Paleo Day 2: Easier when eating at home

After my first day being the overwhelming majority of my time on the road, the second day was mostly me working from and around home.  I was therefore able to much more easily cruise through getting everything I needed without scrounging around for scraps of barely acceptable food products to eat.  The caffeine withdraw however is increasingly getting worse.

The day started off, as many of them will, with the Virgin Diet shake.  This time again was with extra blueberries.  Unfortunately I wasn’t paying enough attention when I was blending it.  If you have a little bit too little water the blades sort of whirl on their own.  I could either use the wand attachment to agitate it, or I can just add a little bit of water and magically it finishes up as a nice thick shake.  I added “a little” water several times, probably a good extra cup worth, until I realized that for whatever reason it wasn’t quite making it down to the bottom where the blades are.  What I ended up with was therefore ridiculously runny, almost like a melted milk shake, that was pretty thin to the taste too.  It’s not the end of the world, and I finished most of it at breakfast and the rest in the afternoon, but it’s a good lesson in paying attention to the little details.

After a morning of running around for errands and conference calls I hit up the lunch hour with an enormous salad.  I went to the store to buy whatever I was craving in my salad.  That was a mix of various bitter greens (turnip, collard and mustard), a bunch of portobello mushrooms, red peppers and carrots.  I really wasn’t craving any animal proteins for this salad.  I wanted to add some avocado too but the store was unfortunately out of it.  I added several handfuls of the mixed greens to the several handfuls of chopped mushrooms and carrots.  By the time I got to adding the pepper it seemed like I had way too much already so I only used half of it.  I lightly sprinkled on some garlic powder, salt and pepper and then dowsed it with a tablespoon or so of my homemade infused garlic olive oil and another tablespoon of cold pressed olive oil I get monthly from an “olive oil of the month” club.  To brighten it up I poured on a tablespoon or so of lemon juice and another couple tablespoons of balsamic vinegar.  This was probably a 1.5-2 pound salad, just the way I like it!

That kept me pretty much full until dinner time, which was bacon wrapped chicken breast with some sauteed mixed greens (the same mix I had at lunch).  We had to get on the road, which unfortunately happened later than we planned.  For the drive I took along the remainder of the pepper, another pound of grape tomatoes and the remainder of the almonds from yesterday.  I also made a liter of seltzer water, which was then augmented along the way with a bottle of Pierrer.

The sluggishness I felt throughout the day could have been perked up with some caffeine, but I decided to just get over the jitters.  It’s never been as bad as the first time I tried to detox from caffeine, and this is no exception.  I fully anticipate some annoying headaches and more fatigue, but that’s what I get for falling off the wagon.  As easy as it is for me to just not have the Coke Zero, everytime I see it I just want to say “screw it” and down one.  It’d be a twofer.  I’d get my caffeine fix and my soda fix.  Instead I just drink up more seltzer and deal with the caffeine withdraw head on.