Cauliflower "Rice" Pilaf

Since I'm not officially part of the clean eating challenge, I didn't get to do all of the body fat and measurements that the rest of them did so I decided that my goal weight is "getting something out of my pants pockets without having to stand up" weight.
We're getting better with the Paleo thing.  I'm not saying that the food is amazing and that I don't miss a good bean burrito but we able to make foods that don't leave you hungry for more.  Katie's still a perfectionist in the kitchen so that definitely helps.  She has a ton of paleo cooking blogs that she takes ideas from and then makes them even better.  She has a pilaf made of shredded cauliflower that was about as good as a good rice pilaf.  I would actually eat that even off of the diet.




This is  basically what I thought that I'd be eating for the entire week.  Boiled eggs for breakfast and some lunch meat and lettuce for lunch and dinner.  We actually do have a lot of eggs for breakfast but we do break up the monotony of the smoothies by adding different fruits.  We also try to see how much spinach we can put in it without changing the taste.  We've pushed the boundaries a little too much a couple of times but mostly we've had some pretty tasty smoothies.

Jimmy Johns Unwich

Another thing that has saved us is the Jimmy Johns Unwich.  Basically their sandwiches in a lettuce wrap and their avocado spread .  Katie's been spending a ton of time worrying about every meal so it's nice to occasionally stop and pick something up.











We've gotten very good at making "one minute almond muffins" too.  That's helped when all I've wanted was a sandwich.  We found some sweet potato chips that aren't too bad.  I'm sure they aren't the best things for you since they are still fried in oil, but they're better for you than Doritos.

The other thing that we've gotten good at is making our own mayonnaise.  We tried it a couple of times at the beginning but it took way too long and was a pain because you had to slowly mix in the oil.  If any of my (one reader) makes their own paleo mayonnaise, let me know and I will tell you an very easy and simple way to do it and it makes some great mayo. When I say it has changed our life, I'm not exaggerating.  We might actually continue to make our own even after the challenge is over. 

We used the mayo to make this broccoli slaw.  The bacon wrapped chicken is pretty tasty too.

So I will quit complaining about the bland paleo food and get back to complaining about the WODs.  

It's been a long time since I've written in this and I have done a horrible job of exercising this week.  I no longer work for Google. I started a new job this week with Cardlytics and I have been training at their headquarters in Atlanta.  I was actually pleased that I was able to handle my back pain while walking and standing in a lot of lines in the airports.  The doctor also told me that I had to wear compression socks on the plane because she was concerned that my leg is still swollen and I am at a higher risk for blood clots on a 4 hr flight. 

I did get a couple of complements on them from old ladies but most people just stared because they were speechless, probably overcome by my awesomeness and amazing style.  I could have worn pants but I like to be comfortable when I travel.  Plus, I didn't really care cause I new I'd never see these people again.



The bigger issue was trying to stay paleo while eating at great places.  I was able to eat salads during our lunches but we were taken out to great places for dinner and that's where it got tough. 
One night we went to a famous burger joint called The Vortex.  I thought I would be good and so I didn't touch any of the appetizers.  Like the deep fried Zucchini:        Or the chips and Salsa:

I also skipped the Elvis burger which I really wanted to try.  (It had peanut butter and fried bananas on it.)


Another tempting one was the double heart attack burger.  It had fried eggs on it and instead of the bun, it had grilled cheese sandwiches on the top and the bottom.



I decided to get the Carnivorgasm Burger which had a lot of different types of meat on it and just not eat the bun. 

The Carnivorgasm

 It had a sirloin patty, a turkey patty, pulled barbecued chicken, bacon, sliced ham, turkey, I thought that if I just didn't eat the bun, I would still be sticking pretty much to paleo but who am I kidding, this thing was not healthy and still probably 3000 calories and I couldn't scrape all of the cheese off.  It was delicious, but I think occasionally, we can over justify what we are eating just because we didn't eat the bread.  It probably would have been healthier to eat a loaf of bread but man was it tasty.

After that, I decided that if Katie and Megan were still sticking to strictly paleo, that I would have to try to harder. Another night we went to a cajun restaurant and everything, even the chicken and steak were breaded or deep fried. I ended up getting a grilled chicken salad. On the menu it was a crispy chicken strip salad. (But me being the amazing health food nut, asked them to change it to grilled chicken).  After my experience at these places, this is what the rest of my meals ended up looking like:

Pineapples and Berries. I wouldn't really trying to go strictly paleo while you're traveling but Overall, although I missed out on some great smelling food, I was happy with my food choices. 

I packed gym clothes but I was so tired every night, I didn't even get them out of the suitcase.  I'm not happy about that but I'm home and not really looking forward to getting back at the gym cause it's going to hurt.  I wonder if the Airdyne missed me while I was gone?

The Vortex

 My new work mates.

Goldfish Crackers.  My arch nemesis.  I love these things and they are so small that one little cracker isn't going to hurt me right?  That's probably correct.  The problem is that I never just have one.  I blame a lot of my weight gain on the darn fish and their friends Cheezits.  If I see them laying around, I'll have a handful without thinking about it.  But if I pass by them several times a day I have several handfuls and that starts to add up very quickly.  While I've been doing this paleo challenge for the month, I haven't had any but it hasn't been easy.  You might say, "well quit buying them, dummy" or "put them out of your sight" but that's easier said than done. 


When I mention the Paleo challenge that Katie, Megan and I have been doing, you never hear any mention of my son Adam.  That's because he's not doing it because he won't touch anything Paleo.  For those that don't know my family, Adam is 7 years old and he is non verbal autistic.  He is always so happy.  I do love him dearly but he is definitely a handful.  One of our neighbors with an autistic child said that although he'd never give up the experiences that he's had, he wouldn't sign up to do it again.  I think that summarizes us pretty good.  One thing about Adam is that he has a very keen sense of taste and he doesn't like most foods.  For every meal he eats Cheerios, Goldfish crackers, Wheat Thins and Cheez Its. 


Occasionally he'll throw in some Nilla Wafers or Cheetos to mix it up a little bit but this really is about 95% of what he eats for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  A lot of people will give us advice about all of these great foods and vitamins that are supposed to help with Autism and that we should try them.  Believe me, we'd love to try them but he'll just smell them and then throw them on the floor.  Imagine the looks we get at restaurants when the rest of our family is eating real meals and bring baggies of these things for him.  We try putting different food in front of him but he'll just sniff them and throw them over his shoulder.  We even tried buying him generic Cheerios once and those all ended up on the floor also.  I'd love to know what goes on in that little mind because you can tell that there is a reason behind everything he does.  It just doesn't make sense to the rest of us.  For instance we used to buy colored goldfish and he'd eat all of them except for the yellows.  But then one day we saw that they were giving him a box of yellow goldfish and he ate them just fine.  So, we started buying just the yellow boxes and he's been fine with them.  We are a little concerned that he's not getting enough vegetables and proteins but we have tried many things and he won't touch it.  Which is weird because he'll lick a wall, sidewalk, other person, without even thinking about it.  The Doctor says although it's not a major concern, he's still continuing to grow and so we should be happy. I love the advice and suggestions but I need some advice on how to actually get him to try these other foods.

So although, I might complain about how bland the paleo diet has been, Adam helps me realize how great of a variety we really get.   The best thing about Adam is how happy he always is.  Although, he can be frustrating, it's hard to stay mad at him because even after he does things that he shouldn't (like pulling blinds off the wall or tearing his mom's shoulder) he is just so darn happy and joyful.  I'm just grateful that he has an awesome big sister and mommy that watch over him and make sure that he's safe and happy.  So it has been very tough, during this diet, to not grab a couple goldfish crackers or wheat thins occasionally, it's worth having them around to tempt me every day if it keeps Adam fed.

(To my last blog follower, sorry for the personal post, I'll get back to posting about how bad the daily WOD suck again.  Ok?)

I realized that I've been shirking on my posts lately but it's also late and I'm tired so I'll try to make this longer tomorrow.  I did want to say that there was a new lady in our class today, I'd say she's about 50.  I'm pretty sure that she was happy with her results today because she wasn't the last one finished.  I think she was surprised that she there was still someone going after she was.  That's right, it makes me feel good to know that I am boosting other people's self esteem, even the new people, by making sure that they don't have the slowest time in class.  I've lost a little weight but apparently not enough to relieve my back pain because we did 300 single under jump ropes today and I felt a nice shock on every single one.  I did finish the WOD though so, that always makes me happy.  I'd rather finish in last place than not finish at all. 

We've made it through the week although Katie has threatened my life several times so far this week.  It really hasn't been that tough because I make some type of salad to take to work and then when I get home, Katie has something already put together for us.  On the other hand, it has pretty much consumed her whole week because she's been trying to make things that taste as good as before. I feel bad for her because her whole life has been taken over by what we can eat and what the next meal will be.  We've tried lots of recipes and they are decent but I honestly don't believe that you can bake foods that are as delicious as you can when you aren't on paleo.  You can grill some pretty good foods but the baked foods are tolerable.  I wouldn't say they are delicious.  When I tell this to my friends that have done it before, they say that I'm wrong, because they've made some pretty good things.  When I ask them what they've baked, they tell me they don't really bake things but they are good stir frying vegetables and grilling good meat.  I honestly don't think that someone who was a great cook would say that these meals are as delicious as the non paleo dishes that they can make.  After a while, my friends usually concede and say that you get used to it. So that's what this diet is, a getting used to foods that will make you healthy diet.  I'm hoping that someone can prove me wrong and bake something that is amazing.

That being said, we are sticking with the diet because we know the importance of it and getting all of the sugars and preservatives out of our system.  I think Katie will finally give up on trying to make things amazing and do as our friends do and just make stir fried vegetables and I'll grill some meat.  Our goal is to do it for a month and then after that, introduce back in some good grains like wheat and oats and some dairy but try to stick to a much healthier diet. 

As far as the workouts go, I am frustrated that my back is still grinding and shocking me because I do believe that this way of eating should give me better results on my WODs.  But as I've said before.....Patience.  If I could rename this blog it would probably be the patience blog since that has become the theme.  I dropped 5 lbs the first few days but I haven't lost anything since then but I wore a shirt today that I haven't been able to button the top button for a while.  Today I was able to with no problem and I had spare space around the neck line.  So I am hoping that I am just transferring some fat weight with muscle weight. Maybe?  I'm sticking to that theory anyway.

After all of the crazy things that have happened to our family in the past few months people keep telling us that we are due for some blessings.  I've been waiting to wake up with my back is completely healed and getting some mail saying I've inherited millions of dollars from a relative that I didn't know about but it hasn't happened yet.  But, I was offered a new job that I will be starting next week.  I'm really excited about it and I hope it will be a good opportunity for our family.  I will be flying out to Atlanta next Sunday (lame fathers day) for training.  So I will need to find some foods that I can take on the flight with me since I doubt any of the airline food is very paleo friendly.  The recruiter also told me that they will be providing me with excellent lunches and dinners each day.  I thought I would postpone the paleo thing for those days but since Katie and Megan will be doing it here, I've made up my mind that I will continue it there.  In the past trainings I've been to, the lunches are usually pasta or sandwiches.  I'm assuming that this will be the say.  I'm thinking I'll be eating a lot of salads with no salad dressing or raw vegetables off of a veggie tray for those days. Honestly though, it will be worth it if the company and opportunity is as great as I'm hoping it will be. The recruiter is a 3rd party recruiter but she said that everyone that she has brought on to that company her profusely for finding them.  She wouldn't just say that because she gets commissions would she?  Of course not.  Wait, would she?  Oh well, I've already given my notice so I guess I'm going. 

The good news is I've already lost 5 lbs on this diet.  The bad news is, it's probably all water weight (from tears, cause I'm on this diet).  We've actually been able to make some decent meals but I've decided that the paleo experts aren't great cooks, especially when it comes to desserts.  Katie is an excellent cook and an expert dessert maker and she's tried a couple of these already and they do as a substitute, but you still miss the real stuff.  She made some chocolate chip cookies that were more like cocoa blobs.  She also had tried a raspberry bars on that was on a crust but the crust had almost no taste, so it might have been better to just eat raspberries.  She actually threw most of them away.  She's getting better at making different "breads" though, so we've been able to able to have some pretty tasty sandwiches using guacamole as the spread.
We've been told that our tastes will change and we'll actually like some food that we haven't really liked before. We hoped this would happen with sweet potatoes because neither of us really enjoy them.  A lot of our friends like them and try to make them sweeter by cooking them so that they caramelize but we want to tame the taste so we tried baking them basted with vinegar and seasoning, I could stomach them more than I've been able to in the past but my tastes apparently haven't changed to where I'm enjoying foods that I used to like. . 
Today's WOD is called Cindy.  It's a performance WOD that you use to track your results.  It's as many rounds as possible (AMRAMP) of 5 pullups, 10 pushups, and 15 squats in 20 minutes.  The best I've ever done on it was 14 rounds.  Today, I only got in 12 rounds and that was with jumping pullups so there's definitely some room for improvement but I was pretty happy that I was able to get through the WOD with minimal back pain. I'll have to wait and see if I have any back improvement when I do something like kettle bells again but it overall I was happy to actually do a WOD instead of riding the dreadful Airdyne.

We began our healthy eating today.  Usually in the morning, I get home from class around 7:20 and have to leave for work by 7:40.  So I'm usually grabbing a string cheese and a fiber bar on my way out the door.  I thought I would just have some whey powder and a banana but I looked at the whey powder and it has a lot of sugar in it so I didn't dare have it.  So I hurried and scrambled some ham and eggs and had to eat it while driving.  That probably wasn't very safe.  I made a chicken salad with almond slices and sunflower seeds for lunch but I didn't know what I could do for salad dressing so I just put some oil and vinegar on it.  I'm going to have to do some research on that cause that was pretty bland.  I grabbed an apple for a snack but I was starving by dinner time.  For dinner, we had more eggs baked with spinach, ham, onions, and mushrooms.  It wasn't bad.  Katie also baked some coconut biscuits made with an almond flour and we had them with honey.  I wouldn't say it was the best biscuit I've ever had but I think it will be a good replacement.  We had some fruit for desert. Now that I've had some time to read a little more, I'm apparently not supposed to have fruit that late in the day if I'm trying to lose weight but I imagine it's still better than a bowl of ice cream or bunch of Cheetos.  So we have a little bit of learning but I'm pretty happy that I've made it through the day. 

This diet has been even more of a pain for Katie because she basically spent all day in the kitchen trying to figure out recipes for Megan that will keep her happy while she's on this.  We don't want her to see this as anything negative.  I've had a headache all evening and maybe it's because I'm detoxing from sugar.  Maybe it's because I had a hard day at work.  I'm not sure.  Apparently day 2 is supposed to be the worst one for withdrawing from the sugars.  So yeah, I'm real excited about that.  It will be interesting to see how much energy I have for whatever the WOD is tomorrow. 

Ham and Egg omelet "to go"

 

So everything I've been reading says that while your body is detoxing from sugars and bad carbs, you can become really grumpy and lethargic.  The good news is I must be doing it right because I'm really grumpy and lethargic.  The bad news is, we haven't started the diet yet.  We've cleaned out all of the "white carb" food or put it into storage and spent a crap load of money at the health food store and Costco so we're ready to go.  We now have 5 dozen eggs in our fridge.
I feel like every couple of weeks, this blog is about how I'm starting over again and here we go again.  I guess I'm not completely starting again because I've been going to class but I'm excited to see what this can do for us.  Some of the things I've been reading is this might take some of the swelling down on my joints which will help with the back spasms.  That alone would make this all worth it.  As tough as it is, I'd love to be able to do a WOD at full RX again.  Let's keep our fingers crossed!

I was hoping by now that I would be able to exercise a little harder than I have been and that my back would have seen some serious improvements but it's not coming along very fast.  Some of that could be because I got derailed for a little while with the whole almost losing my leg thing.  Maybe it will never come back to full strength.  But I'm also getting stagnant with the weight loss.  So I really am looking forward to see what we'll be able to do with this whole caveman diet that we are starting on Monday.  Our Crossfit The Club group is doing a challenge starting the same day so it's perfect timing.  I went to a class with them on Wednesday but it was more advanced than I am and I felt a little lost because they all seemed to already know about the whole paleo thing, but I really don't.  So Katie and  I will be spending time this weekend researching the whole can and can not haves.  What I have noticed is that there seems to be different level of paleo eaters.  Some add some dairy, like whey powder, whereas some won't even do that.  Some say they will only eat organic and some say they don't care as much.  I probably should have done one of the earlier challenges with everybody so I know what the heck I'm doing.  But still, better late than never. 
We've enjoyed cleaning out our fridge of everything yummy this past week and each day my daughter Megan says she's really going to miss whatever meal we were having.  Today was a great summer grilled hot dog meal.  I also am going to miss them.  I'm probably going to have to go get one last Slurpee tomorrow since that's a summer favorite. 
We've been looking at all of the specialty foods like coconut milk and crap like that, that we need to buy and also realize that eating paleo is going to be really expensive too.  So this isn't really the greatest time to start it for us but we'll always have some excuse of why it's not a good time to start it.  So we're doing it and I'm glad that we'll be doing it together.
I also have to rethink how I do the whole picture thing.  I've been slacking on doing the daily picture because only a handful of people in class remember that I'm even doing this blog (heck, I've almost forgotten that I'm doing this blog) so they probably think that I'm a total tool when I ask someone to take my picture after I workout.  I tried to do the self portrait in the mirror thing but it just showed a big flash but I still want to document my daily progression so I think I'll just make Katie take a daily picture of me and we'll see how that goes.  

The whole daily picture is getting dull so I made my friend Laurie stand in this one.  I think my green socks and her pink jacket really complement each other.