Flu Life

Paleo is hard. Let me tell you, get the flu and the last thing you want to concern yourself with is what is Paleo or even healthy for that matter. I was one of the “lucky ones” this year and managed to catch the flu. I blame this guy from work, he had it first and then I got it. I knew something was up Friday morning when I woke up at 3 am with the worst aches in my life. I could barely stand my legs were throbbing so bad. At the time, I was sure it would just go away after a hot bath. So yes, at 3 am I decided to take a steaming hot bath with bubbles of course. After laying in agony for about 30 minutes, I gave up on the bath and just decided to get ready for work and try to suck it up. Fast forward a few hours, I am sitting at work completely miserable. The pain I felt in my lower back and legs was probably one of the worst pains I have personally ever felt. I couldn’t eat, couldn’t get comfortable, and sure as hell could not concentrate on anything else. By about 11, I was done, I couldn’t be at work anymore.

Now, here is where I made the first mistake of flu weekend. I decided to head to the minute clinic at Target. First of all, I did not do my research on the flu test which would have helped me avoid the whole issue. In case you are not aware, the flu test is only 50-90% accurate. That is a HUGE gap!! And if you have ever had to get tested for the flu, that is not even worth putting yourself through the misery of actually getting tested. For the lucky ones who have not been tested, I’ll fill you in. They take this long thin stick and shove about 6 to 8 inches of it straight up your nose and into your brain. It is impossible for your eyes not to water and you want to quit before it is even half way up your nose. Anyway, I got the test and it came back negative. The nice lady told me I just have a viral infection, aka a common cold. First of all, I have had a cold plenty of times and it has never resulted in me wanted to cut off my own limbs from being in so much pain. Secondly, I have never had a fever while having a cold. By the way, doctor standards a fever is 100.5 and my temperature was 100.4 so to them I was just fine. Either way, I took the misdiagnosis and drove my sick butt home.

Got home and life did not get any better. The aches in my legs were unreal. I hopped in the bath and popped a Midol. Don’t ask, Midol is my go to cure all for everything and by-golly it actually was the only thing that helped my legs quit aching enough so I could take a nap. I had to try to do everything I could to feel better because my boyfriend’s mom was coming into town later that day and I couldn’t be sick. Obviously my body had other plans. Long story short, the flu was terrible. I was throwing up sick, miserably achy, and too weak to do more than lay around.

The whole point of this post is about how hard it is to eat healthy when you are sick. Friday, I couldn’t eat anything. Everything I did it just came back up. By Saturday I was so week that I knew I had to eat something just to survive. At 8am I forced my boyfriend to go to the store and pick me up some organic tomato soup and some saltine crackers. I know, crackers are not Paleo but at the point I was at, if I could keep it down then it was perfect. My boyfriend was even sweet enough to get the whole-grain saltines since they are a little better for you. Needless to say, my tomato soup and a sleeve and a half of saltines were eaten by the end of the weekend. I am finally feeling much better. I still have a dreadful cough but my eating habits are pretty much back to normal. I have not gone to the gym since I have been sick. I can still tell I am recovering because my limbs are still a bit weak. I am hoping by tomorrow I can get back into the gym because after almost a week off I am craving a good work out.

So… Moral of the Story… Get your Flu Shot!!! Don’t be like me!!

 

 

Taco Tuesday

Okay.. Is it really only Tuesday? As I am sitting here in my office at work, rocking out to some Shania Twain I am contemplating what to do with the pound of ground turkey I have thawing in my refrigerator. I know, what a crisis! First thought, Pinterest. I, just like most others, am obsessed with Pinterest. It is my go to for everything!!! Recipes, clothing inspirations, house decorations, weekend crafts, party ideas, seriously, everything! No, I am not one of those people with some exciting life that throws themed parties, does arts and crafts in my downtime, and has a luxurious massive closet with color coded clothing and a whole wall of shoes. But hey, looking at the pictures of all these things is good enough for me and always gives me one more thing to add to my imaginary dream board of my future.

Anyways, sitting on Pinterest looking for a quick, Paleo, ground turkey dinner seemed easy enough. Boy was I wrong. They had a few recipes that caught my attention, but what really drew me in where all the recipes covered in cheese or with rice. Why Pinterest must you tempt me with all these delicious pictures of foods I can’t eat?  Oh yeah, and they even had recipes with some corn and black beans mixed in. If you would have told my 10 year old self, that at 26 I would be drooling over some corn and black beans I would have laughed in your face and said you were crazy. I’ll be honest, these things seemed so easy to give up at first when I decided I wanted to try the Paleo lifestyle. Just by putting ‘Paleo Recipes’ into Google, you find tons of amazing looking recipes. Don’t get me wrong, these recipes are great I am sure, but to smother something in cheese or to have a giant burrito bowl with some corn and beans and rice… I’m getting hungry just thinking about it.

As I sit here, only about a week and a half into the Paleo lifestyle, already have had a cheat day, I am wavering my options on whether I should reintroduce items into my diet and how soon. I would love to stick to a fairly strict Paleo lifestyle for the long haul but realistically, I am going to need some rice every once in a while or maybe a giant burrito bowl with all the fix-ins. And pasta, I could never give up my pasta forever. I am Italian after all, that has got to be some sort of law that you are required to eat pasta. No, I am not quitting just yet. I am still very interested in staying strong and sticking out this Paleo thing for 30 days and seeing how it affects me. Yes, I will still enjoy a cheat meal probably once a week, but aside from that I will maintain a full Paleo diet until February 1st. I know, that doesn’t sound like that much of a commitment considering I will have cheat meals, but if I don’t cheat at least a little then I will just give up totally and just sit around and eat pizza and drink beer all the time. Trust me, that sounds delicious, but I have got to have some sort of will power.

So for now, I will enjoy a turkey taco skillet for dinner. It is Tuesday after all. No, I will not have a margarita, this Tuesday at least. At least I still get to eat avocados!!!

 

Winging it…

Well, in case you haven’t noticed, I wasn’t kidding when I said I was the queen of quitting. Work was hectic for the remainder of the week last week and then I had an appointment with a personal trainer (it came free with my gym membership) and then it snowed on Friday. By the way, I live in North Carolina so by snow I mean we saw a few flurries and everyone went into a panic. In all seriousness, we did actually get about 6 inches at my apartment which for us is the equivalent to the North getting about 6 feet. Needless to say, everyone was so excited and its impossible not to buy a bunch of snack foods when being “snowed in” all weekend.

My first thought for the snowy weekend which started early Friday afternoon, was we have to go to the grocery store and stock up. No, we did not buy bread and milk like every other Southerner (literally, the shelves were bare where the bread once sat). Since we are really trying at this Paleo thing we obviously couldn’t participate in the winter tradition. By the way, I did my research, there is no actual reason to buy bread and milk. It was once an idea people had and for some reason it has stuck. Milk sandwiches just aren’t my thing (kidding guys, I know its not to be made in a sandwich together). I did however want to keep up with the tradition of hot chocolate to keep me warm in the below freezing temperatures of 30 degrees. Again, did my research and found a Paelo hot chocolate recipe using premium dark chocolate, coconut milk, and a splash of vanilla extract. Trust me, this was no Swiss Miss with little mini marshmallows floating on top. I’d say it was decent, but I would take the real stuff (real processed stuff I should say) over my Paleo version any day. It’s worth a try though, maybe once I get a few more “snow days” and a little more experience I can doctor it up a little and make it taste a bit more appealing.

Aside from the Paleo hot chocolate, I wanted to try and at least stay somewhat loyal to the Paleo lifestyle. I bought a pork shoulder and decided to make barbeque. Mind you, I have never made barbeque in my life, nor have I even considered buying a pork shoulder. The recipe I had called for a 2 lb. pork shoulder. Guess what? Harris Teeter clearly doesn’t know portion control. The smallest one the had was 10 lbs!! Yes, 10 lbs!! I had my heart set on living off barbeque for the weekend so I wasn’t going to let this massive hunk of meat scare me off. I bought it. All 10 pounds of it, which by the way does not fit in my crockpot. If you haven’t quite noticed yet, winging it is my lifestyle. I make it home around 5 and have to figure out how to cook this massive thing. Best solution, phone a friend and ask where to begin. I popped the sucker in the oven with a few added ingredients (some of the recipe list and others I just thought made sense to add). So here we are 5:30 by the time this thing has made it inside the oven and now I have to cook it for at least 6 hours.

6 hours later… It is now almost 12 o’clock and I could really fall asleep. Of course, the dang shoulder wasn’t done. Put it on for another hour and its finally mostly done. Luckily, I had picked up a bottle of wine. Red wine is technically acceptable for Paleo’s if you check the right websites. I went ahead and shredded the sucker up and put it in my crockpot (which now fit after taking a MASSIVE bone out of it). Put it on low and fell asleep. Long story short, it was an experience to say the least but it turned out pretty dang good if I say so myself. Also, I have enough meat to last me through another month of blizzards now.

So in conclusion, winging it can be a little tough but ends up with a good result. And I did not make it to the gym over the weekend, but I did make it to the bar and after barely having any carbs all week, two mixed drinks will go straight to your head! (No worries, I wasn’t driving). Oh, and another thing, I snacked on some Doritos and Cheetos over the weekend since we were snowed in and everything. But here I am, back on Monday morning ready to concur another week!! I’m not going to beat myself up over snacking and screwing up the Paleo lifestyle for a weekend. I’m just going to get back in the mindset of doing my best and eating healthy and living life, one mistake at a time.

Day 1- January 3rd

Starting Weight: 123.4

5:00 am: Leg day. Feels great to be back in the gym but I could tell my body was not ready after a 4 day weekend. I could also tell I drank a bit too much over the weekend. I sweat way more after a weekend of drinking and my body was trying hard to get the toxins out.

After about 45 minutes at the gym I was pretty hungry. I got the honor of making breakfast this morning for my boyfriend and I. He gets 2 eggs and 3 pieces of turkey bacon (grain free-PALEO) (on a roll, I know!) and I helped myself to a homemade strawberry and banana smoothie with coconut water with 1 scrambled egg.

My boyfriend and I work together so once we got to work we went our separate ways. He went to the warehouse, I went to the office. I’m going to attempt a whole month without coffee. Bad idea. We get to work at 7 am, and by about 8:30 I was ready for a nap. I just had to suck it up for one more hour until break time.

Survived until first break at 9:30 and had an individual bag of cashews.Surprisingly, even with what seemed like such a small snack it was very satisfying and dulled the hunger I was feeling around 8:30. I also finished the big Yeti full of water, and refilled the bottle to drink before lunch (yes, I measure my water by Yeti size because I don’t know how many ounces it holds and I use it for water every day). I’m looking forward to lunch because I made a Paleo jambalaya that smelled delicious cooking in my crock pot yesterday.

Even with just the few nuts I had, I made it to lunch without being starving. I was ready to eat though. I ate a bowl of jambalaya which was delicious! I would have gone back for a second helping if I had been at home. But, it was plenty to fill me up for lunch and to help me last the rest of the day. I finished off my lunch with a Flaxseed oil pill. I hear it’s good for digestion and weight loss so I figured I would try it out. I am not completely sure if it is Paleo or not because each website tells me something different, but if a flaxseed oil pill at every meal is the only non-Paleo thing I am eating then I would say I am doing pretty good. I am still going strong on drinking water. I have finished about 2 and a half Yeti’s full by 2 o’clock. I feel a little sluggish, but that is probably just because it is a VERY slow day at work today.

Finally after the longest day ever at work it was time to go home. I get off work at 3:30 every day and I always head home and get ready for the gym. I was feeling pretty hungry so I snacked on a handful of pistachios so I wouldn’t pass out at the gym. Hit the gym hard this afternoon and did another set of leg workouts with a few abs thrown in.

By the time I left the gym around 5ish I was pretty hungry. As soon as I got home I got straight to work on making dinner. We tried making our first official Paleo dinner. We had hamburger steak with stroganoff gravy over a bed of cauliflower rice with a side salad and Dijon mustard dressing. The mustard as a dressing was not for me at all. Keeney on the other hand really enjoyed it. I love pasta. I live, eat, and breathe pasta and this includes rice. So when it came time to have a heaping spoonful of cauliflower rice I was a little disappointed. I know, I know. In the long run it is worth it to just suck it up and eat the damn cauliflower. Once I cut up the meat and mixed the gravy, meat, onions, and mushrooms with the cauliflower rice I was at least able to mask the taste a little and get more of a casserole feel then a “I’m really eating cauliflower as rice” feel. The biggest dinner downfall would be the arrowroot starch. Although the flavors were amazing, the gravy was more of a soup. I tried using almond meal as a substitute, fail. Aside from that, so far so good on the Paleo front. The food is delicious and I stayed full until bed time. Keeney snuck a few fresh strawberries before bed to hold him over. I can’t blame him, fresh strawberries are delicious!