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MrsStick's Whole30 Preparation


MrsStick

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I've been playing around with the idea of GAPS/Paleo eating for a while. I've known I feel better without grains (I mean, I can't even digest corn, based on how it looks after I've supposedly "digested" it) but lately my sugar cravings have been off the charts and I've been eating chocolate, candy, and even peanut butter chips like it's my job.

I found this site through Nom Nom Paleo, where I'd been searching for breakfast ideas to replace breakfast burritos (frozen ahead of time) or breakfast pizzas (on English muffin crust).

I've had a bit of an unhealthy relationship with chocolate and cheese (seriously, I can substitute one for a craving for the other interchangeably) since I was a kid (I'm 27 now). I have a family history of high blood pressure on both sides (although my dad controls his through Tai Chi) and have been a bit of a mess lately. It started in my pre-deployment health screening, when my skin test for TB again came up positive. I knew it would because I'd tested positive before, but it dropped out of my medical records and I had to take it again. I am 2 weeks away from finishing the 9 month stint of antibiotics for that.

The side effects of those drugs have been ridiculous. I've been taking a probiotic (Bio-Kult, 14 strains in one pill) almost daily since I started the meds to try to help, and I'm on a prescription B6 to help with some of the weirder side effects (totally random debilitating joint pain, the feeling that bugs are walking under the skin of my feet) but the worst effect for now is that it raises my blood pressure, especially if I eat any of a number of foods on the list.

I was on birth control until today. My husband is downrange, but I just (literally JUST) talked to him on the phone and we agreed that I should stop the crazy hormone train that is the birth control pill. I've been on it since before we got married three and a half years ago and even though I'm on the lowest possible dose, it makes me crazy. It's nice that it lightens up my lady times, but I'd rather be laid up in bed with cramps than shoving hormones into my body. And maybe the diet change will help with that. We're still not ready to have kids yet (see the paragraph below for at least one reason why) but the hormones are done.

I was born with loose joints; I've already had my right shoulder operated on to tighten it up. I'm currently in physical therapy 2-3 times per week because my left shoulder is acting up and crazy painful. As of now, I take one anti-inflammatory (Mobic) daily for it and have a narcotic for as needed (thanks to the TB meds, I couldn't take Tylenol, which is probably a good thing as it kept me from taking anything too regularly). I'll be sad to kiss my Flintstone vitamins goodbye with this, but then again, I did just start taking the Green Pastures Fermented Cod Liver Oil (I got the Blue Ice capsule with orange oil in it - orange oil is supposed to have anti-inflammatory properties) although I'm thinking my next bottle might be the FCLO/Butter Oil blend.

I will be starting Whole30 next week (I work 60-ish hours a week and am a geographical bachelorette so I can't just drop everything and go shopping), once I can make a grocery list and go shopping. I'm a little curious to see how it goes for me; I've tried cutting grains before, but never all added sugars. I'm living in Germany but do have access to an American store. I'm going to try to buy as much as I can German, though, because the produce, eggs, and meat are all fresher and more local. This is going to get really interesting really quickly, I think.

I'm really hesitant to buy the Success Guide (you'd think the name would be enough to convince me) - could you all please weigh in on whether it really is worth the money? It just seems like a lot of money to drop on an ebook.

Anyways, that's me. I'm a little crazy when I write (I'm rather stream of consciousness) but I enjoy having a community around me and will hopefully not let myself (or any of you that help cheer me on) down.

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Hello!

Welcome to the Whole30! I can't say anything for the "Success Guide" because I'm halfway through my Whole30 without it. However, if you haven't already read "It Starts With Food", I would HIGHLY recommend that you read that first. The nutritional information alone is worth it, but it also explains the meal planning and has example recipes. I would also recommend, "Well Fed" (Melissa Joulwan's Cookbook) for meal planning.

I also think you're on the right track with buying your foods from local sources. The most local, natural, non-processed choices will be your best options. You may only need to do extra shopping for optional Whole30-Approved condiments (like Red Boat Fish Sauce).

I hope your Whole30 goes well! Be sure to stick with it through the whole 30 days, even if you don't see changes right away. From what I've seen on the forums, the big changes really do take the entire time, and the first week or two can be very hard to get through. If you need any advice or have any troubles, the people here are really helpful! :)

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I don't know anything about the success guide but I did sign up for the daily emails and absolutely loved them. I found them really helpful, motivating and with lots of good links in them. I saved them all and still reread them. Good luck with the program.

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Okay, it's Saturday, and I'm starting on Monday. I went shopping today (German stores aren't open on Sunday, when I usually shop) and did pretty well. I mean, I currently have around 8 lbs of meat and at least as many of veggies in my fridge. It was a good experience trying the German store (the food really is fresher on the produce side) but they didn't have everything I needed. Limes, avocados, and sweet potatoes were the noticeable non-available items. I mis-translated one of the spices I need (fresh parsley = peterselerie, which I could've bought a plant of and grown it in my window...EPIC FAIL), but all in all, a decent experience and not as expensive as I thought, given my vast quantities.

I forgot to bring my list into the American store, so I'll have to go back tomorrow when I go to church. Oh well - today was just going to be the prep day and tomorrow will be cooking so I can start on Monday with plenty of food available so I don't have to eat the chocolate chips and peanut butter chips in my pantry.

The three epic fails of the day:

1. Not translating parsley correctly. *facepalm*

2. The julienne peeler-thing I bought broke before I even got a slice out of it. Put it on the sweet potato, started pulling down, blade piece broke out and stayed stuck in the sweet potato. It only cost like 3 Euro, so I'm not going to return it, but I will check the American store to see if they have any. I'll use my grater for one sweet potato and if I can't get another julienne thing tomorrow, I'll make the other ones into sweet potato puree to save my knuckles from the grater. It and I don't get along very well.

3. One of the sweet potatoes I bought had a rotten spot the size of the opening in my smaller Nalgene bottle. Have you ever smelled a rotten sweet potato? I don't recommend it.

Despite the initial failures in my attempt at a Whole30 at what could be said is the worst time (I have at least one trip with a friend to Cologne for the Faschings fest in three weeks...ever been to a German fest? Beer, schnapps, bread, strudel........), I'm doing it. It might be hard, and I might have to bring food with me (I'll try to avoid just eating Larabars for 2 days straight), I'm going to figure it out.

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Okay, day 1 is down. It's not been too bad, minus the dehydration headache whenever I went too long without drinking any water and the cramps from lady times.

Meals for today:

Breakfast: 2 slices bacon (commercial but ingredients only include the pork and celery juice), 2 cups sweet potato hash cooked in the bacon grease, 2 eggs cooked in bacon grease, 4 roasted mushrooms

Lunch: 1/2 an avocado with my friend's homemade salsa, Moroccan meatballs from Well Fed, steamed broccoli with salt, 2 clementines

Dinner: Carnitas from Well Fed, 2 cups (approx) of a mixture of 3 bell peppers and 2 onions sauteed in homemade ghee

I was a busy girl yesterday. I made the carnitas (which I think are way too lemon/lime flavored...next time I'll probably halve the juice or use a bigger roast), Moroccan meatballs, roasted carrots, the chicken thigh recipe from Well Fed for lunches, roasted mushrooms, and steamed broccoli. All in all, I have what used to be 8 lbs (ish, my amounts on the meats are all in kg, so I'm approximating the weights using 2 lb per kilo) of meat and 8 lbs of veggies prepped for the week and a bag of clementines (10 in the bag).

I don't think I ate enough fat as the avocado was my only source of it for today beyond the cooking fats. I'll work on that for the future, but for now I'm just amazed that I was able to choke down avocado. My first experience with it was when I was in Chile, living with a host mother for 3 weeks. One day, about a week in, the breakfast she made me was avocado spread on toast. While some may think that sounds delicious, I took it and tried to eat it on the way. There was no other seasoning but the avocado and I ended up throwing most of it away because it made my stomach turn. Turns out that the reason my stomach was so angry about it was that I was in the beginning stages of a stomach bug that passed through the 5 of us in Chile together because we all ended up sick within a day or two of each other. But avocado is one of those foods that I really don't like. The flavor is weird, the texture is weird, and my brain associates it with being sick. I'm going to try mashing it with hard boiled eggs and salsa for breakfast tomorrow with the mushrooms and see if that is more palatable, because otherwise I'm going to have a hard time eating enough fat for what I should be having.

Anyways, I'm going to try to go to bed early tonight because I don't know how long my breakfast prep will take me in the morning. I am used to eating a Larabar and drinking a smoothie on my way to work in the morning (in my defense, the smoothie was a lot of fresh and frozen fruit, coconut oil, yogurt, and whole milk, so it's not like it was low fat) and I really don't want to be late because it's going to be a busy day. Lunch for tomorrow is packed and I'm going to go shower before bed. I feel pretty tired, but I've been that way all day so far. Lady times take it out of me, as does not taking my usual Flintstones vitamin with breakfast (took all of my other usual supplements: fermented cod liver oil, probiotic, and my one shoulder medication) and cutting my finger pretty deeply while messing around with cutting extra wax off of an old candle. I'm such a klutz!

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Days 2 and 3 wrap-up:

Day 2:

Breakfast: 2 boiled eggs, mashed with 1/2 avocado and homemade salsa, roasted mushrooms (4 2" button mushrooms)

Lunch: Chicken thigh and drumstick, steamed broccoli, 20 raw sugar snap peas, 1 carrot's worth of sticks (raw)

Dinner: Moroccan meatballs, roasted carrots

700ml mint tea, 1-1.5L water (not enough)

I know I need more fat, and I will be making my own mayo for next week so I can use it as the base for veggie dip. For now, I really wasn't hungry between meals. I still had the desire to snack (I used to keep a big container of trail mix on my desk for that reason, but it's definitely not compliant, what with the chocolate, peanuts, etc.), but not the need to.

I found out yesterday (day 2) that I'd be on the road most of today to travel to give a briefing. I'd be leaving around lunchtime. Hooray! More about that below...

Day 3:

Breakfast: Chicken thigh and drumstick, steamed broccoli

Lunch: ~1 cup sweet potato hash, 2 hard boiled eggs, a few raw carrot sticks and sugar snap peas

Dinner: Carnitas with onions and (red, yellow, and green) bell peppers

Mint tea but not anywhere near as much water as it should be!

Today turned out to be crazy. I had breakfast at work when I was hungry (let's face it, 6 am is not the time my body wants to eat...); 7:30 am maybe? Then I went to physical therapy. TWO HOURS LATER >:o I got back to the office, finished stuff up for the brief I had to give, ate maybe a cup of sweet potato hash, then we left. I then somehow managed to not be super hungry until the drive back. I ate a few raw carrot sticks and snap peas, then decided that they weren't what I wanted so I waited. I wanted my eggs but I hate the way they make a small space smell. Let's face it, they smell awful! When the guy driving needed caffeine, we pulled off at a rest stop and he went in to buy a chocolate bar and Red Bull (hooray, SAD!) so I ate two boiled eggs before he was done and we left again. That held me over for the next hour on the road, turning in the car, spending 2 hours (should've been longer but the trip took forever!) at AWANA with my kids, then getting home at 8:30 pm and eating dinner.

Definitely not ideal.

That being said, today's victories:

1. Rearranging meals so I could accommodate travel on short notice (it's easier to eat eggs on the road than a chicken thigh)

2. Resisting the temptation of smelling a coworker's breakfast and asking for a bite of bread (it sounds so shameful!)

3. Resisting the temptation of "let's get some food before we leave to go home" at the snack stand in the building (score!)

4. Resisting buying something easy at the gas station and eating my eggs instead of chocolate

5. Not eating the white chocolate-dipped pretzels (or white chocolate waffle pretzel M&M things) that I got as a teacher's gift at AWANA. Heck, I even opened the package of the dipped pretzels to give one to one of my girls and didn't eat one!

6. Not eating the Double Stuf Oreos that were part of a party at AWANA

And all of that was on a not-as-full-as-it-should-be stomach! Hooray me!

Oh, and physical therapy days are when I usually have the most temptation...something about having been in pain makes me just want to stuff sweets into my mouth. *sigh*

However, I am now 10% done with my Whole30! Hahahaha...3 days out of 30 isn't much of an accomplishment, but every day counts!

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Day 4:

Breakfast: 2 hard-boiled eggs, mashed avocado, homemade salsa, sweet potato hash

Lunch: Chicken thigh and drumstick, 2 clementines, 1 raw carrot and 20 sugar snap peas

Snack: 22 raw almonds (serving size on the bag, and a handful for me)

Dinner: Moroccan meatballs, steamed broccoli with ghee, roasted carrots with ghee

I was SO hungry today. I felt good after breakfast but after lunch...I wanted to eat everything. The dessert snacks in the office were calling my name. I think it's that I'm not eating enough fat, so I'll be upping that tomorrow. It's why I ate the snack...it was either that or the white chocolate-covered pretzels. I didn't realize how sweet raw almonds are. I think I might be crazy, but they were kind of sweet-ish. I'm not a huge nut person, but they were edible.

I had a dinnertime meeting tonight that I found out 2 hours prior to was a potluck. I didn't bring anything, and I definitely didn't eat anything because NOTHING was compliant. I ate when I got home (I spent some time after the meeting holding some friends' babies...so cute!) because I did NOT want to break my W30.

I did get some light flavored olive oil today at the store so I made myself some mayonnaise after dinner (it was almost 9pm at that point). It worked...the mayo stayed emulsified, so hooray for that! I mixed in spices to make it ranch-flavored (I hate ranch dressing, but will make my own for veggie dip) and will eat it with my raw veggies at lunch tomorrow. I'll let you know how it goes for me - maybe I won't want every single dessert in a 10 mile radius if I'm full of good fats!

My coworkers think I'm really weird for bringing my lunch chicken bones home with me, but I don't really do the cook-a-whole-chicken thing so I want to keep my bones for bone broth to make soup without sugar or MSG! Oh well, you can't win all of the battles sometimes...

Queenofcups, my only problem with the carnitas is that the fruit flavor is REALLY strong. I wish it was more subtle, so next time I might halve or so the juice and see if it's better. The tenderization is AMAZING but I'd rather not be attacked by lemon-lime flavor when I eat...

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Day 5: Okay, seriously? How less normal can my schedule get???!?

Breakfast: 2 hard-boiled eggs, 1/2 avocado, salsa

Lunch: 2 clementines, 2 carrots and 20 sugar snap peas dipped in homemade mayo ranch dip

Dinner: Bowl of Moroccan meatballs

Okay, today makes pretty much a whole work week of crazy strange schedules. *sigh* Let's see...

Eating breakfast this morning was something I had to force myself to do. The avocado made my stomach hurt a LOT, and when I mentioned it to my mom tonight she said she can't eat avocado for that reason. Looks like I'm really sensitive to it. Which means no more avocado for me, but at least this time I have a real reason for it. My stomach was KILLING me as soon as I finished breakfast!

I had a meeting that started at 1100. It ended at 1400. I had to smell MSG-laden beef jerky for the last half. Needless to say, I was starving when I got out of it and made it through my veggies before I remembered that I had to be at a ceremony that started at 1430 (it ended up being WAY late, but that time change wasn't announced) so I grabbed a clementine and left for it. Got back to the office at 1530, worked until 1700, left. Went home, Skyped my mom (my Christmas present finally arrived!), then shoved food in my face (hooray, Moroccan meatballs!) and rushed out to the play I was supposed to see (after changing out of my uniform) with a friend. And to top it off, several people want me to try out for the play they're doing next (it's Little Women! I totally would love to be in it!) but I'm not sure. I'll talk to the hubby about it this weekend...tryouts are Monday/Tuesday.

So yeah. No more avocado for me (aww darn...I'm really not upset over it) which means I better make some sausage patties this weekend! Hooray homemade sausage!

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Day 6 complete!

Brunch: Carnitas with peppers and onions

Snack: Palm size of fresh pineapple

Dinner: Shrimp Cakes with Fruity Pico de Gallo

I woke up at a decent-ish time (I fell back asleep and dozed for almost an hour after I should've gotten up, but it could've been worse) but laid in bed and finished a book before getting up. I ate a brunch, meal planned, and went grocery shopping early-mid afternoon.

I ran out of food by this weekend...mostly. I still have 2 or 3 servings of Moroccan meatballs, 3 or 4 roasted mushrooms (they're 1.5" across the cap, so that's a good half serving of veggies at least), and the chicken and broccoli I didn't eat for lunch because of yesterday's craziness. Needless to say, I bought twice as much food (not exactly, but the dollar amount was almost exactly twice last week's) this week, to try to stave off the starvation (ha!).

The prep I managed to get done today:

Baked 2 sweet potatoes for mashed sweet potatoes with coconut milk, cinnamon, nutmeg, and a handful of chopped nuts

Made http://www.multiplydelicious.com/thefood/2013/01/shrimp-cakes/ (I forgot peppers, so I added a little extra already-chopped red onion to bulk them up) in a double batch, and a batch of the fruity pico de gallo from this recipe: http://www.multiplydelicious.com/thefood/2011/10/spicy-lime-shrimp-with-fruity-pico-de-gallo/.

Have pulled pork marinating in the fridge until tomorrow morning (link: http://cuttingoutcarbs.blogspot.de/2012/06/pulled-pork-with-paleo-bbq-sauce.html).

The shrimp cakes and salsa (for lack of a better brief term) were amazing. Life changing. I didn't have much fresh honeydew melon so I subbed in some extra cantaloupe for the partial amount I needed of the honeydew. The onion wasn't too harsh. I didn't use any jalapenos (I'm afraid of them...) but both were still great (even if I forgot to get peppers and had to add a little extra onion to the shrimp cakes to have enough substance). Still...awesome.

Things still to do tomorrow:

Make the pulled pork and sauce to go with it

Make Garlic Dill veggies (Recipe)

Make Cumin-Spiked Sweet Potato Fries (they sound amazing with the pulled pork, especially dipped in mayonnaise...thank you, living in Europe, for making me love that)

Make Roasted Veggie Salad

Make Red Onion Salad (I saw the idea on here, in one of the veggie threads)

Make sausage for breakfasts

Make some taco meat for taco salads (I love my homemade taco seasoning mix at times like this)

A bit of work, but two of them are "cut some stuff and put it in the oven for a while" sort of recipes. The taco meat might wait until this week when I want some. We'll see. I am happy to have Muir Glen organic salsas available at my American store...garlic cilantro salsa for the win! No sugar! Also, my German store's spice selection is amazing...so I was able to find the supposed-to-be-hard-to-find sweet paprika for the BBQ sauce for the pulled pork! Paprika edelüß (literally translated, "noble sweet" or "sweet and seductive). I'm excited for how it tastes...I've only ever eaten smoked or plain paprika.

The dry rub recipe for the pork was WAY too much. I could've used half as much of it and still had extra I think. I left it all in the plastic wrap since I couldn't exactly use it for anything else, but I feel like I wasted the spices.

My husband tonight said on the phone that he's concerned I'm not eating enough carbs. Seriously? Usually he and I are at least on similar pages with food, so this felt like it came from left field. He's doing a high carb diet himself since he's training for a marathon (he's a bit nervous about it) but I was just like :blink: . My response is that I'm eating sweet potatoes, squash, and fruit for carbs and I am feeling fine. His comment (I think) was about my wanting to buy a julienne peeler (that won't fall apart on the first use) to make zoodles so I don't have to eat pasta. I mean, I didn't know that there was a % DV for super simple starchy carbs. Carbs, yes, are important, but from everything I've been noticing about myself as my body is transforming (which hasn't been too bad thus far) I'm not really reacting to NOT having them. And while I drooled over just the names of all kinds of paleo muffin etc. recipes while looking for my recipes for the week...I didn't need them. They sounded amazing, and I'm sure they are, but the thought of having sausage that's safe for breakfast with an egg or two negates that. So I don't know why he's so worried. Hopefully when he comes home and sees me all healthy and happy, his mind will change (at least after his marathon). He seems pretty set on keeping his carbs (which is funny, since his dad cut out grains some years ago and lost a bunch of weight...and has kept it off with nothing other than most grains are gone most of the time). He's always been big on "lunch has to be a sandwich" since we've been out of college...and I've always been big on "what can I eat that isn't bread?" for lunch. Not that I don't like bread...just that sandwiches get SO BORING! Moroccan meatballs sound so much more exciting than two slices of bread with some stuff between them.

Am I just crazy? ;)

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Aaaaaand...looks like a minimum of a Whole 38 for me! Consumed soy tonight while out at a restaurant with friends. Long story short, my meal goes to the grill (Mongolian BBQ) without soy sauce and comes back with. Waiter speaks no English (I live in Germany; it's rather common for those for whom German is already a second language), I speak some German but not enough to explain why I can't eat it, so I made a decision to not make a scene. I'm already feeling tired, but who knows what else was in that sauce they put on there. MSG gives me a headache and I have a faint one now...last time I had MSG I had an actual hangover at work the next morning. My coworkers knew I hadn't been drinking, but thought it hilarious that I tried wearing my sunglasses at my computer. Took until after lunch to clear up, too.

So, here's the log, just to continue the trend:

Day 7: UGGGGGGG

Breakfast: 2 (2-3" across) homemade sausage patties, 1 egg, sweet potato mash (coconut milk, cinnamon, ground cloves, nutmeg...delicious!), 3 roasted mushrooms

Lunch: skipped because breakfast was at 1030 and I was going to dinner at 1730; not ideal, but my breakfast really did fill me up

Dinner: horrible evil stirfry of doom! (ingredients: mushrooms, onions, snow peas, peppers, bean sprouts, pineapple, shrimp, and two types of fish...not sure what kind since the signs obviously didn't line up right with the food they were since I don't like cooking fish myself), a little bit of a cold seafood salad, cold shredded carrots in vinegar with parsley, cold tomato salad, and cold cucumber-onion-dill-vinegar salad (the last three are German things), a final plate (hey, I avoided cheesecake, ice cream, cupcakes, and all kinds of Chinese buffet desserts) with 1/3 banana, the equivalent of one smile-shaped slice of a honeydew melon, and 8 or 9 pieces of pineapple. Too much sugar? Probably. But at least it was fresh fruit, not in syrup like the lychee, peaches, etc.

So there you have it. Whole 38 (if my husband and my travels between now and his returning home don't derail me again) here I come! *sigh* If anyone's reading this, PLEASE tell me it's worth it. Pretty please?

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Day 8/38:

Breakfast: 2 (smallish) sausage patties, 2 fried eggs in ghee, mashed sweet potatoes

Lunch: 1 carrot, 3-4" of cucumber in rounds, a little over 20 sugar snap peas all with homemade mayo dip, Moroccan meatballs

Dinner: shrimp cakes with fruity salsa stuff, roasted veggies on a salad with Balsamic Vinegar

Day 8 has been better than the last ones. I was actually awake this morning and, while I was a bit yawny, I'm feeling better overall. Yesterday's meltdown was...hopefully the only one, although my temper did come out some today. Perhaps some KILL ALL THE THINGS rage? Maybe! For full story, check out the story in the Troubleshooting section on the forum...

I had to get weighed today for work and I was down 6 pounds from where I was 3 or 4 weeks ago. I know that's all muscle in my legs, though, since I'm doing physical therapy to work my arms three times a week. The problem is my shoulder - I can't run or elliptical with it; sitting on a stationary bike too long will make both it and my IT band angry, so biking's even out for now. Hooray, walking? At least it's staying lighter outside now so I wasn't walking in the dark. I did a little over 2 miles in...somewhere between half an hour and 45 minutes. Not sure of when I started since the last time I'd looked at my watch was before my weigh-in, and it was 4:30. At the 1 mile point it was 5:00. Who knows what time I started walking (or hit the start point for the 1 mile route) though. When I got home, I didn't feel like I needed a post-WO meal, so I went with my body. I'm going to do a leg workout tomorrow, so I might. I guess we'll see.

Anyways, I am noticing the sugar/grain brain starting to diminish. I'm able to handle more requirements at work now, and I think my bosses have noticed too. Maybe I'll get up to the level of one of my coworkers...his brain is scary. My parents have always called me the scary smart one if I apply myself, so hopefully this will help me apply myself! Though I've sometimes wondered if I might've been deemed autism spectrum if I was born 15 or 20 years later. Who knows how the brain works...every time we have a hard and fast answer on one side of the see-saw, someone else comes out with something that conclusively proves the opposite!

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Day 9:

B: 2 eggs fried in clarified butter, 2 sausage patties, sweet potato coconut mash

L: 2 carrots, 2-3" of cucumber in rounds, Paleo mayo dip, Moroccan meatballs, 1 clementine

D: Taco salad with roasted veggies (plate full of lettuce with my roasted veggies on top with taco meat and sugar-free salsa on top)

I made taco meat (.75 lb ground organic ground beef and .75 lb organic ground turkey with my homemade taco seasoning) and the BBQ sauce for the pulled pork the evening of Day 9. I didn't shred the pork and cook it with the sauce; I'm shredding and mixing sauce in as I serve. Also, I managed to cut my thumb cutting my carrots. *facepalm*

Day 10:

B: 2 eggs, pan-scrambled in clarified butter, 2 sausage patties, sweet potato coconut mash

L: Pulled pork with homemade sauce (the addition of pineapple to sweeten the sauce was amazing!), carrot sticks, cucumber rounds, Paleo mayo dip

D: Roasted veggie/taco salad

D2.0: 2 shrimp cakes with fruit salsa

I was really hungry all day today. Maybe it's the fact that I worked out yesterday (hooray, squats, lunges, 1 legged squats, etc.) and my body's trying to recover the nutrients? I'm not sure. But when I got home tonight after eating dinner out (I packed) I was hungry so I stood there, considering my food available (have a TON of non-compliant foods in the house still...), and decided to eat two more shrimp cakes with fruit salsa. That was enough, it didn't feed my sugar dragon (who hasn't put up much of a fight yet), and I am satisfied. I think it was a fat/protein thing...the shrimp cakes were cooked in coconut oil and have coconut flour in them along with the eggs and other goodness inside.

Beyond that, I'm still managing to resist. My used-to-be-paleo coworker was super jealous of my pulled pork at lunch today. She's on who knows what kind of diet, trying to lose weight. She really should be paleo again, since she weight lifts and loves working out, but has gone back over to the land of protein without fat. She's eating weird stuff - one full egg with extra whites and oatmeal for breakfast, chicken breast and veggies and sweet potato for lunch, tuna for snack, etc. She's apparently trying to lose weight, which I don't see the need for given her musculature, but whatever. She asked me again how the paleo was going for me, which I had to answer truthfully: it still isn't easy, but I'm loving it so far.

Friday I'll have an appointment with my physical therapist who will be putting in a referral for me to go see a surgeon about my shoulder. I wish it could have been fixed without surgery, but given that my other shoulder did so well after surgery, I'm hopeful. Stupid thing has been messed up for seven months now, and I'm ready to have a usable arm again!

I'm going to have to do mammoth cooking spree this weekend, since it's my last weekend home until after my husband gets back. I have an event Saturday night (movie night with my AWANA kids!), which I'll be bringing myself raisins to munch on to avoid popcorn and whatever else the kids bring to share...not ideal, but if I'm going to be surrounded by it, by golly I'm going to have something I CAN have so I'm not totally miserable and hungry. But next weekend is Koln for Faschings and the weekend after that is Nice. I really hope I can manage to keep up the paleo without having to cheat. Really hoping. Emotionally, knowing that I gave in is awful, but if it lasts more than one meal, I'm afraid I'll just get caught up in normal sorts of things.

Oh, and I had a friend ask why I'm eating eggs if dairy's out. She's a smart girl (seriously, she's going to be getting her masters' degree to go teach at a college), just associates eggs with being next to milk in the refrigerated section of the grocery store.

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Day 11 and 12:

I really don't think there was any difference between the meals on these days, so I'm lumping them together here.

B: 2 eggs, 2 sausage patties, sweet potato mash

L: Carrot sticks, cucumber rounds, pulled pork with homemade sauce

D: Roasted veggie taco salad

I did a bunch of shopping today. Gotta get cooking! I was super excited to find soy-free tuna packed in EVOO at my American store today as a "one time buy" item. I bought a few packs, but was disappointed in the price (really? $1.49 for a single serving pouch? SUCK!). They are about to close down that location and open up the new one (today was the last day the old location is open, and the new one opens on Tuesday) so they didn't have smoked paprika (the German store only has spicy paprika or sweet paprika) or chili powder.

Day 13: (today)

B: 2 eggs, pan-scrambled, 2 sausage patties, mashed sweet potato

L (I kind of skipped lunch, but here's my meal 2): pulled pork, green bean and mushroom dish I just made, 1 pineapple ring from the fresh one I got at the German store

D (meal 3): 1/3 cup slivered and blanched almonds, 1/3 cup raisins

Not ideal, but it worked. I had a later breakfast and wasn't hungry until I might as well have eaten dinner. The snacky meal 3 was at a movie night with a bunch of kids that I work with every week. The room was FULL of all kinds of grain- and sugar-based treats, which I avoided by having my snack. I'm a little hungry now, but if I eat this close to bed I won't sleep.

I am impressed at how well I'm doing and how my energy is starting to come back. I spent 3 hours shopping today, then came home and made garlic-dill veggies and snapped 2 lbs of green beans for that recipe and started prep on a 3rd recipe before I had to leave to make it to movie night. *sigh* They may not be my kids, but snuggled in beside them on the floor to watch the movie was AWESOME. Am I weird? Probably, but they're my awesomely frustrating monsters one night a week, and on super special weeks, twice.

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