Paleo Challenge - Week 1

I've decided to make January a ‘reset’ month, where I focus on improving my health, fitness and general wellbeing. D's along for the ride (whether he likes it or not) because I do all the cooking! I'm going to follow the Paleo lifestyle for the rest of the month, use the Cross-trainer that’s been hiding in our laundry every couple of days, and avoid alcohol (apart from Australia Day ;). Easy!

My meal planning inspiration

After a heavy couple of months of eating, drinking and being very merry, I’m actually looking forward to getting things back on track.

I’ve drawn up our meal plan for week 1, done the grocery shopping and scheduled my cooking time. D and I are both back to work this week so, while I’ll have lots of food prep to fit into the limited hours I’m at home, it will be easier to avoid snacking while I’m at work. Being at home can be a killer when it comes to mindless eating!! 

So far today (Day 1) I've had a ham and mushroom omelette for breakfast, smoked salmon with basil aioli in lettuce cups for lunch, and for dinner pan-fried salmon on cauli mash, with Asian greens stir-fried in garlic, chilli, ginger and Coconut Aminos Seasoning. Delish!

Last time we ‘went Paleo’ I made lots of Paleo treats (bliss balls, coconut/banana bread, Paleo cakes, etc) to make it seem less like a diet, but I really think this defeated the purpose of the challenge. This time around we’ll have weekly treats rather than daily ones! We’re not quite ready to do the Whole30 just yet… maybe in a few months. On Fridays I always buy lunch with some of the girls from work, so I’ll get my usual chicken laksa, but will ask for extra bean shoots instead of the vermicelli noodles.

Breakfasts were pretty hard last time - I got sick of eggs in the morning really quickly, so this time I’ve found lots of new recipes to try that are less ‘eggy’ – waffles, muffins, granola and coconut yoghurt for a start. I need to get myself a waffle iron STAT!

The cookbooks I’m using for inspiration are:

• Pete Evans - Family Food and Healthy Everyday
• Against All Grain
• Quirky Cooking
• Going Coconuts

I tend to take parts of different recipes and put them together, and a lot of the time I just make stuff up and hope it works! I need to try harder to remember to write stuff down as I'm cooking so I can recreate the good things I invent (and not make repeat mistakes!). 

Here is our menu for Week 1 - I'm keeping it pretty simple to start off with.

Paleo Challenge Week 1 (click on image to enlarge it)

Wish us luck :) The first few days are always the hardest, particularly giving up bread (and my red wine!), but it’ll be worth it. I hope.

I've linked this post to Menu Plan Monday.