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The Paleo Diet Challenge: Day 14

Two whole weeks — day 14 of the Paleo Diet Challenge. I’m almost halfway through the challenge, and thought it would be a good time to reflect on the good and no-so-good parts so far. First, the good news.

I’m not hungry at all between meals. I’ve noticed that, in particular, my breakfasts (either eggs and ham, a bowl of fresh fruit, a couple mini Paleo muffins or a few slices of Paleo banana bread) are satisfying and keep me going for hours. And although the lunches I’m eating seem light (as in salad greens with some chicken or tuna), they’re substantial enough to stave off my usual mid-afternoon craving for something sweet. I’ll still maybe have a cup of tea in the late afternoon, but no cookies to go with it. What, no cookies?
I’m sleeping slightly better, and feeling better rested. This is with a regular 3:30am wake-up call from my cat, who likes to start his day outside once the birds start chirping. These days, I’m able to fall right back asleep after letting him out, and when I wake up a few hours later, I feel refreshed instead of my groggy can’t-I-have-just-another-half-hour-in-bed? state.
I feel a little healthier. This is a little more difficult to describe. Perhaps it’s feeling less puffy or bloated, which is probably from the lack of bread in my system. But the skeptic in me is wondering whether this all springs from a confirmation bias — as in, I believe eating a Paleo diet will make me feel healthier, so I feel healthier. Is this all just psychological? Maybe. My weight is exactly the same as it was on day 1. And I haven’t noticed a real change in symptoms of Hashimoto’s that I’m on the lookout for, like increased energy or less sensitivity to cold. My energy is about the same and my feet are still cold. Hmm.

For the most difficult aspects of the challenge, a couple things come to mind:

First, undoubtedly, is thinking constantly about what foods are in- or out-of-bounds. I am getting a better handle on this, but still finding it takes a lot of mental energy to figure out what I’m going to do for dinner so that we forget all about bread, potatoes and pasta.
The next most challenging thing is incorporating protein into every meal, especially when that protein can’t be cheese. It feels like I’m shopping much more often just to keep the house stocked with enough meat and fish.
Finally, eating out can be a drag. It’s striking how pervasive breads and grains are in restaurant menus and avoiding them takes some creativity, especially if you don’t want to have a salad, again.

Grilled Pork Tenderloin with Mango Salsa

Serving Size: 2

I love fruit salsas with grilled fish, chicken or pork. It adds a punch of color and flavor to your plate, and it's super simple to make.

Ingredients

1 pork tenderloin (1 to 1-1/2 pounds)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 tablespoon sea salt (we use Maldon salt)

For the salsa:

2 ripe mangoes, chopped
1 orange or red bell pepper, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced (optional)
2 tablespoons red onion, finely chopped
juice of 1 lime
2 teaspoons olive oil
1 tablespoon cilantro, finely chopped
sea salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Instructions

First, make the salsa: Place mango, bell pepper, garlic (if using), and onion in a medium bowl and mix well to combine. Squeeze the lime juice in, then the olive oil and cilantro. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Can be made a few hours ahead of time -- keep covered in the refrigerator.
Preheat your barbecue to high, around 500F.
In a shallow dish, rub the tenderloin with the 1 tablespoon of olive oil, then sprinkle with the salt. Let this stand while you make the salsa.
Place the tenderloin on the grill and sear the first side (about 4-5 minutes), then turn it over and sear the other side (another 3-4 minutes). Move the tenderloin to the top rack (or turn off the burner directly under the tenderloin), close the lid and let it continue cooking with the indirect heat for about 10 minutes.
When the tenderloin is done, remove it from the barbecue, wrap in foil, and let it sit for another 5-8 minutes. Slice crosswise and serve with a few tablespoons of the salsa.

More on the Paleo diet challenge:
Why I’m doing it in the first place
My plan for the 30 days

The Paleo Diet Challenge: Day 12

And just like that, the miracle 3 pound loss has come back. All at once. Geesh! Maybe this isn’t a miracle diet after all. Now I’m just back where I started, which I’m fine with.

You know a few days back I was feeling a little stressed? Some of that is due to being in charge of what to eat, every single night. Bob and I both cook, and usually alternate the dinner part: Sometimes he does it all or I do it all, and sometimes we just work on separate components that come together on the plate. (And sometimes we do order take out, but that’s a pretty rare event these days.)

But now I’m getting a few blank looks and the what can we eat for dinner question. It’s true, it’s not as easy as just yanking out a (homemade) meat sauce from the freezer and boiling up some pasta. It does require a little more thought. So there it is, that extra pressure for me to lead this thing, since it was my idea in the first place.

Luckily, with a few guidelines I’m able to set Bob up to make dinner tonight: Cottage pie, a proper English dish, using mashed cauliflower on top instead of mashed potatoes. He completely takes over dinner, and I’m relieved. With a side dish of some peas, sauteed with some onion in bacon fat (kept in the fridge for such occasions), we’re set.

(I used to really despise peas for several years, and wouldn’t go near them. Too many memories of overdone, bland boiled peas when I was younger, I think. Once I discovered the onion and bacon fat trick, I was sold. Just a little jazzing up was all the peas really needed.)

It really helped my anxiety level to not worry about dinner, after almost two solid weeks of every day thinking what to make. The bonus is, of course, that the cottage pie was big enough to have plenty of leftovers. Why didn’t I think of doing something like this earlier in the challenge?

More on the Paleo diet challenge:
Why I’m doing it in the first place
My plan for the 30 days

The Paleo Diet Challenge: Day 7

Typically, I buy fresh seafood, meat, fruit and vegetables, and only a minimal amount of packaged foods, like curry pastes or a certain peanut sauce I like in my stir-frys. I make my own vinaigrettes for salad, bake my own desserts and never tire of creating new appetizer recipes. Bob does superb casseroles (always on the rather large size), a mean mushroom sauce for steak, and a bearnaise sauce that pairs beautifully with grilled salmon.

We don’t eat out a lot, and one of the reasons for that (besides the expense) is that we are both good cooks, and, more importantly, we both enjoy cooking. At the risk of sounding too boastful, our home cooking is almost always better than the food we’d get in a restaurant.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that cooking from scratch is no big deal for us, and we do it willingly. In fact, we prefer it. So the switch to a Paleo back-to-basics diet should be a pretty smooth transition, shouldn’t it? Well yes. But after almost a full week in, I’m recognizing in myself a continual anxiety in the back of my mind about it, and that surprises me.

It’s not the cooking without packaged or processed foods, or cooking simple meals with real ingredients. We do that already. I think the anxiety stems from a couple sources: It’s the shift away from former staples in my diet — cheese, bread, pasta — the things I could always rely on to bring together a quick meal. Baked mac and cheese? Lasagna? Yes, please. It’s the increased label reading to figure out if a certain ingredient is okay or not. It’s scanning menus and realizing that the only ‘safe’ thing to order is the salad, again. (Sigh.) And it’s thinking about how to work protein into every single meal, especially breakfast.

It is definitely a shift, enough to vex me a little more now that I’ve got 3 solid weeks of the challenge ahead. Tonight I quelled my anxiety a little by making a meal that has already made it into our ‘normal’ repertoire before now: chunky tomato and beef sauce atop roasted spaghetti squash, with some parmesan cheese melted on top.

More on the Paleo diet challenge:
Why I’m doing it in the first place
My plan for the 30 days

The Paleo Diet Challenge: Day 3

All right, my weight basically stays the same all the time, within a 3 pound range. This morning when I stepped on the scale and saw my weight lower than it’s been in years, I almost fell backward into the bathtub. Surprise! Almost 2 pounds gone in 2 days. What’s with that? And I’m not feeling hungry in the least between meals. Strange.

What to do about breakfast this morning? While I enjoy eggs I don’t eat them very often, as in once every couple of weeks. Yesterday’s triumphant Mediterranean egg breakfast aside, I didn’t feel like facing eggs two mornings in a row. I decided on a big bowl of fruit — a couple of kiwis, a banana, a few apricots and some strawberries. Simple and more or less satisfying. Strict Paleos would be scolding me for not having protein but meh, I’m a newbie at all this.

The big hit today was dinner. I made some cauliflower “rice” for the first time. Admittedly my expectations weren’t terribly high, as I find cauliflower and (white) rice to be pretty uninteresting on their own. But, turns out my weight drop wasn’t the only surprise of the day. Cauliflower masquerading as rice may fool you into thinking it’s a real grain.

Atop the rice, er, cauliflower, was a saute I make when local spot prawns make a brief appearance every year. We typically have this over pasta and I could probably eat it for, I don’t know, every day for two weeks never be tired of it. First, it’s easy and quick to put together, perfect for when you come home after a long day and want to eat something right now. Also, it doesn’t require much precision in measuring out ingredients, which makes me feel very Jamie Oliver-ish. For Bob, I add heavy cream to make it a more of a rose sauce but I like it just as well without any cream at all.

The double tomato spot prawn saute (sans cream, since I was cooking for one) had a depth of flavor, almost a beefiness, that was particularly satisfying. It kind of feels like my taste buds are on high alert. So far so good even though it’s only day 3.

Double Tomato Sautéed Spot Prawns

Serving Size: 1

Serve this on top of cauliflower 'rice' for a delightful summer meal. This recipe can be easily doubled (to serve 2) with no adjustments. If scaling the recipe further upwards (to serve 4 or more), keep to 3 garlic cloves.

Ingredients

1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1 teaspoon dried pepper flakes
2 tablespoon oil from jar of sundried tomatoes (plain olive oil would do just fine too)
4-6 sun-dried tomatoes packed in oil, chopped
2 fresh tomatoes, chopped
3/4 cup chicken stock
splash of white wine (optional)
6-8 spot prawns, shelled
2 tablespoons fresh parsley, finely chopped
sea salt and freshly ground pepper
cauliflower rice, for serving

Instructions

Heat the oil in a large saute pan on medium heat. When the oil is hot, reduce the heat to medium-low and add the garlic and (if using) dried pepper flakes. Saute for a few minutes until the garlic is softened up, reducing the heat further if needed to ensure it doesn’t turn brown.
Add the sun-dried and fresh tomatoes, then the chicken stock and (if using) white wine. Bring the sauce to a boil an reduce it for 6-8 minutes, until it reaches a thicker consistency. Add salt and pepper to taste.
A couple minutes before you’re ready for serving, stir in the spot prawns. They only take 1-2 minutes to be done, so keep an eye on them. Once the spot prawns have turned white and are firm, turn off the heat, stir in the parsley and you’re ready to go. Serve on top of cauliflower rice.

More on the Paleo diet challenge:
Why I’m doing it in the first place
My plan for the 30 days