2014-01-10
in
4 min read
As much as I’m starting to get into the swing of things on some matters, others still cause me a struggle. For example the shakes are constantly giving me little annoyances, like forgetting an ingredient, or not having a big enough container to take, or forgetting to put the coconut milk away when I leave. The same goes for the snacks I like in the morning and afternoon. I just can’t seem to get fully down to not forgetting some or all of them. That notwithstanding, I’m starting to do a lot better with the diet and it’s now just a question of a little self discipline.
Breakfast was the usual shake but I had to actually your my meal into two travel mugs instead of the one I usually use since I left that one at the office yesterday (and didn’t bring it home today either). Unlike previous days I didn’t find the shake keeping me full up until lunch. Within an hour of finishing it I was hungry again, which may be part of the same thing driving me to eat a bunch yesterday evening. I held out until the normal lunch time and then just made an even bigger salad than usual. My salads usually weigh in around 1.4 pounds. This one was almost a quarter pound more than that. Just a few extra vegetables is all the difference, but I still think it’s just more healthy food so no harm in that.
I did end up snacking just a little bit on some carrots when I got home as I prepared dinner. Dinner was something I was looking forward to making for some time. I started purchasing pastured, free range, naturally raised (whatever other granola sounding adjective you like keep adding) meat from the local delivery service. The pastured pork has been worth every penny for the bacon. I was hoping for something similar with the grass fed pastured beef. I had a 2.5 pound london broil in my freezer waiting to be cooked and I knew tonight would be the night to crank it out. Thankfully meats like this aren’t something to get overly complicated about. I just let it come up to something near room temperature, season it liberally with the Butt Rub steak seasoning we love to put on stuff, fire up the grill to about 450 degrees and then let it cook for 7-9 minutes on a side. Voila, more than enough meet for either of us to eat.
To go along with the steak I slow cooked some russet potatoes coated in extra virgin olive oil and kosher salt. That created a nice crunchy skin, almost a little overcooked actually. If it was a normal day I would have cut up some butter and let it absorb into the flesh of the potato. To me, one of the most satisfying ways to eat the potato is to let the butter seep into the crunchy skin and bit into it. It’s like when eating roasted potatoes, and you can just feel the juiciness fill your mouth as you bite down while simultaneously giving you that great crunch. Unfortunately butter is off the menu, and I didn’t want to try to give it a go with olive oil or some other fat. It was tasty enough as it was Along with these two items there was also a good heaping pile of fresh sauteed asparagus cooked using my home-infused garlic olive oil, salt and pepper.
The rest of the evening was consumed by beer making with my neighbor. Yes, although I can’t have the beer I still decided to make the beer. As tempting as it was to pop open a bottle, I was able to overcome that Pavlovian response. I had to do the same thing when my partner started breaking out the fudge, and other things. I think that the Hometown Harvest delivery today is what really sabotaged both of us, or attempted to anyway. As some sort of bonus we got a beautiful full size french baguette. I cut it up and froze it to be eaten later, but the smell lingered in the house for a good half an hour afterward. I guess the combination of grain products probably wasn’t the best thing, but I didn’t really have a problem with skipping it and just having my tea and some frozen fruit to finish up the evening.
All my lethargy and headache symptoms seem to have abated. I can’t say that I’m completely moved away from the tipping point with respect to headaches, but I didn’t feel one coming on at any point either. I am noticing a little creakiness in my knees, which is odd since I haven’t been running regularly. I again wonder what it is my body is adapting to to have this phenomena.