I realized this week why I’ve never done a diet before – they are hard. I want to eat the foods I want to eat gosh darn-it. I’m not sure if curiosity is enough motivation for a diet. That being said, we are at least half way done and we are going to stick it out; neither of us are good at stopping something we start.
This past week I noticed a few things.
- I have a very strong emotional relationship to my food. Food brings me a LOT of happiness and comfort; the preparation and devouring of deliciousness is meant to be shared with family and friends. This diet is hard because I leave out ingredients that I feel would add texture and taste to elevate a dish.
- I have slightly more energy in the afternoons. I’m not sure if this is because we switched to decaf coffee in the morning or because we aren’t getting the carb spike and drop after lunch or maybe both.
- I am now half way done and I still feel light headed if I don’t eat enough. Also if I workout and don’t eat enough this makes me really sad (I actually started crying after a run the other week because I was hungry). Thus far, cutting out grains has not changed these aspects of my energy or emotional levels.
- Dinners paired water do not taste as good as dinners paired with wine.
- Eating only steak chili for dinner is not good for the belly.
Our meals this week focused on comfort foods since that is what we missed. We made Italian sausage and peppers one night which sedated my Italian comfort food itch. Another night we made taco salad which is one of our go to meals. With both meals we missed the bread/corn aspect for soaking up the sauce or adding crunch, but the meals were good and satisfying.
To make the sausage and peppers I cut 1.5lbs hot Italian sausage and 1.5lbs mild Italian sausage into about 1-2 inch slices. Then I sliced 6 bell peppers and 1 onion. I smashed 8 cloves of garlic. I tossed everything together with olive oil, salt, and pepper and baked for about 45 min on 350.
For the taco salad we cooked chicken with cumin, chili powder, garlic, salt and pepper (ground beef or steak could easily be substituted). I browned a sliced onion, 2 sliced poblano peppers, a diced jalapeno, and 2 sliced bell peppers in a dry pan until soft. We put the meat and pepper mixture over lettuce. Daniel topped his salad with an avocado and I topped mine with black olives.
Onto the Paleo home stretch!
Momming in Tech 
My only experience with grain free diets is because I make my own doggies food. One dog cannot tolerate grains, the others do well and like you the two dogs that tolerate it are very very “hungry” without the grains when on occasion I have fed them the grain free food. SO my conclusion is – each body is different and there are different metabolisms. I think those that tolerate grains may need the extra energy boost and slower digestion of grains to feel “full”. (the one dog who does not eat grains is not at all short on energy by the way…)