Part Seven: A Week in the Life of Our Bellies

This is a continuation of my weight loss series.  If you missed The Prologue, Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four , Part Five, or Part Six check them out first. If you are not into this kind of stuff, here is your warning:  Go ahead and skip this one.

 

I think a lot of people hear that we eat a mostly Paleo Diet and think we are super restricted in what we eat.  I beg to differ.  This has been the most delicious way I've EVER lost weight, and I feel infomercial AMAZING!  

Here's a peak into what we're eating this week:

Breakfast
Breakfast at our house is sort of grab and go.  Garrett usually works sometime between 5am and 11am so he takes some fruit with him.  He hates eating breakfast and I yell at him about that.  I think he kind of likes it.  I'm lucky enough to have a cafe at work so I generally grab 2 scrambled/hard boiled eggs and bacon.  I'm sure it's not nitrate free hippie bacon, but I think I'll live.  It keeps me more than full until lunch.  Sometimes if I'm running on time in the morning I will make myself a smoothie.  If I can get my act together on the weekend I will make a dozen or so Bacon, Egg & Cheese Muffins because they are THE BOMB and Mini-Frittata muffins are easy to grab on the go.  Or I even sometimes do dinner leftovers because I'm not queasy about eating chicken for breakfast.  Sure, my coworkers probably think I'm a nut, but that's ok.  I think they already knew I was nutty before they even saw what I was eating. 

Lunch
This weekend I am grilling up a crapload of chicken breasts/thighs, zucchini, squash, red onions, and asparagus.  I marinated the chicken breasts in a mesquite marinade that is probably not STRICTLY Paleo, but again I think I will live.  I did this last weekend as well and I'm still standing.  I think you have to be reasonable with your dogma.  We do the best that we can to avoid sugar, grains, and gluten but meat marinade is not the hill I'm going to die on, you know unless it has some Partially Hydrogenated crap, wheat, or Corn Syrup.  Then, HELLS TO THA NO. Anyway, then I package them up in little tupperwares for a quick lunch grab.  We will alternate eating that and having dinner leftovers all week so we don't get bored.  It's easy, takes about an hour on the weekend, and it's 5 days of lunch.  On the weekends I don't worry about lunch too much -- we either forage the leftovers, go out to eat while we run errands (Chipotle salads, anyone?) or sometimes sleep late and only eat two meals, so who even needs lunch?  I need to remember how awesome that last option is while we don't have kids.

Dinner

This week we will be enjoying the following:

• Asian Beef and Fried Cauliflower Rice Bowls - This is such a delicious and man-pleasing meal.  Last time I made it for Garrett he said, "Can we have this again tomorrow?"  Win. This time I will probably double the recipe so we have leftovers for lunch.

• Turkey Meatloaf Minis + Mashed Cauliflower + Roasted Garlicky Broccoli - I love to roast broccoli in Olive Oil with salt, pepper + garlic powder (The Trifecta).  It gets crispy and delicious and we can demolish probably 2 lbs in one sitting because we are CRAZY BROCCOLI LOVERS.

• Santa Maria Seasoned Grilled Tri-Tip + Bacon Roasted Brussels Sprouts+ Salad  These brussels sprouts change lives.  No joke.  Please try them.  It is hands down Garrett's favorite thing to eat.  I was just going to roast the brussels with The Trifecta this week and Garrett said, "Please, with the bacon! with the bacon!"  So we'll indulge a little.

• Orange Chicken + Shallot, Zucchini, and Squash Sautee with The Trifecta - OMG this is so good, but I add a little honey and ALOT of red pepper flakes for kick. Also, I don't season the chicken first, because I did that the first time I made this recipe without thinking and whoa, was that salty!  Easy, tasty, and like a mini Paleo Panda Express.

• Southwest Turkey Burgers with roasted carrots + parsnip fries and roasted red onion wedges (roasted with Olive Oil and The Trifecta, of course) - I use this burger recipe, serve on a bed of bibb lettuce and top with bacon and avocado slices)

• Grilled Grass Fed New York Steaks (from our meatshare!) + Roasted Garlic Green Beans + Salad  - This will probably be our Friday night meal because I love to grill on a Friday night with a good glass of vino in hand.  I'm especially excited since we just picked up our Wine Club Subscription.  YUM!  I've also been enjoying the occasional Skinnygirl Margarita on a Friday night, and WOW, those are delish. I don't know if discovering them was a good thing or a bad thing.  I foresee those being included in many a summer evening.

• Chili Colorado + Veggie Must-go.  Do you do Must-Go in your house?  As in, "everything in the crisper drawer must go."  This is a new recipe I'm trying and I'm thinking about making the chili part this weekend so we can use it for lunches too, we'll see. 

 Snacks/Post-Workout Meals

So honestly, I'm not that into snacking.  All of these good eats keep me relatively full throughout the day, so I'm a 3 square meal type of gal.  Post-Workout I generally will have a Coconut Water and sometimes a few slices of turkey or salami while I am cooking dinner.  


Garrett, on the other hand does more snacking and has a different Post-Workout routine since we have different goals (Me:  Lose Weight, Him:  Stop Losing Weight)  He snacks on nuts and some fruit during the day.  The boy is a whore for bananas.  Post-workout he will usually mix himself up a Protein Shake with some Almond Milk + A Banana, and will usually enjoy a sweet potato, which we always have ready made in the fridge because I usually just roast up a big batch of on the weekend when I am grilling that chicken. That one hour of weekend prep accomplishes a lot with a little planning.  I'll peel them while the chicken is resting and stick them in a tupperware.  He likes to nuke them and eat them with a little grassfed butter.  For the record, I would like to take a bath in that butter, it is AWESOME.  If you are not eating Paleo, do yourself a favor and slather that on a baguette.  Holy shit, the thought of that makes my head spin a little.


Dessert
As for dessert, again I'm usually not that interested, although when I have a box of mangoes in the house I definitely enjoy those.  Sometimes Garrett will slice an apple and dip it in almond butter, or pair it with some chunks of dark chocolate.  If we are feeling extra special, we'll whip up a fruit cobbler like this.  Or my favorite dessert is some greek yogurt over berries with a touch of honey.  The truth is, I'm trying to eliminate the dairy completely because it doesn't always agree with me, but sometimes it is just too good and you've only got one life.  If some greek yogurt is my one vice, I'll take it.  We are Practical Paleo People.  Someone make me a Twibbon, will ya? 


Anyway, I hope that was some insight into the fact that we don't just eat hunks of meat all the time. With a little planning you can have a ton of great eats at your fingertips.  And the weight loss?  Well that is just icing on the (grain-free, gluten-free, sugar-free) cake!


*If this is helpful and you'd like to see more of what we're eating, let me know.  And if you have any other questions, leave them in the comments and I will address them in a future post.
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