Trying to come up with a Paleo diet with foods I have on hand is a bit of a challenge.  Unfortunately right before I was going to take a picture of my breakfast, I realized I put my camera in my camera bag in the “on” position.  Dead as a doornail.  Luckily I had my charger with me and it fully charged by lunch. 😀

Breakfast was leftover pork from Thanksgiving hash with an egg, egg white, baby spinach and roasted peppers, with kiwi and grapes on the side.  Breakfast came in at only 257 caloires, 9 fat, 9 carbs, 1.5 fiber and 30 protein.  It looked kinda like this, except without potatoes!  (Thanks Google images!)

I was still working at a frantic pace to get everything done.  I had to ship all the documents my boss would need for trial.  I normally call Tony at 11:30 every morning to say hello and chat.  I thought, “I’ll call Tony in about 10 minutes” until I looked at my clock and it was already 12:15!

I made a chicken taco salad – baby spinach, lettuce, 4 oz. chicken, diced red pepper and carrot with a salsa/ranch dressing.  Lunch comes in at 350 calories, 12 fat, 16 carbs, 4 fiber and 40 grams of protein.

And by 6:15, this is what I accomplished:

It was actually 12 bankers boxes of documents, the last two boxes were in my trunk.  Somehow I thought I’d be able to put all 12 boxes on the cart and actually move it – not!

I am like that though – I try to bring in all the groceries at once.  It reminded me of when I was in high school.  I got a job at a restaurant as a bus girl.  The manager told me he never hired any bus girls because they weren’t strong enough to carry the trays of dishes back to the kitchen.

These were big oval trays and one of the first tables I cleared was an 8 top.  I just kept stacking the plates, silverware, glasses – everything.  I even took the tablecloth off so that I could come back and start resetting the table.  Only one thing.  I could barely lift the tray.  I could see my manager walk by and I thought to myself “there is no fricken way I am not carrying this tray to the kitchen!”  It took me about 10 minutes to lift it up, balance it and get it into the kitchen.

I had two things going for me – one was that I was in a side room that was closest to the kitchen.  Second was that there were no dishes stacked once I got in the kitchen and I just b a r e l y made it in the kitchen before I thought my arms were going to give out.  Not a broken dish!

I walked back into the room with a fresh tablecloth and silverware and start resetting the table.  A customer, who unknown to me had witnessed my feat of strength, walked over and said “hey kid, great job” and shook my hand.  He walked away and I looked into my hand and there was $100 bill!  I wonder if my sister remembers that story.

So my first thought is since I was coming home late, I would just pick up some grilled chicken from KFC, but Tony took dinner into his own hands – he fixed Zataran’s red beans and rice with kielbasa – I added chopped baby spinach to mine – as well as some chopped peppers Tony brought home for me – they are pickled cherry peppers stuffed with proscuitto and a tiny piece of cheese – so good!

Dinner comes in at 370 calories, 16 fat, 43 carbs, 5 fiber and 15 protein.

I realized after dinner after putting my food into http://fatsecret.com, that I had only had just over 1000 calories for the day, so I had a nightime (unpictured) snack of a fuji apple, 1 oz. of cheese and 1/2 an ounce of pecans.  My snack and half an ounce of almonds eaten during my workday come in at 365 calories, 28 fat, 22 carbs, 5 fiber and 11 protein.

After packing boxes, running around like a maniac at work, and putting the boxes in my car then into Fed Ex, I was spent.  I did not officially work out yesterday although my body is telling me otherwise this morning. 😀

Stats for Monday

• 1342 calories, 66 fat, 91 carbs, 16.4 fiber and 97 protein
• 34 WW points
• average blood sugar – 132

It was funny because when I dropped the Fed Ex boxes off the woman was like “you’ve been busy today!”  I explained that they were my bosses trial materials, and she said “must be some murder charge!”  I just thought it was funny that she assumed a trial automatically was a murder trial!  Um, we do insurance defense, not so glamorous!

Alright, I am off to see if I have Paleo chili leftover in my fridge for lunch and I plan on spending the first half of my day cleaning off my desk – I’ve neglected some tasks over the past few weeks and the piles on my desk kinda grew!  Make it a great day! 😀

When I first signed up for this six week exercise and Paleo diet program, I had every intention of giving it 110%.  My first week I did great, followed the program, skipped with wine, ate well.

But then life got in the way.  Being away for my Mom’s surgery, longer hours at work = less time to meal plan and exercise.  So after 22 days I have this to show for it:

According to WW, I am down 3.4 in the same time frame, but that weigh in is on Saturdays and the Zero Scale WI is on Mondays.  I have to apologize to the company that sent me the scale, but I need to eat up the food we have in the house before I meal plan again – I would say this week my meals will be about 75% Paleo.

But the company wants you to get this scale at a discount!

Specifically, we just wanted to ensure you received the discount code Rich shared last week that allows your readers to receive 15% off their purchase of The Zero Scale by entering “zero” at checkout at www.thezeroscale.com.

I still love the concept of the scale – to not concentrate so much on the exact number on the scale – here’s hoping after today I’ll hit the gym hard.  Today is the last day I have to get everything together for my boss who leaves tomorrow for a trial.  Hopefully then I’ll be able to breathe again!

Happy Monday everyone – hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend!

Yep, you read that right – my Momma came home from the hospital yesterday!  Hannah was already there, and I called to tell her I was on my way to the hospital and she said “I am putting Nana in the car right now to bring her home!”

So happy – as anyone knows who has spent any time in a hospital, you get no rest and it seemed every time my Mom would fall asleep someone needed to wake her up for one reason or another.

I made my Mom a sasuage and spinach lasagna to have later in the week when she has more of an appetite.  What I knew she could have right away though was soup!  I don’t really have recipes for these soups because I make them pretty often and just throw everything in the pool and taste as I go along.

The first soup I made was turkey soup with rice.  I never cook the rice in the soup – I cook it on the side and add it when I take the soup off the heat.  I used a smoked turkey breast for the stock – you could really taste the smokey flavor.  And since my Mom loves onions in her soup, I obliged being the good daughter that I am. 😀

The  secret to my potato soup is that I start out with 2 tablespoons of butter and flour, cook that together for a minute, then slowly add three cans of chicken stock – the base is super thick that way.  About 10 minutes after I start the base I add the potatoes, carrots and onions, and at the end add 1 cup of milk and 1 cup of cheddar cheese.

My mom ate a bowl of turkey rice soup for lunch and a bowl of potato soup for dinner. 😀  She also slept for a couple hours.  While Hannah went to pick up her medications, I scanned through my Mom’s cookbooks.  I ended up making chocolate chip oatmeal cookies.  Funny thing was that the recipe said it would yield 40 cookies.  Um, I got 16!

So I guess I made mine a bit too big!

I had forgotten that my Mom used to make chocolate covered cherries every year for Christmas.  She’d make them in November and they would sit for a few weeks before they were ready – when they were you would just bite into it and a sugary sweet syrup would burst in your mouth.

And I don’t ever remember my Dad making this recipe, but I was just talking about making short rib lettuce wraps – I may need to make this one!  Seems like it makes a lot too!

So how are my 2011 Holiday Challengers doing?  Did you survive Thanksgiving Day?  I was down 1.8, and revised my goal to lost a total of 20 pounds by December 31, so that’s 5.6 pounds in five weeks – totally doable!

Can’t wait to get back in the gym this week – I actually have to work today and tomorrow is going to be crazy busy, then hopefully things at work will get back to a more normal pace.  It’s cold and icky outside, so I guess it isn’t too bad I’ll be stuck in an office all day.

Hope you have a great Sunday!

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I had a restaurant.com gift card – spend $35 dollars and get $25 off at Nozumi in South Barrington.  We went there for lunch, only to find out that our coupon was good only for dinner.  Rats!  But we’ve never been disappointed so we stayed.

I’ve never had Sapporo beer on tap before – it was so good!

I got the short rib lettuce wraps again – I want to buy short ribs to see if I can make them at home – they are tender and flavorful.

For my lunch I got the Garden bento box – I probably only ate 3/4 of it I was so full.

And I stole a piece of Tony’s sushi:

Afterwards we went to see the Muppet Movie – so good!  It brought back so many memories of watching it growing up – like Shelley, I was literally smiling through the whole movie!

So I knew I had to go to Weight Watchers and weigh in.  Even though I haven’t been counting points or trying any new Paleo diet meals, I haven’t really eaten all that bad.  The exercise has been non-existent, so I was hoping to just maintain.

-1.8!  I’ll take it!  So my goal was to get down to 150 before the end of the year – pretty sure that’s not going to happen, so my goal is to lose 5.6 pounds before the end of the year, so I’ll have an even 20 pound loss to start the new year.  I think that’s possible!

My Mom is feeling much better – she may even come home today!  I am going to head out there in a little bit to hang with her and Hannah who’s already there.

Have a great Saturday!