First week on Paleo

So, the first week on this strict, cleansing diet has been interesting.

The only thing I have really had cravings for is alcohol.

This is very good information for me to have.

It tells me that my old (read: when I was living alone) habits of drinking a little on the weekends were PROBABLY a lot healthier for me than the habit I have developed since moving in with Dave.

Since moving down here, we have gotten into the habit of having a drink almost every day.   Some days, way more than one or two.

My cooking marathon this weekend has been VERY different to be doing withOUT a glass of wine in my hand!

I know how insidious alcohol is.  I know how it ruins lives very slowly.  I know my own tendency to use it to self-medicate.

And now....now I know that I let it get out of hand over the last three years, and it needs to be better controlled after I reintroduce it into my life after this cleanse.  Which I will do, but with a different awareness.

Also, I have lost a total of 6 pounds (between my 2 weeks when I did a sort of "pre-strictness" diet on my own, and this week).  Those pounds that, no matter what I did before, I could not shed have been melting away magically.

Now, Dave, who drank more than I did, as a rule, has only had one craving for alcohol, and that was yesterday.

He has been having issues with craving his snacks, though.  No cheese. No pretzels. No candy bars.

He says he has realized that he counts on those snacks when he's bored during work.  I have found the same thing to be true as well.

We now ask ourselves "am I HUNGRY, or BORED?"  If the answer is really, truly "I'M HUNGRY," then we now are armed with healthy snacks that fit with the program.  (I've actually been doing that part for months, but now Dave is too).

Plus, we are eating SO well, that there is no feeling what so ever of deprivation.  I wake up hungry for breakfast (which is supposed to be NORMAL....I've never felt hungry for breakfast in my life!), and I have really been enjoying the process of creating new meals on the  menu.

There is a lot more work involved in cooking, but Dave is helping me, and we are having fun with it.

This weekend, for example: put 8 chicken thighs in to marinate, and then brined a sizable pork roast that will be roasted today;  grilled those chicken thighs, which will be used in meals this week on Monday and Friday nights, and roasted a whole chicken for dinner, with some baked sweet potatoes.  Seems like there was something else, too, but I can't remember.

Today, stripped the chicken carcass (that was his job), and got a batch of broth going with the bones; made a batch of breakfast sausage patties for the week, put a pot of smoked sausage stew in the crock, and it's bubbling away.  Later, strain the broth, and make chicken veggie soup with the left over meat, and finally, roasting that brined pork and making some whipped cauliflower (no white potatoes on this diet) for dinner.  That roast is so big, there will be left overs for a pork and pepper stew next weekend.

This will provide us with all of our lunches and some of our dinners for the coming week.

Hopefully, next weekend won't be so intensive in the cooking department, because now I have a better feel for how it works, and what needs to be done ahead.

One week down!