Wow, it's been 3 weeks since my last post! So much has happened. Birthday was awesome and I enjoyed some delicate desserts. San Francisco was amazing but I got a big ol' cold while we were there. It was strange. I had a sore throat and stuffy nose the whole time. This cold did not take me down, too much. I was encouraged to stay in bed for a whole day, which I did. I felt a bit better afterward so I continued my trip and took over the counter meds. We did all touristy stuff and enjoyed every bit of the trip! We ate at all sorts of places, we cooked breakfast at home for the most part but we ventured to this place, Cafe St Jorge and had gluten free breakfast sliders, AMAZING. We had Thai food too many times to admit. We had "Paleo" burgers, which weren't Paleo burgers as they were served with bread (I made a stink on Yelp ;) ) One day we went to Swan's Oyster Bar. The owners were definitely Italian and the place smelled of fresh fish; incredible. I have to note that the San Francisco airport is Paleo/Whole 30 heaven! There is this amazing market that you can buy Krave jerky, fresh food, kombucha, nuts, any percent dark chocolate, and so many other goodies! It was worth stopping at when we went to the airport and twice before we left on the plane. All in all a good trip for eating but not my health.
Once we arrived back in LA, I was seemingly fine, little did I know there was a lot happening inside my body. I went to work the next morning despite being a bit dizzy. Around 11:30am, I decided I needed to lay down. I did and then I was hit with the highest fever I think I've had in 10 years. And so begins my week of illness. I was down for the count and prescribed heavy duty meds. It's been 10 days and I'm finally feeling 90% myself. My weight suffered while I was sick as I had zero appetite. My stomach was in constant knots from the meds and I was having terrible tummy troubles. I did a ton of research on how I could start healing my gut while I was simultaneously killing it. I ended up making a trek to whole foods and buying a lot of bottles of Revive Kombucha. Kombucha is an great way to get probiotics and aids in digestion and metabolism. I found Revive while in San Francisco and knew it would help heal me while on the medicine. I also picked up a probiotic supplement. I believe these two probiotics in conjunction with the veggie broth I made, have really helped my gut. If you are on any antibiotics, check out getting some probiotics while you take the medicine.
The sad part of all of this is, I smashed my index finger (under a barbell at the gym) on June 11th and did not have use of it until this past week. Coupled with a pretty serious illness, I haven't really been able to workout in a month, other than the walking I did in San Francisco. Before the finger and illness, I was at my peak and really felt good about my strength and body. But there's not much I can do now other than let my body heal itself and take it easy, which hasn't been hard ;)
I'm slowly getting back into cooking, which was not a priority during my illness, as you can imagine and not having an appetite doesn't help much. I finally was able to grocery shop this past week and made some chicken wings and pulled pork. I've been wanting to make this pork for like a month. It was very easy. Here's how I did it:
RECIPE (kind of)
pork loin in the slow cooker for 8 hours with some spices, to taste, and onions on the bottom of the cooker. I added some Tesse Mae's BBQ sauce and left it. I got home from work and started pulling it apart. I put all of the shreds and fat back into the slow cooker with more BBQ for another 2 hours. I sliced sweet potato as the buns. Pre heat the oven to 400, use coconut oil to coat them with salt and pepper to taste. Stick in the oven for 20 minutes, flip and do another 15 minutes. Then assemble.
Last week, when I finally had an appetite, we broke out The Paleo Kitchen cookbook and made the cinnamon rolls. They were good but really hard to make haha. Probably will only make those every once and awhile.
Another huge change has been in my mother's life. After years of being frustrated with weight, gluten, sugar and not understanding how to make herself feel better. She has transitioned, successfully in my opinion, to an Autoimmune Protocol for Paleo. The book, Autoimmune Protocol by the Paleo Mom, has helped her immensely. She has a new found love and respect for food, whole food that is. She still craves the "crap" every once and awhile but she has been feeling so good. She has a lot of swelling and medical issues and according to her she's lost weight, lost inches and went from a size 14 pant to a size 10 in 4 weeks. She is by no means rich but she has made whole foods a priority. She is retraining herself. I've asked what her groceries cost as she is a house of 1 (when my brother is else where). She said she saves about $10 a grocery trip. That may not seem significant but it adds up. I've asked her to write a guest blog so hopefully you all will get her story sometime soon. I find it to be inspirational. :)
