Recent Eats

Suffice it to say that the eats around our house have been a little different lately. Removing the grains and white starches from our diet has provided an interesting challenge to creating what we consider a round (guess I should say square) meal.

I attempted to make a paleo bison meatloaf. I made almond flour (probably closer to meal) with the Vitamix, sauteed some peppers and onions, mixed in an egg, some tomato paste and a variety of spices, then molded the whole thing into a blanket of bacon and baked it. 

The ONLY complaint about this was that it crumbled a bit. I supposed it was the lack of gluten induced glue to hold it together.

Regardless, it was divine. I seriously could have eaten the entire loaf! I roasted some carrots and red pepper in olive oil and balsamic vinegar as a side.

Since I’m allowed grains and such on Sundays, they have become a day of carb loading (I have a few notes on this below). Since we had free time one Sunday afternoon, Husband set to making fresh curry flavored whole wheat noodles.

We’ve only put our pasta maker attachment to use a few times. There is a reason for that.

Noodle making, at least with this attachment, is more work than they are worth. We now want a pasta roller that will just roll it out in sheets that we can cut.

Whining aside, they did turn out quite nicely.

To go with them we whipped up a thai stew of tofu, broccoli, onion, coconut milk and our favorite thai spices. 

Another favorite to add to our repertoire. 

So a few notes about carb loading Sundays. I’ve been surprised to find that I don’t crave carbs throughout the week. I don’t know if it’s because I have been gradually cutting carbs at dinner for a while now, but I really don’t miss them very much. I would say about once a week I would just like a big bowl of saucy noodles. The biggest challenge, which came as a surprise to me, has been doing without the sweet treats. I knew my sweet tooth had grown over the years being married to Husband (who has a sweet tooth the size of Texas), but I didn’t realize just how much. It hasn’t helped that Husband has had homemade chocolate chip cookie dough just hanging out in the fridge (that stuff is my arch nemesis). 

With that said, for the past couple of Sundays we have either gorged on massive bowls of asian noodles, or packed in bowls of creamy pasta. 

And it makes my stomach ache. I usually spend Monday through Tuesday-ish feeling like my belly is blown up like a balloon, and very uncomfortable. I don’t necessarily think this means that carbs, specifically grains and white starches, are bad for digestion (no matter what certain people want to argue). But it does go to show that it’s all about what your body gets used to. If you eat a strict paleo diet, of course upon downing a pile of noodley goodness you are going to feel bloated and miserable. The same goes for someone who isn’t used to eating many vegetables and all of a sudden eats a bunch of broccoli. And again, ask any vegetarian that has eaten meat after a long time of a meat-free diet, the cramping is awful.

On a different note, I had expected to see some effects either through weight loss or body fat decrease. This has absolutely not happened, even with crossfitting 4-5 times a week and eating a very high protein, virtually no carb, high fiber diet 6 days out of 7. 

I had hoped to learn something about my body and the type of diet that will make it the happiest and run the leanest. It’s only been a few weeks so I will revisit this later, but for now, I still haven’t found it.