Finished first week of our Paleo Lifestyle

Whew...I can't believe we've been eating Paleo Style for only a week now. It was a super easy transition, although an expensive one! Planning meals is the only way this will work for us. Its going to be a lot of work to meal plan and grocery shop for all ingredients each week but I think once we get into the groove it will become second nature. This week I made a Paleo recipe each night. By recipe I mean like a bunch of ingredients, following a specific series of steps not just cooking some meat and vegs. This coming week I think I will only do a couple of actual recipes and fill in the other meals with just meat/poulty and a couple side veggies (all still Paleo). It was very time consuming to come home from work each day and have to spend 45 minutes in the kitchen preparing dinner. Our day to day life is just to busy to do that every day. That being said, we liked every single recipe we made with the exception of one. Throughout the week I felt really good. I was never hungry and never felt deprived of anything. I felt like all I did was eat, not like when you're on a typical diet. I lost 4 pounds in 5 days. Not bad considering I didn't work at it. Matt lost double that. Each day we did allow for a little dairy. I had one yogurt and Matt had cream in his coffee. On day 6 we had a slice of birthday cake and both felt extremely gross for the rest of the night. This weeks menu will be: Meatloaf, carrots, green beans Chicken fajitas (no wrap), onions, peppers, home made guacamole honey apple pork roast, home made apple sauce, carrots egg, sausage, broccolli crustless Quiche, cantelope steak, mashed cauliflower, spinach chicken packets with a bunch of veggies

Collins Go Paleo

So in the hopes of getting healthy, losing weight and detoxing from crappy carbs Matt and I are going to try a Paleo diet. Paleo is basically eating like the cavemen: meats, vegetables, some fruit, nuts and seeds. It encourages good fats and does not support dairy. Matt loves his coffee so he is going to use dairy in his coffee still and I really like my Brown Cow Greek yogurt so I will allow myself one a day. Other than that we are really going to try to stick to Paleo. I found some recipes online and thought they would make the first week a bit easier. We headed to Whole Foods and got everything we will need for the week. $208 later (OMG!) and this is what we got: Meats: pork loin that will be broken up for 3 separate dinners, ground chicken thighs, and ground turkey. We already have some grass fed organic ground beef and burgers.

Meal plans are as follows: SUNDAY: Shephards Pie with mashed sweet potatoes in place of white potatoes MONDAY: pork tacos in lettuce leaves with guacamole TUESDAY: Spaghetti squash with ground chicken meat sauce WEDNESDAY: grilled chicken, mashed cauliflower and green beans THURSDAY: burgers on top of portobello mushroom caps, green beans FRIDAY: pulled pork, jicama and cabbage slaw SATURDAY: chicken with collard greens, mushrooms and onions BREAKFASTS: combos of Paleo Crunch recipe, eggs, bacon, or yogurt LUNCHES: either left overs from the night before or salads with meat on top SNACKS: (all homemade) baked sweet potato chips, chocolate coconut mouse, trail mix, celery with almond butter, apples, apple chips, bananas with almond butter

Raw Cauliflower "Popcorn"

I have seen this recipe online a few times and thought it looked interesting. The ingredients are as follows: 1/2 head of cauliflower, 2 tablespoons of olive oil, 4 tablespoons nutritional yeast, 1 tsp chili powder, and 1 tsp sea salt.
I bought nutritional yeast just for the purpose of trying this. I guess it is a great source of b vitamins and gives the cauliflower a cheesy taste.
I had my 5 year old help me make this. First we chopped up 1/2 a head of cauliflower.

Next I drizzled the pieces with olive oil and added all of the dry ingredients and let my son mix it up. Thats it. It took less than 5 minutes to make and clean up was super easy.
We both tried it, and I was surprised he liked it.
He ate a few pieces and decided that was enough. He didn't love it, and he may or may not be willing to eat it again. I liked it ok...but it wasn't awesome. I have to tweak it a bit to find more flavorings I like better. The chili powder I have is cheapo stuff, so maybe I need better spices to mix in. I like the crunch of it, and love that it is healthy. I'm willing to try it again.