Day 18: King Cake is in My Near Future!

Day 18



Haven’t posted about my #21DSD in a while, probably because I have been ashamed of my multiple cheats. But I never said I was strong ha ha. For the most part though I have been pretty good. Even today, there is king cake from my favorite place sitting just feet behind me, and I’m not tempted to get any! (Probably because I plan on getting one on Monday the day after my cleanse is over)



So I’ve tried a few experiments with food while on this diet. Monday I decided to make chicken soup and I found a recipe for “Paleo Dumplings” made with almond flour. Yeah they did NOT stay in dumpling form at all, quickly just turned into soup filled with grains of almond flour, but oh well it still tasted delicious. There were a few recipes using tapioca flour instead which I think would probably hold together better, but I didn’t have any. I do plan on buying some tapioca flour and trying again soon though.

Another soup I tried is one I found at Fresh Market last week called “Go!Soup”. I got one that was basically all vegetables. The first time I had some of it I was happily surprised. It had a really good flavor! Would probably be better with a little sour cream, but eh. The second time I had the rest of it for lunch, I was not feeling it at all. Too much of a veggie taste and just ended up throwing it away. So I’m 50/50 on my review of it!

Lastly, I have tried MULTIPLE times to make the pumpkin pancakes from the #21DSD cook book. However I tried to use 2 eggs and more almond flour, when the book called for 6 eggs and less almond flour. First time I tried, didn’t work at all, just ended up pouring the batter into muffin tins. Decided to try again this weekend, yet again, fail. Can’t flip the darn thing AT ALL. So today I tried to put it in a pan and try and make a big pancake. Once again. Fail. So I’m over trying that. It’s not even that good anyways.

 Attempt 1

Attempt 2

Instead, I’ve been making eggs in ham cups almost every morning. A slice of ham in a muffin tin and carefully break the egg into the cup and bake for around 20 min or less, depending how you like your egg cooked. Very easy and very tasty.

At the end of all of this, I don’t think I will have lost very much weight seeing as my workout routine has been nonexistent since my race. But I’m still curious to see if my body fat % or weight has changed at all. Like I mentioned before, I do plan on taking a small break then returning to a paleo diet. I forgot how much I liked it and how much I enjoyed finding new paleo foods and recipes to try.

Day: um? half way there?

Day… im not even sure anymore.

I am sure that I know exactly what I’m eating on day 22 though!! A YaYa Chicken salad from Great Harvest and a slice of King Cake. Overly excited about it! Then after that I’m pretty sure I’ll go back to paleo. Not the full on sugar cleanse because I really really miss fruit. And bacon wrapped dates. They are the best!

So the past few days have been “ice days” for us down south. Yesterday afternoon we finally had a break in the clouds and it was a beautiful (yet cold) sunny day. So I went to the store and picked up some sashimi grade tuna. I’ve been craving it! I cut it into rectangular thick slices, and rolled in in a mixture of salt, cracked black pepper, and sesame seeds. Then I seared each side for about 20-30 seconds in a hot pan with some coconut oil. Served the tuna with a few slices of avocado and wasabi mixed with “soy sauce” (liquid aminos). According to #21DSD, you are supposed to use coconut aminos instead, but I couldn’t find them and I reallllyyyy wanted soy sauce, so I decided that even though liquid aminos still contains some soy, it would be better than soy sauce. No idea if that is an accurate assumption or not but oh well. Already did it.

 

During the snow day, I also finally got around to making the “cheese spread”. Made from almonds soaked in water over night. Yeah. Not as good as the picture made it look. In fact. I ate none of it. Just tasted like almond butter with olive oil and salt in it. Gross. No thank you!

 

Speaking of almond butter, I'm almost out of the good stuff from Trader Joe’s. Not too happy about that, so I went to Fresh Market to find more. Way over priced and all contained sugar. So I got a few different brands in the individual serving packets. Just tried this one, it was good. Very creamy, in fact, almost runny. But no chunks of shells in it like some other brands have. It does contain Cane Sugar but it only had 3g of sugar for the whole packet so I felt safe.

Weekend of Temptations

Can I have a cupcake please? ???

So this past weekend (days 5, 6 &7) I was supposed to be flying to Denver for a wedding. Well due to the freak ice storm in the south, our flight was canceled and that trip didn’t happen. We ended up staying  in Houston for the weekend.

Thursday night, went out to dinner, did pretty well #21DSD wise. Ordered a burger (no bun) with onions swiss and mushrooms. Got brussel sprouts with bacon as a side. Little did I know they would come fried. Not battered but fried. Probably not the best option but yeah, they were delicious and crispy! And the few leaves that were fried individually were almost like brussel sprout chips. Loved them.

Friday, didn’t do so well. Went out for lunch at a Mexican restaurant. Seeing as I was supposed to be on vacation, I HAD to have a margarita. I did order it skinny… but it still had agave in it. I also cheated and had a chip or two. I mean they were right there! Who can resist chips and salsa? Ordered chicken and vegetable soup and some ceviche for lunch. After lunch we decided to continue the “vacation” and city wide “snow day” and take it to an early happy hour. (I know I know, alcohol isn’t allowed on the #21DSD. Whatevs.) Vodka soda with lime.  Late into the afternoon I started feeling not so hot. The small lunch combined with the alcohol wasn’t working with my stomach. I was starving and absolutely everything sounded terrible at the time. All I wanted was some saltines. No luck. So I ordered some chicken wings thinking protein was still a safe bet, despite the sauce and all that jazz. Now here’s where we insert a note… Note: as of lately, Chicken makes me gag. Not sure why but I can’t stand the taste of it. Needless to say, couldn’t eat the wings I ordered and still felt terrible. We left the bar and went to a friend for Cheerios with a banana and some almond milk. In reality, I think that is all I could have eaten at the time, anything with any flavor made me want to be sick.

Saturday:  Drove to Kemah for a scenery change and some lunch. Ordered a broiled seafood plate to split with my mother and a side of lobster bisque. ( I know, still not exactly #21DSD approved but still) Lunch was huge so we didn’t get hungry. Later in the day snacked on a green apple with almond butter and cappuccino. A few more beverages were involved that evening.

Sunday:  Sunday morning, pretty much just gave into temptations. Went to Mexican breakfast, ate the chips and salsa, ordered scrambled eggs with onions bell peppers and cheese and a side of refried beans, and ate it on corn tortillas. It was so worth it. For dinner I went back to the proper diet, had 3 strips of bacon, an almost green banana, and some #21DSD pumpkin pancakes with almond butter.

Now its Monday, good ole Monday. Back to the diet and so far so good. Not craving sugar at all surprisingly. Did get a Honest Tea for lunch and accidentally got one that had honey in it, but its only 5 grams of sugar so I think I’m ok. Looking forward to trying some new recipes from the #21DSD cookbook this week and updating on my findings! I WILL make the “almond cheese spread” from the book and some more of the crackers I made last week. I loved those. Think I might try to make some cinnamon ones too that I can use to spread almond butter on.

Day 4: You Got This

Day 4. There are donuts in the office and for some reason I keep thinking the room smells like lemon pound cake...... but my sugar urges are subsiding it seems! Sipping on my tea and the occasional taste of almond butter helps.

Made the crackers from the #21DSD book last night.  Happily surprised!  Calmed my craving for salty crunchy chips that's for sure! Wanted to make the almond "cheese" spread to go with my smoked salmon and crackers but failed to notice that you needed to disk the almonds overnight in water.

                               21DSD crackers

 

Day 3: I want Fruit

10:45 day 3..... I could go nuts on a big olé Bowl of fruit salad right now.  But instead I chug water and nibble on almonds.    ::sigh::

Looking forward to my leftover mexi-loaf with guacamole and lemon chia seed pudding for lunch!!

 

 

Made it through the day! Sitting at a desk all day not moving sure does make for some intense cravings, But my over abundance of Chia Pudding helped calm the craving. That and the amazing rosemary salted almonds I found at Trader Joe's. O  M G they are so good.

 

 

On another note, weighed my self this morning and took my body fat%. Not a happy camper! hoping after this 21 days I'll see that percentage and the scale budge a bit!

 

 

Tomorrow is my Friday, and this weekend I am traveling to Colorado for a friends wedding. While I'm very excited about it, I'm nervous about the food temptations that are sure to come! That and the alcohol.... The 21DSD says to avoid alcohol.... if you ask me, that's no fun at all. So we shall see how that goes! ( a little vodka soda cant REALLY  hurt right?!?!)

And So It Begins

So today is Day 2 of my 21DSD. Day one was pretty uneventful so I decided to just wait till today to post. My plan was initially to follow the books eating plans meal for meal. But with my 1/2 marathon on Sunday, I was pretty exhausted and didn't make it to the store. In fact. I still haven't gone to the store. I'm just working off of what I have in the house! LUCKILY I did follow the books instructions last week, and stocked up my pantry with all of the non perishable items before hand.

So, to start the day off, I had 3.5 hard boiled eggs (.5 wouldn't get off of the stupid shell so I just gave up). Easy enough. For a snack I had some herbal tea and some turkey jerky. For lunch I made "salmon salad" from the book. But I used canned salmon. Not really a fan, and apparently I'm not a huge fan of capers either.... Had that on top of some spinach leaves and half of a grapefruit for desert.

Of course after lunch, as usual, I just really wanted something sweet. I tried a few more glasses of hot tea but that wouldn't do it. and SOMEONE brought king cake to work and it was sitting 10 feet directly behind me. I was good, I did not give into temptation! even though I wanted to so very badly. So to try to calm my sugar craving, I chewed on some more Turkey Jerky (Trader Joe's). I kept thinking why is this jerky so sweet, well TA DA! The second ingredient right after turkey is sugar, followed by soy sauce. COME ON! Here I was thinking I was being so good and I was dumb enough to not even read the label before I dug in. Oh well.

Came home, had a little bit of the left over Avocado Chocolate Mousse ( from the cook book, Sounds gross but I really like it!) I also decided to roast an Artichoke in the oven while I made the "Mexi-Meatloaf" from 21 Day Sugar Cleanse. It's currently in the oven. Ill get back to you on how it tastes later ;)

Oh, I almost forgot. So I was supposed to weigh my self on day one then not weigh my self again till day 21, but my scale's battery died. Going to go get a new one this evening (after my MUCH NEEDED sports massage) and ill weigh my self in the morning. I did however take a "before" picture and can I just say... EW!
Sorry, but won't be posting that till MAYBE the end if I feel like it.. Don't know how I feel about a picture of me all over the Internet all chunkified!

Until Tomorrow!!

recipe mini mexi meatloaves

The 21 Day Sugar Detox and Why I'm Doing It

So I'm one of those people that is ADDICTED to dieting.. as strange as that sounds. I love trying new diets, new cleanses, new foods, new workouts and all that jazz. Now I'm not the smallest or the most fit person in the world, nor am I perfect when it comes to my eating habits. In fact, I am pretty terrible at even sticking to diets because I just want to give up and eat a cookie.
   As of now, I have gotten to the point where I can't really loose any weight anymore with the exercise that I'm doing. I have been training for my second half marathon for a while now, and if you are a runner you might know, that you get to the point where your body is just used to long runs and you no longer see the scale budging like you did when you first started.
  Now, as for the many different diets I have tried over the years. I have done weight watchers, low carb, paleo, calorie counting, juice cleanse, diet pills, low fat, pretty much everything. About a year ago I decided to try Paleo after hearing wonderful things about it. I found it really easy to stick to and ended up loosing about 7 lbs before my dad came in town and I cheated and got sushi one night, then had bread with dinner the next, and ever since then..... Its been hard to go back. Not to mention the holidays just ended and in between Thanksgiving and New Years I'm pretty sure I ate everything that was put in front of me without even thinking about it. I'm terrified to weigh my self! I even started noticing that my body seemed to be mad at me. My skin was acting up, I was extremely tired, and I just felt overall gross.
  When it comes to my eating, I notice that I am terribly addicted to sugar. A meal is not over until I have something sweet to finish it of. So after the holidays I started looking into different cleanses. I have tried the juice cleanse, and only did it for one day, and oh my gosh, no. I love food. I love juice. But come on, only juice for 1-7 days... I was starving! I cheated I think within a few hours of starting. No Will Power. So I found the 21 Day Sugar Detox and saw that it had rave reviews. I had purchased Practical Paleo last year and 21 Day Sugar Detox just so happens to be written by the same author and actually has a lot of similar recipes.
  You start out reading the introduction and then get into why the body gets addicted to sugar and carbohydrates and what health problems can come from those addictions. The book also includes 3 different levels of the detox to choose from and you actually take a 5 question quiz to figure out which level to go with. When I took the quiz I was either a level 1 or a level 2, so I decided to go with the basic level 1. The best part is that the book includes a day by day, meal by meal calender for the entire 21 days. You can even go balancedbites.com/21dsd to print out a shopping list for each week.
  The book tells you to allow 7 days to "prepare" for the challenge, which includes stocking your pantry and shopping. I was originally going to start tomorrow, January 12th, but there was a specific part that said that if you were training for any event in which you will be active for over an hour, then to wait till after the event. It just so happens that my half marathon is next Sunday the 19th, so I decided to wait to start. That way I can load up on all the yummy starchy carbs that I want and eat my Gu on race day without feeling like I've messed up my detox.
   Now that I have bored you long enough with my introduction, Welcome to my 21 Day Sugar Detox. By the way, I figured sense I tend to suck at sticking to any diet for very long, if I know I have to report back to a blog every day about my progress, I might actually stick to it this time! Thanks for reading!