Post-Paleo Week Roundup: Lessons Learned!

Ok, it wasn't all frustration and cash outflow. Paleo week had some positive outcomes, and it more or less achieved its purpose. If you haven't been following along, I decided to make a crazy drastic change in eating habits because I consumed so much sugary junk over Pesach that I scared myself. I felt pathetic and insatiable.  Paleo seemed like a good way to thoroughly cut out the sugar and unhealthy carbs long enough to maybe get over it, while still being allowed to eat my fill of "approved" foods.

So, limiting myself for the week should have been very upsetting, but it mostly wasn't. I found out that I can get by eating less frequently (I'm a grazer by nature, which is part of my problem to begin with) and a different variety of food choices than I'm used to.
Most importantly, I don't need the added sugar. If I use non-skim milk in my coffee, no sweetener was ok. I made paleo-style desserts for Shabbos with little to no sugar and they were fine. Yes, there were times when I wanted cookies or some other nosh, but I survived and mostly minded it less than I expected to.

The best thing of the whole week? I finally tried making a whole chicken in the crock pot. Hokey smokes that was good! And it was a pain to wash and cut everything, but I had a massive strawberry-mango salad one day for lunch, which was fab. I can't do that all the time, but I can try harder to do it sometimes.  Too often we've been letting the vegetable part of each meal become an afterthought: from now on I'm going to try to think of my meals vegetable first, and then the other stuff.

BSB ate a couple of egg muffins every day for breakfast, followed by a grilled chicken salad for lunch.  He says that eating more substantial food for each of those meals got him through a longer amount of time before he got hungry, and we're going to try to keep up that pattern for him.  He even claims that his suit fit better this Shabbos...

Speaking of Shabbos, I have to explain that we ate out for one meal and obviously weren't going to say anything to our hosts.  But I made 100% whole wheat challah for the night meal, and dessert was a paleo-fied strawberry crumble with no sugar - just berries with some spices and orange juice, topped with a mixture of ground nuts, coconut oil, raisins (in lieu of dates), and some of my precious stash of coconut flour. BSB hated it, but I didn't mind!

I usually make some kind of muffins or quickbread for Shabbos breakfast.  This week I found this recipe sweet potato brownies and decided to take a whack at it.  I've had some bad experiences with baked goods containing too much hidden veg, but these were surprisingly edible the day after they were baked - it's one of those recipes that tastes a little weird right out of the oven but fine once it sits for a while.  I'd make those again for just us or for gluten-free guests.  Since they're sweetened with just some honey, they're pretty darn guilt free!  So for ourselves anyway, my baking horizons have expanded.

I'll be honest.  Dinner tonight was a bowl of vegetable soup and a slice of vegetable-laden pizza.  And it was soooooo freakin' good.  Oh pizza, how I missed thee...