I came in first at the Christmas party!

Last night we went to a Christmas party and I was a little nervous how I would do with all the food. I haven't been around bread or baked goods at all since we started the diet, so I didn't know how tempting it would be.

The first hurdle was the drinks. Beer, wine (which I don't like) and lots of sugary drinks were everywhere, but I took my time and didn't commit to anything. After a bit I found out someone was drinking a gin and tonic, so I got one of those. First hurdle cleared!

Then the food. The setup was a make your own ham and beef sandwich, with oven baked mac and cheese, mashed potatoes and salad. I went for the ham, potatoes and salad and felt completely satisfied. No temptation to eat the mac and cheese, which I usually love.

Next hurdle: dessert. There were various pies and then some mini chocolate eclairs were brought out. These I eyed and one of my friends grabbed one and tried to give it to me. After I said no, I told him why, and what I was doing, and one bite into the eclair he decided that he didn't want it anymore. So not only did I not have the dessert, I turned someone else off to it! I call that a win.

On the way home I felt so proud! I really did feel like I had won something good (besides the white elephant gift Cards Against Humanity) and I was so excited that I had navigated the party without feeling weird about it or missing anything. And the most amazing part was I didn't feel tempted to eat any of the stuff. Pretty awesome! Also I had fun! Haha. Which is also very important.

So one week into my paleo diet I'm going strong and really proud of myself.

No More Chili!

Good morning! So I now know that beans are out. Traditional paleo doesn't include them, but I had wanted to start out including them. Last night we had a delicious (if I do say so myself) chili, but this morning my stomach let me know in no uncertain terms this was not a good idea. So no beans! Good to know.

In better news, yesterday I had a really cool 'ah-ha' moment. A coworker of mine had some almond flour crackers, and I thought "why not? almond flour is good, right?" so I tried one, and instantly wanted to binge. I had just eaten lunch and before I had that tiny cracker I had been completely satisfied. Right after eating I was sooo hungry. I just wanted more! So much more. SO that was a really cool little experiment. I haven't been eating any super yummy processed foods, just a few rice cakes in the morning, and that drove the point home that I shouldn't eat  anything processed if I want to stay on the diet. And such a crazy experience to see how intense the reaction was! It also felt validating because I have always had some amount of shame in the fact that I go on food binges and can't stop eating. This proved that part of that is the food itself and how it's designed to make you want more.

The Road to Paleo

Taking the plunge back into a predominantly paleo diet. My goal is to completely avoid gluten and sugar, and eat mostly veggies and meats with a few exceptions here and there. One of them being gluten free toast or rice cakes in the morning with my coffee. 

So far I've been feeling good. I'm on day three, and haven't noticed any drastic changes, good or bad. I haven't had any really intense cravings, after dinner I always crave something sweet, but it's been manageable. Last night I had herbal peach tea and that really helped. I may get something from www.bulletproof.com just in case I get a really bad craving for something sweet. 

So some background. Both me and my husband suffer from food-related health issues and have dabbled with paleo for years. We both feel better and seem to have less issues when we eat mostly paleo, but it's been hard to stay consistent and keep on track, which is why I've decided to blog about my process. My hope is that if I have an audience to hold myself accountable to, I'll stick to it. That doesn't mean never cheating or eating things that fall outside my healthy foods, but getting back on track afterward and moving forward. 

I will also be sharing recipes that I really enjoyed, the first of which you'll find below: 

Slow Cooker Chicken Adobo 

PREP TIME 25 MINS • COOK TIME 4 TO 6 HRS • SERVINGS 4

1 large yellow onion, sliced 
1 (2-inch) piece of fresh ginger, peeled and thinly sliced 
1 head garlic (about 12 cloves), peeled and thinly sliced 
2 bay leaves 
14.5 ounces full-fat coconut milk (about 1 3/ 4 cups), canned* or homemade (see here) 
1/ 2 cup coconut aminos* 
1/ 3 cup apple cider vinegar* 
2 teaspoons black pepper, plus more for the chicken 
2 tablespoons cooking fat** 
3 pounds bone-in chicken thighs sea salt 

Layer the onion, ginger, garlic, and bay leaves in the bottom of a slow cooker. In a bowl, mix together the coconut milk, coconut aminos, apple cider vinegar, and pepper. Heat the cooking fat in a skillet over high heat. Season the skin side of the chicken thighs generously with salt and pepper and place them skin side down in the skillet. Cook for about 5 minutes or until the skin is browned. Transfer the chicken thighs, skin side up, to the slow cooker and pour the coconut milk mixture over the top. Cook on high for 4 hours or on low for 6 hours. For a thicker sauce, remove the cooked chicken from the slow cooker, bring the remaining sauce to a boil in a saucepan over medium-high heat, and cook for 20 to 25 minutes to reduce or until desired thickness is achieved. 

Serve over Garlic & Green Onion Cauli-Rice.

1 large head cauliflower 
2 tablespoons ghee or coconut oil 
3 cloves garlic, minced 
3 green onions (scallions), thinly sliced 
sea salt and black pepper to taste 

Shred the cauliflower with a cheese grater or food processor. Heat the ghee in a large sauté pan over medium-high heat. Add the garlic and sauté for 2 to 3 minutes or until fragrant. Add the green onions and cook for another 1 to 2 minutes, then add the shredded cauliflower and stir to combine with the garlic and green onion. Cook for 3 to 5 minutes or until the dish is warmed through and the cauliflower is softened. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Sanfilippo, Diane (2014-01-05). The 21-Day Sugar Detox Cookbook: Over 100 Recipes for Any Program Level (Kindle Locations 2346-2351). Victory Belt Publishing. Kindle Edition. 

More Serial Killers? Really?

I've had an odd week, especially the past few days. I'm hoping to blame some of it on planetary influence, although I have no idea if I'll get to. (Mercury retrograde, anyone?)

Anyways. Some of it I can attribute to fighting a cold, which I've been keeping at bay with herbs and homeopathic medicines, but it's present just enough to make me tired and cranky. 

All of this leads to my night last night, which was kind of the culmination of a bad week. I was weirdly emotional and irrationally cranky and generally hating life. I went to bed latish due to numbing my brain with a tv show for a few hours, and right before I fell asleep I had one of those horrible, jolt-awake moments where I remembered that I might have screwed something up at work and it would be really crappy if I had. Anyways. This is how I went to sleep. And had a night-long nightmare about a serial killer. 

It's not new for me to have nightmares about serial killers (I've even posted about it before), but this one seems worse for some reason. I think part of it is that the crappy feeling I've been having all week got entangled in the dream, and now the fear and panic from the dream is entangled in my crappy mood. So now I don't just have a crappy mood to deal with. I have this horrible memory of my dream and it just won't go away. 

In the dream I was caught by him twice. And both times I couldn't get away, and I couldn't scream, and he was toying with me like a cat with a mouse. And I knew that he was going to kill me.

So that's how I started my friday. I guess it can't get any worse, huh? The old, Eat a live toad the first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day, adage. This is what I'm rooting for, anyways.

The Bits I Miss

Since I've been in Boulder I haven't really missed Portland that much. I miss my friends, and a few places, some restaurants and whatnot, but I not the city so much. But last night I had this very vivid dream: 

I was driving to Portland. I didn't have very much time, I was on my way somewhere. I hadn't made contact with anyone, no one knew I was in town and I didn't have time to see anyone. As I drove through town I got a surge of excitement. I was back in Portland! It was beautiful, the sun was shining, the buildings were huge (I was downtown), and I was driving to my beloved Powell's. I got to drive by it, but then the dream changed and got weird the way dreams do. I never made it inside, and the dream ended not long afterwards. But the feeling of excitement of being back in Portland has stuck with me, and now I miss it. 

I knew the feeling would catch up with me eventually. If I had been paying attention I would have seen the signs. Just last week I was bemoaning the lack of good restaurants in Boulder, and thinking about all the amazing places Portland has. I've been craving Podnah's Pit for a solid month now. And I miss McMenamins theaters. And the Horse Brass Pub. And Crema Coffee Shop. And Saint Cupcake (I dream about their red velvet with cream cheese frosting).


Of course moving is never easy, and I don't regret my decision. I'm just having a bout of homesickness. 

So in memory, here are some photos of my favorite things: 

Drinking a beer in the Pearl on a clear, sunny day.                       

The Hawthorne bridge.                                           

Free drinks and friends (courtesy of Wweek)      

Willamette Week (tho I don't miss working on Sunday)

 MusifestNW (this was The National in Pioneer Square, amazing show)

A very different winter, where things got greener as the months wore on.

Sunday softball. I didn't play, but I drank beer and cheered, which was just as good.

Best of Portland, where I got way too drunk off of free drinks with my coworkers. (I did the sign, too)

Liz! (and Saint Cupcakes)

So anyways. I had some good times in Portland. But I'm sure I'll have good times here, too. Now it's just a matter of making those memories. 

Reawaken Our Freedom to Change

I know we're all inundated with politics right now, so I apologize for adding to it, but it just must be discussed. 

So. Many things about the way politics are set up have not been working for awhile now. I'll start with the most surface-level problem: the completely crap choices we have. 

So I voted for Obama the first time, and I believed in him 100%. And I voted for Obama again this year, but my reasons were skewed. I voted for him because the idea of a brainwashed, wealthy, white man running my country is too terrifying to face. What happened to actually having options? I don't want a president that is just better than the other guy. I want to be able actually weigh my options, regardless of Democrat or Republican. Bringing someone like Mitt Romney into the ring skews the entire structure of democracy. Mitt is a fringe candidate. His views are radical. He does not reflect a large section of the population's interests. He reflects a small, fanatical group. And he should not be running for president. 

Now. In light of this, I was considering the problem. The problem, as I see it, is that our democratic structure, all the way to the foundation, is decaying. It is no longer working. It hasn't been for years. Bush took office and won twice, with serious concerns about how he won. THAT should have been our wake-up call. I don't care if you vote democrat or republican, you should care that the process is flawed. That these elections are NOT WORKING. 

We need a restructuring of the political process, we need to re-evaluate how we run our country, we need to separate church and state, and more importantly we need to separate corporate spending and politics. These are not fanatic, fringe ideas (I have a fair amount of those as well) these are just the basics of running a clean, fair country. 

I don't have the answers, I don't know how to rebuild, but I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that it needs to be done. We need to restructure our country. We need to get back to basics and put our citizens first. These are not wants, they are needs. We can't keep fighting to keep basic structures in place (who threatens to cut funding for disaster relief?!) we can't keep fighting to keep the freedom to choose what to do with our bodies (land of the free besides reproductive rights) we can't keep battling corporations and insurance companies (how can one person take on a multi-million dollar corporation and hope to win?). So we need a change. And it needs to be bigger than one president, because one man cannot fight an entire governmental structure. That is OUR job. 

Fashion Bug

I adore fashion, but as with all things in my life, I'm very particular. Mainstream fashion has never really done it for me; most things that go down the catwalk turn me off. I don't even really get into the indie fashion scene. So when I find a fashionista I like I get pretty excited. 

My latest clothing crush is WearingItOnMySleeves. I found it through Pinterest, and was pretty deeply engrossed before I made the discovery that the blogger, Sarah, is Mormon. Now I've always been a bit wary of very religious people, but this discovery peaked my interest. I started noticing that her style is very modest –never a lot of skin showing– and I realized that was something that I really liked about her outfits. This was a surprising discovery for me, since I've never thought of myself as modest or old fashioned in any way, but when I thought about it I realized that I really am quite modest when it comes to showing skin. I get uncomfortable when girls wear low-riding pants and tank tops, or when guys strip off their shirts in the summer. When my sister used to run around in her underwear I always had to fight the urge to turn into an old lady and tell her to put some clothes on. 

With this new discovery I've started to question other areas of my life. Where else am I modest where I thought I was so modern? What other latent, conservative emotions have I been suppressing? So far nothing else have surfaced, but I now know to keep an eye out for them. And it's always good to re-evaluate ourselves now and again. 

I know I will never agree with her ideologies, but to find someone who so artfully puts together outfits that I absolutely adore had been very satisfying. And illuminating.