Day 28 - Back Home Again on a Slippery Slope

Hello again!  I am finally back from the Land of the Lost, or in my case...Houston, TX!  LOL!  I spent my Spring Break vacation there helping my parents clean out the rest of their house in preparation for a move to a much smaller house here in my hometown.  While they are not "elderly" yet, they certainly need to be closer to myself and my brothers so that we can help take care of them in the coming years.  We all know that time has come for them to relocate.

Needless to say...not the most relaxing break from school and work...but one that needed to get done.  That being said, I don't think the week would have gone near as well if I had not been eating Paleo for the three weeks prior to the trip.  Even dear hubby has noted that I am never tired anymore, never want an afternoon nap on the weekends, and definitely am acting like a younger version of myself lately!  ;-)

For the most part, traveling while eating Paleo was very easy.  We made sure to pack plenty of snack type foods and fruit for the car, including various nuts, raisins, and some dehydrated apples we bought at Costco that are deeee-licious!  We stopped at Buc-ee's for our regular pit stop (do they have Buc-ees in other parts of the country????   Cause we love them in central Texas!) and bought jerky, smoked pork tenderloin, a giant dill pickle, and ate the fruit while the little kids were able to have a hot dog and tater tots.  For meals there, we either ate out (lunches at Subway...club salad with all the veggies, no cheese) or helped out and cooked ourselves.  Since there were a lot of family members gathered together, we even smoked 3 racks of baby back ribs one evening and made a giant salad for the Paleo eaters and had the regular sides for the rest.

Because this trip was so family-focused, sweet loving hubby did treat me out to a "date night" at Flemings Steak House one evening.  We were doing fine...ordered a glass of cab to "share", ordered our entrees (filet mignon w/lobster and scallops for him, lamb for myself, roasted asparagus to share instead of salads), and were just settling in for a nice conversation that promised to be about anything other than children, our parents, or our jobs...when IT happened!  What might that be, you might ask?  The first true temptation both of us have had since going Paleo.  A piping hot, straight from the oven loaf of sourdough bread, topped with parmesan cheese...with two spreads on the side.  One was a sun-dried tomato/basil/herb butter and the other was a feta butter cream.  OH NO!  Seriously?  What were we supposed to do?  Actually pass on that deliciousness?  We eat at a $100/dinner date place about once every 5 years or so (remember, we have 4 kids, 2 in college, and I am a happy (non-unionized in Texas btw!, but still underpaid) school teacher.  We don't go to these fancy schmancy places very often.  We might never get a change to eat feta butter cream every again.  Were we supposed to politely just decline the bread?  Were we supposed to scream in agony and throw it across the restaurant at those other potato/bread eating people?  Were we supposed to give in with the realization that our paleo ancestors surely would have given in as well if presented with the opportunity to eat something so luscious?  So, what did we do?  We looked at the bread, waited a beat too long and the waiter walked away, looked at the bread again, shook our heads at each other and said at the EXACT same time, "It's not worth it." and pushed it to the end of the table and never looked at it again!  We rock!  So proud of us.

But, I did have a few "slip-ups" on this trip, despite my best intentions.  I ate some house vinaigrette (have no idea if I spelled that right!...when some book publisher decides to pay me thousands of dollars for the rights to my blog, I'm sure they will correct it at that time...LOL!) one evening on a salad because there was no olive oil or vinegar as an option.  The next evening, I ordered a Cobb Salad and then realized once it was delivered that it had a couple of tablespoons of bleu cheese crumbles on top...I LOVE bleu cheese.  Despite trying my best, I did not get it all picked off and ate some.  Then, today at the grocery store, I found myself reading just about every prepared salad dressing label on the shelf with the hopes that surely one might be paleo-friendly.  I love salads, but the olive oil/balsamic vinegar thing is getting old...I need another option.  I bet I picked up at least 20 different bottles...name brands to organic brands to "healthy" brands...not one had an absence of sugar or corn syrup or corn starch or sour cream solids or wheat flour...NOT ONE!  Unbelievable what I have been ingesting for years without bothering to read anything.  So, unless someone out there can email me a great Paleo alternative, I guess I will stick with olive oil and vinegar.

But, I am worried that I have had a few little stumbles.  As I have said in a previous post, getting off a diet can become a VERY slippery slope for me.  I guess my saving grace is that I don't feel like I am dieting.  I am just eating healthy and liking everything about it.  In 2 more days, we will be at the end of our 30 day challenge.  I am dying to see how much weight I have lost, but at this point, we are not even considering getting off of it.  We both feel so good and want to continue...no question about it at all.

College boys drive back to college tomorrow.  For their last night at home, I am making lamb chops, roasted mushrooms and asparagus, mashed cauliflower with garlic, and grilled pineapple w/cinnamon on top for desert.  Now, even my reluctant eaters should eat that...right?

Rocking on in my cave world!