W30D8

I'm sure I mentioned this the other day, but I've been listening to some of the interviews available through PaleoCon for the past week. I definitely recommend heading over there now to check out the interview with George Bryant of Civilized Caveman before the interview gets removed from the website. Go now! It's a really personal interview that covers some of George's struggles to turn his life around and be happy and healthy.

While I haven't had the same struggles as George, I've been thinking lately that I have an unhealthy relationship with food. I think about it A LOT, whether it's planning my next meal, or feeling bored or upset and wanting to eat something to break up the monotony. I'm also pretty terrible at moderation. One of my "healthier" weaknesses is dried mango. I used to dislike the taste of mango, but I learned that I am kind of obsessed with unsulphured, unsweetened dried mango. And though a serving size is maybe a couple slices, I can down an entire bag in one sitting, which is something like 4.5 servings. While I'm devouring the mango, I mentally tell myself Okay, this is your last piece. You really are full. You don't need another piece. So I stop, for like 15 seconds, and then I'm reaching in the bag again to grab more mango. Before I know it, the entire bag is gone and I'm left feeling slightly over-full, but also craving more. Hello, sweet tooth! It's a bit ridiculous how little self-control I have sometimes. I'm the same way with chocolate and gluten-free crackers. I can't have "just one."

I feel like I'm programmed for all or nothing. I'm good at restrictions or going hard-core into a sport. But if I let myself slip once and tell myself It's alright, you'll get back on track tomorrow, I start slipping all of the time. I had one piece of chocolate yesterday, so one more today won't hurt. I didn't actually have any chocolate yesterday in case you were wondering. This overeating trend also ties into the fact that sugars and grains are addicting. In one of the PaleoCon presentations today, the interviewee mentioned that sugar is more addicting than cocaine. WHAT?!?! And sugar is in so many things that you wouldn't expect, like bacon. There were at least five people that I talked to this weekend alone who were shocked to hear that there's added sugar in most bacon. Yep. Sorry folks. If I'm buying bacon at the store, I spend at least five minutes reading the labels of all of the brands and end up settling for whichever option is the most organic and is nitrate-free. It's tough. And I think most people in the Paleo world end up buying their meats online, such as U.S. Wellness Meat.

Chocolate Chili

1 lb grass-fed ground beef

1 onion, diced

3 cup bone broth

1 1/2 cup tomato sauce

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 cup grape tomatoes, halved

1/4 tsp allspice

1/4 tsp ground cloves

1/2 Tbls cumin

1/2 Tbls chili powder

1 oz. unsweetened chocolate (pure chocolate is kind of OK by Whole 30 standards if used as a spice, not a sweet)

1 Tbls apple cider vinegar

2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp ground black pepper

1. Heat 2 cups bone broth and ground beef over medium-high heat in a large stock pot. Cook for 30 minutes or until little liquid remains.

2. Add the remaining ingredients to the pot, stir, and cook covered for 2 hours.

3. Remove lid and cook for another 30-45 minutes or until desired thickness is achieved.

4. Serve with green onion or avocado.

Pumpkin-Acorn Squash Soup

Yesterday I decided to try out intermittent fasting (IF). IF basically just means going through periods of time of not eating (drinking water and low-calorie drinks such as tea) and eating

It's one of those things of which I've been skeptical. I mean, breakfast is the most important meal of the day, right? Well, that may still be true, but there is an argument that IF can aid weight loss by increasing fat oxidation, decreasing fasting insulin levels, and increasing insulin sensitivity. Head to Mark's Daily Apple for more information.

Despite a few hunger that hit around 9:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m., I felt great. I drank water and tea. I wasn't hungry and I wasn't struggling with cravings for food throughout the day. My stomach did start rumbling pretty loudly after my Krav Maga class yesterday evening, so I ate some food after practice, even though I still didn't feel terribly hungry. I ended up feeling like I ate too much at dinner though, so that'll be something to work on in the future. I lasted a full 24 hours without food. I've mentioned before that I'm an emotional eater. If I'm stressed, bored, tired, etc., I tend to eat. Plus I seem to also use grabbing a snack as a short break. Yesterday I didn't have that option, but I survived without much effort.

Compare that to today. I started out the day with a mug of Pumpkin-Acorn Squash Soup (see recipe below). Within 2 hours, I wanted to eat something else. I know that I didn't have my usual protein for breakfast, so that could be part of the culprit. But I find it interesting that on my IF day, I wasn't hungry and didn't have to put any effort into restraining my snacking, but today, when I started off the day with food, I wanted more food, more frequently. I guess that's your body heading into starvation mode.

Pumpkin-Acorn Squash Soup (10 servings, 1 cup per serving)

1 pie/sugar pumpkin

1 acorn squash

2 Tbls coconut oil

1 Tbls olive oil

1 onion, finely chopped

3 Tbls thyme, fresh, leaves

4 cups chicken broth (1 Mason jar)

1/8 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp ginger

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1/3 cup coconut milk

1 1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar

pepper, to taste

1. Preheat oven to 400 F. Line a baking sheet with tinfoil.

2. Slice the pumpkin and acorn squash in half. Scoop out the seeds and set aside seeds for a different use.

3. Brush the flesh of the pumpkin and acorn squash with coconut oil. Place the halves, cut side down on the baking sheet. Place in the oven for 50-60 minutes, until the skin is easily punctured with a fork. Remove from the oven and let cool for 15 minutes so you don't burn yourself. During this baking/waiting time, you can do something else, or chop onions, or whatever you want. After cooling, peel the skin off of the flesh or use a spoon to scoop out the flesh.

4. Once the pumpkin and acorn squash are cooling, heat olive oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add in the onion and thyme, cooking for 5 minutes or until soft.

5. Add the pumpkin and acorn squash flesh to the pot along with the chicken broth. Bring to a boil for 10 minutes, then reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool for 10 minutes.

6. Transfer the mixture in small batches to a blender. Process each batch for a minute or until the mixture is smooth and creamy. You can also use an immersion blender, but it may not end up as creamy.

7. Once the entire pot has been blended, stir in the remaining ingredients. Reheat on the stove and serve immediately. Top with sage if you feel like it.

Here's how much soup I got out of this recipe.

Here's a nutrition label based on the results from inputting my recipe to PaleoTrack.com. These values assume a serving size of 1 cup, with roughly 10 cups of soup altogether.

Easy Roast Pork Loin

I know, I know... It's been a week. I have no excuse. Just my own laziness and tiredness. On Tuesday I got into bed at 7 p.m. and fell asleep by 7:30. Sadly my 9 o'clock "It's time to go to sleep alarm" woke me up. No, the irony of that has not been missed by me. Anyways, it was a wildly busy weekend, and I was worn out by the time my wildly busy week started. Staying at work until 8:30 p.m. on Monday didn't help. On the bright side, I made it to yoga last night and got to chill out a bit.

Anyways... Onward to the food!

Because I've been simultaneously busy and lazy, I wanted something easy to make. And what better than a simple pork roast?

Easy Roast Pork Loin

3 lb pork loin roast, tied

2 Tbls Dijon mustard

2 Tbls apple cider vinegar

1 Tbls olive oil

1. Preheat oven to 375 F. Heat 1 Tbls olive oil on the stove over medium heat.

2. Season pork with salt and pepper.

3. Brown the pork on all sides (~2 minutes each). Remove the pork from the pan.

4. Whisk together the Dijon mustard, apple cider vinegar, and pork drippings. Brush over the pork, coating thoroughly.

5. If you weren't already using a oven-safe pan, transfer to a baking dish. Then put the whole thing into the oven. Cook for roughly 20 minutes per pound or until internal temperature is 145 F. I cooked mine for about an hour.

6. Remove from oven, transfer to plate, and cover with tinfoil. Let rest for 10 minutes. Go ahead, put your feet up to relax. Then enjoy your dinner.

For a side, you can toss a sweet potato in the oven 20 minutes into the cooking cycle, allowing 40 minutes to cook your sweet potato. Then slice up and serve with the pork. It makes a sweet and tangy combination.

21 DSD - Days 14-15 - Sunburn Relief

So, let's discuss the remainder of my Memorial Day weekend and returning to work. As I mentioned, I got super sunburned. The drive back home was misery. Most of my focus for the last couple days has been on sunburn relief. On the drive back home, we stopped at a Buc-ee's for snacks. Yeah, this is how Texans do gas stations...

I bought beef jerky. Yum! And then we stopped at a CVS located catty-corner to the Buc-ee's for me to pick up some Solarcaine spray. The aloe just wasn't enough. So I dashed into the store to get out of the sun, bought a can, and headed back outside (and into the shade) to spray myself down while my friends laughed at me from the car. It sustained me for the rest of the drive. But by the time I got dropped off at my apartment, I could barely move because my shoulders and legs were so sore and tight. I even took the elevator up to the third floor of the parking garage because I just couldn't use my arms to pick stuff up and definitely couldn't rest anything on my shoulder. I felt lazy, but it was utterly necessary.

Once I got into my apartment, I dumped everything on the floor, and dashed as quickly as I could, which was maybe closer to a waddle, to the bathroom. I carefully peeled my dress off and took a glorious, yet shiveringly cool, shower. After patting myself dry, I sprayed down with Solarcaine again, but then faced the dilemma of what to put on my sunburned forehead. Up until then, I had been applying coconut oil to my face for the sunburn, but it didn't seem to be helping much, besides keeping my skin moisturized. I then remembered reading an article a while back about how apple cider vinegar can be used for sunburn. I had some vinegar/water premixed and stored in an old shampoo bottle for use as a hair rinse in the shower, so I put some on a clean washcloth and held it against my forehead for a minute. And it seemed to draw out the heat, and felt better than the Solarcaine. I wrung out the washcloth, added fresh apple cider vinegar and water mixture, and reapplied in the following cycle: forehead, right quad, left quad, right shoulder, left shoulder, chest, and the back of the neck. Repeat again and again. I'm pretty sure I spent an hour doing that, before laying down on my couch and not moving. And I had to mix up more of the vinegar-water mixture. I finally dragged myself from my lethargy to head to the movie theater with my lake friends to see Star Trek: Into Darkness (it was awesome). After a stop to Walmart for more Solarcaine, I got home, dumped 1.5 cups of vinegar into the bath tub, and took a 40-minute cool bath. I used coconut oil as a moisturizer post-vinegar, and went to sleep happy. I seriously think that the vinegar was the better pain relief for the sunburn. The Solarcaine seems to make me feel itchy, sticky, and then dried out.

For Monday's holiday, my plans of hanging by the pool with friends got changed to sitting around my apartment, chatting, watching chick flicks, and drinking mimosas (or water if you're me). I started and ended the day with apple cider vinegar applications. And food? I was too sore and lazy to cook, so I ate beef jerky for breakfast, snacked on bell peppers that one of my friends brought over, and had bacon and eggs for dinner. It was a good, lazy day, that probably should have been spent cleaning, doing laundry, or cooking meals for the week. But what are giant Tupperware containers of frozen leftovers for, if not for lazy days?

Want to know what else apple cider vinegar is good for? Check out my post on Natural Beauty.

Natural Beauty

Lately I've been trying to be more natural. By this, I mean that along with eating minimally-processed foods, I've been using minimally-processed beauty care products. So here's what I've been doing:

For the face:

• Exfoliation = Baking soda + water
• Toner = 1 part apple cider vinegar to 2 parts water
• Face mask = Baking soda + orange juice, play with proportions until its the right consistency for you, leave on for 10 minutes, then rinse
• Face mask = 1 ripe banana, mashed, with 1 Tbls honey and 1/2 tsp lemon juice. leave on for 15 minutes, then rinse
• Lotion = Coconut oil, melted
• Eye make-up remover = Coconut oil, melted 
• Chapstick = Coconut oil

For the hair:

• Clarifying rinse = 1.5 Tbls apple cider vinegar in 1 cup cold water. Pour over hair after shampooing, then rinse
• Moisturizing hair mask = Coconut oil, melted and combed through hair, left on overnight (put a towel on your pillow first)
• Anti-frizz = a tiny dab of coconut oil rubbed on your hairs and then through your hair

For the body:

• Shaving gel = Coconut oil
• After-shave lotion = coconut oil
• Body scrub = Equal parts coconut oil and sugar, mixed together
• Body scrub = 1/2 cup sea salt, 1/2 cup coconut oil, 1 tsp lemon zest

What you can take from this is: COCONUT OIL IS AMAZING! For everything! I mean seriously, it's good for your face, your hair, and your skin. It's also good for cooking, for your stomach lining/bacteria, for brain functioning. Damn. It's awesome!

And as for a follow-up to the Baked Cabbage from yesterday... what better way to eat cabbage, than with veal bratwurst... Yum!

Chemo - Part 1 - Prep

One of my family members was recently diagnosed with Hairy Cell Leukemia (HCL). HCL is a rare form of leukemia where the B lymphocytes accumulate in the bone marrow. Because of this accumulation, the production of white blood cells, red blood cells, and platelets are hindered. What does this mean? As a result of the poor production of blood cells, your immune response suffers, as well as the oxygen flow throughout your body, so you're more likely to have shortness of breath and you're more likely to pick up infections. In summary, cancer sucks.

The diagnosis left us all feeling a bit on the helpless side; there's really not much you can do besides figure out a plan to knock the cancer out of your system and be supportive. I'm still not entirely sure what "being supportive" means. If you find out, let me know. My method of being supportive was 1) trying to be a good listener, 2) researching HCL, 3) finding HCL forums to read about others' experiences, and 4) reading cancer cookbooks to figure out what the best foods are to eat during chemo. I swear the librarian gave me a shocked and pitying look when I picked up five large "What to Eat When You Have Cancer Cookbooks." But hey, what's a girl to do, but take advantage of my local library? Anyways, I've been spending a lot of my spare time flipping through these cookbooks for the last couple weeks, trying to get some ideas for when chemo started. One thing to remember is to THOROUGHLY clean all fresh fruit and vegetables to remove any chemicals or germs left on the skin.

Of course I wanted to be with my family for this first round of chemo, so I made the ~12 hours drive from Texas back to Atlanta, arriving in Atlanta on Friday evening. My dog Riley welcomed me back with a beer, which of course I didn't drink...

As the family's last meal at a restaurant for the next couple weeks (avoiding crowded places while your immune system is down is a good idea), we went to Longhorn Steakhouse, where all of us ended up getting the same thing: Bourbon Bacon-wrapped Sirloin. (Apparently we have similar tastes, though we each got a different level of doneness: me with medium, and my parents with medium-well, and well done).

Saturday morning, we started our preparations. For my family of allergy sufferers (and closet Obsessive-Compulsives), that meant that we spent the next two days cleaning. I think my family's house has been scrubbed to within an inch of its life. We vacuumed and washed all of the rugs and rug backings, swept, mopped, and polished the hardwood floors, dusted the china cabinet, dusted all of the decorative Scandinavian figurines we have displayed around the house, shook out doilies, dusted the vases and teapots my parents have above our cabinets, cleaned the blinds, moved the TV stand to vacuum the rug underneath (which hasn't seen the light of day in a while), washed the curtains, cleaned the inside AND outside of the windows, Swiffered the floors under the beds, and basically dusted ALL surfaces. I've always been a bit OCD about my apartment being clean, but this brought the cleaning to a whole new level.

My break from cleaning on Saturday was a trip to the grocery store. I planned out a few meals to make based on the foods that my parents currently had at home and picked up the remaining ingredients I needed as well as a few other meats to cook. I've already made a batch of bone broth, with some beef bones that the kind gentleman at Whole Foods sawed up right before me. After chilling in the fridge post-slow cooker, I removed the fat, but this batch stayed broth-like instead of going gelatinous like my last bone broth.

It's basically the same as before, but I'll post the ingredients again:

3 lbs beef bone (pasture-raised if possible)

1 onion, roughly chopped

4 carrots, thoroughly scrubbed, peeled, and roughly chopped

4 stalks celery, thoroughly scrubbed, peeled, and roughly chopped

2 bay leaves

2 Tbls apple cider vinegar

Salt and pepper

Everything gets combined in a slow-cooker. Set on low for 10 hours. Wake up in the morning and strain the resulting broth with a strainer first and then cheesecloth. If you don't have cheesecloth, I highly recommend investing in some for the purposes of making broth.

Bone broth is supposed to be good to have during chemo if you suffer from anemia, constipation, dehydration, fatigue, nausea, sore mouth, and difficulty swallowing due to the treatment. It also serves as a good base for other soups.

Thrive Brussels Sprouts

Last month, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution published an article about Atlanta restaurant Thrive's Brussels sprouts. While I was in Atlanta two weekends ago, I tried out their recipe, and decided it was good. Yesterday, I decided to make it Paleo by changing the unsalted butter to ghee and using olive oil instead of canola oil (ewww). Oh, I also cooked more Brussels sprouts. See the original recipe here.

3 Tbls EVOO for sauteing

2 cup Brussels sprouts, ends trimmed, cut in half

Salt and pepper

1/4 cup apple cider vinegar

1/4 cup chicken stock (I used chicken broth because I didn't have any stock at home)

1 tablespoon ghee

1/2 tablespoon honey

3/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes, or to taste

Heat the EVOO in a skillet over medium heat. Place sprouts cut side down in a single layer. Sear sprouts until they are golden brown, then turn, searing the other side. (I cooked mine a little too long on the first side because I got distracted. It should be about 3 minutes per side.)

Season with a few shakes of salt and pepper. Add vinegar and cook until vinegar has reduced by half. Add chicken broth, ghee, honey and pepper flakes and continue to cook until sauce has reduced to a glaze, about 5 minutes.

Slow-Cooker Bone Broth

I was browsing through a cookbook this past weekend and came across a recipe for bone broth, which stated that it's a good option for cancer patients going through chemo. This is not that recipe, however it got me thinking about making bone broth. It's on my list of foods to try. So I figured, why not? Here goes...

Slow-Cooker Bone Broth

3 carrots, peeled and chopped
3 celery stalks, chopped
1 white onion, roughly chopped
8 cloves garlic, smashed
4 lb beef bones (grass-fed)
2 bay leaves
sea salt
2 Tbls apple cider vinegar
water

Toss your chopped veggies and garlic into your crock pot.

Layer the beef bones on top.

Add in the bay leaves, and a few shakes/twists of sea salt. Drizzle the vinegar over the bones, then add water until all of the ingredients are covered. Set your crock pot on low for 10 hours.

After cooking, strain the broth, and dispose of the solids.

Pour your broth into a large container and place in the fridge. After letting it cool overnight/throughout the day, remove the solid layer of fat that forms. From here you can freeze the broth, it'll stay good for a few months, or eat within the next week or so.

As a FYI, the remaining broth under the fat should be gelatinous. It's basically beef jello. The gelatinous bits of meat really freak me out, reference my post here for how well I handled ripping chicken meat off of the bones... it was all because of the jelly-looking bits.

Oktoberfest Spirit

Happy October everyone! I'm happy to report that we had fall-like weather over the weekend, which made me exceptionally happy.

Because it's October and that always makes me think of Oktoberfest, bratwurst, and Halloween, I decided to indulge and make some bratwurst with cabbage. Here's how it goes...

Slow-Cooker German Bratwurst

3 cloves garlic

1 onion, sliced

2 Gala apples, peeled and sliced

1 Tbls lemon juice

1/2 tsp cloves

1/2 tsp black ground pepper

3 Tbls apple cider vinegar

1 tsp parsley

1/2 Tbls Dijon mustard

1 head red cabbage, shredded

1 package bratwurst, sliced

Start by slicing your onions. Layer the bottom of your slow-cooker with the onions. Next, slice your apples and layer the slices over the onions. Sprinkle the cloves, and 1/2 tsp parsley over the apples. Pour 1 Tbls apple cider vinegar and 3 Tbls beef broth over the apples and onions. Spread the shredded cabbage over the apples and onions, followed by the bratwurst slices. Sprinkle the 1/2 tsp parsley. Pour the remaining broth and and apple cider vinegar over the top. Put the cover on the slow-cooker and set for 8 hours on low. (Set for 8 hours, but you're only going to cook it for 6 hours.) After two hours, stir the ingredients. Continue cooking for another 4 hours and turn off the slow-cooker. Done. Happy Oktoberfest!

Note: My slow-cooker can only be set on low when I set the time for 8 or 10 hours. You want it set on low, but you don't want to cook it for too long because it'll end up looking like mine did... brown. I went to a concert while this was cooking and it sat on "Warm" for a while. The purple color of the red cabbage permeated everything and it turned brownish. It may not look appealing, but it tastes good. And it's perfect if you're in the mood for Oktoberfest.