Charmed Inspiration

Nicely matches my itty bitty sample from Crisco..

I have met so many cool and colorful personalities in the online primal / paleo world. One such gal, whom I've mentioned before, is now in maintenance after 6 years spent dropping 111+ lb. - and she is a working mother, to boot!

She didn't do it all as a paleo eater - but she went paleo to drop the last few body fat percentage points, and now she is a ripped triathlete!

I am always so impressed by her dedication, her persistence, her sheer chutzpah.

She's given me a lot of advice (at my request!) about exercise and food journaling, which has been so helpful. One day on PaleoHacks she mentioned that she had a kettlebell necklace. I, of course, being obsessed with charm jewelry, added a comment to that thread asking where she found such a piece of jewelry. She had found them on Etsy for a steal - and had actually bought quite a few with friends in mind over the holidays.

Long story short, just a short time later, I was opening my mailbox to find a small envelope containing not one, but FOUR of these adorable teeny tiny pewter kettlebell charms, which are smaller - about the size of a pencil's eraser. I soon came to the conviction that I wouldn't wear any of them until I met some mini weight loss goals - which I then proceeded to set for myself.

Last week I hit the first minigoal - 1/4 of the way through my overarching goal! I was so stoked to put on my single bitty bell. It's a great reminder to me of this gal's surprising, touching gesture of support - and that if she did accomplished her truly huge (pun not really intended) feat, then my more modest feat can be tackled, too!

Menu Plan - Stock Up on Target Organic Cage-Free Eggs @$2.99/Dozen Through Saturday!

Well...I'd been waiting for my husband to hit the Trader Joe's just a few minutes from his office - was supposed to happen today! Then I would have finally been ready to menu plan knowing exactly what's in our kitchen. But, it just didn't happen, and TJ's is now set for tomorrow. Boy, do I wish we had a Trader Joe's right here in our town, but for now I'll take one close to my husband's office!

That said, we did stop by our local Target today for some eggs, cheese, frozen blueberries, and heavy cream - enough to fudge through the rest of tomorrow until my sweetie arrives back home with a trunk full of Trader Joe's.

Excerpted from this week's Target ad.

This week, Target's organic cage free eggs are on sale @ $2.99/dozen (usually $3.74/dozen). This sale price, which seems to happen every 4-6 weeks, is the best price for a dozen commercial organic cage free eggs that I've found - even better than the ones at Sam's Club, which price out at around $3.30-$3.50/dozen. This price is good through Saturday 19 March in most areas, I'm guessing. So, if you don't mind sourcing your eggs from Target, keep an eye out in the fresh groceries to see if the price $2.99/dozen - in which case you might find yourself like me, cart stocked full of eggs, looking like I'm dead set on breaking the Guinness World Record for world's biggest omelette.

You may recall that I've been documenting my food intake over at fatsecret.com since March 1 in a bid to get a realistic knowledge since of my carb and calorie intake. I'm happy to say that as of this morning, the scale is reading 12 lb. lighter since then! Woo HOO! Some of that was definitely water weight, but I am finally glad to be back in that groove where sugar is not the center of my universe. It takes me about two weeks to finally physiologically get to that point, but it's a relief to be there again, with the slow, steady energy and no blood sugar crashing.

I've also been doing some introspective journaling since the beginning of the month - using Beth Moore's Get Out of That Pit: A 40-Day Devotional Journal - a companion to her book Get Out of That Pit: Straight Talk about God's Deliverance, which I read first. The journalling is helping to ground me, and had been especially useful in the evenings those first few days of March in terms of focusing me on my priorities and motives when I was trying to shake afternoon/evening sugar cravings (which...not so coincidentally, perhaps...seem to strike when my toddler is melting down just before her bedtime...). I can't wait to see what the rest of March brings in my journaling and weight loss!

If you're interested in FatSecret, you should come on over and join a bunch of us (41 and counting!) who are doing the:

Primal / Paleo 3 Months Til Summer Challenge!

You don't have to be low-carb to join - just working on your own goals for getting back to nourishing real-food basics in order to lose weight or gain muscle. If you're hankering for renew your commitment to improved body composition, for health, or for a purely vain objective of looking better for shorts weather before the end of June, come on over, join the challenge, and say, "Hi!" There will be lots of commiseration waiting for you. :) The challenge officially starts on Monday, March 21, so you have lots of time to establish a free FatSecret account (...and get to know all of its fun bells and whistles like the food diary, the weigh-in chart, the journal, the create-your-own-recipe, the exercise journal, etc.! It's really fabulous if you want to geek out on data, and there is a range of privacy settings so you can chose how much of your own info you share!)

Here's how the menu's shaping up this week:

Monday:
Breakfast - Bacon and fried eggs
Lunch - This and that; leftovers, leftover bacon, peanut butter
Dinner - Baked chicken wings and asparagus
Workout plan - Rest day

Tuesday:
Breakfast - Organic whole milk yoghurt (I sometimes sweeten mine with a few drops of liquid whole leaf stevia and add a teensy bit of raspberry extract - BAM! It's so much better than Yoplait, I promise!)
Lunch - Leftover chicken wings for me
Dinner - We hit up our local favorite burger chain (a regional one) - a double bacon cheeseburger for me with mushrooms, onions, lettuce, and sliced tomatoes, sans bun
Workout plan - Walking at the local park pushing my toddler in the jogging stroller

Wednesday:
Breakfast - Cheese omelette
Lunch - Cocktail shrimp (thawed) with gingered carrots sauteed in butter
Dinner - Pot roast with carrots and potatoes (I'll be skipping the potatoes)
Workout plan - Kettlebell swings

Thursday:
Breakfast - Warmed blueberries with vanilla, cinnamon, and cream (this is for the girls...for me it might be mashed boiled eggs)
Lunch - Leftover pot roast and veggies
Dinner - I'm going to put a placeholder here...because I'm not really sure what animal protein/produce combo will result from my husband's TJ's trip!
Workout plan - More gorgeous spring weather! Another walk outside, methinks.

Friday:
Breakfast - Bacon, slices of cheese
Lunch - Blueberry protein smoothies
Dinner - Another placeholder here! The fridge is about as bare as it gets in terms of animal protein and veggies. Thankful for eggs, though - my faithful standby! ;-)
Workout plan - Rest day

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Menu Plan

We're trying something new this month: my husband is doing all of the grocery shopping. I'm curious to see how it works out; the main determination is to see whether he can lower our grocery spending without my non-core impulse purchases (read: raw honey, almond butter, etc.) piling on extra costs.

Which, you know what? Is not a bad thing. I need less of the impulse purchases and more "core foods" low-carb meals that keep me from craving carby snacks. More beef. More butter and cream. More eggs and bacon. More nonstarchy veggies.

I've also decided today to start food journaling in earnest. Even if I'm 100% primal / lacto-paleo compliant in terms of what I'm eating, calories are indeed still a part of the equation, and after being inspired by one paleo friend who is a fantastic weight loss success story (and who lost 111+ lb. over six years with the help of strict food journalling) - and AndreAnna, who is courageously redoubling her efforts this month after a winter plateau - I want to scrutinize my own numbers more closely. I think that my satiation switch is somehow broken, so relying on my subjective feeling of "full" seems to be futile, at least at this point. The fact that I'm still nursing my 14-month old certainly doesn't abet my appetite at this point either. Therefore, to make things as objective and clear-cut as possible, journalling food intake and charting weigh-ins over time is a great way for me to geek out data-wise on my intake and draw some useful conclusions from there.

Wednesday:

Breakfast - Smoothies for my girls; I may fast

Lunch - Eggs fried in butter

Dinner - Miso salmon with broccoli

Workout - Supposed to be gorgeous, so taking my littlest out in the jogging stroller for some sunshine and fresh air

Thursday:

Breakfast - Mashed boiled eggs

Lunch - Leftover salmon with butter-sauteed wasabi asparagus

Dinner - Beef pot roast; sweet potatoes for my girls

Workout - Kettlebell swings

Friday:

Breakfast - Leftover sweet potatoes for the girls, warmed with butter and cinnamon, fasting for me

Lunch - Omelettes

Dinner - Butterflied pan-sauteed shrimp (with garlic and coconut oil) and veggie

Workout - Rest day

Preschool Lunch Ideas:

Lunchbox #56: Honeydew melon, blueberries, broccoli, sugar snap peas, sliced leftover beef

Lunchbox #57: Sweet potatoes, Clementine, apple slices with peanut butter

Lunchbox #58: Leftover salmon, almonds, apple blueberry sauce

Menu Plan

After a break, it is so time for me get back into the menu-planning saddle. I'm also looking at starting food journalling at the advice of a sweet gal who is a paleo weight loss success story. And how can I get a good food journal habit going unless I get back to my menu planning? :)

Some of these breakfasts I skip in favor of kettlebelling fasted - so whatever's listed in those instances is what my girls are having.

Monday:
Breakfast - Leftover spaghetti squash with meaty marinara (no, really, and fortunately my 3-year-old is cool with it)
Lunch - Fried eggs, chicken sausage, yoghurt
Dinner - Roasted chicken, supplemented with leftover pork ribs and slow cooked carrots

Tuesday:
Breakfast - Warm nutmeg ginger banana pudding, leftover chicken sausage
Lunch - Bacon, shredded parmesan, and shredded Bubbies pickles on romaine lettuce with warm bacon dressing
Dinner - Steak, romaine salad with shredded parmesan, and homemade balsamic vinaigrette

Wednesday:
Breakfast - Mashed boiled eggs
Lunch - Pumpkin soup with garlic and caramelized shallots (might add a scoop of whey protein to mine if I've just worked out...)
Dinner - 5-Ingredient Green Curry Pot Roast in the crock pot with carrots and potatoes

Thursday:
Breakfast - Banana custards!
Lunch - Leftover beef pot roast and veggies
Dinner - Butter-glazed shrimp, roasted Brussels sprouts

Friday:
Breakfast - Grapefruit drizzled with honey, cottage cheese
Lunch - Leftovers, whatever they may be
Dinner - Chicken Weinerschnitzel (will post on it if it works out!) with a butter and cream reduction, and tarragon asparagus soup (with my new immersion blender, holllaaaaaaa)

Preschool lunch ideas:
Lunchbox #39: Leftover roast chicken, whole milk yoghurt with honey, trail mix
Lunchbox #40: Pickle, strips of steak with mustard for dipping, apple slices with cinnamon cream cheese
Lunchbox #41: Leftover pot roast and veggies, custard, maybe some pumpkin bread or muffin if I find a killer pumpin bread recipe