Paleo Post

So I promised to do a paleo post so here it is. It may be a little lengthy, so sorry in advance, but I have had a few friends asking about it and its always nice to share recipes!

Ever since I started my job back in Feb. I have been around Paleo. I always thought it was crazy and that I could never do it. I mean I LOVE food! But over the past year, I have talked with my boss and she has given me a lot of tips to help get into it. Also, my sil, Michelle has been doing it for a while now, and loves it.

So over the past 2 months,  Mitch and I have slowly started to add it into our diet. The first tip that I was given was to not eliminate the things you love becasue the process will be so much harder. This is not suppose to be a diet, but more of a lifestlye. So it is a long process and to cut the things you love out first will be like any other diet and you will be miserable and give in.  It took my bosses over 8 years and they are still working with it. So thats what we have been doing and I have actually found that a lot of the paleo stuff has really stuck in our diet. We have never been very strict, but a lot more paleo foods are still in our diet today than I would of thought.

So last week, we decided to start a challenge and eat only paleo! This will be a little harder ha, but we both are pretty determind. We will start out having cheat days, just so we do not get burned out on it. I think one reason we are so excited and motivated is that we have seen it work in people we know, so it makes it easier to follow. We have stuck firm to it this whole week, but this wekend since we are going to Stillwater for OSU homecoming, we will start out with a cheat wekeend. That way we can reward ourselves for this past week.

This lifestlye could be super hard if you do not know how to eat paleo the right way. You have to have variety and you MUST plan out everything for the week! If you don't you will go to what is convientant and that usually isnt paleo. That is the hardest thing about this, its not the food you can or cannot have, becasue you can make some pretty awesome meals/snacks, but you must plan ahead and prepare, If you do not have a meal planned or snacks for work planned, you will grab whatevers easiest.  Paleo is very inconvienant, theres really no other way to put it! Also, some of the ingredients are very unfamilar, so you just have to be open and go find them.

If you are trying to lose weight, or just be healthy, I hightly recommend you try it. Just start out slow like we did and add it into your diet, but don't take anything you love out. You will soon notice a change in what you want to eat. Trust me, it took forever to convience me of this, but I promise if you start slow it changes you.

Meals are a little difficult to find and it does take some research. We planned out everything for the whole week, breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks so we do not have an excuse not to eat it. The weeks have been easy for us so far becasue we do have everything planned, but it is the weekends we travel that will be more difficult, which is why we are starting out with cheat days. And you also have to rememebr not to feel guilty about your cheat days. There are there for you to enjoy and reward yourself.  

Another big thing you MUST do it you want to be effective is clean out your panrty. That was the hardest part, so Mitch did it one day while I was at work ha :) Here are some before and after pics of our panrty...

All the non-paleo food to get rid of...

What was left....

Mitch sent me this last picture and said " who knew we had so much paleo stuff already" haha!

Pretty crazy, but it works. I know for a fact that if I was to see something I wasnt suppose to eat in the pantry it would make me want it is much more and I would prob just eat it. So not having it anywhere in your house is the best way! Then go stock up on healthy food! Our fridge is always packed now, becasue we buy everything fresh.. as you can see we are only using one ( not really even one) shelf in our pantry.

We are getting all certified organic, grassfeed meat from a guy in MO. He supplies all the meat at Ozark Natural Foods (for a very high price), but also my bosses get all thier meat from him as well. So every couple of weeks he delivers all the meat here to our office at a very resonable price! Also, in the summers, he is at the Bentonville Famers Market selling it.

This is such a great lifestlye to have and it is not something either Mitch and I always want to be super strict on, but this challenge will be fun and hopefully when its over we will willingly want to keep about a 80% paleo lifestlye. We want to enjoy what we love, but just overall eat whats good for you. If you have never heard of paleo and want to know more about what its all about ... look it up. There is a lot of stuff out there on it and it is basically eating what the hunters and gathers ate. If you really reasearch it, they had no health problems, no obesity and were so healthy. Well all they ate was what they could kill or grow. So thats what paleo is. Its really pretty interesting!

Well now that I have been rambling about paleo and our challenge we are doing, I have some recipes we made this week. The first week is always hard. We had some trial and error recipes, but for the most part we like it all. 

These are some of the good ones we tried out this week..

Sweet potato hash

Eggs with avocado and salsa

Almond Crusted Salmon

Pork Loin

Coconut Chicken

This weekend we are going to make bison chili and garlic crock pot chicken. I got both of these recipes from my boss and if they turn out good I will post the recipes soon! Also, my boss has a blog of all her recipes, so Click Here to check it out! You can find some really good recipes! 

We made a smoothie the other night from her blog, and it was okay :) I think we are just so use to the sweet sweet smoothies and this will take some time to get use to. But I was surprised we both liked it.

Orange Peach Smoothie

2 peaches

1 peeled orange

almond milk

ice

handful of spinach

*blend it all together and enjoy! 

I was thrown off by the spinach at first, I hate spinach, but you really can't taste it at all. 

I guess we didn't mind the taste too much...

I hope you enjoyed this. I know it was probably really boring, but I challenge you to give it a try. Its hard to get going, but once you get into a routine, it gets easier! My sil had been doing it for several months and has done 2 of the paleo challenges and it has changed her eating habits tremendesly. Its always nice to have someone that you know that has been doing it, or is doing it with you for support!

On a complete different note... we are headed to Tulsa today and then Stillwater tomorrow! I love OSU homecoming and it has been a family tradition ever since I can remember. We always spend the weekend down there with my grandparents and it is so much fun! Go Pokes!

Fun Weekend

Monday is over... well almost! I don't know what it is about Monday's, but I just can't ever prepare myself for them. I am always glad when Monday's are over... my week seems to go by a little but faster.

This past weekend was fun, but took it out of me. I have been busy the past three weekends so I haven't been able to sleep in any and getting up at 5:30 every day during the week was catching up to me. It was one of those weekends where I had so much fun, but when I look back it is like a blur. It feels like we have so much going on, and I don't think it helps to know that for the next several weekends we are super busy. I just looked at my calendar today and we do not have a free weekend where we aren't traveling or having guests over until January! It wears me out just thinking about it ha :)

But a little more about our fun weekend...
Friday Mitch and I both had to work. I usually don't work on Fridays, I can go in if I want, but these past few Fridays I have been so busy! That evening for dinner, we went out with Mitch's parents and grandma to Bone Fish, which is always good.
Michelle and Will got in town Friday night, so we all stayed up late visiting. Saturday morning, Will got up and went and rode while Mitch, Michelle and I headed to crossfit. We had a crazy hard workout, but were able to work in teams, and Michelle and I killed it! I am still suffering today, but it was a lot of fun.

We got home about 11 and had one hour to get everything ready.. it was Peanut's 2nd Birthday Party! Yes.. we had a birthday for Peanut. She is a part of the family and well it gave us a reason to celebrate! We had the AR game on, Mitch cooked out burgers, and we had more snacks and dips than we could eat!
And yes, of course we had to have snacks for the dogs too...

Michelle and I made goodie bags with all kinds of treat and I found the cutest idea online for dog bone treats...

You buy the large milk bones and dip one half in plain yogurt and then cover them in sprinkles and tie a ribbon around them.

Didn't they turn out so cute?? We had to clear out my whole freezer to make them ha :)

And here is the birthday girl and all the guests getting ready to enjoy their bones!

It was a lot of fun and I think the dogs liked it too :) Overall we had 14 people and 7 dogs over that day. Crazy!
Saturday after the game, Michelle and I went shopping, and of course stuff for Christmas!! I can't wait to start decorating the house!

Sunday was a very special day, Mitch's grandma got baptized! Mitch had to work and was really sad about missing it, but we have lots of pics! We are all so happy for her!

Sunday afternoon, Will and Michelle headed back home, and then I was out! I was so worn out I took a 2 hour nap and could of slept a lot longer.

Tonight we are relaxing and watching the world series. I usually like baseball, but for some reason I just didn't get into it this season. But I am still cheering on the Cards. I have been raised a cardinals fan... my dad and brother love the cardinals and go up to st louis once a year for some games. We are hoping they pull it out tonight!

Since Mitch and I have started crossfit, we have also picked up the paleo diet. I was first introduced to it when I started my job last Feb. My bosses live by it and then several months ago when Michelle started crossfit, she went on it and now she loves it. Mitch and I have slowly incorporated paleo ideas in our meals over the past few months, but never were that strict to where thats the only thing we ate. Well we are going all out this time and are really excited about it. I will do a post more about what it is soon and share some really yummy recipes we have already made! It can be super hard if you dont plan and find good meals with variety. You have to get creative, because you are not allowed to eat so many things. A post about that to come!

Have a terrific Tuesday!

Birthdays and Craft fairs!!

I hope y'all had a wonderful weekend. We have had a busy, but good week! It seems like this time if year there is always so much going on, but its all fun stuff!!

Last week, Mitch and I both worked more than usual, so it seemed like a really long week. Monday night we celebrated Mitch's mom birthday.... and of course that involved a Rick's cake :)

It was so cute, and Mitch picked it out all by himself! It had pumpkins all over it :)
Michelle also had a birthday last week! Happy Birthday!

This weekend was one of my favorite weekends in nwa! Craft Fairs!!! I looked forward to it all week, and I think thats why my week went by so slow.
Friday I had to work and event in the morning, then my mom got in town that afternoon. We just spent the day relaxing and then when Mitch got off work, we took her too our favorite sushi place!

Saturday, Mitch left early for work, I know he didnt want to work, but I think he would gladly work instead of going to craft fairs. ha He calls then the crap fairs. I find it really funny until he wants me to bring him back all the yummy snacks :)
My mom and I went with Michelle, her sister and her mom and started at 8:00! We went to the Embassy one first and it was so good! I could have spent a lot of money! They had some really cute stuff and some yummy food!

That afternoon, we went out to the bella vista one and it was not so good. I did get some of the BEST sweet tea I have ever had!! We enjoyed all the food out there and it is always such a fun atmosphere, but they had, as Mitch would say, a  lot of "crap" ha!
I did come back with some fun stuff...

A cute red headband/ear warmers! It will be perfect when we go to the razorback game in a few weeks!

This is the best potpourri! And it looks cute..It is all little pumpkins! I love having this in the house and I needed a refill bad, so it worked out perfect. You could smell it all over the hotel!

This was the yummy food I got. The first one is Hog Wild Dip mix and it is so good. We sampled it and I just had to buy some! I wasn't thinking and I should of bought more!! The second is Cheesy Enchilada Soup. There are a couple of guys from Louisiana that make it and we sampled it last year and I fell in love. I didn't get any last year, and really regretted it, so this year, I was for sure to get some! I am making it wednesday, because the high is only 50! And last but not least, kettle corn. You cannot go to the craft fairs and not get kettle corn. Its the best!

It was a long day, but well worth it. My mom headed back saturday night and Bell and I watched to OSU game and then played outside all evening!

Today, we went to church, crossfit and took a nap. We had  HARD workout today and were both so worn out. We were suppose to go see Footloose this afternoon, but a nap just sounded so much better. I have been dying to see it, so we will have to go one night this week.
This evening we took Bella to the dog park and it was packed!! There were well over 30 dogs and she had a blast. There were 3 huge great danes there that kept her entertained :)

We were there for over an hour and now she is out and I'm sure will sleep great tonight!
She got so dirty being out there so we had to giver her a bath tonight..that is always a process :)

This next week, we have a lot going on. We have our last warm day tomorrow, then we drop in the the 50's and 60's for good. I am excited for the cooler weather, but def not ready for cold. We are going to try and play golf Wednesday and also we are going to the pumpkin patch!

I have some yummy recipes to share, bbut those will just have to wait. I will do a post on them soon.
Have a great week!