Weekend Fun

First I must sincerely apologize for not making an appearance on here yesterday!  Rest assured though, I've still been on track despite my absence!

So, rewinding to Friday night....I made an all paleo dinner!

Here was the menu:
Appetizer- Deviled eggs (with homemade mayonnaise!)
Dinner: Shrimp Curry with a Broccoli salad
(I had a dessert planned too but it got to be too late)

I had never made homemade mayonnaise before so it was a fun adventure.  I just googled "paleo mayonnaise," and found this recipe:
http://everydaypaleo.com/2011/06/20/homemade-paleo-mayo-cooking-demo/

Instead of a blender I made it in my KitchenAid mixer (with the whisk).  And I ended up juicing a half of a lemon into it at the end as well.  The results: definitely didn't taste like mayo from the store, but it worked well for the deviled eggs and the dressing for the salad.  And I'm going to use some of the leftovers in my tuna salad later this week. :)

Here is a picture of my deviled eggs:

 

Moving on to the main course-  

I got the broccoli salad recipe here: http://paleodietlifestyle.com/bacon-grape-broccoli-salad/

And here is a picture:

  

And the shrimp curry recipe is here:

http://paleodietlifestyle.com/curried-shrimps-and-spinach/

I took the tails off of my shrimp, used 1/2 fat coconut milk (it's what Trader Joes had), and added about twice as much spinach as the recipe called for.  It tasted great!  Here is a picture:

I couldn't get a good picture...but it was delish!

The whole meal was a lot of fun and none of us felt cheated out of carbs. :)  Success!


I also got a new pair of shoes, which I am super excited about....

Me and my friend Walker both got a pair!

They are called five-finger shoes, and the website is here:
http://www.vibramfivefingers.com/index.htm

I have been wanting a pair for quite some time and can't wait to start working out in them. yay!

The rest of the weekend has been full of relaxing, practicing my Horn, and hanging out with friends.  It's been great.  And, oh wait...I forgot--FOOTBALL!  I took some time out of my Saturday to watch the 49ers game.  It was epic.  Such an awesome finish!  I'm so proud to be from the Bay Area and cannot wait for them to take on the NY Giants next weekend!

I do have to put out a bit of a disclaimer though....I've had some cravings the past two days.  Not fun!  I've stuck with paleo fine, but I have to say--I've had my fair share of fruit and almonds the past couple of days.  I'm going to go back to the basics tomorrow and am just hoping that the cravings go away.  I sure hope a good night's sleep and a fresh start tomorrow will help!

That's all for now...see you next time! :)

Yesterday Was a Good Day.

The exciting news for the day is that I am now officially a member of the aerobics and fitness studio that I've been going to for the past two weeks!  I went to another class last night and decided to go for it.  They make it pretty affordable and there isn't a long term commitment or contract or anything which is nice as well.  So in order to make the membership worth it (as opposed to just paying their drop in fees) I need to attend 7 classes per month.  My goal is to consistently go 2-3 times a week but if nothing else I will at least be going 7 times. :P

I am also having a few friends over for dinner tonight and I am super excited to cook an all paleo meal for them! :)  We are going to do an appetizer, main course, and dessert. And don't worry, I will be sure to take some pictures and post about the recipes tomorrow. ;)

And lastly, I just have to say how blessed and thankful I was yesterday when I opened up a check from one of my employers and I had a $200 Christmas bonus added on to my paycheck.  I know it doesn't have anything to do with "going paleo for 30 days," but I was just blown away and super excited so wanted to share.  Philippians 4:19 and Ephesians 3:20 immediately came to mind upon opening that check. :)

So yea, yesterday was a good day!  Today has been good so far too...except I've gotten quite the slow start!  Oh well!  I'm off to conquer the day and I'll be sure to come back tomorrow with photos and recipes. :)

One last thing:  Go 49ers!!!!!!

see you next time....

Day 15

Well, after today I am officially half way done with my "30 days of Paleo."  (It's gone fast!)

I'm not quite sure what there is to report after yesterday other than I'm still working on my "spaghetti" leftovers! haha

In all serious though, I've hit a groove and it's been pretty smooth sailing for the past week or so.  Breakfasts have become slightly more challenging just because eggs have lost some of their appeal but a few days of hardboiled instead of scrambled have kept me happy. 

Seltzer water and tea are both really helping me get my water in and I've found a workout class that pushes me and is really fun.  (I'm headed there later this evening in fact!)

I am interested to see how week 3 goes though...I wonder what the scale is going to look like next week!

But for now, things are going well and there isn't a whole lot to report.  With that said, I'm off to go get some work done but I'll be sure to check back in tomorrow. :)  thanks for stopping by!

Weigh in for week 2

I was once again pleasantly surprised when I stepped on the scale this morning!  (I even weighed myself twice to make sure!) Weight loss always slows down week 2 of diets so I was hoping for a loss but didn't have any sort of number in mind.

Here are the results...

down another 3.4 pounds! 

and a total loss of 9.2 pounds!!

....in two weeks.  Seriously?!

When I hear about people losing this much weight this quickly I always wonder how safe it is because medical professionals suggest people losing no more than 2 pounds a week, and obviously I am far over that.  But, I can't help but think it's okay because I don't feel like I'm limiting myself with the food I can eat.  I'm not starving myself in hopes to make the scale go down....I'm just eating within the boundaries of paleo when I get hungry and eat until I'm not anymore.  Seems simple enough, right? 

I really am thrilled though...it's very encouraging to see the scale go down two weeks in a row.  :)  So I'm gonna keep doing what I'm doing and take it one day at a time!

That's all for now....see you all tomorrow!

Paleo Spaghetti with Homemade Meat and Veggie Sauce

I was productive yesterday!  It was exactly what I needed to feel like I was "back on track."  phew! 

I ended up going to the Zumba class that I had been wanting to try yesterday evening...it was a lot of fun!  But I have to say, it wasn't nearly as good of a workout as the Body Step class was last week.  I'm glad I went but I'm definitely going to Body Step tonight...I want to get my butt kicked! haha. 

In other news...I made spaghetti and meat sauce!  I've been looking forward to this for some time and I'd say it was a successful venture!  I went off of a couple of recipes and altered them some and was happy with the final product. 

The two recipe's I looked at can be found here:
http://paleodietlifestyle.com/paleo-spaghetti/
http://fastpaleo.com/zucchini-spaghetti-bolognese/

So....to make spaghetti when you eating grains you use spaghetti squash!  I had no idea that this thing even existed until a few months ago and was amazing at how much it looks like spaghetti after it's cooked. 

It looks like this before you cook it:

 

The rest of the ingredients are as follows:

1 pound of ground beef (grass-fed and organic if possible)

1 onion

3-4 carrots

4-5 stalks of celery

spices (thyme, oregano, salt, pepper, crushed red pepper, and anything else you want!)

a whole bunch of mushrooms (I used a whole basket! haha)

1 zuchini

1 can of tomato paste

2 cans of diced of tomatoes

______

Step 1: pre-heat the oven to 375 degrees.

Step 2: cut the squash and get it ready for the oven

The first challenge was cutting the squash in half length-wise.  What I ended up doing was microwaving it for a minute and then cutting it in half....that made is so much easier! The directions I read were to bake it with the cut side down but that didn't really get the squash cooking very quickly so I would actually suggest baking it cut side up.   Once it's ready to go in the oven you can start working on your meat sauce.

Step 3: Make your meat sauce!

-First, brown your ground beef until the meat is cooked.  

-Once the meat is cooked take it out of the pot with a slotted spoon and set it aside.

-Then saute your chopped up onions, carrots, mushrooms, celery, and zuchini.  

-Once those start to get cooked up add whatever spices you choose and cook it for just a couple more minutes. (At this point put your squash in the oven!!)

-Then add your 2 cans of tomatoes, and can of tomato paste and mix it all up!

-At this point you can cook it for as little of as long as you choose....I think I ended up cooking it for about 30 additional minutes.  (And about 15 minutes in I did a taste test and added more spices)

Step 4: Let things cook!

-I knew that my squash was down when it started to get a little brown on the edges.  So I took it out of the oven and turned it into spaghetti.  Essentially you take a fork and pierce the squash and pull and it spaghetti starts to appear.  It sounds sort of silly....here is a picture that might make it make a little more sense.

Since the squash was fresh out of the oven it was obviously still warm, so I used a pot holder to help stabilize it and the used my fork with the free hand. 

At this point you are ready to eat!  This made a TON of pasta and a TON of sauce.  Great if you are feeding a family and in my case, I will have lots of leftovers!

Here is what the final product looked like:

delish!

I was happy with how it turned out and hopefully the leftovers will taste as good as it did last night!



That's about it for now but be sure to check-in tomorrow for weigh-in day, here's hoping for the number on the scale to be lower than it was last week! :)

Friend Makin' Monday's!

Despite being pretty new on the "blog scene" I have been following blogs for quite some time now.  Some of them are music related, some diet and exercise related, some super goofy and fun, and some are the blogs that my friends write.  I'm not always good with keeping up with them, by I try to keep up the best I can. 
With that said--one blog I follow is written by this gal named Kenlie over at alltheweigh.com and every Monday she does a "FMM" (friend-makin' Monday.)  So-to break up the paleo talk for a day I'm going to take part in it.  Here we go!

If you’ve taken part in FMM then you know the rules. If you’re new, please take a moment to answer this week’s question on your own blog then add your link in the comments section here at: www.alltheweigh.com so we can all see your FMM questions and answers. Please invite your blog readers to add their links here too so everyone has to opportunity to be seen. The idea is to connect with other awesome bloggers so take a moment to post your own FMM post and comment on a couple of other posts. Now it’s time for this week’s topic!

FMM: Getting To Know You

1) What is one of your favorite ways to spend a Saturday? The only thing that's a requirement: sleeping in!  After that, all bets are off--sometimes I've got school work, sometimes I've got things planned with friends, and sometimes it's a combination of both. 

2) List your top three favorite TV shows.  Grey's Anatomy, Private Practice, and Parenthood

3) Would you rather be in pictures or take them? I like both!  Most of the time though I find myself taking them, but that's only because I like having pictures to remember fun times by.  :)

4) Why do you blog? I started this blog to try to make these first 30 days on Paleo more exciting.  I also thought it would help me to stay accountable and might be fun for others to read!

5) Share five websites that you visit regularly…
~ gmail.com
~ facebook.com
~ hornexcerpts.org
~ itunes/spotify (I know it's not a website, but they involve internet connection so I'm going with it!)
~ and as of a couple days ago....twitter (I finally joined)

6) If you could have lunch with one person from your Twitter list who would it be? I can't choose just one...I would love to have lunch with Ellen Degeneres, Oprah, or Adele.

7) List a few of your favorite snacks. my take on what a snack is has changed a lot since starting paleo a few weeks back....  Larabar, piece of fruit, handful of nuts, carrots, or bell pepper

8 ) Do you have a pet? If so, what kind? I have a kitty!  His name is O'Malley and he is snuggled up right next to me. :)

9) Which three material possessions would you struggle to live without? my French Horn, my smart phone, and my bed and pillow.

10) What’s your favorite drink? alcoholic: Gin and tonic with extra lime.  other: Diet Mountain Dew.  But, I've been sticking to only water and tea since starting paleo!

11) Do you enjoy cooking? I love it!  Trying new recipes, cooking for friends, perfecting favorite dishes...I love it all.

12) Do you have children? Nope, but I hope to someday.

13) What are your favorite hobbies?  Playing music, cooking, traveling (wish I could travel more!)

14) Would you consider yourself to be shy or outgoing? I’m pretty outgoing most of the time but am definitely shy in certain situations. 

15) If you could change one thing about yourself, what would you change? I’d like to be better at the Horn than I am (which I why I try to practice as much as possible), and I'd like to lose some weight (hence me eating paleo).

16) Who is your favorite actor/actress? I don't really know if I have one....for the sake of this survey I will say Meryl Streep and Brad Pitt. 

17) What’s the coolest thing you’ve done this week? I'm slowly but surely getting my life organized for the semester which I suppose is kinda cool.  Had some good phone conversations with friends too!
 
18) Do you live near your family or far from them? My mom's lives "close" (90 min away), my dad's side of the family live somewhat close (3-4 hrs), and the rest live in 3,000 miles away in California. :/

19) List three of your talents. I'd like to say I'm a pretty decent cook, pretty good at making music, and pretty perceptive in most situation. 

20) What is your greatest attribute? I'm an honest and hard worker. 

Day 12

I wasn't as productive this weekend as I had hoped. :(  Today was better than yesterday on the productivity scale and I am going to be sure that tomorrow is better than today.  Gotta get back on track! 

Why is it that when I have less to do I end up not getting much done but when I'm super busy with a lengthy to do list I somehow always manage to pull it off?  I love having this break from school, I just need to be sure I take full advantage of it and not waste the break away.....*sigh*  I suppose as long as I'm getting my practicing in everyday I'm getting everything that I "have" to get done done, but that's not enough to keep me feeling productive.

Anyways, enough of the pity party....on to the fun stuff!

I made salmon tonight for dinner with some sauteed spinach....yum!  The salmon came pre-packaged from Trader Joe's and was already marinated so it made for a very tasty fish.  Have some leftovers too which will be good for lunch tomorrow. 

And then tomorrow night I'm going to make spaghetti and meat sauce.  How exactly do you make spaghetti without any sort of grain?  Some of you may be able to figure it out, but for those that have no clue....check back!  I'm going to endeavor to take pictures throughout the cooking process and will be sure to post the recipe too.  It will definitely be a first for me, and maybe for you too?  I hope it's yummy!

My cravings have been creeping back over the past couple of days, but I think it's because I haven't been keeping myself challenged when it comes to what I'm eating.  So tomorrow is going to be a good day....without cravings.  (I'm determined for it not to be!) :P

I'm also going to be sure I get a workout in.  That was one of the bummers of the day....I slept through my alarm this morning and didn't make it in, so that will happen tomorrow.  Think I'm going to try and do it in the morning and get it out of the way, but there is a class in the afternoon that I'd really like to try at some point as well so I may end up doing that instead.  We will see how I feel in the morning and go from there. :)

2 more days until another weigh in....gotta make them count!

see you next time