March 31, Day 31 :: Mission Complete.

March 31, Day 31 :: Mission Complete.

April 1, 2010, 11:42 pm
Filed under: Daily Not Bread, Emotions, Food Log | Tags: paleo eggs benedict

On the 31st day of the Crossfit Vancouver Paleo Challenge, I wanted to make an awesome breakfast.  I got up early and started cracking eggs because I wanted to make Paleo Eggs Benedict.

8:30 AM Breakfast Paleo Egg Benedict with the Tomato and Kristin’s Blood and Tears

OK, here’s the thing: you’ll note the sauce is kind of solid.  Holy god is it frustrating to make hollandaise without butter or salt. I had to ditch two batches because they kept hardening.  I used extra virgin olive oil instead of butter, but it made it tricky.  In the end, the hollandaise was solid, but tasted damned good.  I sliced organic Canadian back bacon thin and then covered it with a perfectly poached egg and ripe tomatoes.  This felt like luxury.

At lunch, I was starving because of a Crossfit workout that included three timed runs, but I had no interest in tackling something complex — benedict covered saucepans still littered the kitchen.  We grabbed a few turkey slices, a fruit smoothie, and some carrot sticks and that tided us over till dinner.

6 PM, Dinner Imaginative Streak Over

I think I burned out a bit on the complex meals.  Dinner was scrambled eggs with onion and mushrooms, sliced turkey and a dollop of the staple tomato pesto

Typically satisfying and non-typically quick to prepare.

I am pretty proud to have made it through this month.  I wasn’t sure I could do it: I have a killer sweet tooth and cheese is one of my favourite things on the planet.  I did it, we did it, and did it well and we both feel really good about it.  Having each other’s support — and the fact that we work from home and can easily prepare our own meals — really helped, too.

Overall:

Cons

• Meals can be time consuming.
• Paleo is expensive if you choose to eat organic, grass-fed and locally raised meat and dairy.  Our grocery bill went up about 4x our average this month.
• There is a lot of planning and creativity required
• It’s hard to go out for dinner and stick to a strictly Paleo diet, unless you open yourself up to dairy and butter, which we did not.
• Since everything is fresh…a lot of grocery shopping and creative use of produce that you need to use right away because of a limited shelf life.
• The first week was hard as all hell.  It’s almost like I envision withdrawal from drugs.  It sucked and there’s no way around the suckage.  Eat some dates.  But they don’t really help when your body is screaming for rice pudding.  Ignore the screaming and it’ll be worth it.

Pros

• After the first week, you’ll start to feel kind of…peppy and happy and you’ll wonder why and realize that your diet controls your moods way more than you ever thought.
• The meals are truly delicious – simple and fresh = really good eating.
• Noticeably improved energy.
• Noticeable improvements in leanness.  Corey was already ripped to holy hell, but his back is even leaner and than before, and his abs are showing through like I’ve never seen them before.  His legs have also added muscle.  I was never  ripped, and I am starting to be.  I can see my top stomach muscles now, and my arm muscles are bigger.  My stomach is flat and taut, none of the bloat I used to carry around.
• Quality time: it’s fun to cook and come up with new recipes together.

We don’t own a scale, but I’d be willing to wager I actually put on a few pounds this month.  We did do before and after pics and I posted them on flickr if you’re interested.

I’ll keep writing here even after the contest wraps, when I do a meal I’m particularly enamoured with, or when I have something Paleo to share.  Corey is going to develop a bit of a recipe application on the aqufit site, so stay tuned there too.  We are going to continue to eat this way because we like the way it makes us feel.

Thanks for riding along on this journey with us, you guys!

***Edited to add: I didn’t properly note our inspiration for all of this, Coach Lu.  We went to Crossfit one afternoon after a bit of a scrap; I was sick of the gym and Corey was deservedly tired of my whining.  I wanted us to seek new avenues, and Corey went along with me.

Dave inspired us with his openness and immediately evident enthusiasm.  He was the one who got us on the Paleo track and the dude I can credit with keeping us on it.  He is a stellar coach and a really good human and we are both grateful for him.

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