Hell just froze over you guys

For serious.  I don't know if I've posted on here about Gavin's food aversions, but I have lamented about it often on facebook, and if you know me well, you know it is a HUGE source of stress for me.  He's not just a picky eater, he has a serious phobia about certain foods.  Not even just certain foods: MOST foods except for a select few things, and all junk food.  Honestly, if it comes in a package, most likely he will eat it.  Anything that comes in a happy meal, macaroni and cheese (but it has to be in the blue box!), frozen chicken nuggets (even after I showed him the video of how they MAKE those...*shudder*), hot dogs, ALL CANDY, chips, etc. 
I hate it.  I suppose I could just feed him chips and fast food every day to make things easy, and life would be happy, there would be no tension here at home...call me crazy, but I care what he's putting into his growing body and what's fueling his growing and changing mind.  I cringe thinking about all the nutrients he's missing out on, and wonder if he's sick all the time with a chronic cough because he'll only eat crap.  I get lucky in the fact that he WILL eat baby carrots and apples.  I send those puppies in his lunch every day!  I'd get sick of that much repetition, but I am seriously at a loss most of the time on meals.  I have made it clear that I am not a short order cook.  I make very healthy and delicious meals for the family, and that is what everyone eats.  But it is like Armageddon in here on nights that I try to get him to eat something that isn't fried or full of who knows what.  Its awful. 
So tonight, we cooked out for the first time this season.  Hooray!  Here's what I had to make: turkey burgers.   I didn't have any hot dogs (because I usually don't).  I put the turkey burger on his plate with some fruit and veggies.  Let's get this straight: If it was covered with a bun and in a wrapper that said "McDonalds", he'd be digging in.  But we don't eat buns up in here, and he doesn't like condiments, so this is just straight meat patty.  While the rest of us dug in, Ernie and I steeled ourselves for the stressful meal.
Then hell froze over and some pigs flew by the window.
When prompted, he TOOK A BITE of the turkey burger.  And you know what you guys?!  He didn't die or puke.  It was a miracle!  So, I did the grown up, adult thing.
I cried.  You have to understand how much this is on my mind, every day.  Do you see all my posts on facebook about health and nutrition??  Do you understand that I just want the best for these kids??  It kills me every day that I try to make something that is unoffensive to him but that will not also add to obesity or disease.  So, when he took a bite of something unprocessed and un-fast-food, I shed a little tear.  Awkward!  But that is okay.  I will feel embarassed at the dinner table for this VICTORY, and it is definitely a victory in this house.  I feel like taking all the money out of my purse and showering it on him. 
It made such an impact on me, I had to blog about it and let everyone know I cried over a turkey burger. :)

Satan invented gluten, you know.

Want to hear me gush about the benefits of eating paleo some more? I bet you do!
Sorry if you don't...I'm not that interesting so we'll stick with stuff I'm excited about.

There have been a ridiculous amount of positive changes and benefits to us switching to a paleo lifestyle.  More than I thought.  Quite a while ago we decided we'd try it, because what could it hurt, right?  Most people who care enough to take the time to read my blog posts also know that over the past year I had a lot of health problems and scary things go on that were sort of a mystery to doctors.  Enough that we really would try anything to improve my health and reverse the things that were going on. 
So anyway, we went back and forth with paleo.  We ate a good portion of our food 'paleo friendly' but we also ate non-paleo stuff.  Or sometimes we'd stick to it then get off track.  But I got sick of that.  Literally, SICK.  And I was tired of always being sick.  Sick, and fat...and no matter what I tried, I couldn't feel better, and I couldn't lose weight.  I wasn't a closet binge-er or anything, either.  It wasn't like I was only being good in public and then doing stuff to sabotage my success.  I couldn't figure it out and that kind of thing is so frustrating it makes me want to scream and cry.  I decided to just suck it up. 
The beginning of switching to a totally paleo lifestyle is, I won't lie, hard.  Really tough.  You realize what you are really addicted to, and you want those things you've given up more than you want anything!  Food is scarier than an addiction to crack. Because, you know, you have to eat!  May as well eat pasta and cookies and chips, right??  Okay so we ate pretty 'healthy' in the first place.  But becoming really strict about it takes quite the adjustment period.  I have no will power.  I'm very impressed with myself that I finally reached the point where I could give everything up and do it semi-easily.  I guess maybe 3 hospital visits in one year and multiple doctors visits with different doctors with no real answers is my final straw.  I'm 29 for crying out loud. Not 70. 
So a benefit I have is that I love to cook, and I'm a stay at home mom.  That is a hard job, don't get me wrong, but it also puts me here, in the house, more than I would be if I had a job outside the home, and  that helps me have the ability to find good recipes and make a variety of paleo meals and snacks for us.  If I wasn't here as my job, I would probably have found that to be an overwhelming thing to start.  However, now that I know how to eat/cook/shop paleo, I can tell you: it is really easy.  If you don't have any idea what to make for dinner one night, there's no reason to panic.  Cook some meat.  Cook some veggies.  Bam. Dinner's done.  You can get fancy, which is nice to add some variety, but you can also do it that basic and you'll have a satisfying meal.
What was my point...? Oh yeah.  Okay so I finally made up my mind and stuck to it.  Amazing.  I had no idea I felt SO BAD before.  Yeah I felt bad enough a few times to make my way to the hospital (I even took my first ever ambulance ride...scary), but I didn't realize how bad I felt on a daily basis.  Every single day, I felt some sort of aches and pains.  Did I find that troubling? NO (which is even scarier). I just had lived like that so long, that it was normal. It was life.  Everyone must have that right? No, wrong.  My aches and pains went away.  My constant stomach/intestinal issues/pains/discomfort...GONE.  The crippling chest pain I had been having that made me feel, honestly, that I was going to die (but doctors couldn't figure out) has been gone for months, with no indications of returning.  That is the biggest thing.  To make *that* pain go away, I'd really do almost anything.  I have enough energy to exercise regularly, and on top of that, I *want* to.  When I don't, I notice a difference in the way I feel, emotionally.
Aside from my health problems prompting me to this change, a big...no, HUGE factor in my success was reading Robb Wolf's book, The Paleo Solution, which you can buy here (and I highly recommend doing so...even if you're skeptical about this "paleo" thing.)
I was reading this book and he asked a list of questions, and as I read them, I thought..."oh my gosh. He wrote this book for ME." Because:
Yes, I sleep less than 9 hours per night.  YES, I have problems falling asleep/staying asleep.  I wake up more exhausted than when I went to bed...I really only get to feeling fully awake in the evening, when its almost time for sleep again!  YES, i'm tired and achy all the time!  I DO have frequent upper-respiratory infections.  I DO live and die by stimulants (COFFEE)...I have definitely gained fat in the midsection, even carefully watching my food intake.  I HAVE SO experience memory problems (which has caused much wailing and gnashing of teeth. Why can't I just freaking REMEMBER stuff?!) And I definitely have problems with depression.
These were the answers to almost every single question on his list.  What is the solution to all of these things?  Eat paleo. And get sleep.
I've been doing those things and you cannot truly understand the difference its made unless you live with me.  Seriously.  Night and day.  I still have a significant amount of weight to lose.  And while that's really troubling to me, its a slow process and I just have to accept that.  The most important part is the difference it has made in my health and well-being. 
Another sign of this is recently, I had something by mistake that had gluten in it.  If I was skeptical before that eating paleo was causing all the beneficial changes, this would have made me a believer.  I felt SO SICK.  My stomach cramped up.  I got a headache. I got itchy.  Oh man I felt terrible.  From ONE thing.  I had never realized before how food was making me feel...but going back to the 'old ways' showed me just how awful I was always feeling, and I was just so used to it I didn't even notice. That was kinda scary. 
Another thing I realized, as I thought more about it and paid attention to the effects that slip up had on me, was how much my mood is effected by the things I put in my body.  That one incident made me feel a little crazy.  Like I was on a roller coaster. So I went back through my brain and looked at the calender and I could actually pin point the roller coaster emotions as being times when we were eating only 'sorta' paleo.  Artificial, processed things and gluten actually do, in fact, make me crazy.  You get sort of a euphoric feeling at the moment you are eating those things, and then a huge crash.  I felt overly emotional (which for me, is saying something) the next few days.  Stupid little things made me cry.  This last time, I felt like my world was honestly coming to an end, over stuff that really wasn't that big of a deal.  I cried, felt so overly depressed I couldn't go about my normal daily business...and why would I ever want to feel that way??
Isn't that ridiculous?!  It helped, though, in a major way, to reinforce in my mind that we are doing the absolute right thing.  Eating paleo has changed my life.  I'm not where I want to be, physically, but everything else has made such a huge turn around.  And its awesome!  If you need me, I'll be standing on the corner with a pro-paleo sandwich board on, ringing a bell.

Bam! Bacon!

I feel Sophie's little pearl of wisdom from yesterday deserves it's own blog post.  We were driving out to pick Gavin up from school, and we drive through a lot of farm land.  This got her talking about farm animals...
"Mom.  We should get a pig.  Not a boy pig, because they're mean, but a girl pig.  So we should get a girl pig, and when the pig gets all the way fat...BAM -- bacon!"

Man, she's so smart. 
I've tried to let her know about how we get meat, and apparently she sort of gets the concept.

We have a writer!

I'm not sure if this really warrants a blog post, but I am a mom, so -- it should be expected. :)  I'm not sure where this is on the development timeline for a 3 year old, but I am SUPER excited that Sophie wrote her name today all by herself!  In school we're still just working on the beginning of the alphabet, shapes, and a couple numbers.  She's seemed to be slower at getting how to write letters, etc., which has been fine because I know everyone develops different stuff more easily.  I learned to read early and with ease, and math came later.  Or okay, lets face it, I still can't do math.
Anyway, last week I think it was, Sophie wrote random letters on a paper she was coloring on, so I decided well, she can verbally spell her name, lets see how she does with the letters.  So I've been writing it out for her, hoping she'd get it.  She will say it very quickly, but, as with ALL writing, she has been hesitant.  Come to find out, she's just being STUBBORN, once again.  I was in the bathroom drying my hair today and she came in and yelled at me "MOM I wrote an S!"  I came out to see and sure enough, she did.  She also had followed it with O - P - H - I - E.  Little trickster.  I am so proud of my little stinker!

When she thinks its HER choice...

Sophie is a stubborn little fart.  I have absolutely NO idea where she got that from....

Moving on.  Today she said to me several times that she thought we were going to go to McDonalds and get a mcflurry.  Which is funny, because I never said any such thing, and I have no idea where she got the idea.  If she was trying to convince me I actually said that, then she gets points for thinking that up.  However, it didn't work.  She wasn't too happy that she couldn't have junk food for dinner, and I have had a bad headache for the better part of 4 hours, which pushed all ideas for dinner out of my brain. 
So I decided Sophie should pick something out.  I had her look in the cabinets and in the fridge, and she chose: a zucchini, bacon, green onions, artichoke hearts, and grape tomatoes.  I added eggs and mixed that all up for her, and she couldn't have been happier!  The ice cream was forgotten and she was very pleased with herself that she 'planned' dinner.  She ate it all up, no complaining, and giggled the whole time. 
As long as she thought dinner was her choice, she was happy with it.  And I will say, that she eats paleo food with MUCH less complaining than she does 'regular' food.  If she were to have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, I would have to remind her to keep eating about 147 times during the meal.  Stir fried veggies though, and some awesome protein, and she's done faster than I am!  *Especially* if she helps cook it. 

by chef Sophie

And I'm really happy about that!

Medical woes...

I had my follow up appointment with my nurse practitioner today, to go over the results of my thyroid scan I had last week.  I told Ernie I would cry if they didn't find any thyroid problems --meaning, I want an explanation of *why* I am unable to lose weight, no matter what I do.  I don't want to have a medical problem, but if its something that could give me some answers, I'd rather that be the case. 
I did not go back on my word.  I cried in the NP's office.  Super.  Luckily she was very nice to me about it.  Apparently they still can't understand the source of the problem. I do, however, have a nodule on my thyroid, and they don't know what its from.  I have to go back for another scan in 6 months, and if it has grown at all, I have to have surgery to biopsy it.  When she told me about the nodule, she started asking me all about my mom's cancer, and what type of cancer she had, and when, etc.  So that was a little scary.  She ordered a few more blood tests, which I had drawn at my appointment (and Sophie watched, she's a weirdo - just like her momma).  I guess I'll find out about those in a week or two...but the bottom line is, this was yet another medical appointment, more money spent, and no answers found. 
She told me to cut out processed foods.  Uh check, did that a while ago.  She told me to not eat junk food.  OKay yeah, I know that (valentine's candy didn't count :)).  Don't drink pop.  I don't!  I also don't eat grains.  Or dairy.  Or anything else that could contribute whatsoever to any sort of weight GAIN...and the way we eat definitely should contribute to weight LOSS.  I am personally at a loss and I feel quite a bit of -- despair I guess would be the word.  I don't sit on my couch all day long eating junk food.  I work out.  I eat right.  I drink a ridiculous amount of water.  WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?!

Mayleo

Okay here is the quite delicious paleo mayo that I made. 

I followed the directions from Nom Nom Paleo, who is much funnier than me and also seems to be a much better cook.  I figured if that's the way she said to do it, it would work.  And, it did!  My ingredients aren't quite the same as she suggests, but what I used was tasty, so here ya go!

(I will say, these measurements are approximate.  I don't really always use measuring spoons/cups, but this is a good estimate. :) )

*4 egg yolks

*1 tsp sea salt

*1 tsp yellow mustard

*4 tsp white vinegar

*3-4 tsp lemon juice

*3 cups olive oil

1. Combine all but the oil in a bowl

2. Whisk for about 30 seconds, until yolk has thickened

3. Add 1 cup olive oil in a slow steady stream while whisking like crazy (about 1 minute)

4. Add the 2nd cup of olive oil in the same way (your arm will most likely be killing you by now)

5. Add the last cup of oil all at once

6. Whisk whisk whisk!

It'll get thick and mayo-like -- voila you're done!  In my opinion, this is better than the mayo you buy at the store.  As our friend Nick pointed out, it looks like mashed up peeps because its pretty bright yellow. :)