Crash & Burn

We had company Saturday, Sunday, & today.  We had pizza, twice. Gellato, once. And two CRAZY nights at work. I had no time for the "Big Ass Salad" that I packed the past two nights.  Instead, I ate chips and almond butter. But today is a new day.  After 10 hours of sleep, it's time to try again and plan ahead.

Day 7

Everything about my meal tonight was amazing! Walt & I went to a friend's house for dinner and Rockband.  The menu consisted of home-made sweet potato chips & guacamole, bacon wrapped shrimp and bacon wrapped pineapple as an appetizer (new favorite!), grilled summer squash, salad, and asparagus-stuffed chicken breasts for dinner, followed by dark chocolate and wine for dessert. Thank you, Nicole, for such an amazing treat! I have to admit, it was really nice to have people stay up late with me too :). 0200 is a lot more exciting when there are people around.

Week 1

Work was ridiculously busy on Saturday and didn't leave me a moment to eat. I got stuck eating my tuna salad at 8:30 when I got home. Delicious, just a little bit late.

Sunday night I ate tuna salad, 1/2 of an avocado, and a banana AT WORK. So nice! Also, my sweet husband stayed up past his bedtime to make my lunch for me. So I feel pretty blessed.

On Monday Walt & I had some amazing espresso rubbed steak and eggs for dinner (his dinner, my breakfast).  I purposefully doubled the recipe so the rest could come with me. :) hooray! Leftover steak plus one washed and ready to microwave sweet potato equals one delicious lunch!  The seasoning on the steak rubbed off on to my potato making butter, salt, brown sugar, or whatever you're used to slathering that sweet potato with completely unnecessary.

On Tuesday Walt made some amazing chili.  No clue what he put in there-- other than some bison, sausage, and tomatoes-- I was sound asleep at the time.  At work I took some leftover chili, poured it over my newly baked sweet potato, topped it with 1/2 of a sliced avocado and dug in. Yum yum!

For lunch Wednesday I packed more my delicious espresso rubbed steak/sweet potato/every random packable item in my pantry concoction and ran out the door. After the adrenalin from my first ever blue alert faded, however, I wasn't in the mood for much of anything.  Instead of the protein and nutrient rich foods I'd intended to eat I ate 3 Coconut Larabars. :) Oh my gosh they're my favorite! Not ideal, but not a huge misstep.

Now Thursday begins my "weekend." Walt & I went out to Genghis Grill. I had pork and steak and veggies and a little bit of alcohol (oh my! not paleo per se, but once a week or less... I'll allow it). Then we went out and saw The Help.  Good movie. MUCH better book.

In summary, here's what I learned:

• For 'dinner' make protein that can be easily packed away for your lunch. Make extra. Pack it away right then.  
• Almost anything tastes good on a sweet potato. I love sweet potatoes! And although lots of people save them as a post-WOD food, I feel good eating them. They're also really easy to make fresh at work. For now, they're in.  
• Don't put 3 Larabars in your lunchbox at one time. They'll all be gone by 8:00 and you won't have any for tomorrow.

Getting Started

After starting my new job as a nurse on the night shift my diet went to crap. I went from about 90% paleo to a sadly SAD diet. Not ok. My energy plummeted. I couldn't get through my workouts and I needed to sleep ALL the time. Something had to change. So I've been focusing on easy to prepare meals and packing filling, nutrient dense (that's the goal), lunches. I decided to chronicle my lunches here in hopes that it'll up my motivation when it begins to lag. So, here it goes. Wish me luck.