Day 3: Breakfast

Oh the humanity! I am sure some question my motives in posting a blog everyday about this diet I have to follow. Well, it helps in so many ways! Whenever I have tried to do a diet for weight reasons or health reasons in the past I have always failed miserably as I have never felt like I have had to be accountable to anyone. I know a lot of people can diet and do what they need to do without sharing it with anyone, but I need people around me to know what is up and to encourage me in my goals. It also helps me be more accountable.

My boyfriend has been very supportive in this diet. He has even decided to try and give it a go. I didn't ask him to, but he felt it was a way he could be supportive. And my mother and my grandmother have both been talking to me about Thanksgiving and have been brainstorming on what to make for me so I don't feel like I am going without. So yeah, my boyfriend and my family are awesome!

Today I just really wanted to throw in the towel on this diet. It has been very difficult and I am only on Day 3, but then I remembered I am speaking with the doctor today. I want to be able to tell him that I have been doing my best and have only faltered once since Monday. I plan to let the doctor know I have a blog so he can check my progress if he so desires as well. But this diet will not get the best of me - I will win and be triumphant!

This morning I got up early and got ready for work, so I had a little more time to make breakfast. I was able to get some free apples yesterday so I decided to cook up some chicken sausage and add the apples at the very end. I typically don't like sweet and savory together, but I have always enjoyed the combination of apples and sausage. I was going to make them into a breakfast burrito by wrapping the sausage and apples up in some romaine lettuce, but that didn't work out, so I ditched the lettuce and just ate the sausage and apples with a fork. I also had my "protein" shake which I have found stirs up more easy if I put in the almond milk first and then the powder. Yesterday I put in the powder first and then the milk and I had a big gloopy mess on my hands.

So I know when the doc calls this afternoon I will be able to report my successes so far. For my mid morning snack I have brought some celery sticks and an apple to to dip into some almond butter. And then for lunch I will be having my leftover taco stuff from last night. It will be delish!

Chicken Sausage and Apples (I ditched the lettuce after I took the picture, but at least it makes it look pretty): 

Day 2: Lunch and Dinner

Lunch today was anti-climactic as it consisted of my leftover chicken and carrots from dinner last night, a bag of grapes, and some cashews for my afternoon snack.

Dinner tonight, however was fantastic! One of my favorite dishes is tacos! I love tacos A LOT! And I especially love hard tacos! Today as I was driving home contemplating what in the blazes I was going to make for dinner, a thought came to my mind, "What about turkey tacos?" Of course, though, this meant I had to get creative as I couldn't have taco shells, tortillas, salsa, cheese, sour cream, or even tomatoes!

In low carb diets, it is very common for people to substitute lettuce leaves in place of the bun or tortilla or whatever. So, I decided to borrow from this. I turned some iceberg lettuce leaves into taco shells. And I had ground turkey (which personally I have always liked in tacos) and some taco seasoning. The taco seasoning must be purchased from a health food store so you can ensure you are getting natural herbs and spices with no artificial crap. I shop at Sunflower Market where I live and they have some taco seasoning that I just love! It is the Simply Organic Spicy Taco seasoning! This stuff packs a punch but it is so good! So I cooked my turkey with my seasoning.

Cheese is a wonderful thing on tacos, but I can't have cheese, so I had to come up with something else. I also wanted a lettuce substitute as I was using the lettuce for my shells. I also felt like I needed tomatoes, but I can't have tomatoes, so I thought on this while I cooked my meat. For my cheese I shredded some carrots, so it even looked like cheese. It used to be common practice to use carrots for the orange coloring in cheese, so it works. For my lettuce I used red cabbage. It has a similar flavor and shreds nicely. For my tomatoes I settled on black beans. After the meat was done, I pulled out a lettuce leaf, put some meat on it, and then I topped it with my cheese, lettuce, and tomato substitutes. I rolled lettuce up like a burrito and took a bite and it was so delicious! I didn't think it would be, but it was quite good. The taco seasoning is so spicy you really don't need hot sauce or salsa or anything else like that unless you absolutely want it. The lettuce and carrots help keep my mouth cool, but it was still on fire when I got done eating!

Because my mouth was on fire I knew I needed something more than a glass of water to cool my mouth off, so I decided to make a banana smoothie for my dessert. I am addicted to these banana almond milk smoothies! I think they are my new favorite thing! And I freeze the bananas so the frozen banana in the milk makes it taste ice creamy! So, I whipped up a smoothie and to make it a little more fun I added some of the "candied" pecans I made last night for dessert! I put in a fun glass and then put in a bendy straw! Banana heaven it was!

Overall, I am feeling better about this diet today than I was yesterday! I will be taking my taco stuff from tonight and will be turning it into a taco salad for lunch tomorrow! I could eat tacos forever and never get bored so lunch tomorrow will definitely be awesome!

Turkey Taco Meat:

Taco Toppings And "Shells":

Completed Taco Before Rolling:

Banana Almond Milk Smoothie With "Candied" Pecans:

Day 2: Breakfast

For breakfast this morning, I decided to have the last half of my chicken sausage and an orange. I love oranges this time of year! I swear the stores sell us crappy oranges all year but then at Thanksgiving and Christmas, they bring out the best of the best!

I learned how to cook buckwheat yesterday and considering what I learned, I didn't do half bad. I should have toasted the buckwheat though before boiling. I will know this for next time.

For my morning snack I have another banana almond milk smoothie and for lunch I am having leftovers from dinner last night! I had my little protein shake thingy this morning as well. In a few days I will be having this drink twice a day and then three times a day and then I will work back down to once a day. Out of all of the protein shakes or similar I have had this has probably been the best one I have ever had. Most of them I can taste the protein powder and it grosses me out. This one has balanced things out nicely and is very chocolatey, which is my favorite part - chocolate in the morning!

Today is also my first day without any caffeine. I hope I can survive the withdrawals that are sure to follow!

Day 1: Dinner

I must admit I was pretty hungry when I got home from work and eating mainly vegetables sounded extremely unsatisfying and boring to me, so I decided to let the creative juices flow! There may be restrictions in what I can and cannot eat, but that doesn't mean I can't be creative with it.

Thank the heavens above for Rachael Ray's Magazine! Her staff who put together this amazing magazine really do take the time to bring together recipes that anyone can enjoy regardless of their dietary needs, restrictions, or preferences. I was flipping through the December edition when I found a recipe for Roasted Chicken and Carrots. I reviewed all of the ingredients and they were all things I could eat, so I decided to make it for dinner!

While it was only Day 1, I can honestly say that I felt like dinner was a cheat on the diet, but it wasn't. The marinade\sauce that I put on the chicken and carrots was so yummy. It was basically a chili\lemon sauce with garlic! Oh it was heavenly! For anyone who loves garlic, this recipe has a lot of garlic - 16 cloves! That is like a full bulb of garlic! But it is so good!

The only thing I didn't do that I probably should have was split the baby carrots in half. The recipe said to, but for whatever reason I didn't read that part, so I didn't cut them in half. The smaller carrots cooked through just fine and were tender and sweet, but the larger baby carrots were still a little crunchy. Next time I will remember to cut them up first.

Typically after I eat dinner, I always crave something sweet. I looked around and thought about what I could have that would satisfy my sweet tooth. In the group of recipes the doctor gave me there is a recipe for sweet potato mixed in with pecans that have been fixed in vanilla and cinnamon. So I decided to take my pecans I had bought and cover them in vanilla and cinnamon. I then took some peaches and banana and cut them in and put them in a bowl and sprinkled the "candied" pecans on top. The cinnamon made me think I was eating cobbler and then crunchy nuts just added that little texture I like when I sweet things! It was so good and I think the boyfriend liked it too!

So, all in all, I feel like dinner was a big success! I am ready for Day 2!

Roasted Chicken and Carrots:

Peaches, Banana, and "Candied" Pecans:

Day 1: Lunch

I just finished my lunch. Nothing too exciting for lunch: grilled chicken salad with some grapes. I drank water and took my supplements I have to take at lunch. I did end up drinking the smoothie and it was yummy! Up until today I have never found a non-dairy milk replacement that I have liked. I hate soy milk, rice milk - any kind of milk that doesn't come from a cow. But today I had almond milk and it wasn't that bad. I don't think I will be able to drink it by itself but it is okay in stuff. So, I am glad for that as I was really concerned I wouldn't like it.
For my afternoon snack I get to enjoy a baggie filled with raw cashews, raw pumpkin seeds, and raw sunflower seeds. Raw means they have not been roasted or salted. To some reading this that probably sounds disgusting to them, but I personally love raw cashews over the roasted and salted counterparts. I love how cashews are kind of sweet and the raw ones are way sweet! Roasting and salting them takes away from that. I also enjoy the raw sunflower seeds as well because it takes me back to my childhood when I used to go with my sister and we would pull the seeds out of the big sunflowers and eat them. The raw pumpkin seeds also have a very Pumpkin taste to them and I love pumpkin! So my take on raw nuts and seeds - fabulously yummy!
At this point I have not decided what I am going to be eating for dinner, but right now I am leaning towards stuffed peppers with quinoa and pecans and cinnamon for dessert. Check back later for my report!

Day 1: Breakfast

Breakfast has always been a challenge for me since I have been out of college. I would rather sleep that extra ten minutes than get up and prepare breakfast. Needless to say my breakfasts are either really bad for me (stopping somewhere and getting fast food breakfast) or I just don't eat breakfast.

The most important thing in this diet I am on is to eat three meals a day and to have snacks if I get hungry between meals. So, I made sure I got up earlier this morning than I usually do so I could make breakfast. This posed another challenge for me as well -- what was I going to eat that would keep me full for more than a couple of hours? I have a job where I can't just get up and walk away and get something to eat whenever. So, this is one of the reasons breakfast has always been challenging. When I was younger and even in college I would just have cereal, but I could eat basically whenever I wanted, so it didn't bother me to only eat cereal. Cereal doesn't keep me full at all these days. I eat it and an hour later I am starving. I find I have to have a combination of carbs and protein for breakfast. If I just eat protein, I am starving in a couple of hours. This morning definitely presented a challenge for me. This is why I started preparing breakfast ideas last night.

I settled on a half of one of the chicken sausage links I bought this weekend, and some buckwheat cooked and mixed in with some homemade canned peaches. Buckwheat is very interesting. I am not sure if I cooked it right or what, but it has a nutty flavor to it and definitely has a hot cereal\oatmeal feel to it. I don't like plain oatmeal, so I wasn't sure I would like the buckwheat plain, so I mixed in some peaches with it and it made it palatable. The chicken sausage was very spicy, but I loved it! So after drinking a full glass of water with my supplements, my "protein" shake (which is not a meal replacement as I don't drink a lot of it), the sausage, and the buckwheat with peaches I was very full. I packed a banana\almond milk smoothie for my morning snack, but I am still very full and not feeling hungry at all.

I am feeling a little dizzy from the supplements, but I am sure I will adjust to that. As for the bad things - I had to have a Diet Pepsi because I can't work with those headaches. Starting tomorrow I will go caffeine free.

Here is the recipe for the buckwheat and fruit and banana smoothie.

Creamy Buckwheat With Fruit
1 1/2 cups of water
1/2 cup of buckwheat
Fresh fruit or canned fruit (if you use store bought, make sure it is no sugar added and in light syrup).

Add the buckwheat and water to a pan. Bring to a rolling boil and then continue to cook for 2-4 minutes until desired creamy consistency. Pour in a bowl and add the fruit and mix it together.


Almond Banana Milk Smoothie
1 Frozen Banana
1 cup of almond milk (unsweetened and unflavored)

Add banana and almond milk to blender or food processor and blend until mixed together.

Again, I will be researching how to cook buckwheat because I don't think I did it right because my cereal looked more like grape nuts than cream 'o' wheat. It was good, just different.

On the menu for lunch: Grilled chicken salad with sesame ginger dressing and grapes. And a baggie of cashews, pumpkin seeds, and sunflower seeds for my afternoon snack. Check back later for the report on that!

New Menus Ahead

So, I have really slacked in my blog as of late! I really don't have an excuse other than I just didn't feel like it. To be honest, I haven't felt like doing much of anything lately. For the last few months I have just felt icky and after I get home from work all I want to do is just be lazy and play with my iPod.

I have been going to the doctors a lot these past few months searching for answers because no one in their twenties should feel like they are a 100 years old! I found a chiropractic physician who seems to know what he is talking about, so I am going to give him a chance. As a result of this treatment, he has put me on a very strict diet. It is the anti-inflammatory diet, so there is a lot of things that I cannot eat.

So I am going to be using this blog to post the new recipes I am having to learn out of plain necessity. This strict diet will be lasting three weeks only. I started today.

Basically here is the run down of the diet. These are the foods I cannot eat: dairy, eggs, gluten, tomatoes, corn, peanuts, soy, beef, pork (in all of its forms), canned meat, coldcuts, rice, potatoes (except for sweet potatoes), shellfish, dried fruit, fruit juices (unless I make them from the fresh fruit myself and don't anything else to them) caffeine, soda, and sugar and other artificial sweeteners.

The foods I can eat are: Fresh fruits and veggies (except for tomatoes and soy), peas, legumes and beans of any kind (except edamame which is soy), raw nuts (except for peanuts), fish (except for shellfish), turkey, chicken, lamb, water, herbs, sweet potatoes, spices, herbal teas, buckwheat, quinoa, and almond milk.

So looking at the lists above it probably seems like there are more foods that I cannot eat than I can eat. I enjoy chicken and I like a lot of fruit and veggies, so I know I will be able to survive. There are a few things on the CAN EAT list that I have never had before, so I am looking at this as an opportunity to try new foods. And there is also a variety out there so I will be getting all of the nutrition my body needs, so if anyone was worried about that, I am good.

I addition to this diet, the doctor also has me on some supplements and a "protein" shake. So I will be getting the additional nutrients that I may not get from some of the foods I am permitted to eat. My biggest challenge is going to be no caffeine. I usually drink at least one 20 oz. Diet Pepsi at work every day. I know I can do it - I am just not looking forward to the headaches and withdrawals.

Now you know what I am being faced with for the next few weeks and in the months to come. I am thankful I can have turkey cause if not I don't know what I would do this coming Thanksgiving!