Phase Three - Day Five

I knew we were going to have a big dinner, so I kept breakfast and lunch small. Had a few pieces of fruit for breakfast and snacks, then lunch was chicken "salad" on a cucumber. Pretty good, and simple: cucumber sliced in half long ways so it looks like a boat, few ounces of grilled chicken, an avacado, and two hard boiled eggs. I just put the chicken, avacado and eggs in a bowl and mashed them up then put it on the cucumber! It was a lot of cucumber for my taste, so I think next time I'll only do a half of one rather than the whole.

Dinner was BIG and delicious. Chicken fried steak, smashed sweet potatoes, and grilled celery, carrots, onions and garlic. Grilled celery? Yup! It was awesome.
We "chicken fried" the steak by using almond flour, eggs and I think a little almond milk. Then just grilled it in a pan with a little oil/grease. Pretty dang good.

Phase Three - Day Four

This should have been my last day on phase three, but I decided to add a day due to doing so horribly on Tuesday.

Breakfast and lunch were boring as always, so I'll just skip them and move on to dinner.

We had...drum roll please... Steak, paleo biscuits, and BACON ASPARGUS! It was so good.

We bbq'd the steak with minimal seasoning - just some onion powder, garlic salt and pepper, no sauce - and sauteed some onion and garlic in bacon fat. DELICIOUS! The biscuits were left over from my batch I made tuesday.

Now for the bacon asparagus. OMG amazing! And way simple:

• Preheat oven to 400
• Cut strips of bacon in half
• Snap ends off of asparagus
• Wrap each asparagus spear in one half strip of bacon
• Bake for about 25 minutes

I like my asparagus super soft, so I went for the whole 25 minutes. But if you

Phase Three - Day Three

Well, I cheated. I'll admit it. It was awful.

My boyfriend and I went out for Valentine's day, to one of our favorite places - BBQ! - and...went crazy. Afterwards, we both regretted it!

But before dinner, I had done pretty well. I wasn't super hungry all morning, so I kind of had brunch.

Brunch: Paleo Biscuits and Eggs
Snacks: Almonds and apple

Yup, I said biscuits! How? Simple...almond flour. Here's the recipe:

Almond Flour Biscuits

• 2 1/2 Cups almond flour
• 1/2 tsp Salt
• 1/2 tsp Baking soda
• 1/4 Cup Natural buttery spread (Warning! Controversial as to whether or not it's Paleo/Primal)
• 2 Eggs
• 1 Tbs Honey

Yields 10 Biscuits
Mix dry ingredients and wet ingredients separately. Gradually add dry to wet and mix well! Bake at 350 for 15 minutes or until brown on bottom edges.

I dropped mine on a cookie sheet, rather than adding more flour, rolling them out, and cutting them. The dough was the consistency of cookie dough, so I used my cookie scoop! Then added what was left to each biscuit, using my little spatula to kind of flatten them.

They were a little buttery for my taste, since the almond flour provides a nutty, buttery taste anyway. I'm working on converting the butter ingredient to canola oil, to make it authentically paleo/primal. Plus I cheated with margarine because that's all I had.

Phase Three - Day Two

I'm going to have to start posting the morning after, so this is about yesterday.

Phew, day two and I'm already feeling worn out. It's hard to think of primal friendly meals. I've been doing my research on recipes, I just seem to misplace them up until about an hour before dinner.

Things went well though! Got distracted by a writing project so I didn't eat much - bad cavewoman!

Breakfast: Apple, scrambled eggs
Lunch: Almonds, Apple
Dinner: (aka awesomesauce!) Almond/coconut chicken, whipped cauliflower, and roasted carrots, zucchini, and onions.

Dinner was SO good and SO filling! I used almond flour and shredded (NOT flaked) coconut for the "breading" on the chicken, steamed cauliflower till it was super mushy - added sauteed onions and garlic - and whipped in the blender. Lesson learned: blenders are not all created equal, some totally suck and can't whip cauliflower all that well. I'm going to try it again, but whip them by hand. They had a funky texture, but tasted awesome!

Would my readers like some recipes? I can start gathering and make a page. Also, 'tomorrow' I'm going to try my first bread product I think...Paleo Biscuits. Wish me luck!

Phase Three - Day One

It's here! Day one of phase three. Phew, I was almost thinking it would never come.

I started off sluggish today, slept in, drank my coffee slowly, didn't end up eating breakfast till almost noon! Crazy.

Breakfast: Bacon and Egg cups (so worth it every time)
Lunch: Green Smoothie (didn't feel like making anything else)

And, since it's phase three...DINNER!
I had zucchini "pasta" and spicy Italian meatballs. And let me tell you, it was amazeballs.

I cut the zucchini julienne, so it was nice and thin like spaghetti noodles (it was much easier once I figured out the newfangled chef envy slicer...so there were some thick ones I did by hand), and popped them in the microwave (in a Pyrex) for about 3 mins. The meatballs were turkey, egg whites, almonds I smashed into oblivion, garlic powder, onion powder, oregano, and lots of red pepper flakes. I pan seared them, and they were awesome. I'll post a recipe soon, I'm thinking of doing a whole recipe page. Once I can figure out how to do it!

Dinner was hard to think of, but once I had the idea it came along quite nicely. Luckily, my boyfriend is totally on board with this adventure and is willing to eat caveman dinners with me :-) He's even trying to stick to caveman eating for breakfast and lunch as well. I think we're going to try and re-work some of our favorite recipes to be caveman friendly!

All in all, I'd say it was a success.

Phase Two Day Five

This is a late post, so keep your eyes pealed for more to come tomorrow!

I spent the day with my sister, so I had to think ahead of time what to eat. Luckily, I had enough time on my hands to prepare some cave woman friendly snacks and such before heading out for the day.

Breakfast: Green Smoothie
Lunch: Romaine, carrots, sliced almonds and avocado dressing.
Snacks: Almonds and apple

I went crazy at dinner and ate at Red Robin - ordering my usual, feeling like I hadn't had simple carbs in so long (really, it had been 24 hours). And I felt yucky. I first figured that I ate too fast, and my stomach just wasn't used to the amount of food in such a little time. But even a couple of hours later - well in to the digestion process - I felt gross...sluggish with a stomach ache.

And then it hit me - simple carbs! My body is getting used to processing complex carbs and proteins and fats all day, then when I shock my system with a poor diet choice, it gets out of whack. Could my body really be changing that quickly?

I'll run some more tests and report back ;-)

Phase Two Day Four

The end is near! Soon I'll be starting Phase Three!

Today was an easy food day again - I had a test to study for, and some other errands to run, so I didn't want to think too hard.

Breakfast: Green Smoothie
Lunch: Salad - romaine lettuce, egg, carrots, avocado dressing.
Snack: Apple, Almonds

The salads just get better and better! This one was missing chicken, but other than that, it was pretty good. Not very filling though, so I supplemented with the apple and almonds. I'm hoping in phase three I'll be having leftovers for lunch on days I don't want to think about it.

Also, I'm going to try making a Paleo bread recipe soon, to try and make some chicken sandwiches. But I have a very busy weekend coming up, so I'll have to hold off for just a few more days.

Looking back, my meal choices haven't had much variety, and for that I'm sorry. Still navigating, still planning, sticking with what I know I can eat and will enjoy. If I get some time this weekend, I'll post a week's meal plan with multiple lunch options, versus the same salad I've been eating for three days >.<

Keep reading! Ask me questions! Stay tuned for more posts!