Tag Archives: Dairyfree

Day 39-Dena Doesn’t Eat Cheese…

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Drunk Dena, However…That’s another story. Everyone has their weaknesses and temptations when it comes to food.  By now, it is very easy for me to avoid my food allergies of gluten, dairy, and eggs under normal circumstances. I have had enough experiences over the years where I have eaten food containing these ingredients and have felt the negative effects. Logic kicks in and I know to avoid it. On the other hand, give me too many drinks and I need cheese immediately…and I mean immediately. Exhibit A: 30th Birthday,October 2014. Exhibit B: New Years Eve 2015.  I do not know what it is about cheese, but for me…It was what I lived for as a child.  My earliest memories of food obsession was visiting my grandparents’ house. After dinner, my grandma would tell me that I had enough macaroni and cheese and would put the tupperware away in the fridge.  I recall sneaking into the fridge quietly and would help myself to additional noodles.

I guess what I am trying to say is: know your temptations.  Is it a specific food? Is it situational?  Try to be aware of what they are so you can do your best to control the situation.  Do not keep these items in the house if you can avoid doing so. If you are going to a party, eat something small before hand and do not be afraid to pack your own snacks. My favorites are mixed nuts and cut up vegetables like celery and carrots. Last week, we went to a super bowl party and Cliff had to remind me that it would be weird to bring left over pork so I refrained from doing so.

In addition to cheese, I learned that another weakness of mine is desserts that I can technically eat because they do not contain ingredients that I am allergic to. This past Saturday, Cliff and I had some people over to our apartment and I wanted to make some dessert.  I found this amazing Paleo friendly 7-Layer Bar recipe as well as a Paleo Egg-Free Chocolate Coconut Macaroon recipe online that I decided to try.  Now remember, just because something is Paleo or gluten free, does not make it healthy!  It had been over a month since I had sugar and various items like alcohol and grains so I wanted to treat myself and see how my body reacted off the detox.

Between Saturday and going to a friend’s house warming on Sunday, I consumed a few drinks, grains (quinoa), starchy vegetables (sweet potato), chips, soft corn tortillas for homemade tacos, and my Paleo friendly desserts sweetened with honey. The most noticeable reaction that I had was in response to the sugar.  There was a lot of honey in the desserts that I made and as I got shaky after tasting them for the first time!  I decided that Monday I would get back on track. To do this, I knew that I could not have any left overs Paleo desserts in our apartment.  I had to give all the leftovers to Cliff to bring in to give out to his co-workers.  If I brought them into my own work, I would gravitate towards them throughout the day. Interestingly, the past couple of days has been harder at night for me. Monday I had the worse headache.  It’s crazy how my body was feeling withdrawal just from indulging during the weekend. Also interestingly, I  have been craving something sweet at night and I have been snacking on grapes after dinner to try and satisfy my cravings.  In hindsight, the smart thing to do would have been to introduce one item at a time to see how it made me feel. Maybe next time!

-Dena

Cliff Progress Photos!

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I will keep it short and sweet today.  I’ve lost 9.8 pounds and I have a before and after picture. Look what changing your diet and some exercising can do for you in just 30 days:

Before_After_DetoxBefore_After_Detox_Side

Dena Day 13- Finding Balance

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I am learning that the hardest part for me of this detox process has been finding balance…especially now that I have introduced going to the gym! For the first week or so, I had found my rhythm and was doing really well on prepping meals.  If I didn’t have the groceries I needed for dinner, I had plenty of time to swing by the grocery store, meat or fish market, and eat at a decent hour. But, it was time to get sweating (and not from the oven while cooking up a storm). Two nights ago was my first day back into the gym and I had planned to go straight after work since I am not a morning person.  My first set back was when I ran out of time in the morning and did not pack my gym bag.  The truth was…I had no idea where my gym bag even was! No problem!  I’ll just swing by my apartment after work to change and head on to the gym! Well do you know how cold it was that night?!? And my apartment was soooo warm.  I convinced myself that I HAD to go since I failed the night before but I will only do a quick workout. After all, by the time I got home it was around 6pm and I also needed to run to the meat market to pick up ground turkey meat for the cauliflower pizza crust I wanted to make that night, and the meat market closed at 7pm.  So…I never made this recipe before, but how much trouble could it really be?  The funny thing is that I had no excuses not to go to the gym in the cold. I was going to walk to the meat market and the meat market is literally a block and a half away from the gym.  After the gym, the meat market, and the vegetable market to pick up the cauliflower, I was finally  home!  It is now a little after 7pm.  My advice to you is to: A- read the entire directions of a recipe beforehand and/or B-try more complicated dishes on the weekend if you are pressed for time during the week.  This meal was delicious do not get me wrong and I will definitely make it again. However, It just took longer than I expected! By the time I finished cooking, it was 9:15pm.

Lessons Learned (sort of)

The next day I made sure to bring my gym clothes to work in my recently found gym bag. Also, we had leftovers of pizza we were able to bring for lunch which was nice. Cliff was going to be at a comedy show at night so I did not have to worry about eating together and what I was going to make. But, I realized that we needed food for the next day’s lunch and dinner since we were going to see a show after work.  For some reason after work, I was really hungry so instead of going straight to the gym, I decided to go home and eat something small, digest a little bit, then go to the gym, then cook meals for the next day. Finished up at 10:15pm and I was exhausted!

Lessons Learned 

  • Plan meals ahead- decide what you are going to eat for the week or at least a few days at a time
  • Spend some time on the weekends going food shopping and gathering all of your supplies.
  • Cook a bunch on Sunday to get you through the beginning of the week
  • When possible, make extra food and freeze it for emergencies or when you do not feel like cooking. This works great with burgers!
  • Stock your cabinets with proteins like canned salmon, and sardines.  This can easily be added to a salad to create a quick meal.

-Dena

Almond-Flax Crusted Chicken Wings

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Looking for a great recipe for Healthier wings during the NFL Championship games this weekend?  Check out this amazing meal!

Almond-Flax Crusted Chicken Wings

Almond-Flax Crusted Chicken Wings

We adapted Dr. Hyman’s delicious recipe for chicken breasts and applied it to chicken wings when entertaining guests at the apartment to watch football.  These were definitely a hit!  For me, my goal is always to make things that taste delicious even to people that are not detoxing. For this recipe, I omitted  the onions that are listed in the recipe and create 2.5x the liquid mixture that was covering the chicken wings in order to cover all the surface area. We had a lot of wings (approx 24)!   Also, we did not let the chicken marinate 1-24 hours prior to making the dish to enhance the flavor.  There were some hungry  mouths to feed!  We ended up cooking these for 10 minutes and flipping them and cooking for an additional 10 minutes on the other side. I suggest purchasing a meat thermometer to double check the internal temperature of these. In general, for chicken you are looking for a final internal temperature of 165º F for white meat and about 180º F for dark meat.  (USDA recommendations).

Enjoy!

-Dena

http://drhyman.com/blog/2010/05/18/recipe-almond-flax-crusted-chicken/

Dena-Day 7

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Starting a new plan and way of eating can be very daunting and appear to require too much work and effort on your part.  Last March, when Cliff and I did Dr. Hyman’s 10 Day Detox Diet, I stressed way too much over having to be perfect and I did not want to stray too far from the dinner recipes given in the book.  The best part of following the book’s recipes was that I learned many new recipes and found some new favorites which I have continued to make regularly.  If this is your first time trying to detox, I HIGHLY recommend following Dr. Hyman’s plan and trying as many recipes in the book as you can! They are super yummy! However, instead of following one of these recipes, Dr. Hyman does say that you can opt for choosing a green to steam or lightly saute such as broccoli, asparagus, arugula, spinach, kale or chard, and combine it with 4-6oz of protein such as chicken, turkey, salmon, shrimp, grass-fed meat,canned salmon, sardines or herring, hard boiled omega 3 eggs,tofu or temph.

So this time around, in order to save some time and relieve stress, Cliff and I are trying to make dinners so we have leftovers that will last us.  My favorite thing to make is a roasted chicken.  And by my favorite thing to make…I really mean my favorite thing I eat that I make Cliff make.  It requires very little effort to cook one of these and in my opinion, you get the most bang for your cluck…I mean buck. Now we have left overs that are versatile and can go in many dishes.  I was able to add some chicken to my salad I had for lunch today and Cliff and I had some for dinner tonight and there is still a bunch left!  Another cooking time saver I have discovered is roasting vegetables.  Drizzle a little olive oil, salt, and pepper over your veggies and pop them in the oven. I make sure I make extra so I have those leftovers.  Tonight’s dinner included chicken, left over broccoli and mashed garlic cauliflower (another one of my favorite sides!)
Chicken
ChickenDinner

Day 4 Cliff

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cropped-cliffcarrotpic3.jpg

^—I may have taken the whole eating “as many vegetables as you want” too far.

The worst part of this whole Detox is the amount of times I now have to go to the bathroom every day and throughout the night.  Trying to do the whole 7-8 glasses of water every day has been a huge challenge.  No sugar, easy!  No caffeine, easy! (okay, easy after some major headaches) but battling a full bladder, harder than ever imagined.

I am looking much less bloated and my weight has been steadily declining:

  • Day 1: 146.8
  • Day 2: 145
  • Day 3: 144.2
  • Day 4: 143.4

As I am writing this, a coworker just sent my team a box full of cookies and muffins, time to test that self control of mine.  Forming a habit takes 21-66 days, so I can’t go breaking now, even though they look so damn delicious. (I’ve hidden some away until February)

Sleep has been another problem.  I have gone from 5-6 hours a night of sleep to 7-8 hours of sleep.  While I do feel more rested throughout the day, my nights are much more restless and I wake up numerous times throughout the night.  Could it be my body craving all those sweets?  Guess we’ll have to wait and see if it improves.

Today my meals are:

  • Breakfast
    • Strawberry Banana Peanut Butter Protein Shake (forgot the hemp protein, oops)
  • Lunch
    • Almond Crusted Chicken
    • Asparagus
    • Okra
  • Dinner
    • Salmon with a red onion marmalade
    • Whatever vegetable side I decide on

-Cliff

Cliff Day 2

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Cliff Day 2:

Day 2 of the detox begun with a rough night of sleep, but this is normal as my body is missing all of the things that it used to get every day.  So far, this whole detox is not so bad.  Obviously no results so far, but also not craving any of the sweets.  Although, I am missing the caffeine like woah at work today, and my focus is all over the place.  Hoping this will improve over time.

As for working out I plan on going back to the gym on Thursday.  I have had a bum elbow thanks to tendinitis for some time now and am hoping after this next physical therapy visit, I will be cleared to begin my upper body workouts again.  Worst comes to worst it’ll just be legs and cardio.