Category: Paleo Diet

Today was kind’ve a ho-hum day. I woke up and started a wee bit of laundry then put two eggs in a pot to boil. I’ve always liked soft boiled eggs but have never been able to perfect the timing on them (they usually come out too hard or too soft).

I also attempted to eat a bowl of fruit but after a few bites remembered that I don’t like cold fruit. So, I left the bowl on the table for later enjoyment.

After running a few errands, I came home and finished the bowl of fruit. I also had some pistachio nuts, a mango smoothie and a lemon poppyseed muffin. That was my lunch. Later in the day I had an orange.

I wasn’t feeling very hungry until about 5:00. Then the stomach started rumbling and water didn’t seem to fill my appetite. But I had to wait until 6:00 before dinner was ready.

Tonight we had tuna cakes with wasabi tartar sauce, red cabbage and garlic grilled vegetables.

And it was absolutely delicious. I was a little hesitant about eating so much cabbage as I thought I might get sick of them after a little while but I actually went back for seconds.

The tuna patty was very filling and there were two patties for each person. So, guess whose belly was overfilled?

Now, having said that, I still left a little room to try the paleolithic brownies. They are flourless and I have to say they don’t compare with the really moist fudge brownies that I remember from so long ago (maybe a month).  Ahhh, she laughs. But in a pinch, these will do and we still have more time to experiment on how to make them a tad bit moister. (Have you noticed I say “tad” a lot? Hmmm … not sure where I picked that up from.)

This diet doesn’t seem to be hard if you don’t want it to be. It can be as simple as baking or grilling chicken with steamed vegetables. But it’s always nice to try to be a bit more creative, eh?

Four .  Hmmmm …. wanna guess at the significance of that number? No, it’s not the temperature (although in Minnesota you might’ve been right).

It’s …. ready for it? It’s the number of pounds I’ve lost in one week on this diet. My intent was not to lose weight but to try a diet that our son happens to be trialling out. But, I’ll take the four pound loss!  Congratulations to me!!

Breakfast today was leftover food from brunch on Day 5 (the turkey hash and sweet potato fries).

For lunch, I had the rest of the leftovers above (seriously! there was enough for both meals). If you ask me if having leftovers is becoming boring, I’d have to say “it depends.” It really does depend on what the leftover is.

Dinner was really good today. We had pan seared salmon with kalamata olives and salsa cruda, grainy mustard mashed yams and steamed broccoli.

The salsa on the salmon was amazing! Perhaps, just perhaps, it’s because the olives are salty. And the salmon was great too. The mashed yams were okay. They tasted a bit grainy but I’m not sure why.

It’s hard to believe we’re into our second week of trialling a paleolithic diet.

I slept like a baby last night even though there was no heat in the house. The furnace repair folk left us 3 small heaters that I didn’t think would heat much of anything, but a small bedroom was really nice and toasty.

I didn’t feel very hungry for some reason so I had a lemon poppyseed muffin with a bowl of fruit salad.

Sounds kind’ve boring, huh?

By around 10 a.m. I started to get a little hungry so I had 1.5 deviled eggs, unsalted sunflower seeds and a mandarin orange.

By 6 p.m. I was really a hungered! I was happy that we had quite a good selection for dinner. An interesting selection too … baked french fry parsnips, cauliflower “tabouli,” and chicken nuggets.

I have to say, the french fry parsnips and the “mac” nuggets were absolutely delicious! The cauliflower tabouli … well, it was okay but I wouldn’t have it on a regular basis.

Later in the evening I had some pistachio nuts and a mango juice mix. So far, so good on this diet.

Woke up this morning to a very nippy house. The furnace was not working. Sigh, sigh and sigh …

After returning from a doctor’s appointment, I looked in the refrigerator so I could have some leftovers for brunch (10:30 a.m. is considered brunch for me).

Sure enough, there was some leftover chicken from Day 2. I also ate the last of the pumpkin and apple muffins.

Since I had to wait for the furnace repairman to arrive, I decided that dinner was going to be “out.” Hmm .. so where to go?

Looking online, we found that the Outback Steakhouse has a gluten free menu and although we had other dietary requirements, we decided to try them.

After we were seated, I requested the gluten free menu and was handed one. The waitress, Laura, was very nice. From our food to the drinks, she was very helpful and made sure that our request did not have butter or any dairy. Quite a nice experience.

I decided to have my “usual” which is the Sirloin Steak and a baked sweet potato (with no added butter or brown sugar) and a side salad. The salad had a balsamic vinaigrette on the side and no cheese or croutons.. Apparently they make the salads from scratch so you can request whatever you like to be excluded. The steak and potato looks plain but was filling nonetheless.

Kudos to the staff here for being efficient and accommodating. No “strange” looks either for being a tad bit different from the rest of the crowd.

My son had a hamburger (minus the bun) and they put the dressings on the side (which was good because ketchup is not allowed on this diet). So here’s what a paleolithically served hamburger would look like.

Later in the evening, I had a few pistachio nuts and some tea then headed to bed.

I sure am glad we bought an electric mattress pad or we would have been quite cold with no heat. As it was, I slept all through the night.

We had brunch today instead of breakfast. It was quite hearty and delicious! The meal could be laid out separately on a plate or layered. I chose to separate my meal items which consisted of baked sweet potato fries, turkey hash, guacamole and pico de gallo.

Here’s another view of the same meal but layered …

We had a vegetarian paleolithic dinner that included broccoli with sweet potato bhaji (delicious!), roasted cauliflower Indian style (so-so) and rutabaga masala which tasted bitter. This was my first time tasting rutabaga and I’m not sure that I like it.

I really did enjoy the sweet potato bhaji — but then I just about enjoy anything with sweet potatoes or yams.

Overall, a good hearty day’s worth of eating. I also had some juice (no added sugar) and later some tea with a tad bit of honey throughout the day.

And of course, water — lots of water!

Today for breakfast I had almond blueberry pancakes with scrambled eggs and orange juice. The pancakes weren’t anything special but since we can use a tad of maple syrup it made life much more wonderful.

I didn’t much feel like having lunch but I did have a snack of a pumpkin apple muffin and a deviled egg. (See Day 2 for the recipes)

Dinner was baked salmon topped with tomatoes, dill and garlic, steamed carrots and a spinach tangerine avocado pine nut salad (whew! that’s a mouthful) with an orange vinaigrette. This was very delicious and filling! Yum!

So far, I have not missed the gluten or sugar in my diet. Although thoughts of hot chocolate pop in my head every now and again. (smiling) 

While I was driving around doing errands, a thought crossed my mind. “What a beautiful crisp sunny day. Maybe I should buy myself a hot chocolate.” Uh, no. Hot chocolate is not allowed on this diet because of the sugar content. Grrr …

Oh but back to day 3. Okay, so, today for breakfast I had the same turkey mixture as yesterday with a pumpkin and apple muffin and some grapes. (See Day 2 for recipes) It was nice to have leftovers so no additional work had to be done.

I got home quite late for lunch so ate 1.5 deviled eggs and some sunflower seeds. (Again, no pics because I have the pics and recipe on Day 2.)

Now here comes dinner — beef brisket with sweet potato (made with coconut milk) and stir fried mushrooms (with carrots and sauteed onions).

I don’t believe I’ve ever had beef brisket before. For some reason I thought it would be more tender but my husband said it came out exactly like it was supposed to (it’s not beef stew, ya know?)

After day 3 I’m still not having major cravings for bread or sweet “things.”

So here we are on day two of this new diet and although the first day was only dinner, today there were 3 meals that can be considered paleolithic.

For breakfast, I had a turkey, hmmm, what to call it? The ground turkey basically had added spices to it and then left in the refrigerator so that all I had to do was  cook it through. It was pretty simple and very filling. I had one over easy egg and a banana with it also. (Again, the recipe was tweaked so if  you don’t like turkey you can use something else.)

Lunch was easier since I normally don’t have a large lunch anyway (I like to have popcorn but corn is not allowed on this diet). So, I decided to have a homemade pumpkin and apple muffin with pistachio nuts (normally they should be unsalted but I have to finish these off) and an orange. I also had a 1/2 glass of almond milk.

I have to say, this muffin was very very moist. I could eat them every morning!

We are allowed snacks on this diet (the muffin could be considered a snack). But I had one deviled egg for a snack before dinner (that’s half an egg) since I wasn’t starving to death.

The diet prefers you use homemade mayonnaise or none at all, but the recipe called for 2 tablespoons mayonnaise and that’s what was used.

Lastly was dinner which was sauteed orange chicken with ginger. This came out really really moist! We also had caramelized onions with broccoli on the side. And I just had to have another pumpin and apple muffin.

I did have a half glass of Bolthouse Farms Berry Boost (no added sugar).

Overall, it was a splendid day! No starvation or hunger pangs yet. I did (for a teensy weensy moment) crave some bread to have with the chicken but the feeling was fleeting.  (laughing)

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