Day 18: Paleo Journey!

So many people think that I’ve gone crazy. “No gluten, no dairy, no legumes, no processed sugar? Are you Insane? What do you eat?” But it’s really not as crazy as people make it out to be. Yes, finding a snack is a bit harder than it used to be, but that doesn’t mean I don’t eat. Actually, on the contrary, I think I eat MORE now than I did before going paleo, however, it’s what I eat that’s so different.

Let me take you through a typical day for me. Alarm clock at 5:20am, with coffee already brewing (delay start coffee makes are a heaven sent!), then I heat up some of the breakfast that I made for the week on Sunday. I enjoy a cup of coffee with breakfast and the news, then I’m off to the gym. Spin class at 7am-8am followed by lifting, stair stepper and abs. Shower. Class. Lunch. Class. Class. Home around 6:30pm. Cook dinner (or heat it up if I was smart enough Sunday Food Prep like my friend over at The Lean Green Bean), watch some TV, do some homework, then of course make sure I have everything ready for the next day. Then I try to be in bed by 11pm at the latest.

I have a very planned schedule, but this you should know from my last post. The most important planning that I do, however, is planning what I make for Sunday Food Prep as well as planning what to bring to school. When you’re on campus for twelve hours it’s not only important that you bring healthy foods, but also that you bring ENOUGH of them! Why? Because if you bring lunch, but don’t bother to bring an afternoon snack when you know you’re not going to be home until 6:30pm that donut sitting on the conference table is going to look MIGHTY good.

So, as the question usually is, what do you eat?

Well here are some of the things that I’ve made in the past few weeks (both pre- and post- start of my paleo journey, all of which are paleo recipes.)

Breakfast:
PaleOMG’s Rutabaga Bacon Breakfast Hash
PaleOMG’s Apple and Butternut Squash Hash (added scrambled eggs)
PaleOMG’s Easy Crockpot Breakfast ‘Pie’
PaleOMG’s Meat Crust Quiche

Lunch/Dinner:
PaleOMG’s My New Go-To Meal
PaleOMG’s Peach BBQ Turkey Meatloaf
My own version of Beef Stew inspired by Robb Wolf’s Version
PaleOMG’s Maple Mustard Short Rib Bacon Burgers
PaleOMG’s Easy Chicken Bacon Bowl
Biggest Loser inspired Mexican Sweet Potato

Sides:
Spinach Salad w/ green apple and Steve’s Original Wild Berry Dressing
Cauliflower & Broccoli
Brussel Sprouts

Snacks:
Apples, Carrots, Oranges, Anything from Steve’s Original, Sweet Potato chips, Nuts with Raisins

As you can see, there is NO food lacking in my kitchen! Actually, I believe that this is the best that I’ve eaten all of my life. And the best part? All of this food is CLEAN! Clean and tasty! Once I got in the habit of grabbing some veggies and meat to throw together something delicious it wasn’t that hard. Mind you, you can see that I’ve had a lot of help from PaleOMG and others in this adventure, but that’s the glory of the internet! With a simple google (or bing, but I’m definitely a good person) search you can find something EASY and CLEAN to satisfy your taste!

Until next time please enjoy eating my food with your mind!
-B

Need Some Motivation?

Over the years of working out and trying to be healthy I’ve realized that sometimes I just need some motivation. Sometimes it’s as easy as logging onto Pinterest and checking out my ‘motivation’ board, but sometimes I feel like I just need Jillian Michaels in my face to yell and scream and let me know that I’m being a worthless piece of crap and to get off of the couch and do something. A bit dramatic? Maybe. But sometimes it feels like that’s the only thing to get me going.

Luckily for me, I workout on campus and am able to get a pseudo-Jillian for some group fitness classes. Plus it leads me to being sore in places I didn’t know existed, as well as being able to listen to some crazy/loud/fun/weird music. I’ve been able to find a class EVERYDAY of the week that will fit into my schedule. I think that being ‘committed’ to a group fitness class helps get me to the gym. On the days that I’m like, “well, maybe I’ll just go super hard tomorrow and skip today,” I realize that those people in the class might wonder where I am (even if they don’t know me) and it makes me walk my butt over to the gym to workout.

In addition to group fitness classes, I enjoy finding random internet things to get involved in. Over the holidays I participated in Elf For Health (http://www.theleangreenbean.com/elf-for-health/) which was an awesome way to be able to connect with people and do some random fitness things throughout the week. Although I must say, the day that I tried to drink my weight in ounces of water I felt like I was going to pee my pants every 20 minutes.

BUT the holidays are done, so what now you ask? Well, the fabulous Lindsay from theleangreenbean.com has put together another event that I happened to stumble upon right after the new year. This event is called Foodie Penpals! (http://www.theleangreenbean.com/foodie-penpals/) Here you’re paired up with someone from anywhere in the US (she also sets it up for out of country people, but I’m from the US and don’t know how the international penpals work) and you send them a box of healthy fun foods up to a $15 value and send it. Then you’ll also receive a box (from someone other than who you sent a box to) with goodies in it.

I received my box on Thursday the 17th from the wonderful Gina from http://healthloveandchocolate.com/, but waited until today to post pictures since it’s part of the rules. It’s like she read my mind! It was a perfect person to be matched with since we both are lactose intolerant, and both live healthy lives! Such a wonderful box!!

Well, hope I helped you with some motivation!

-B

Paleo-ToughMudder-Crossfit-2013

I know that I’m a little bit behind if I’m trying to post a resolution, or something along those lines, but bettet late than never. This year I plan on doing a few things that have been very intriguing to me for some time.

First of all, starting in February I’m going to start following a paleo lifestyle. Don’t know what paleo is? Here, check out this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolithic_diet . There are many other websites that explain it, as well as different ones where people share their stories about their change to paleo. In summary, paleo is a ‘no grain, no dairy, no legumes’ diet. I’ve been follow it about 70/30 right now until I finish some of the food that I still have. I’m very excited!

Second, I hope to get over this knee injury so that I can run a Tough Mudder in June. I finally went to a sports medicine doctor and he told me that I have chondromalacia patella. Which in summary means that my knee cap gets pulled towards the outside of my leg when I run, which causes the cartilage to rub wrong causing severe pain. (Wiki is my friend: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001488/) Now that I know what it is I’m hoping to be able to do some exercises and stretches to both lengthen the muscle and ‘beef it up.’

Third, I’m hoping to join a crossfit gym by the summer. Currently I don’t have the money to hand over to a gym. I know that it’s the money is worth it and that I’ll be SUPER happy once I finally join one. (I’ve even scoped out the one that I’m going to join, I think psyched doesn’t even begin to describe how happy I will be when I finally walk into that gym.) But I also know that part of being an adult is knowing when you can and can’t afford something, and right now I know that I can’t. Time to stop spending money and start saving!

Well, there are my three goals for this year. There are a few more; like run another half marathon, stop stressing so much, drink more water and less caffeine, but they’re not as big and ‘life defying.’

Until next time,

-B