Hi Blog Readers:

It has been a while since my last blog entry! This past week every night my to do list included “Write blog entry” but it just never got done. The big reason I was so busy this past weekend was because on Monday morning I decided to try the Paleo diet for the week. Honestly, I have no idea what I was thinking – but I started it and stuck with it for the week!

You might be wondering, what is the Paleo diet. I am certainly not an expert – but I can give you a basic idea of what I have been doing for the week. First – here are the foods that I have avoided:

grains, dairy, legumes (so sad – I miss beans, hummus and peanuts!) processed foods, refined sugar, fast foods, candy, junk food, etc.

The big take away for me: no bread, no cereal, no popcorn, no pretzels or goldfish crackers, no bagels, and so on. I am trying not to think about what I can’t have and focus on what I can have!

What people eat while on Paleo:

Protein in the form of meat & seafood (grass fed beef, chicken, fish, seafood [including shellfish], etc.) fresh vegetables, fresh fruits, eggs, nuts, seeds, healthy oils (olive oil). I love any diet that lets me have avocado!

The first couple of days I had a lot of zoodles (zucchini noodles) and ground turkey for dinner. This was delicious:

I used pesto (without cheese) as the garnish for the week. The pesto included healthy fat in the way of olive oil and pine nuts. The protein from the turkey really helped keep me going during the week and kept me full.

My first stop at Whole Foods while I was transforming to a Paleo diet I saw these “raw” cookies and picked up a package:

I googled the Go Raw cookies and found that many people that follow the Paleo lifestyle eat them, and they are considered “ok” on the Paleo diet. I love these little cookies. I have a small handful a day, usually after dinner.

I spent a lot of time in the kitchen this week – literally a couple of hours each night preparing dinner and breakfast, lunch and snacks for the following work day. I made an egg and vegetable bake for some of my breakfasts:

This egg bake has 4 eggs, broccoli, red onion and red pepper. I baked it at 350 degrees for 25 minutes, until the eggs were set and cooked. Breakfast was half of this and a quarter of an avocado every morning:

It was a really good breakfast! If I needed a mid morning snack, I would have a small handful of nuts or an apple with a tablespoon of almond butter.

Lunches were often a salad, or a lettuce wrap with protein:

The proteins for lunch were either chicken breast or chicken sausage. Lots of vegetables, too! The dressing for my salad was a little olive oil, apple cider vinegar and lemon.

On Thursday I finally had enough time to try my hand at Paleo baking! I had ingredients to make Paleo Banana Nut Muffins. I was a little nervous as to how they would turn out. I found the recipe on a website that is new to me, http://www.paleogrubs.com – for the recipe click here. I must say I LOVE THESE MUFFINS!

To my surprise, I have seen a lot of benefits in the short time I have started the Paleo diet. I have noticed that almost all of the inflammation issues I have had over the last couple of months have stopped. I have lost weight, I am getting a great night’s sleep every night and I am getting more sleep than I normally do. Some days I have more energy – but sometimes I do feel tired and crave breads (but having these banana muffins around does help) for the most part I have more energy. It is a lot of work but it has been fun! I was also able to go out with friends on both Friday and Saturday and find things that I could eat at both restaurants without a problem. Muscles on Friday night and a cobb salad without cheese on Saturday. I even got through a movie (Gone Girl was a great movie – almost as good as the book, I thought!) with a small bag of cashews instead of movie theater popcorn – I felt like this was a big accomplishment.

I’m not sure how long I will do the Paleo diet – but it has definitely been an interesting experiment. I will post more recipes as I discover them.

Happy cooking, bloggies. Have a wonderful Sunday and I’ll see you soon!