"Am I good at workouting?" asks Lulu as we walk down the stairs to meet Daddy, beaming in front of a white board.

"I love workouting with you and Haven. Cause Haven an' me hold hands an' kiss in between our situps. We're best friends" he says matter of factly about his big sister.

We were down to only five children tonight - our littlest and our biggest girls were just wiped out today, and went to bed early.

Our workout was a little late, too, as i prepped for the school week, pulling books on the ancient Americas, photocopied worksheets, maps, coloring pages, wrote out my plan for the week, and organized everyone's day for tomorrow...

But finally we are down there and this is the workout:

"Race to One Hundred!"

Pick any exercise you like. You will do one hundred of that exercise. If you can do all one hundred in a big long stretch, bully for you! You will be done soon! If not, every time you take a break, you have to pay for your break before you restart the count, by doing ten burpees.

Burpees aren't my favourite.

I chose squats (body weight) and i got to 50 before my quads were burning (they've been the stars in our workouts lately so there's always a little stiffness the last few days) - and i did two sets of 50, with my ten burpees in the middle...

T is still working out, although the children have all run upstairs for a banana before bed, and i am not hearing any noise at all. We're all pretty tired i guess. Hopefully a good sleep will set us all right for a fun week!

Paleo is still going okay. I'm not as good as T at avoiding carby snacks. Especially when there are treats in the house for coffee, but the majority of what i eat is caveman, and during the week there is less temptation.

Tonight's dinner was delicious -

Travis' Awesome Indian lemon chicken

Chicken breasts on the bone

separate skin from the meat.

finely chopped jalapeno, ginger, and garlic

salt, pepper, curry powder, turmeric

a little olive oil

Mix all but the chicken together. Push the mixture under the skin of the chickens.

Salt and pepper the top.

Bake at 350. Squirt lemon juice over them two or three times during the cooking.

These were delicious, yellow, lemony and a hit with everyone at the table. Wy said it was his new favourite chicken dish...

T made basmati for the children to go along, but we cavepeople ate meat and savoured every bite...

Finding faithfulness, one day at a time...

I'm finding this second try at paleo is a little easier.

For one, i'm finding the balance between all those mental notes i had when we were eating Zone (portion control/ balancing carbs/protein etc)...

I'm not doing any strict measuring, but i am trying to be reasonable in portion control - for awhile just knowing that i didn't get any carby side dishes made me panic and take too much of everything else. Turns out, i don't need a whole lot of extras...

Also, i don't necessarily have to have protein at every meal. I still out of habit think "what's the protein?" - but i'm realizing that it's okay to just have an apple for a snack, or a few almonds or whatever.

Even with one cheat day a week, I am finding that sweet spot of paleo and if i weigh myself, i'm guessing i'm on my way back down. We are also working out pretty faithfully now that T has instituted a post dinner workout with all the children. I haven't been a fan of family workouts (that's a lot of little people popping up and down!) - but T loves it and so do they, so i find a corner to do my pushups in and try to discourage the tiny ones from climbing on me ("Daddy loves that!" hee hee!)...

The cooking is coming a little easier, too - actually, eating this way is very easy on the family cook - pop something in the crockpot or oven in the morning, and don't think about it much except to make a sauce (or a marinade) and get some veggies ready closer to dinner time...

I am still pretty good at baking for littles and not eating any - it helps that there are a lot of littles, but i am also doing things like only making two dozen cookies at a time - with seven children those go pretty quick, are appreciated by the littles, but there aren't a ton left over for me to "clean up"...

I think i can do this!

Tentative Paleo solutions...

Well, here i am again. I know this blog hasn't been regularly updated, which is kind of indicative of my commitment to the paleo diet :)

While i do think the foods list help to make me feel better, healthier, less bloated - i have problems with the whole "caveman" concept - It says in the Bible that Cain (Adam's son) brought grain to offer to God (and it wasn't good enough, so maybe there is the backup for paleo right there in the Bible!) - so i guess they had grain from the beginning...

Anyway, T is still really loving this way of eating - he's lost 25 lbs since the summer and is pretty ripped... And i want to help him and make him happy...

so finally i had some time to write out seven paleo breakfasts, lunches and dinners - and an accompanying grocery list. That way, when i go grocery shopping, i will have everything i need to make paleo foods all week long...

T's come up with some delicious paleo meals, too - and we are loving the cookies we found a recipe for on Paleo Mama's blog - they are so rich and delicious - they aren't really like cookies at all, something better and dark and full of texture and mmmmm mouth feel...

Anyway, I thought i'd post my list here, and if anyone has substitutions, other ideas, variations - i'd love to hear them!

Paleo Breakfasts:

scrambled eggs and salsa

hard boiled eggs and fruit

fried ham and eggs/fruit

protein shake (this isn't really paleo, but T does it. It means i get hot chocolate for breakfast!)

breakfast fruit salad and eggs or meat

breakfast veggie salad and eggs or meat (recipes to follow)

eggs benny sans muffin...

Paleo lunches:

*tuna, apple, and celery salad (with raisins) (dressing : sunflower oil and red wine vinegar) - T also added macadamia nuts and jalapenos and cilantro

*leftover beef and guacamole (this idea was from Son of Grok's website, and i didn't know how good it would be as leftovers - but it is DELICIOUS!) I used the guacamole recipe i usually use, from the Moosewood cookbook

*chicken soup

*bacon brocolli soup (thicken with potato?)

*leftover meat and fruit

*chili

*..... this was tuna melts until T pointed out, no cheese... so i only have six ideas... help!

Paleo dinners:

*beef and guacamole grande:)

*chimichurri pork and mashed cauliflower (T added coconut oil, saffron, and salt - it was delicious)

*dry rubbed roast beef and spaghetti squash

*baked chicken quarters and rutabaga

*jerk pork and roasted parsnips with lime mayo

*bacon broccoli soup

*chicken soup with veggies and salad

Paleo extras:

*almond chocolate balls (from Serene Allison's book, Rejuvenate Your Life)

*homemade halvah balls (from the same book)

*nuts

*fruit

*paleo cookies (mmmm)

The problem is, T isn't partial to soups or salads. And my children are huge dairy fans. And i like using baking to fill them up (bread, muffins, dutch babies, pancakes, waffles, biscuits, etc...). I've always thought a good mom knows how to make cookies!

So that's my problem i guess...

I'm cooking for eight or nine people, three times a day, and trying to keep it as paleo as possible. Usually, if i can't keep us all paleo, the children will have something carby, and i will eat leftovers or protein shake... We'll see if a little organization can help me do it this time!

Exercise

Exercise...

5 km run today through the woods.

Green leaves scattered thickly on the ground.

Dodging other people's dogs (why do they run *around* T but try to climb up my legs? Can they sense a klutz coming up and want some fun?)

The smell in the air is something i thought we had missed out on - the day after the first leaves started to fall, we had snow for 9 days solid, sleds, snow pants, mittens, the whole nine yards.

So it felt like a gift to be out running in the autumn.

Crisp air, and mittens, but i probably could have gone in my t shirt and stayed warm enough (but why risk it?)

It was one of those days where it is utterly painless to run, and you could just go and go and go. I still walked up the stairs at the end (boo!)- but i ran nonstop the rest of the way, and we beat our time record by 2 minutes!

Food - T made his famous bouillabaisse again,and it was so delicious. We've had it twice in the past couple of days, and if all my meals could taste like that, paleo would be no problem at all. I'm still eating a little bit of carbs, but i'm ramping back down, and maybe this week i'll be back on the wagon.

I do find we run out of veggies/fruit a lot faster this way, and my outdoor fridge will soon be out of commission (unless i can convince T to move it indoors) - last week i went out to get a melon and it had already frozen. I just sliced it up that way and we ate icy cold frozen melon. Yummy...

Unfaithful woman, faithful man

So, T has been sweet to me, even taking me out to Marble Slab for ice cream (and he didn't have even a lick...)... But he's still on the paleo wagon, and i'm feeling like i'm almost ready for another try. He thinks there is a point at which your body gives up and just starts using what you're giving it, and if i try again, maybe i will break past that point.

I do know that while i was eating paleo, i didn't lose any weight on the scale, BUT i did feel good inside, and i think i lost fat (because none of my dresses fit anymore, and some of my pants are too big, too. Plus my tummy is flatter...)

ANYWAY... this blog isn't quite dead.

One of my friends asked "What did you eat, anyway?"

Well, i think maybe we were a little unprepared, because while we can eat all meat, veggies, fruits and nuts and seeds, (well, almost all) - we didn't plan very well in terms of combining those things. So i'd cook a turkey and we'd have turkey meat, with a side of veggies.

I've been reading at Son of Grok and realizing that there are a lot more creative ways to eat your food than a few ounce of this, and a few ounces of that. One weird meal that appealed to me from his website was ground beef (spiced, with veggies), mixed with guacamole.

I think the hardest part of paleo for me was feeling like i was missing out. We'd make roast beef dinner, but i couldn't have mashed potatoes or yorkshire pudding (and i love yorkshires!). We'd have meat, au jus, and vegetables and/or salad. And i felt like i was missing something.

I think i need to find some new "favourite" meals that aren't an "old favourite minus"...

So, more research coming up, and hopefully some pictures and recipes... T is still doing a lot of cooking. Tonight we had jerk pork - the children and I had white buns from the bakery :) - but T just had meat. I'm not that hardcore. But i do have avocados, and they go a long way toward staving off the "i'm missing out" feeling...

OH, and T is looking great - he didn't have much fat to lose, but his midsection is looking very nice :) and he's still feeling great eating this way...

Metabolic typing?

Dr. Mercola offers metabolic typing and i'm interested to do it, just to prove that T and me are just two completely different species.

The whole times i've been doing paleo, i've been hungry, confused, angry, and dizzy. T, on the other hand, feels awesome, feels great in his tummy, strong, alert...

So i gave up and had a piece of pizza last night for a snack, a slice of whole wheat and flax bread for breakfast with all my protein ;0 and a cookie in the afternoon that Haven made...

I did eat paleo for lunch and dinner... but i'm hungry again an hour later.

So, not working so great for me. working awesome for T.

Not sure what the compromise will be - most likely i will be Zone during the day and we'll have a paleo dinner (which can be zone, too) and on weekends... i feel bad failing T, but this is just not a good option for me.

On the exercise frontier, tonight was tabatas... 16 minutes of sweat - hopefully it will help me overcome my "bad" carbs. Although i lost a few pounds at the beginning, i haven't budged one number since then, which makes it less a motivation to be a crabby half starved mother all day long...

cheat day!

Pizza for dinner :)

T is big on having a cheat day... i think if it were *really* cheat day, i would get marble slab ice cream :) LOL! But i'm feeling blessed with a tummy full of forbidden carbs and dairy and my "back to paleo" snack...