I actually really looked forward to coming home from work or the gym or whatever I was doing last week and cooking up a great meal. Most didn't take more than 30 minutes to prep and make and I never felt like I was slaving away in the kitchen all night. That and dinner every night made lunch for the next day.
Here were a few of my delicious meals!
LEFT: Berry omelet with yogurt and coconut - sounds weird, tasted pretty good! I'm not usually a sweet for breakfast person so I only made this one morning and then switched to a more savory omelet for the rest of the week.
RIGHT: Veggie bread with avocado-feta smash. Seriously, amazing and filling! The smash just consists of half an avocado, some feta, a squeeze of lemon and parsley.
LEFT: White bean and chorizo soup with a side of veggie bread. Who would have thought literally just blending up white beans and chicken broth and adding some parsley and chorizo would be so flavorful…and filling!
RIGHT: Pork meatballs with a lemon fennel sauce and sautéed spinach spaghetti. I have never thought to make meatballs from pork but they were really light, moist and flavorful! The plan is designed to use everything you buy and just 1 pound of ground pork made about 12 meatballs, 6 we were told to freeze for another meal.
Sweet potato, kale, and feta frittata! This frittata was designed for dinner one night and lunch the next day but it was seriously so large I stretched it into 3 meals!
Did I "cheat" at all? Well I didn't have any sweets (like the ice cream bars, strawberry shortcake or fathers day dessert items) or things that obviously contain sugar in them. But, I was out of town for the weekend so I know that there was probably sugar in some of the breads I ate or hidden in something processed. However, that is life...I don't plan on holding up in my condo for every single meal for the rest of my life or asking every waiter/waitress to see an ingredient list for what I'm eating. I believe in balance in all areas of life, nutrition being a big one of those! I'm hoping this 8-week program will address that more in the coming weeks.
Week 2 Prep
We were allowed to eat berries and use sweeteners like brown rice syrup and stevia in week 1 to try and slowly wean our way off all sugar, but I found I didn't really even need them past the first couple of days. I actually had a few pieces of cantaloupe and found it to be too sweet, crazy! Weeks 2-5 are absolutely no sweeteners or fruit to really kick the habit and detox from sugar.
In our weekly weekend read materials for week 2 we were told:
It’s about finding your blank slate. The aim isn’t to ban sugar for life. It’s to establish a clean canvas from which we can feel what our bodies need (possibly for the first time in our lives). While sugar is in the system, this is impossible, as we’re responding to cravings and highs and lows, not true hunger and need. It takes about two months to find your blank slate. After that, it’s over to you.Can't argue with that logic I say!
The focus for week 2 is replacing sugar with fat and protein and filling up on good wholesome food instead of sugar, which actually doesn't make you feel full. I can already see this working in week 1 recipes that that totally filled me up even when I thought there was no way I would be satisfied after just eating chicken and veggies or a frittata for dinner..WRONG!
I went out Sunday and did my weekly shopping for meals like pulled pork sweet potato pie, coconut chicken nuggets and carrot cake whip! My total grocery bill for week 2 was about $70.
Some more resources provided to 8-week participants this week to learn more about goodness of FAT:
- The Fallacies of Fat NPR podcast by Dr. Robert Lustig
- Graphical representation of why the war on fat was all wrong
2 comments:
The program is great isn't it!
I got your blog link from the Forum. Great to see how others are going with the program. I used to eat our twice a week at least, but now that all the meals are planned it SO easy just to come home and whip up something with the ingredients I already have (from the shopping list)!
I notice your vege bread is much darker than mine? Did you use some sort of wholemeal flour?
Susie | june lorraine
Hi Susie! Thanks for visiting! I am really enjoying the program as well and find that I eat out WAY less as well..hoping I'll be saving some $$ because of that too.
I actually used buckwheat flour in my veggie bread instead of almond meal, I am allergic to almonds. I really LOVED that bread, I'll be making it over and over again in the future.
Good luck with the program and I'll be sure to follow along on your blog as well!
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