Day 4: First Day Away

It's hard to believe it has been 6 weeks since Sienna was born. Time has just flown by. I haven't been away from home or her for very long in the past 6 weeks, just short trips to the store or my parents house. Today, I was scheduled to go to work for 2 meetings that spanned a 6 hour period. While it was good to get out and I was secretly excited to see other adults beside my husband and family, it was also stressful for me as it was the first time I had to be prepared and bring my food to work (Paleo style). Normally on a day like today I would have stopped at Starbucks for a Mocha with whip on the way to the first meeting and then to Jimmy Johns or Chipotle and bought food and a Coke. I am proud to say that did not happen today.

The morning was incredibly busy. I woke up, fed the baby and then had to pump. By the way, the baby went a span of 7 hours without eating so I got some extra sleep time in! Shortly after both Alexis and AJ woke up (both before 6). I made scrambled eggs for all of us and they had some cheese and a slice of bread per their request. Then I made a salad for lunch with some onions and tomatoes. It wasn't very exciting but it got me through. After that I decided to make some more kale chips. Not a good turn out!!! I think that I put too much olive oil on them  and maybe had them in for too long. They were burnt to a crisp when I pulled them out. I tried one and then straight to the garbage they went. How disappointing! My first food casualty. My husband called to make sure I turned off the stove. He still doesn't trust me in the kitchen. After today, I don't blame him. I didn't have time to try to make more so I just went ahead and started getting ready. I felt like I was preparing for a week long trip when I got all the stuff together for me, Lex, and Sienna. I was feeling very anxious about being prepared with enough food so I got my mini-cooler bag and put my salad and left over pecan chicken in there. I also brought apple slices with almond butter, a tiny box of raisins, an avocado, a Lara Bar and a few bottles of water. You would have thought I was going on a hiking trip, not to work. I also made a cup of coffee and took it with me to go. Sadly, coffee has not been sitting well with me lately. I think it has become a habit. I really enjoy a warm beverage in the morning. Still I plan to try to cut it out for awhile to see how I feel.  I will need to find a substitute for my hot drink. My meetings went well and of course there was a big temptation there. The people we met with brought chocolate cake with frosting that looked really tasty. Had I not been so used to passing up stuff like that it would have been ridiculously hard to say no to this tasty treat. But the cake wasn't gluten free so I wouldn't have eaten it anyway (although I would have probably sampled the frosting). I actually only had my raisins (in the cutest little tiny boxes from Dominicks) and half a Lara Bar for my snack while I was there. I realized today for the first time that I am not as hungry as I was when I first started to attempt modifying my eating.

For dinner, the hubby made a turkey stir fry with veggies (zucchini, mushrooms, onions, garlic and a forzen stir fry mix from Costco). I never used to like turkey, but ground turkey is growing on me. The kids enjoyed it too. The stir fry is so easy to make. We just brown the turkey and then add the veggies.

Now, I am exhausted. This was the busiest I have been since the baby was born and it just shows me that my body absolutely needs this time off. I may go to meetings here and there but I still need to take it easy. Hopefully I will get the all clear from my doctor at my 6 week check up to start gently working out. The Everyday Paleo book I have gotten most of my recipes from has beginner Cross Fit   workouts that I would like to try. My brother has been obsessed with Cross Fit for awhile now and I am curious to see how it all works.

Day 3: Maneuvering the Playdate

I feel like I should be working harder to make more interesting breakfasts. Instead I took the easy route and had some egg cupcakes I made late last week. For a snack I had some almonds and a banana.

Today was a bit more tricky because we were invited to a breakfast play date. It is always difficult to know how to maneuver around the food thing when going to other peoples houses. I know because I have been doing it for the past 3 years being gluten free. This was definitely more difficult. I didn't even want to try to go into the whole explanation of what I could eat so I just said I would be fine and bring something to eat for everyone. I ended up just bringing a banana bread from whole foods (not gluten free or Paleo). Had I taken the time to plan ahead, I could have made something interesting for everyone to try. We got there and there was quite the spread. She did have grapes and strawberries which I could eat. Everything else was off limits. I ate before we got there so I wasn't too tempted. Sometimes I miss the days when I could just eat anything I wanted.

We had a great time at the play date and came home and made lunch. I was originally going to make an Avocado Tuna Boat, but the process looked too long and difficult so I just recreated the almond and tuna portion (minus the extra ingredients originally involved). I also added some beets that we had sitting in the fridge. I was happy with the lunch, Alexis was not very interested-could be that everything she ate at the play date had her full. Speaking of full, I was full from lunch and didn't even need an afternoon snack!

For dinner we had Pecan-Crusted Chicken and a Fancy Pear Salad. Both were tasty but the pear salad was the favorite of the evening. It was so simple, but the flavors just worked really well together. AJ had many helpings of the salad and Alexis had a second helping of the chicken. It has been somewhat difficult to get the kids to buy into these food choices so we are excited when we can find something they like. Eventually, I would like to have the whole family eat this way, but that is a blog post for the future.