of cream and cheese. Maybe the next egg breakfast should include bacon?  Truly, all I wanted for breakfast was a piece of fruit. But fruit is a sugar and I'm determined to limit my sugar intake, so I held off on the fruit until later in the day.

10am Snack - 1 oz of Beef Jerky

12:30  Lunch - I tried to come up with a Paleo friendly Panang curry. Accepting the fact that I just get full faster, I only used 1 1/2 chicken tenders; some diced carrots, celery and bellpeppers; red curry paste; almond butter ( instead of peanut); Coconut milk ( the one in a milk container, not canned); and a touch of coconut oil, because I couldn't taste any coconut.  I think my proportions of almond butter to every think else was off, once I get this recipe down I'll go ahead and post it. I ended up just picking the chicken out of the curry and eating that. But, I don't want to waste the leftovers, so I'm envisioning turning it into a soup.... 

1:30 Snack - Paleo smoothie: Coconut milk, kale, mango and banana 

4:30 Dinner - 1/2 cup beanless chili

Then came the WOD......

A Sledge hammer met my  Shin. This happened.

  

 

Paleo Challenge Day 4 + Benchmark WOD

 I woke up at 3:30 am wide awake, then again at 5:30 and finally at 7. I wonder how long this will last. If the paleo challenge didn't require we aim for 8 hours of sleep a night, I might just get out of bed earlier.

Breakfast @8 am: 1 egg scrambled with sauteed mushrooms. I ate half and felt full. I'm realizing that a lot of "eating" is more about satisfying the palate for a specific taste or texture. We crave salty, sour, sweet, crunchy, soft, chewy.  I was hungry in the morning, but I felt content after eating just half the egg. I took the other half to work thinking I might eat it later, but my coworker told me she was hungry so i gave it to her. Problem solved :)

I noticed my tongue feels funny today, kinda like I burned it. I initially thought it might be a symptom of detox but after some research discovered its a symptom of Ketosis, which means I'm burning fat, yay!

Snack @ 10 am - 1 oz beef jerky

Oh, another symptom of ketosis -- you get thirsty. I had 9 cups water by noon

Lunch @noon 1 - 1/2 cup beanless chili; Paleo smoothie: 1/2 cup plain coconut milk, 1 cup frozen tropical fruit, 1 small banana

Snack @ 2:30 pm - 2 oz beef jerky

By 3:20  I'd had 12 cups of water. I was also getting rather antsy at work... dreaming of going outside for fresh air, a walk anything. Uhm, there is also the urge to eat when I'm bored, but I'm ignoring it. 

Another interesting development: I used to have trouble getting oxygen into my lungs, especially while/after eating. I thought it was related to stress and/ or anxiety but today I noticed its gone :) I wonder what food I was allergic to? Gluten? dairy? legumes? 

17 cups of water by 5:30 pm

Dinner @ 5:45pm  Wasn't very hungry for dinner and didnt have much time before daily WOD =. Result: cucumber + red bell pepper w/ salt, pepper, dried mint, balsamic vinegar 

Smoothie: 1 cup frozen fruit, 1 banana, 1/2 cup coconut milk

Done eating by 6:15 pm

 Who says a girl has to wait till there is a special guy in her life to enjoy flowers in her office??  I bought these beautiful flower at Trader Joes on my lunch break. Did I mention I love flowers  ???

 Today's WOD was a benchmark WOD. I'll do it again in a month, hopefully with lots of improvement.

Annie - The pushups in Annie killed me, I have no problem lifting my chest off the group, but it feels like my derriere weighs a ton LOL  I know I looked ridiculous but at least I working on improving :) I had just started my 10th round of pull ups when time was called.

Cindy - Cindy was good for my beginner crossfit ego -- finish it in 14:29, under the Rx 15 minute mark... except instead of doubleunders I did 3x singles.

Hope there is a huge difference in a month!!

23 cups of water

Paleo Challenge: Day 3 + Crossfit Recovery

It was an odd day for sure.

I woke up at 4 am -- wide awake, ready to start the day. I persuaded myself to fall asleep at around 4:30 only to wake up again three hours later. Who wake up at 7:30 on a Sunday?? Right?  Back to sleep I went till 10 am.

I wasn't hungry at all this morning, not even enough to eat a banana. So I set about my day.

I showed up at the box for open gym at around 11:30 am, practiced a little bit of everything: GHD, Muscle ups, Knees to Toes ( though its more like knee lifts at this point lol), and a bit of jump roping.

J came in to start the "Recovery" Class at Noon, and guess how we started??

" Give me 15 minutes of activity, I want you sweating" 

 "Ahhh, I thought thats what I had been doing for the past twenty minutes "

So then I found myself going for a 400 meter run, spending some time on the row machine, and doing weighted back lunges. Good times, I was dripping sweat.

We spent the rest of the class learning self massage techniques. I had no idea  my hips could get that tight/sore!! Yeesh!

After class we had a brief info session on the Paleo Challenge. Technically, it starts tomorrow, but I've started since Friday. Why put off something thats going to be good for you, right?

After all that, I made a quick trip to Sprouts and Trader Joes.

Finally, at 3pm, I had my first bite of food, 3 oz of Trader Joes'  Beef Jerky.

The family wanted dinner at 4:30, so I sauteed some onions, pasilla chilis, mushroom and garlic with a bit of olive oil and garlic.

They put the sauteed goodness on their burgers, and I just ate it along with the beef patty- no bread, no cheese of course. 

Arugula salad seems to be my favorite at the moment, but I was barely able to eat half, I felt so stuffed!

Around 6 pm, I made a quick smoothie:

1/2 cup plain coconut milk
1 cup frozen cherry blend from Trader Joes
1 small banana

Confession: I may did have 1/4 cup of chili I was making tonight for the rest of the week, at around 9 pm.  

Paleo Challenge: Day 2

BREAKFAST

Day Two

I woke up this morning with a headache. I heard this might happen, but I wasn't expecting it to happen so soon.  Knowing I was going to Crossfit later that morning I didn't want to eat anything heavy, especially since I did not feel hungry upon waking up. 

So I threw together the above concoction: 1 small apple, diced; hemp seed, chia seed, flax seed, sunflower seeds; a smidgen of almond butter; 1 tablespoon each of diced walnuts and almonds; 1/4 cup of coconut milk

WOD time: 17:18

LUNCH: A salad w/ grilled chicken, arugula, balsamic vinegar and avocado; Pomello; Perrier

DINNER: Grilled Chicken, Grilled Asparagus, Green Salad, Grilled Eggplant Salad and Roasted Yams ( with onion, coconut oil, fresh garlic, and smoked paprika)

LAST MEAL OF THE DAY: Banana, Coconut milk, Chia Seeds

Kitchen closed @ 6 pm tonight

Water@ 104 oz +

Paleo Challenge Day 1

I went to bed hungry last night but woke up without an appetite at all. Good ? Bad? I don't know. 

Solution: Green Monster (8am)

Kale, Spinach, Cucumber, Parsley, Celery

Snack: Raw walnuts and raw almonds ( 11 am)

Thank goodness I had a snack because I was in a client meeting until 1:30pm!!

Before grabbing lunch I ran over to crossfit to officially have my measurements, weight, body fat% etc recorded for the Paleo Challenge. I'm aiming to lose between 30-50 lbs in the next three months. But, more than the lbs, I'm REALLY interested in losing inches. I can't wait to see the results!!

Lunch : Half Steak Power Plate from Sharky's  (Nibbled on between 2:30 -3:30 pm)

3oz. Steak, yams, grilled veggies

 Challenge Rule #1:  Don't eat anything after 7pm

Dinner: Eggplant & Beef Casserole, Salad (6:15 pm)

Salad: Brussel sprouts, celery, cucumber, avocado, salsa, tomato

 Challenge Rule #2 : Drink at least 96 oz of water

I had two of these and then some.

Is it just me, or do you get thirstier on a more frequent basis when you increase your water intake??

No WOD today, Fridays are the only days I take off.

More to come tomorrow :)