This is an incredibly un-interesting post, as it details everything my family ate for the 2nd 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 8:
Breakfast: Pumpkin spoonbread except I multiplied the recipe and put it in an 8x8 dish. And I left out the raisins and nuts because my husband won't eat them. Turned out, he didn't eat it anyway. I thought it was good - but if you were expecting something sweet it certainly wasn't that. Gave Matt milk with cocoa powder again and instead sifted the cocoa powder, but for some reason he couldn't drink it because of the texture.
Snack: Apple for me and Cora, she also had another helping of the pumpkin spoonbread.
Matt's Lunchbox: unsweet tea, banana, leftover beef stir fry, home canned peaches.
Lunch: leftover chicken salad, oranges.
Snack: pumpkin spoonbread "granola" (put it in a 225*oven for hours until it crisped up....not bad!) Fruit leather, raisins. And here's the thing - I was never *hungry* this afternoon.......I just ate because it was habit. I'll need to work on this. My kids, however, seem hungry all the time. Maybe need to add whole milk as their primary drink rather than water? I'm sure they need more good fat than adults. Maybe I need to be more strict with them about no candy, no flour. I've been pretty lax with them when we're away from home, so maybe it's taking them longer to get used to not constantly having carbs?
Dinner: (are you ready for this??) Beef tongue! Boiled it for three hours with a diced onion and garlic. Peeled it, sliced it, added some frozen leftover beef roast to help trick my mind into thinking we were just eating beef, then spooned the gravy/souplike mixture over potatoes mashed with plenty of butter. It was actually really good. Just be sure that you and your dinnermates are having a very important conversation to help distract from the fact that you're eating TONGUE! lol. We had green beans too, and pickles.
Day 9:
Breakfast: Banana pancakes, Matt has reverted to drinking milk with quik. I can't stop him.
Snack: kids snacked at Grandma's. I ate a banana pancake.
Matt's lunchbox: leftover beef and potatoes, oranges, unsweet tea
Lunch: chicken alfredo with penne.
Snack: pumpkin spoonbread granola
Supper: lemon butter fish filets, lettuce and spinach salads, Cora and I shared an avocado, Matt and Luke shared green beans.
Snack: kids snacked at Grandpa's while Matt and I went to a church meeting, and on the way home had to stop at the grocery store and got some snack sized pepperoni bites.
Really, this challenge is going very very well. Much better than I anticipated. The only real drawback is how badly I do want some chocolate!! And I'm having a bit of a difficult time getting everyone filled up and satisfied at each meal. And I'm very glad I made sure to add the part about eating whatever we were served if we were guests, I just feel that's right.
Day 10:
Breakfast: Sausage, salsa, egg and cheese scramble. Similar to the muffins I made before, only fried in a skillet rather than baked. Since we don't need the on-the-go convenience factor the finger food muffins provide, the skillet and fork method suits us just fine.
Snack: shared avocado for Cora and I. Luke had pumpkin spoonbread granola. He loves it!
Matt ate out for lunch, he had some errands to run over his lunch break.
Lunch: smoked sausages, oranges.
Snack: walnuts for me. walnuts, prunes, and a glass of milk for Cora. Either that girl's going through a growth spurt or she's not getting enough to eat - she's always hungry! I'm thinking how can I add healthy fats to her diet? Maybe whole milk? I am completely seriously considering milking a goat or two to get raw, whole milk.
Supper: I never know what to call what I fix! Why do meals have to have names? Anyway, I chopped an onion, melted butter (should've added olive oil right away, but I ended up adding it later) browned about a pound and a half of deer burger, diced a green pepper, sliced mushrooms, minced garlic and sauteed that. Then I added salt and pepper and oregano and basil, and 2 drained quart jars of tomatoes, brought it to a simmer, then added about 1 cup of chicken broth. It was good. It was a lot like chili, maybe Italian Deer Chili. There we go, it's got a name now! It was filling, but Cora goofed off, said she didn't like it, and didn't eat it. Told her she could either eat it tonight or for breakfast in the morning.
Snack: I had a glass of fiberwise drink.
Day 11:
Breakfast: Matt had leftover sausage/salsa/cheese/eggs, I had leftover banana pancakes with butter, Cora had Italian Deer Chili (in case you were wondering how last night's dinner turned out). Luke slept through breakfast. You see, the boy has been waking up at 4:30 am every single day for the past 2 weeks plus. He will happily nurse back to sleep, then leave me to try to decide whether to try to fall back asleep in the 20 minutes before the alarm clock goes off or just stay up. Oy! But I thankfully have not felt the urge AT ALL to take a nap in the afternoon....whether it's the food we're eating or the vitamins I'm taking, or the combination - I'm not sure.
Snack: Carrot sticks and the last of the spoonbread with butter for the kids, I had just carrot sticks. I wish I'd have had some good fat dip so I wouldn't have been so hungry in between snack and lunch!
Matt's Lunchbox: Leftover Italian Deer Chili, carrots, tea
Lunch: leftover Italian Deer Chili, then I ate a small handful of walnuts after the kids went down for their naps.
Snack: kids had the last of the pumpkin spoonbread granola. I wasn't hungry, so I didn't eat!!! This is unprecedented, people!
Supper: slow-roasted pork BBQ, applesauce, iceberg lettuce salad - Matt and Cora had red french dressing, I had oil/vinegar/garlic/herb dressing, even though usually I don't like dressing. Didn't like it this time, either! Cora told me I should've had the red dressing, it was good. haha
Day 12:
Breakfast: Sausage crumble-diced bacon-diced fried potatoes-egg scramble
Snack: late breakfast so no snack
Lunch: Transylvanian Stockpot from The Primal Blueprint Cookbook, grapes, kiwi, strawberries, and some little debbie snack cakes (oops!)
Snack: chocolate truffles from The Primal Blueprint Cookbook
Supper: Meatloaf, potatoes, green beans
snack: tortilla chips, salsa, cheese dip, and a small pineapple juice/coconut rum over a game of euchre
the chips, salsa, and cakes were valentine's gifts from grandma and grandpa. We didn't specifically announce this whole crazy eating thing where we are giving up grain and sugars for a month, so we felt it only polite to induldge a bit! We enjoyed the treat!
Day 13:
Breakfast: omelets - everyone picked out what they wanted on from: mushrooms, olives, green peppers, onions, sausage, bacon, tomatoes, cheddar cheese
Snack: Cora had a chocolate doughnut with chocolate milk at church, Luke had a doughnut hole, I had coffee.
Lunch: leftover pork BBQ, applesauce, the rest of the fruit salad, baby carrots, potato chips, deviled eggs
Snack: chocolate truffles
Supper: Warm again, so Matt grilled pork chops and smoked sausages, and we also had broccoli, and apples
we were all exhausted. Maybe because it was Sunday night and we'd been active all day (I'd been spring cleaning the kitchen with my mom, Matt was working on our pop-up camper, moving hay, etc with my dad) or maybe it was because we were noticing the effects of our chips and lil debbies?
Day 14:
Breakfast: leftover sausage/bacon/potato/egg scramble
Snack: Apples
Matt's Lunchbox: leftover meatloaf and mashed potatoes, tea
Lunch: smoked sausage, deviled eggs, grapes, a few truffles
Snack: deviled eggs, bananas, walnuts
Supper: "hamburgers" consisting of ground beef, ground deer (with a little bacon mixed in) and ground beef heart. pickles, cheese. Pretty weak as far as vegetables! Oops! Oh, and we had one package of little debbie cakes - Cora and Luke each had half of one heart-shaped cake, Matt and I split ours 1/3, 2/3 - he took the big half, because they're more of a treat for him than I. Then I had a few of the truffles we'd made from the PB cookbook.
This evening I also went ahead and ordered some goat-milking supplies! I'm very excited to give whole, raw goat's milk a try.
The second week had much fewer sweets cravings, but now I'm starting to lose inspiration for what to fix. I can't really get too excited about planning the next week's menu. But that's pretty typical for me in general, I get into a groove of being awesome at meal planning, then kind of fall off the wagon....
Round baling hay
8 years ago
