MOAR FOODZ!

Well... the last week or whatever has been mostly an unmitigated disaster, diet-wise.  Most of the baditude centered around my parents being in town all week and wanting to take us out for delicious food, and guess what?  If I'm dining in nice restaurants with my generous parents I'm not gonna be a pain in the butt.  So there was some bread, and dairy, and my guts felt terrible afterward (tho I'm thinking it may actually have been a pathogen of some sort, it was pretty dramatic).  I ended up eating some "cheaty" foods, but then reduced the rest of my food pretty drastically because I just didn't feel hungry at all... some kind of weird side effect of cutting down on sugars, or just a coincidence?  

(P.S. The puppy is fine, the jacket was found, everything is fine)

1/7/11
Breakfast: a coconut water, my usual coffee, 2 eggs

Lunch: BAS, banana, an Americano

Dinner: I don't normally pay attention to caloric information, UNLESS I'm eating at really notorious places like Claim Jumper.  I almost passed out looking at the nutrition information on that stuff (I think the winner was the chicken alfredo pasta thingy clocking in at OVER THREE THOUSAND CALORIES, HOLY BABY JESUS).  But, we were out celebrating a friend's birthday and were hungry, so Derek and I shared the half rotisserie chicken, the roasted veggies and a sweet potato, and had a glass of wine.

So then afterward, even though we supposedly ate like 900 cals. between us, we were still pretty hungry (WTF, Claim Jumper??), so we busted out the remaining pulled pork and lettuce leaves and had some late-night paleo tacos.  Whatever. 

1/8/11
Breakfast: 2 eggs, 3 bacons, coffee as usual

Lunch: handful of nuts (so, so good to get raw unsalted nuts and roast them yourself... yummers!), mini-bowl of leftover meatball soup

Dinner: Standing rib roast (kinda hated myself for buying a roast at Costco that read "Product of USA and Mexico"... mmm, feedlot.  Having gotten used to hippie meat, the fat on this roast tasted like crap and it stunk up the house like In-n-Out Burger), carrot and parsnip mash, brussels sprouts w/ shallots
a gin and tonic and some wine (it's teh weekend!)

1/9/11
Breakfast: Frittata w/ bell pepper, onion, mushroom, spinach, and sausage; coffee as usual

Lunch: Red Mango fro-yo w/ strawberries and almonds
some nuts and some heinously sweet beef jerky (blergh)

Oh, I tried to make some banana chips, too... they tasted good, but weren't nearly dry enough (what's my problem with chips?)

Dinner: Moonfish filet w/ soy sauce, sesame oil, lime juice, garlic, green onion; chinese broccoli, cucumber salad, japanese pickles and seaweed salad (had a major craving for salty, salty asian food)

1/10/11 (Day of shopping w/ mom)
Breakfast: panini thingy with egg, ham, and cheese; americano

Lunch: burger and fries at the Steelhead Diner, iced tea

Dinner: Leftover meatball soup, wine
(cue feeling terrible all night, and being screwey all week)

1/11/11
Breakfast: handful of pecans, coffee

Lunch: about 2/3 of a BAS (we had leftover roast beef in the salad instead of chicken this week... it was... kind of gross)
more nuts
more coffee

Dinner: roast chicken thigh marinated with olive oil, lemon, coconut aminos (soy sauce alternative!); Brussels sprouts w/ shallots, swiss chard w/ onion
wine

1/12/11
Breakfast: 2 eggs, salad greens, coffee w/ coconut milk!

Lunch: nuts, banana, peppermint tea

Dinner: leftover chicken, spinach w/ peppers n garlic, 1/2 sweet potato w/ butter
wine after lifting

1/13/11
Breakfast: pecans, an apple, coffee w/ coconut

Lunch: most of the BAS, more coffee

Dinner: CAFE JUANITA aka. pretty close to my favorite restaurant... I'm not even gonna talk about it, because it was very, very off plan.

1/14/11
No Breakfast

Lunch: 1/3 of my BAS, coffee

Weird Mid-Day Food: a can of tuna, a spoonful of mayo, celery, capers; pecans, fizzy water

Dinner: bunless burgers w/ roasted red pepper, mushrooms, a little mayo, and lettuce wrapped
wine

1/15/11
Breakfast: out at Trellis - scramble w/ mushroom, spinach, ham; salad w/ white balsamic vinaigrette, coffee

Snacky-Lunch: 1/2 landjaeger sausage, nuts, banana

Dinner: yummy Thai food w/ friends and a really cool cocktail, wine while watching the original Tron!

1/16/11
Breakfast: 2 eggs, 1.5 sausages, 2 bacons, coffee

Snacky-Lunch: a couple pieces of sushi at a conveyor belt place, green tea

Dinner: pot-roasted chicken, onions, carrots, and kale
wine

1/17/11
Breakfast: leftover sausages and bacon, coffee

Lunch: BAS (a whole one!  we had chicken!  and I didn't feel like crap!)

Dinner: most of a grass-fed steak, 1/2 a sweet potato w/ butter, braised leeks, and sauteed mushrooms
wine

And there you have it, folks.

the challenge continues...

Definitely not being perfect here, definitely feeling the "detox" symptoms (such as lusting after a soda a person ON TELEVISION is drinking).  It's feeling like a drag on my workouts, which is kind of frustrating, but hopefully in the next week things will get better. 

For dinner on 1/5/11 we had the delectable garlic and lime pulled pork from this post with some simple sauteed cabbage and a blob of mashed avocado.  I had a nice glass of red wine for dessert.

1/6/11
This was kind of a day from hell - throw together a puppy eating foreign objects and the subsequent Intestinal Obstruction Watch 2011, a really foul mood, a potentially lost-in-the-mail $300 jacket, and ice it all with the anniversary of a very dark day in my family's life, and you've got Diane growling through 75# push press and guzzling vino (although I did ok... not to plan, but ok).

Anyway, I got some awesome eggs, made some really good soup, and had a lung-wrenching but satisfying workout, so things turned out alright.

I finally went and found the self-serve egg fridge near my house... awesome!

Breakfast: 2 eggs, 2 ham slices, coffee as usual

Lunch: BAS

Nosh: dried fruit mix

Kinda a bummer not to get a tasty tasty coffee shop treat, but dried fruit is an ok compromise (that's an americano, black, btw)

Dinner: Meatball soup ("unstuffed cabbage soup" from Life As A Plate), green salad w/ apples, a little bleu cheese (civilians brought it over) and maple dijon dressing, too much wine.

I call this: people are coming over in 5 minutes and the soup needs to get done explosion.

Colorful soup!

Tasty soup and salad at the end of a crap day, sigh.

Bon appetit, 'til next time:  a birthday party at Claim Jumper, dun dun DUNNNN!

"Paleo" challenge, Days 1-3

So, our gym is embarking on this paleo diet challenge for the month of January.  I'm not really one for diets and strict eating, because I think it'll just make me more likely to want to go off the wagon in a big way, but I thought I'd bend the rules my way and just journal all the stuff I cram in my food hole for as long as the desire persists.  I'm not out to make any big sweeping changes, but over the holidays there was definitely an increase in the cookie/chocolate/packaged stuff content of my diet, so I'm really just looking to get back to practicing what I preach.  Less grains, legumes, and dairy; less alcohol; less plant-based fats; more veggies and happy meat.

Here's the first 2.5 days... I think I'm making pulled pork for dinner tonight:

1/3/11 (we were on "vacation" the first two meals, hence the sammidges and hash browns)
Breakfast: 2 eggs, 3 bacons, a big scoop of hash browns with peppers, onion, and garlic, coffee w/ half and half
Nosh: 1/2 apple, piece of dried mango
Lunch: Turkey sandwich on rye w/ lettuce, tomato, pickle, cheese, mayo, mustard; club soda
Dinner: Bunless burgers (1/2lb. pre-cooking grass-fed beef) on lettuce w/ 1/2 avocado, sauteed mushrooms, mashed parsnips, broccoli (w/ butter)
Dessert: 1 beer

1/4/11 
Breakfast: coffee w/ half and half, banana, 2 eggs (cooked in duck fat), salad greens, hot sauce

Eggs, salad, and hot sauce

Lunch: the Big A** Salad (BAS): lettuce, cherry tomato, 1/2 avocado, cucumber, radish, green onion, broccoli, cauliflower, 1/2 baked chicken breast - dressing: balsamic vinegar, olive oil, mustard, s&p

The Big A** Salad

Nosh: a couple glasses of soda water w/ lemon, handful of mixed nuts (we mix ourselves, lightly salted), coconut water, orange
Dinner: pork chop w/ apples, onion, garlic, reduced sherry, spinach
Dessert: (was still feeling really hungry) little handful of nuts and a beer

1/5/11
Breakfast: 2 eggs (cooked in duck fat), 2 slices of ham, coffee doctored, orange
Lunch: BAS

Thoughts: It sure looks like I eat a whole lot, but I think listing all the ingredients in home-prepared food made from whole foods just makes it look like a lot of different things?  Derek and I were talking about this, and it seems like you could just list "one lean cuisine", and it looks like barely anything, but if you had to list every ingredient it would take up a whole page, for example, from the Lean Cuisine nutritional info:

Ingredients:

COOKED CHICKEN TENDERLOINS (CHICKEN TENDERLOINS, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, WATER, CORN OIL, MODIFIED CORNSTARCH, LEMON JUICE CONCENTRATE, SODIUM PHOSPHATES, SALT, CARAMEL COLOR, POTASSIUM CHLORIDE, GARLIC, ONION, PAPRIKA, SPICE), WATER, BLANCHED ENRICHED LONG GRAIN PARBOILED RICE (WATER, RICE, IRON, NIACIN, THIAMIN MONONITRATE, FOLIC ACID), GREEN BEANS, MUSHROOMS, ONIONS, 2% OR LESS OF BLANCHED WILD RICE, MODIFIED CORNSTARCH, SUGAR, SALT, CULTURED WHEY, CHICKEN FAT, LEMON JUICE CONCENTRATE, CARAMEL COLOR, DEHYDRATED ONIONS, SPICES, DEHYDRATED GARLIC, PAPRIKA.

Anyway, we'll see how long this lasts, wish me luck...