This is an incredibly un-interesting post, as it details everything my family ate for the 4th week of the food challenge. But it may be helpful for someone who is curious about our results, and wants to know what it looks like to eat without grains, legumes, and sugar (although there were some meals where we just ate whatever we were presented, with thanks!). I tried to keep track of how we felt physically and psychologically (cravings) day by day.
Day 22:
Breakfast: Banana Pancakes, topped with butter and triple berry mix. I also poured in a tiny bit of raw goat's milk in my coffee. Still not ready to feed it to the kids - the jury's still out on "to pasteurize or not to pasteurize", but until the decision is made, I'm just getting the frisky goats used to the process, keeping the milk in the fridge to feed to the dogs and maybe a bottle goatbaby.
Snack: oranges and walnuts
Lunch: pork bbq
Matt's Lunchbox: pork bbq, grapes, applesauce, tea
Snack: pumpkin nut muffins. When I made the first batch it only called for 1/2 cup of pumpkin puree....but there's about 1.5 cups in a can....so I made a double batch and froze the ones we didn't snack on.
Supper: leftover beef and broth - I'll slice up some mushrooms and simmer them, and we'll have "cream of greens soup" from the PB cookbook
Day 23:
Breakfast: pumpkin nut bread - I poured some of the batter into a loaf pan - it turned out fine that way, too.
Snack: there was a tiny bit of triple berry blend in the fridge, so finished that off plus some babycarrots
Lunch: ate at grandma's and had chicken and noodles with crackers - sooo good! Peaches for dessert
Snack: I ate a couple of pumpkin nut muffins with butter because I was ravenous. Then when Matt got home we all had girl scout cookies. Those are sugar and grain free, right? Ha! We each had half a serving of trefoils, and half a serving of thin mints. They were good, but not nearly as delicious as I had remembered them to be.
Supper: Meatballs with spaghetti sauce with mozzarella cheese on top. Yum!
Snack: 6 trefoils right before bed. it had been a stressful evening...
Day 24:
Breakfast: smoked sausage, orange/pineapple/strawberry/coconut milk smoothies
Snack: girl scout cookies
Lunch: leftover party chicken
Snack: pumpkin nut muffins, then white chocolate and macadamia nut cookies and lemonade at a friend's house
Supper: Ham, leftover cream of greens soup, peaches
Day 25:
Breakfast: smoked sausages, smoothies, I've been drinking goat milk in my coffee for a few days now, Matt and Cora today started "enhancing" their 2% pasteurized, Nesquik-ed cow's milk with whole, raw goat milk.
Snack: pumpkin nut muffins with butter, we all snuck a few bits of ham while I put it into freezer bags for another day
Lunch: hot dogs, pickles, spinach
Snack:
Supper: pork bbq
Day 26:
Breakfast: bacon, sausage, potato, egg scramble
Skipped the snack
Lunch: cream of potato/cream of celery soup, mixed greens salad with peachy chicken salad on top, pumpkin oatmeal cake sweetened with sorghum molasses
Snack: more cake
Supper: cabbage, carrots, onions, smoked sausages
Snack: each had a half serving each of trefoils/thin mints. We watched Charlie Brown's Valentine's movie - don't valentine's and sweets just go together? (excuses, excuses)
Day 27:
Breakfast: leftovers from yesterday
Skipped the snack
Lunch/Snack: Went to the Maple Syrup Festival for the first time. This was so much fun! The family operated sugarbush is the largest Maple Syrup producer in the state, and they have 2 festival weekends to give tours, live music plays, fun kids' activities, and of course, maple syrup! We had a FABULOUSLY delicious meal: 1st adult meal included 1/2 BBQ chicken, cole slaw, baked beans, dinner roll, drink, ice cream (with choice of apple, strawberry, blueberry, or maple syrup topping), 2nd adult meal included 2 maple grilled pork chops (soo tender) cole slaw, baked beans, roll, drink, ice cream with toppings, then the kid's meals were either a pancake or a waffle with the same topping choices as the ice cream, plus drink and a sausage patty. All of this for only $19!! Cora earned a tiny bag of free maple cotton candy (very tasty!) by collecting all the items in the scavenger hunt. We were able to sample maple cream on cubes of bread, different grades of maple syrup, and maple tea (wow! made with partially boiled-down sap poured over a tea bag, not quite syrup, but not pure sap either) We bought a 2 quart bottle of Grade B maple syrup for baking. We learned that grade A syrup comes from the early season sap which is higher in sugar, lower in mineral content, while Grade B syrup comes in the later season with less sugar, more mineral content and a higher maple-y flavor. It'll be easy to make the decision to go back next year!
Supper: leftover meatballs with tomato sauce, green beans
Snack: Matt brought home some vanilla ice cream, which we had chocolate sauce on top.
Maybe we didn't do so good on the no sugar, no grain thing today.
Day 28:
Breakfast: orange/triple berry/peach smoothie, sausage patties
snack: apples, tiny piece of the pumpkin oatmeal cake with butter on top
lunch: beef and mushrooms, peaches
Matt's Lunchbox: leftover smoked sausage and cabbage, baby carrots, apple, tea
snack: special reward treat - Walnut Meal Brownies from the Primal Blueprint Cookbook
supper: bacon-wrapped, spinach, garlic, onion, and mozzarella stuffed chicken breasts (baked at 350* for ~40 minutes, then put under broiler just until bacon crisped up! delish, and oh-so-fancy looking!
Thoughts: We've just been really impressed with how easily we've lost weight/circumference over the course of the month. Especially considering how low-activity we are in February - we did absolutely NO FORMAL EXERCISE at all. And really, we have not felt deprived - we've been eating delicious meals, making sure we're fully satisfied. Yes, sometimes we've craved sweets or breads and missed some of those things, but in general it wasn't that bad to "go without." Now of course, we did have plenty of "cheats" but by and large we did pretty good.
Round baling hay
8 years ago
