Friday, April 1, 2011

Paleo at the Airport

I left San Francisco today for Pennsylvania to visit my sister. My mom and I are flying out to go to her baby shower - the first of her 3 baby showers I have actually been able to attend :)
My mom is doing weight watchers and my sister is a pretty hard core vegan, so I am in good company for the weekend. They are super supportive of my diet change and helpful for idea sharing. After talking to my mom a bunch, weight watchers actually has some similarities to the Paleo, like that you can eat as many fruits and vegetables as you want and that you are encouraged to "cheat," or allow yourself foods you love from time to time. I think the cheating idea is healthy for any diet because it makes it reasonable. I can't fathom the thought of depriving myself Birite ice cream for the rest of my life. I have seen a lot of people really succeed in losing weight with weight watchers, so I commend her for doing it.
My sister makes a lot of food from scratch an is quite an amazing cook. I always like to visit her because she motivates me to do more cooking. I don't want to be a total inconvenience this weekend, so I might have to cheat.
It wasn't as hard as I thought to find food at the airport - I had a salad with carrots, tomato and chicken. The chicken was barely seasoned so I think it was fine, but I definitely cheated with adding some of the dressing. I didn't even ask what it was, but it was some kind of balsamic vinegar (Paleo no no) and oil. I am fine with it. I also got a cup of fruit, a banana and 2 hard boiled eggs. I have a layover in Chicago and I'm going to hunt for a juice bar that may have fresh vegetable juice, fingers crossed.
I have been failing miserably on the coffee front, but pretty much on a 95/5 rule for the almost 3 weeks I've been doing this. So I. Have been having 1 - 2 cups of coffee at home, which I make not very strong and sometimes I have a small cup of half decaf from a coffee shop. Really my only fail has been coffee, though, which is pretty good. I'm going to force tea as a replacement starting tomorrow.
I also discovered raw dessert while I was eating at a raw food restaurant an I was pretty excited to find out that I could eat it. They even have a cooking class on how to make raw desserts and Jo wants to take it with me. The desserts are definitely not low fat, which is great for me but not for Jo. They are make of nuts and dates for the crust and things like almond butter, soaked cashews, agave and coconut milk for fillings. So if weight loss is your goal, these should be eaten in moderation. I'm a little confused about an ingredient called lecathin, which is an emulsifier used in raw desserts. Can I have it? I'm not clear based on wikipedia's definition of it, but it sounds like it might be a soy product. Again, if I'm having a dessert with no dairy and no sugar, I don't really care if there is a small amount of lecithin. I'm not gonna have it every day.
Airplane trailmix (made ahead of time and sqirreled away in purse:
Dry roasted almonds
Chopped up dates
Raw cocoa nibs
Cut up dried peaches and pineapple.
If I did this again, I would substitute the dried pineapple and peaches with raisins, a nut like cashews or pecans, coconut flakes and maybe some crushed espresso beans but only a few for the taste. The sweetness of the fruit was kind weird but the gewyness of the date with the cocoa nibs and almonds was delicious.

1 comment:

  1. Hey Lady ~ Congrats on all the success. I've been reading all about your journey. I don't think I could ever do the Paleo diet. Just throwing this out there...

    When my sister was preggo, her doctor told her that drinking regular coffee instead of decaf was much healthier (in small amounts).

    http://www.supplecity.com/articles/caffeine.htm

    "The decaffeination process uses formaldehyde, and there's a residual in the resulting beverage. Thus, you can generally refer to "decaffeinated" beverages as "formaldehyde-enriched."

    Formaldehyde is not a health food. It's a poison. It kills plants, and it does a great deal of damage inside the human body."

    Good luck! You're inspiring!!
    ~ Dakota

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