Catching Up - Days 18-22

One word for food over those days - Carnitas.  On Saturday, I made carnitas in the crock pot for some friends who were coming over.  I have found a great recipe and it includes a vinegar/mustard dressing which just makes them to die for.  But since I had a whole crock pot full.  We have been eating carnita meat for days...

I know I could have frozen some of it, but Mike was leaving this week and I really didn't want to cook a ton of meals knowing that only one person was going to eat them.  So let's just say that I am tired of pulled pork, or pork meat in general.

But this last weekend was amazing.  Exactly the restful weekend we needed.  We forced ourselves to not do anything!  Michael even went shopping with me (gasp!).  We had a couple gift cards and were able to get some things we needed at Target, as well as something I have been wanting for quite some time...A new bed set!

I know the light is bad, but it is green and cream colored

When Michael and I got married we bought a plain black comforter for the bed with a gift card we had gotten.  It was kind of a quick fix, not a nice set or anything.  And I didn't realize how much smaller and darker it made our room until we got a bright comforter.  But we found a set onsale at Targe for $26.00, marked down from $125.00 and I really liked it.  This is how you know you are growing up and becoming old, I am excited about a marked down bed set for my house.

Anyway, moving onto another thing that gets me really excited, chocolate.  While eating on this lifestyle change, dessert kind of hasn't been an option.  And I have been missing the feeling of carbs as I eat them, like bread.  I'm not necessarily missing the bread itself, it is just the texture, does that make sense?

So when I saw this recipe for paleo chocolate cupcakes with chocolate sweet potato icing.  I kind of got really excited!

I made these the other night and they give me my chocolate and my cake/bread fix.  Plus, if you look at the ingredients, they are actually pretty healthy.  The only thing in them that could be considered "unhealthy" is the amount of chocolate, because they don't have any sugar in them, just some honey and a maple syrup.  They are a special occasion treat because I was going to a friend's house for dinner and her and her husband eat paleo as well.

And now to be honest, I would love to say that I have been an angel for the last couple days, but I have been cheating again.  I wanted to be really strict for 30 days and then lighten up!  But I think that I will end up going a little bit longer being strict since I keep cheating in between.   I had some fried rice the other day with some thai food that my coworker ordered for me and again, same feeling of being bloated and just not feeling great.  I did have a slice of gluten free bread a breakfast place where Michael and I ate the other day, and I didn't have the same symptoms.  So maybe it was the soy again, since most fried rice has some soy sauce, and I know how bad I felt last time having soy milk. Who knows?  And chocolate isn't really allowed in the initial 30 days either, but we had to make an exception.  And I mean HAD to make an exception.  Not negotiable.  I have also found vanilla almond milk, which tastes absolutely amazing, but is not low in the sugar content, which is probably why it is so delicious.  But if you just heat up a glass of that, it is like drinking a hot vanilla chocolate or something.  D.e.l.i.s.h.

But overall, we have been eating very well.  WAY more fruits and veggies then we were eating before, and we thought we ate a lot as it was.  Michael has been having a hard time keeping to the rules while traveling, but he never really had to.  I finally felt this week how hard it was to really eat like this.  I didn't have anything prepared for meals, and I couldn't just go pick up food it seemed or make a sandwich.  My coworkers wanted to go out out to lunch a Noodles and Company so I got a salad without dressing, but then cheated on eating some of someone's rice krispy treat.  It is getting harder to follow for sure.  But it is also getting more and more clear how much better I feel eating this way, and as soon as I start to eat more sugar or cheat, more of my old symptoms come back.  So it is good that these "desserts" that I make occasionally are so low in sugar and that I stay away from a lot of unnecessary sugar to begin with.  I need to get a little better about not cheating though, so I can better pin point some of my triggers.  Like the fried rice, is it the soy or the rice itself?  It's weird realizing that I haven't eaten any grains for three weeks, minus the occasional corn chip.  Wow!  It is showing me how much we rely on grains for our diet and they really do not provide the nutrients we need to live well.  And we are not really eating that much more meat ( I italics because we have been buying a little bit more, but mostly we are going through eggs like nobodies business).  We are swapping our grains for vegetables and fruit, not more meat.  So there is my little realization.  I'm interested to see if it changes as we keep eating like this.