Two weeks down of the Paleo Diet!

This is getting easier now. It's been two weeks since I've started the Paleo Diet. So, that means, I haven't had any grains, dairy, soy, potatoes, sweet potatoes, legumes or coffee in two weeks. I haven't had any processed foods at all. In addition, I've eliminate sugar, stevia, maple syrup and honey from my diet. I think that honey or maple syrup will occasionally make it's way into my diet but for now it's out. In addition, I've tried increasing my activity level. In the mornings I wake up and do some stretching, crunches and push ups and some strength training with some light weights.In the afternoons I do some Wii Fit, trying to get a balance of cardio, strength training and yoga for about 30 minutes. The end result has been a weight loss total of six pounds and counting. I feel less irritable and my clothes are starting to fit a little better. To celebrate I had one itty bitty square of dark chocolate this afternoon. Since it was nearly 80% dark cocoa I felt satisfied even with such a small amount.

I do have some small cravings and I have to fight some bad habits I used to have. The other day there was a smidgeon of homemade bread left on the counter. Like I did in the past, I picked that piece up and started to pop it into my mouth. I stopped myself in time and put it in the trash instead. Another time I nearly cleaned a serving spoon off that had some brown rice on it. Again, I stopped myself before I ate it. However, this made me reflect on something. Whether or not I believe that grains have a negative effect on my body it certainly wasn't helping my weight to be popping a little smidgeon here or a spoonful there of stuff into my mouth. Little things like that really add up over the day. It pays to be conscious of what we're putting in our bodies and to really think about what we're eating.

I got a little creative with my lunch today. It's a cold, rainy day here and I simply couldn't bear the idea of a cold salad - my usual lunchtime choice. So, I opened the refrigerator to see what was there and ended up making a kale soup instead. I came up with this without the help of a recipe and I'm happy to say it was delicious. I heated up two cups of frozen turkey stock (thank you Doug for going to the trouble of making that from the turkey carcass last Thanksgiving and freezing many containers of it), added a choppped up onion, a chopped up garlic clove and a chopped up carrot. Let it cook until those vegetables were tender and then added a whole bunch of chopped up kale, covered it and simmered for about 10 minutes. Then, I added some chopped up turkey bacon (nitrate free!) at the end just long enough for that to get warm. I felt so full and satisfied with this lunch and it was nice and soothing on such a yucky day. This is what my bowl of good stuff looked like:


Here's hoping I'll be posting a similar success story next weekend. My son is having a fifth birthday party on Sunday and I'll be making cupcakes for him and his friends. It may be very difficult to resist that tempation. Regardless of how I do that day I am going to allow myself a small piece of cake on his actual birthday. It will be interesting to see how I feel the next day.