Happy New Year!!

I have to admit that I took a break from paleo over the holidays, though I continued to eat paleo about 50% of the time. I can tell you I felt a major difference going back to eating gluten and dairy after stopping. My allergies came back as well as my lethargy! I'm not a big believer in new years resolutions, as I never seem to stick to them, and I didn't want to wait til 2012 to start feeling better again, so I went back to paleo yesterday. I had gotten the Everyday Paleo cookbook for Christmas and there are so many good recipes in there! I have tried a couple already and they did not disappoint. For simplicities sake, since I am busy this week and didn't have much time to meal plan and make a shopping list, I decided to do day 1-5 of the everyday paleo meal plan and see how that goes. I have never been good with following meal plans but this one had a shopping list, and the recipes aren't super time consuming so it is proving to be easy to follow. For breakfast I had 2 egg "muffins" with eggs, zucchini, spinach, roasted red peppers, bacon, and green onion as well as some grapes. This is a picture of my boyfriend plate, I put some avocado on his but found the meal to be adequate for me without it.

I have a whole chicken in the slow cooker as we speak and a delicious cabbage slaw waiting to be eaten for dinner. I will let you know how it turns out!

My first attempt at pork tenderloin = success

Today for dinner I made a pork tenderloin and it turned out really good! I made a rub that consisted of:
-2 tsp smoked paprika
-1/4 tsp turmeric
-1/2 tsp ground cumin
-1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
-1 tsp ground cinnamon
-1/4 tsp ground cloves
-1/2 tsp ground cardamom
-1/2 tsp ground ginger
-3/4 tsp garlic powder
-3/4 tsp ground coriander
I baked that in the oven at 375 for 30 min. I served that with holiday Brussels sprouts from www.everydaypaleo.com and mashed butternut squash with cinnamon, ground ginger, and a touch of honey. Delicious!

Welcome!

Hello! My name is Autumn and I am a recent paleo convert. Let me tell you a bit about myself. I am a registered nurse in central California and I work the night shift in the ICU step-down unit at a major hospital in the area. Prior to "going paleo" I thought that I ate relatively healthy, whole grains and yogurt were staples in my diet. I do, however, have a major sweet tooth which would cause me to often go overboard on cookies, cupcakes, and candy, often in the middle of the night at work. I was tired of feeling sick and lethargic all the time and while I knew that night shift played a factor, I also knew I needed to clean up my eating. So after hearing about the paleo diet from my boyfriend, we decided to do it together. For the first few days I found that although I had a caffeine headache nightly, I had more energy and the caffeine withdraw was not nearly as bad as it had been in the past when I had quit, nor as bad as it should have been for the amount of caffeine I had been consuming just to maintain a "normal" energy level. After two weeks of eating paleo, I am now a convert. I no longer require coffee and my energy levels are better than previously. I have also lost 5lbs and my clothes are fitting better. It has definitely been a learning process, and I am still learning daily. The first day I started eating paleo I went and bought 4lbs quinoa, because it's a seed and not a grain right? The next day I read that because of the grain-like qualities of quinoa in the body, it is not paleo. So now I am left with an abundant supply of something I won't eat! That bag is going to my parents house along with all other non-paleo pantry and freezer items in my house. My goal in this blog is to chronicle my life as I learn how to "live paleo". So come along for the ride!