Day 15: Out On My Own

There are two things I am bringing back into my diet: bread (multi-grain or whole wheat) and coffee. Here is my reasoning:

1. Multi-grain bread. I am not afraid of gluten nor am I allergic and I believe you should get a serving of grains with every meal. Whole grains are loaded with B vitamins, fiber, and iron. During the last two weeks, I believe I was missing iron in my diet as I would bruise easily. I had literally 50 bruises on my legs. Multi-grain toast is a perfect way to get some whole grains in your diet.

2. Coffee. Caffeine has some beneficial properties. You can find out what they are here and here. As for the risks listed there, I am eating loads of leafy greens, almond milk, and Greek yogurt so I am not too worried about osteoporosis, I do not suffer from diabetes and am watching my sugar intake anyways, I am drinking plenty of water during the rest of the day, and I only ever have one cup a day, usually with breakfast.

So today was my first day on my own without any planned menu or shopping list. Using the previous clean eating challenge as a guide, I set forth to the farmer’s market near my husband’s work after I dropped him off this morning. I got strawberries (better than the last bunch), raspberries, radishes, snap peas, zucchini, egg plant, big beefsteak tomatoes, fresh oats, and a healthy, gluten and dairy free brownie for a snack! I even picked up a tin of locally made camomile and lavender loose leaf tea. If I weren’t on a budget, I would have bought a $9 raw chocolate bar (made with organic cacao, no soy, refined sugar, or any other junk and is fair trade!), and some natural mineral makeup. There’s always next week.

Here’s what I ate today:

Breakfast at my husbands restaurant: two poached eggs, hash browns, fruit and multi grain toast. 1 1/2 cups of coffee, black. I had strawberry jam on my toast and ketchup (it’s a vegetable right?) on my hash. If you wanted to watch your sugar intake, you should leave out the ketchup and the jam.

Lunch: two slices of multi-grain toast (from a well known island bakery: Portofino), one tablespoon per slice of natural peanut butter, half a banana sliced on top and dotted with fresh raspberries.

My four o’clock snack was the brownie I picked up at the farmer’s market this morning. It had almond flour, coconut oil and dark chocolate chips. I’m not sure what else was in it but definitely no gluten and no dairy. It was so soft and moist, just melted in my mouth. I wish I could remember the vendor because these may be a weekly thing.

For dinner I returned to the black bean vegetarian chili from the 14 day challenge. The recipe can be found here in case you weren’t following along. I added one pound of ground turkey breasts to give it more substance and chili powder, red pepper flakes and cumin to give it more of a chili flavor. Much better. Note: most chili powder you find in the stores contains salt, so leave out the kosher salt the recipe calls for.

For my evening snack, I cut up one golden delicious apple and drizzled with one teaspoon of honey. Very light, but sweet.

I couldn’t tell you how many calories I consumed, nor the amount of fat but, all in all, it was a successful clean day.

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Day 5: My Husband Cooks Better Than I Do

Wow! I never thought I would have made it this far! Today I learned that I should leave the omelet flipping to my husband. Actually, I should leave all the cooking to my husband.

I was a little skeptical about today’s breakfast, as there was no cheese involved in the cauliflower omelet, but it turns out it didn’t need it. The cauliflower took on a really creamy texture amongst the egg and it was actually quite nice. I would have liked some bacon and hash browns alongside it but that wasn’t in the recipes.

After lunch we decided to go for a walk. The City of Nanaimo puts on this Golden Bucket challenge every summer where, each week, they hide a child’s yellow beach bucket around various parks and give clues on where to find it. The bucket has a question in it, usually pertaining to the location it is at, and you send in your answer to be entered to win prizes.My son and I have been doing this for the last two weeks.

Today brought us to a sea side nature park where you can walk a trail that runs along the ocean. The sea air did wonders on my sinuses and I felt more energized, albeit sweaty, than I have all week. Also the crashing waves and the bouncing of my steps (I had my baby in a carrier) lulled my son to sleep.

After our walk I decided that, since I was doing so well in this clean eating experiment, that I would reward myself with a glass of wine. The challenge says I can limit myself to two glasses over the two weeks. Well they didn’t say how big the glasses had to be! I had the 9oz. Red, of course.

I felt a little tipsy afterward. It wasn’t my first drink since giving birth so I was quite surprised how hard it hit me.

By the time we got home from our drinks and shopping for more diapers it was 7:00pm. I needed to cook more lentils since I used up all the left overs a few days ago. I forgot that they take an hour to cook so the salmon dinner wasn’t ready until after 8:00pm.

Since I didn’t get my first snack in after lunch, I snacked on my carrots and hummus as we prepared dinner. My husband brought home a large fillet of salmon bought locally from the marina in French Creek, BC. Caught right off our very own coast.

Not only is it clean and fresh, but sustainable as well.

We decided that we would bbq the fillet instead of baking it in the oven. It gave it such a different but tasty flavor. I would say that we had an 8oz portion of salmon and half a recipe of the big batch of lentils each. So, needless to say, dinner was filling and there was no need for an after dinner snack. Plus by that time is was 9:00pm.

Even though I drank way more than the recommended 60oz of water today, I ended up with a migraine that has been trying to rear it’s ugly head for three days now. I’m not sure if this is another one of the side effects of changing the way I eat or that maybe I was just due for a migraine. It has been a while since my last one (since before I was pregnant).

It’s now 4:15am as I am writing this and I am wide awake. But I feel great after day 5 of my clean eating experiment!

Not today’s bucket, but an example of the Golden Bucket Challenge

Day 4: Really, That’s All The Snack I Get?!

If you can flip an omelet, you deserve a medal. This is what my breakfast looked like:

The instructions said to turn the heat down to low and cook the eggs for one minute until the eggs are not very runny. Well it took me over 5 minutes on low, a lid, and one minute cranked up to medium before I could get my eggs to set. Overall the “omelet” looks like crap, as you can see, but it tastes alright. I would use less green onions next time.

Speaking of using less or more of the ingredients, I wish they would be more specific about the amounts used. For instance this recipe called for 4 scallions (green onions). Well what size are your scallions? Mine were too big.

Today’s lunch, a Greek salad using the left over lentils from last night’a dinner, calls for one red pepper and half a cucumber cut into pieces. Last I checked there is a wide variety of sized cucumbers and peppers. So my salad ended up being huge! It could have fed two people.

Oh, and about lunch: I used up all the lime vinegarette in last night’s cabbage wraps and had no more limes to make more. I thought substituting bottled lime juice would have the same effect. It didn’t.

Word of advice: DON’T USE BOTTLED LEMON OR LIME JUICE IN PLACE OF FRESH SQUEEZED. It does not taste the same and it does not taste as good as fresh squeezed. I know lemons and limes are ridiculously expensive right now but it is sooo worth it, especially in salad dressings.

I had to go grocery shopping again before dinner. Since my husband works from early mornings to later at night, the only meal I have to prepare for him is dinner. However, when I did my initial grocery shop I forgot to take into account that I have to feed my husband too! That is why I have had to hit the store almost every day so far. He is also off for the next two days so I bought more supplies to accommodate him. I will have a running total for all of you at the end of each week.

Dinner was good. I roasted up some more chicken breasts (boneless, skinless because I wasn’t wrestling with chicken on the bone again, plus, I don’t like all the waste) alongside the fennel. I threw some more cauliflower in the oven since I burnt the florets last night that I was supposed to use in tomorrow’s breakfast.

My after supper snack was a joke. If you aren’t following along with the challenge from BuzzFeed, it was two dates and two almonds. You were supposed to stuff the almonds in the dates. F*%# that. I threw a handful of dates and almonds in a bowl and snacked on that while I caught up on work.

I have to say I felt really good today. I never really felt tired or worn down. I got lots of work accomplished, both my paid work and my house work. Although, I didn’t get much exercise or get my full 60 oz of water in. I have I say, though, my tummy is looking a little round with bloat and an unfortunate side effect of the challenge is my body trying to rid itself of poison in the form of noxious gas.

Seriously. And since having gone through childbirth, it’s not as easy to hold it in when the timing isn’t right. Like at the grocery store when there is a line up behind you in the check out. It’s even passing onto my son. His poops have gotten quite explosive and foul. I’ll leave you with that.