Day 3 & 4 Whole 30

Day 3

Breakfast : Scrambled Eggs and Bacon

Lunch : Leftover Spiced Carrot Soup

Dinner : Pork escalopes with garlic portobello mushrooms, grilled apple slices and carrot, turnip and parsnip mash

Day 4

Breakfast : Berry and Almond Milk Smoothie

Lunch : Salad with Chicken Thighs and Avocado.

Dinner : Mushroom and Rosemary Soup (This was the first time I've made mushroom soup and it was good, if a little on the watery side)

I guess it's going very well so far, though yesterday I had the headache of all headaches for most of the day......I considered that it could have been sugar withdrawals!!!

Spiced Carrot and Spinach Soup

So, Day 2 of my Whole 30 has gone very well. I had scrambled eggs and some grilled bacon for breakfast, avocado salad and some nuts for lunch and then made soup for dinner. The soup was so yummy I thought I'd share the recipe.

Spiced Carrot and Spinach Soup (Serves 4)

Ingredients:

6 medium carrots, chopped
4 sticks of celery, chopped
1 onion, chopped
2 large handfuls of spinach
1 tbsp cumin
1 tbsp turmeric
1 tsp whole fennel seeds, crushed
1 tsp saffron
1 veg stock pot
1/2 can of full fat coconut milk
1/2 red chilli

Directions:

Place the chopped carrots, celery and onion in a large pot of water and bring to the boil
Add the cumin, turmeric, fennel seeds, saffron, stock, chilli and coconut milk and simmer until the vegetables are soft (will take approx 20 mins)
Add the spinach at the last minute and allow to wilt.
Blend the ingredients (either using a hand-held blender or by transferring to a food processor).
Season with black pepper and serve with pumpkin and sunflower seeds as a garnish.
Easy peasy and yummy!

Whole 30 : Day 1

Well, here's a list of what I've been eating today for Day 1 of my "Whole 30". Today was such a busy day that I didn't have any challenge at all in terms of temptation, and not a second to sit about wishing I was eating something 'naughty' - though I'm sure those times are still to come....

Breakfast : Smoothie

I made this with a handful of frozen berries (I keep a box of these in the freezer always), a little over half a banana, and about 200ml of almond milk. Yummy! Then I finished off the banana too for good measure.

Lunch : Mackerel Salad

My salad has tinned mackerel (in olive oil) with avocado, tomato, cucumber, and a mix of seeds. I also had some almond butter with celery to dunk in it, and some chunks of fresh pineapple. Very tasty and filling.

Dinner: Chicken and Sweet Potato Curry

This is a curry cooked in coconut milk and served with cauliflower 'rice'. This recipe is here, taken from the blog of Irish Paleo Girl. 

Let me know how you're getting on if you're also on a Whole 30.

Shopping for a Whole 30!

So, while I've been more or less following a paleo diet for a couple of months now, I have never attempted a "Whole 30". Until now!

A "Whole 30" is when you spend 30 consecutive days eating 100% Paleo. That means cutting out even the small concessions you normally allow yourself and being completely true to the Paleo protocol for 30 days. An example would be that I would often have a cup of tea with a drop of milk in it - but not for Whole 30. Almond milk or black tea only. I would also sometimes eat a small amount of potato - but that's completely out for the 30 days too.

My plan is to document the 30 days, the foods I'm eating - the highs and lows - hopefully even a few recipes. I'm starting tomorrow finishing on December 3rd. But I guess the first thing I thought I'd share was today's shopping trip.....

That's a photo of some of the things I bought today. There are both beef and lamb steaks, chicken fillets, beef mince, pork escalopes, and plain frozen salmon fillets. Also, in terms of protein, there are plenty of nuts and seeds - you can see here the pistachios, cashews and almonds. I also stocked up on pumkin and sunflower seeds. Other snack foods included are dried coconut, pineapple, apples and celery with almond butter and cashew butter to dip them in. Plenty of fresh veggies, making sure to include lots of avocados - I put these in salads for lunch but also make guacamole with them for snacks. You'll also spot eggs and coconut milk in there and a large packet of flaxseed. I put flaxseed in almost everything - salads, curries, veggies, anything really. Tinned tomatoes are another good cupboard staple for adding a sauce to anything but keeping it Paleo!

Looking forward to the next 30 days now and to reaping the benefits. I hope I can keep temptations at bay and have plenty of willpower when it's needed.

Let me know if you're going to join me on the Whole 30 - the more the merrier!

For me, why Paleo? Simple - Operation Baby!!

I came across Paleo in my bid to beat PCOS and all that goes with it.

I hasten to state at this point that I am no doctor and anything I'm saying here is only the fruits of my own online research, and my own understanding of PCOS and how diet affects it.

I'm a 32 year old woman, living in Ireland. In early 2011, my hubby and I decided that we were ready to have a baby but it turned out not to be all that easy. I was diagnosed very quickly with PCOS - Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome - with both blood tests and ultrasound scans revealing the condition undeniably. As I then began to read about PCOS, many other things began to make sense - excess hair on my chin (gross I know - tell me about it), acne that didn't disappear after puberty, and is pretty much always around the chin and jawline, and excess weight which is terribly difficult to lose (and it is so demoralising to really truly try yet not to get the results). It appeared that I was showing signs, to varying degrees, of ALL of the symptoms associated with PCOS  - Lucky Me!!!

Now, some of the symptoms, while not enjoyable, I can live with. However, I want a baby - more than anything in the world - and that means reducing the effects, and losing weight. Simple???? 

That's where I found Paleo.

Here is a seriously simplified description of the science behind it - what the PCOS does and how a Paleo style diet can combat it.

PCOS is a female endocrine (hormonal) disorder which causes insulin resistence. Insulin is the hormone that controls blood sugars and it does this by acting on our bodies' cells in order to make them absorb sugars from the blood. To put it really simply, PCOS makes the cells resistant to the insulin and so we must produce higher levels of insulin in order to remove the sugars from our blood.

But these higher levels of insulin have a number of knock on effects. Firstly they cause weight gain - bad news. Secondly, increased insulin results in increased testosterone, causing the acne and the excess hair - more bad news. And also, worst of all, the insulin disrupts the development of ovarian follicles. This in turn means we ovulate either less often or not at all, becoming infertile - worse than bad news.

So how does our diet make any difference. Well, if you remember this all started when we tried to remove dietry sugars from the blood stream........ are you seeing where I'm going with this?

When we eat sugar in any of its many forms (don't forget carbohydrates and fruits, for example, are high in sugars - we're not just talking about chocolate and cake here) it releases the glucose into our bloodstream. PCOS means we then produce huge amounts of insulin in an effort to deal with this. This confuses the body into thinking there is a lot of sugar and so it stores it as fat (generally around your middle and your organs). A lower insulin level, in somebody without PCOS, would tell the body that there was a small amount of sugar present, and it would then be used for energy. This is why the hyperinsulinemia (constant state of elevated insulin levels) associated with PCOS causes such weight gain, and in essence keeps the body in fat storage mode, not allowing you to access stored fat for engery.

What's the route of the problem? Where does the vicious circle begin? With sugar.

Paleo to the rescue!! Here's hoping anyway......