Day 3 Paleo

First off let me just start the day by saying that I am feeling different.  I am feeling more energetic and confident and it is only day 3!  I still feel a little lull around the 4 o'clock hour and if that continues then I will come up with a game plan for attack.

I think that is one of the things I have done in the past when I started a "diet".  One it was a diet not a lifestyle, and two when things came up outside of what I had allotted for I typically chose wrong.  I typically just said oh what the heck, I will do it tomorrow, or next week because who wants to start something mid week.   By making this organic, flexible, living thing that is a new lifestyle for me then there is no start stop, there is no will and wont do or oh what the hecks!

So today I am happy to say that I met one of my challenges and succeeded!  The challenge?  How to live my new lifestyle change and still be able to enjoy a lunch with a friend?

I, like many working people, typically eat my lunch at my desk.  Between busy hectic schedules, and meetings, and deliverables which I never seem to be without I typically do not have the time to get out of the office for lunch.

When I did go it would be run down the road to the fast food restaurant, grab something quick from the grocery store down the road or go to the convenience store next door.  I knew the choices weren't healthy for me, but I would choose and buy them anyway.

There are also days that if I leave I leave to shop or run errands but more than not they lead to stops by fast food to grab food to bring back to the office.

I needed to find a way that I could get the stress reduction benefits of leaving the office and going out with a friend and be able to maintain my new lifestyle.  Well only day three into my new lifestyle and the challenge presented itself.

We chose to go to Applebee's.  It took me a long time looking over the menu reading the items that makes up the many choices on their menu.  I knew I wanted to stay away from grains, sugar, fried options and pastas.  I wanted to make my choice be a clean eating choice.  I will say the new Applebee's menu made that choice rather difficult.

My first thought was to look at the salads...fresh veggies right?  Well....

Thai Shrimp Salad.....it contains Peanut sauce not to mention the friend wontons so I decided this wasn't a clean eating choice I wanted to make.

Fiesta Chicken Chopped Salad....it contains black beans and tortilla strips and a jalapeno dressing (which I wasn't sure what it contained) so I decided this wasn't a clean eating choice I wanted to make.

Grilled Chicken Caesar Salad....it contains croutons (which I could have asked them to leave off), I wasn't sure what was in their garlic Caesar dressing and not being a fan of Caesar dressing I decided not to make that my choice though it could have easily been a good option for clean eating baring the croutons and possibly the dressing.

Oriental Chicken Salad....this was a possibility as I could have asked them to substitute grilled chicken for fried chicken and ask them to leave the Christy noodles off.  So this could have potentially worked for my new lifestyle.

But Applebee's has a section in their menu for meal options under 600 calories.  Now here is where you have to be careful if you want to stick to the food guides for what is and isn't Paleo.  Many of the items are mixed together.

The New Cedar Grilled Lemon Chicken with Granny Smith Apple sounds really good but it comes with a rice mixture of cranberry, pecans and quinoa.   I asked the server if I could substitute she wasn't sure.  So I went on to the next item of interest.  New Pepper-Crusted Sirloin and Whole Grains now the title of this should have told me not an option if I wanted to stick to the food guides.  However, I thought it may be possible to just leave the whole grains off and have the wilted spinach, roasted tomatoes and Portobello mushrooms.  Well here is where I was told it is all together so I decided that wasn't an option so I moved on.

Here is what I ended up selecting for my meal,  Napa Chicken & Portobello. A grilled chicken breast topped with Portobello mushrooms and onions smothered in a rich red wine sauce and our Parmesan cheese blend. Served over sautéed zucchini, mushrooms, roasted red peppers, red onions and crispy red potatoes. According to their site it is 490 calories.



Yes there is a wine sauce and I don't really know what was in that sauce but the first thing I did was separate my food on my plate.  Move the items out of the sauce and I limited myself to two of the potato pieces after removing the skin that was left on the edge.  All in all I am thrilled that I found something that worked, yet tasted good!    So eating out isn't this big thing that can never happen, or I can't do an still eat clean and while it may not be as clean as a home prepared meal as there are still some unknowns it is close enough for me.  It definitely bets the heck out a bacon burger with fries, or a quick grab from the fast food restaurant when it comes to my health.  So I can be happy with that.  I don't require perfection I only require

So tonight's dinner is chicken with mandarin orange and veggies and my favorite salad spinach with blueberries, strawberries and blackberries.

And tonight's exercise is a 10 minute AB workout....yay let the fun begin!