Meals 4/27/15 and 4/28/15

Breakfasts:
Oatmeal Bars
I don't like these very much. They're edible but I don't love them. I put some honey on them yesterday and that was a little better. But this morning I had an avocado with balsamic vinegar for breakfast.

My husband likes them, though, and he's impressed by how filling they are.

I also attempted the chia seed banana bread muffins. I didn't have arrowroot powder, though, so I just used corn starch. I probably should have looked up what conversion rate to use. They ended up pretty bad. Didn't really cook through. The glaze was good, though. I may try this again when I have all the right ingredients.

Snacks:
Trail Mix
Yum yum yum. This is tempting to eat every time I'm hungry. I mixed cashews, walnuts, craisins, raisins, and mini semi-sweet chocolate chips with some salt and a drizzle of olive oil. Good stuff but I need to make sure I'm snacking on enough fruits and veggies and not just nuts and bits of dried fruit.

Baby Food

This was a good suggestion. I got a great deal on these on-the-go applesauces (which are not billed as necessarily baby food but have the same concept as the baby pouches). The only issue for me is that I am sensitive to food texture and I don't like things that are too smooth. So rather than eat this straight from the pouch, I spread it on a graham cracker and sprinkled with raisins. Delicious!

Baked Fried Pickles

I love fried pickle chips so when I heard that you can make breading out of chia seeds I wanted to try it with pickles. 

It worked fairly well. Next time I'll use more oil for the pan and not try to put wax paper down (oven temp is so hot that the paper burned). The one side of the breading stuck to the paper pretty badly.

I tried some with just gelled chia seeds (mixing chia seeds with water and letting sit a few minutes) and others with a mix of that and flaxseed meal. The mix worked much better.

With a dollop of ranch dressing these were quite yummy.

Main Meals:

Carrot Noodles
I don't have a veggie spiralizer yet so I sliced the carrots with a mandolin slicer. The sauce is very flavorful and intense so it goes perfectly with some brown rice.

Egg Salad on whole wheat toast for lunch. I'm really going to miss egg salad a lot when I go vegan.

Caprese Salad with a homemade pesto using cashews in place of pine nuts. Regular salad on the side.

Meal Plan 4/26 to 5/2

Day One:
Breakfast: Basic Oatmeal Squares (with raisins and chocolate chips added)
Lunch: egg salad with relish
Snack: homemade trail mix featuring cashews
Dinner: caprese salad and cashew pesto

Day Two:
Breakfast: chia seed banana bread with nut butter
Lunch: stir fry with brown rice, carrots, broccoli, snap peas
Snack: baked fried pickles with chia seed breading
Dinner: carrot pasta with creamy zesty garlic sauce

Day Three:
Breakfast:
Lunch: egg salad
Snack: trail mix
Dinner: lima bean and sugar snap pea mint salad

Day Four:
Breakfast:
Lunch: stir fry with carrots, broccoli, and snap peas
Snack: deviled eggs
Dinner: avocado with balsamic vinegar

Day Five:
Breakfast:
Lunch: avocado almond butter sandwich
Snack:
Dinner: salad with artichoke hearts

Day Six:
Breakfast:
Lunch: dijon pork chops and sauteed broccoli
Snack:
Dinner: broccoli cheese soup

Day Seven:
Breakfast:
Lunch:
Snack:
Dinner:

Grocery List:
lettuce
avocado
chia seeds
carrots
broccoli
brown rice
tomato
raw cashews
frozen baby lima beans
chocolate chips
(shallot)
(mint)
tahini
pickles

dog food

Meals 4/21

I was going to make carrot cake breakfast cookies but I forgot I needed bananas and I sent my husband to work with the last of them. So I made the cookies the next day. They are very moist with the mashed banana, applesauce, and fruits. I left out the pineapple. I'm not crazy about them but they are okay.

For lunch I did a pan fried chicken and crispy garlic broccoli. It was delicious! My only caution is watch out for the steam. That oven is super, super hot. I got a painful face full of steam.

I went to work with some rice crackers for a snack. I came home so exhausted that I couldn't stand the thought of cooking my dinner. I convinced my husband to make me "cream" of carrot soup (really milk of carrot soup). He had never made soup that wasn't in a can and he was really nervous, but I talked him through it from the living room and he delivered a delicious soup that was way better than what I would have finished with (I tend to cut corners a lot in recipes).

I didn't get a picture of that one but it was great.

Meals 4/20 & Super Simple Rajma Recipe

I had the cranberry breakfast cookies again.

For lunch I did rajma, which is an Indian dish of red kidney beans. I make a super simple version of it...

Rajma

• sautee onion, garlic
• once those are really sizzling, add a few diced canned tomato bits
• add a rinsed can of kidney beans and about a cup of water
• add sprinklings of turmeric, cumin, chili pepper to taste
• cook until a lot of the water cooks off
• serve with rice

For dinner I was supposed to do duck fat fries but I wasn't able to find duck at the grocery store either in the meat section or in the frozen section (pig's feet? yes. cow tongue? yes. gizzards? yes. duck? no.)

I ended up eating some tomato soup I had bought at work a few days ago and never finished. Then I made the cupcakes you saw in the last post. Happily that kept me from eating the mini cadbury eggs that my husband had!

When I told my friends that the avocado black bean brownies hadn't worked for me, one suggested this recipe, so I'll be giving it a try at some point: http://www.skinnytaste.com/2014/02/amazing-flour-less-brownies.html?m=1

Meal Plan Sun 4/19 to Sat 4/25

If menstruation begins...
Day One:
Breakfast: I had such luck with pumpkin breakfast cookies, I'm going to try Cranberry Walnut Breakfast Cookies
Lunch: Wild rice pilaf with pork chops
Snack: buffalo cauliflower
Dinner: caprese salad (must use up some of my basil!) and black bean avocado brownies

Day Two:
Breakfast: toast with concord grape jelly and egg on the side
Lunch: rajma and wild rice
Snack: cheese crackers (made by cooking slices of cheese until crispy)
Dinner: Black bean soup and sweet potato flatbread and brownies

Day Three:
Breakfast: breakfast cookies
Lunch: I will attempt to imitate the amazing duck fat fries at Victoria's with sweet potato
Snack: deviled eggs
Dinner:  mini pies with graham cracker crust and sugar free dessert pudding
I'm adding desserts to my dinners here because I know when I'm on my period I crave dessert a lot!

switching into follicular (may need to switch meals around based on work schedule and menstruation)
Day Four:
Breakfast: carrot cake breakfast cookies
Lunch: chicken with plum glaze
Snack: crispy garlic broccoli
Dinner: cream of carrot soup with sauteed broccoli

Day Five:
Breakfast: toast with avocado, cottage cheese on the side
Lunch: pan roasted chicken
Snack: deviled eggs
Dinner: spinach salad with artichoke hearts

(probably will have enough leftovers to cover the last couple of days. If not, will make more plans when closer)
Day Six:
Breakfast:
Lunch:
Snack:
Dinner:

Day Seven:
Breakfast:
Lunch:
Snack:
Dinner:

I was going to do a whole other meal plan for if my period doesn't start, but I'm getting really tired of the luteal foods and with the cramps last night, I have to count this as a change in cycle!

Grocery List:

wild rice

pork chops
duck

black beans
kidney beans

tomato
broccoli
sweet potato
avocado (2)
artichoke hearts can
spinach
bananas

dried cranberries

mozerella
parmesean

graham crackers
plum jam
apple sauce unsweetened
mild hot sauce
sugar free jello pudding
cocoa powder

eggs
heavy whipping cream

Food Mon 4/13 and Tue 4/14

Eggs on whole wheat toast.

I have a long history of dislike for whole wheat bread but Nature's Own wasn't too bad. I was going to make my own, but I was able to get such a good deal on this that I got it instead.

With eggs and salt it was quite good.

Spaghetti squash with "cream" sauce

This was terrible! lol. The fake cream sauce may work as an alfredo substitute on real pasta but it was awful with squash. Both were very mild in taste and it was just a tasteless goopy mess. I'm not really sold on the sauce at all. I'm not sure it actually worked.

I salvaged the squash a little bit by roasting the seeds.

Cauliflower tater tots

These were really good. The only problem is that when they said to drop them into very hot oil my oil was too hot. They cooked to black in three seconds flat before I can snatch them out!

Bacon, Egg, Leek Risotto

This was delicious but took a long time. I guess I should have known that but I've never made risotto before. It's a very long process. Even longer with the brown rice. I couldn't find short grain brown rice so I went with long grain. It was still a tad bit crunchy when I ate it.

I probably should have done this meal on a day I didn't have work.

Will try this again with more time for cooking. As with my previous bacon recipe, bacon makes everything delicious!

Because I forgot to get pepperoni, the pizza bites didn't happen. Will have to save that for next week. Instead I had my graham crackers with chocolate chips and nuts and raisins.

Food Sunday April 11th

I didn't make it to the store in time to have my planned breakfast of wheat toast and cottage cheese, so I had more of the pumpkin oatmeal breakfast cookies. Love those things!

For lunch I cooked up bulgogi, which is Korean BBQ. It is thin strips of beef marinated in soy sauce, garlic, sesame oil, green onions, and kiwi fruit (to tenderize). That is pan fried and served with rice (I used brown rice, of course!)

We used to eat this a lot. There's a restaurant near us that does it really well but it got expensive to eat out there all the time. So I learned to cook it at home. My version isn't quite as good but it's not bad.

For my snack I did the apple low carb thing: green apple slice sprinkled with cinnamon and wrapped in almond-butter-spread provolone cheese.

This is another aspect of FLO living that I need to build up to: utilizing spices for their health benefits.

I put that with my waldorf salad and a container of baby food in my lunchbox for work. The baby food snack really worked well!

Yes, it was a LOT of apple

Meal Plan 4/12/15 to 4/18/15

Sun 4/12
Breakfast: Cottage cheese on wheat toast
Lunch: bulgogi with brown rice
Snack: low carb apple snack
Dinner: Waldorf salad

Mon 4/13
Breakfast: Eggs on toast
Lunch: spaghetti squash with "cream" sauce
Snack: cauliflower tater tots with ranch dressing
Dinner: spinach salad with nuts

Tue 4/14
Breakfast: cottage cheese on toast
Lunch: bacon, egg, and leek risotto (I have some leeks from last week to use up before they go bad! Also, I'll use brown rice)
Snack: pepperoni pizza tater tots
Dinner: waldorf salad

Wed 4/15
Breakfast: eggs on toast
Lunch: spaghetti squash chow mein 
Snack: low carb apple snack
Dinner: spinach salad

Thurs 4/16
Breakfast: cottage cheese and toast
Lunch: sweet potato mac and cheese 
Snack: creamy caulifower garlic rice
Dinner: waldorf salad

Fri 4/17
Breakfast: deviled eggs
Lunch: tuna melt on tomato slice
Snack: apple snack
Dinner: smoothie: yogurt, walnuts, water, honey, frozen fruit

Sat 4/18
Breakfast: deviled eggs
Lunch: leftovers
Snack: creamy caulifower garlic rice
Dinner: smoothie


Grocery List:
Eggs
Whole Wheat Bread (deal on Nature's Own bread next week at Weis plus coupons)
spaghetti squash (2)
big tomato
apples (for waldorf salad, apple snack)
provolone cheese
pepperoni slices
cauliflower (have some but not enough)
milk
short grain brown rice


Already Have:
cottage cheese (?) check pantry
walnuts (?)
yogurt
tuna
mayo
onion
pickles
brown rice
thin beef
parmesean
spinach (?) still good?
leek
bacon
white wine
parmesean
stock (can make from leftover turkey bones)
soy sauce (?)
cheddar cheese

Good Coupon Deal:
General Mills Cereal one box
Free Jiffy cornmeal mix on savingstar
Redpack tomato cans (buy $10 use coupon on three cans)
Gerber graduate grabbers? (baby food as grown up snacks)

Is It Working?

This is the big question.

I'm motivated to stick with this diet because of the hope it gives me that I might cure my pcos. The only indication I'll have that it's working is if I start getting my period more regularly. So I'm eating right as much as I can and I'm waiting and watching for my period.

I'm on day 41 of my cycle now. My last period was March 1st. I'm at the higher end of still a normal period if I were to get it today but my hope is fading fast. Normal cycles are usually between about 28 and 35 days. I saw some signs that it might be coming, like a lower than usual mood and some breaking out on my face. But it doesn't seem to be leading to anything.

Still, I've only been doing the diet a week so it will probably take more time to heal my body.

I have to keep at it for a few months and see the overall results.

I really hope this works. It helps me to feel like I'm doing something to help myself. I've gotten on medication for my low thyroid so the doctors are doing their part. And I pray, so the Gods are doing their part. But I want to be doing something too to move me in the right direction.

I have to keep at it even when I haven't seen any results yet.

Surviving Eating Out

We ate out a lot more this week then I expected to. We were visiting family and there were so many people to see. They all wanted to go out to lunch and dinner with us!

So I only ended up cooking two of my planned meals.

For the most part, though, I was able to make good choices!

Friday night we went to The Ninety-Nine, which I already told you about. I had grilled salmon with cole slaw and grilled asparagus.

Monday lunch we were at the mall and we got sushi. Pretty good choice, though there was white rice in it. I stayed away from my favorite deep fried rolls!

Monday night I had an epic fail. We went to my favorite Chinese restaurant from when I was a kid. I told myself I would get their shrimp with snow peas, which I love. But I was unable to resist the buffet and I loaded up on dumplings, lo mein, scallion pancakes, sweet and sour chicken, and then a sampling of all the desserts like puddings and brownies. Terrible.

I recovered Tuesday with a lunch cooked by my cousin: chickpea curry and aloo gobhi. There was potato but I ate mostly the cauliflower and curry. Also, she made brown rice instead of white just for me.

That evening we had snacks at a friend's house. She was supportive of my diet and put out apple, carrot sticks, and veggie chips.

After that we stopped for dinner on the ride home and we went to Applebees. I got a wedge salad and a cup of tomato soup. The dressing had plenty of fat but low on carbs! It had bacon pieces and roasted pecans. I was craving dessert so we shared a hot fudge sundae in a shot glass. That way I only ate a very little of the sugar.

Wednesday we went to lunch with my brother and his girlfriend. They took us to her favorite Mexican place. The tacos there could be ordered with a lettuce wrap instead of tortilla so I did that. They came with Mexican rice (which I love) but I asked if I could sub black beans for it. The waitress told me no and I resigned myself to eating the rice, but then when she brought the plates she had switched it for me! I was tempted to take a bite of my husband's rice but I resisted.

Then we got stuck in the rain in mid afternoon and ended up at a Starbucks. I almost told my husband to get me something bad for me like a cheesecake brownie, but I actually ended up getting the fruit and cheese box, which had apples, brie, nine-grain crackers, and a cranberry nut mixture. It was delicious and I felt good about my choices!

In the evening we had dinner with my sister- and brother-in-law. They took us to an Indian place. I got chicken tikka masala and instead of naan I got paratha, which is a whole wheat bread. I still had white rice and I wasn't supposed to have carbs at all for dinner, but I did what I could to stick with it.

Today, Thursday, we're heading home and back to an environment I can better control!

Meals 4/5/2015

Sunday April 5th, 2015

For breakfast I made creamy grits with poached eggs and asparagus. It was very mild. Grits are mild, asparagus is mild, egg is mild. We had some leftover smoked salmon so I had some of that with it. I don't think I'd make this one again.

For lunch I ended up eating some of a dish my uncle makes called Lazy Lasagna. It is noodles and ricotta cheese and sour cream. It's one of my favorite things. I need to check what the noodles were because I think they may have been egg noodles, which wouldn't be as bad for my diet as regular simple carb noodles.

For dinner I cooked my family "mac" and cheese where the noodles were replaced with baked butternut squash.

The recipe calls for one of those vegetable spiralizers but I didn't have one so I just sliced it up into little squares.

It turned out delicious but I think it would have been better and tasted a lot more like mac and cheese if I had used a spiralizer/zoodle maker. Will be making this again for sure!

Good Choices Eating Out

Arriving at my parent's place, we decided to go out to eat that night. It was the first time for me going to a restaurant since I started this diet last week.

Usually the "health" options on the menu are not very appealing. Who wants grilled chicken with vegetables? Not me, anyway. It doesn't get more boring than grilled chicken in my opinion.

But this restaurant had a grilled salmon and that was a whole different story!

I happily ordered salmon with asparagus and grilled tomatoes and switched the broccoli side for cole slaw (I like broccoli but only cooked particular ways and I rarely like it at restaurants).

I avoided potato, breading, and we didn't have dessert. Though we did eat some dark chocolate cookies at home.

So that was a pretty good success!

The next day was a brunch and pot luck event. I didn't do quite as well there. Had some brownies. But for the most part I made good choices like wheat toast with almond butter and apricot jelly.

So far for this week we have the following meals planned that I'll cook for my family:

• Creamy grits with asparagus and poached egg
• Spaghetti squash with regular pasta sauce (my parents were curious to try the spaghetti squash)
• Butternut squash zoodle mac and cheese (I don't have a zoodle machine so I'll just be cutting small pieces of squash to be the macaroni noodles)
• sweet potato falafel (falafel is one of my dad's favorite foods)
• almond crusted chicken tenders (still need to get ingredients for this one)

What Happens If I Change Phases Mid-Week?

Since our meal plans are built around where we are in our cycles, what do we do if our cycle phase shifts while we're in the middle of a week?

I'm back to taking my temperature to get a baseline even though it doesn't currently tell me much about where I am in my cycle yet. Eventually I'll have more warning about when I am likely to switch phases (and exactly where the elusive Ovulation phase is). If this diet works, anyway. I expect to see my temperature charts make more and more sense as I eat with these principles.

In the mean time the only thing that will switch my meal plan for me is if I start menstruating.

Since that's only about three or maybe four days for me, what I will probably do is put the current meal plan on hold and freeze/store whatever I can for the next time I'm in Luteal phase. Then I'd make a quick meal plan and get to the grocery store that day (pretty convenient for me since I work at a grocery store!) Whatever I can't store for later I'll try to work into the new meal plan.

Friday's Airplane Snacks

Here are the snacks I prepared for myself when traveling...

Cucumber Crisps
I sliced cucumber very thin and I think I actually need to leave it a little thicker. My slices dried so much they were little more than just curls of skin!

I used my NuWave oven to dehydrate. It's a fantastic little device that I got as a gift from my mother-in-law. It's nice for cooking small meals for two rather than heating the whole oven. According to the chef on YouTube it also has cool uses like dehydrating.

Crispy Green Beans

Total failure. Again I tried to use my NuWave to dehydrate and again I got shriveled little bits of vegetable but it wasn't even crispy. I'm calling BS on the idea that the NuWave can function as a dehydrator.

I really want crispy green beans to work but I'm not sure it's worth getting yet another kitchen gadget to do it! Besides, what if I buy one and it still doesn't work?

Then again, it is only $40

Buffalo Cauliflower
This one was a winner! It is battered (I used Urad flour instead of garbanzo because I couldn't find my besan. I'm sure I have it somehwhere) and baked, then the hot sauce is added and it is baked again. It's nice and crispy.

My husband doesn't care for cauliflower so he was skeptical as I cooked this. But then he ate one and said, "This is great. You have to make this again."

Healthy Fudge
This fudge is free of gluten, dairy, and processed sugar! It's also super easy to make. (Yet another instance where I wish I still had my food processor!)

I happened to already have all the ingredients on hand for this one. Even the coconut oil (which I bought a while ago knowing it was healthy but not actually ever using it yet!)

Meals 3/27/2015 to 3/29/15

My first week!

Here was the plan (Luteal phase):

Fri 3/27/15
Breakfast: Sweet potato with cottage cheese and rasins
Lunch: Lettuce wrap beef and brown rice tacos with turnip homefries
Snack: Hummus and rice crackers
Dinner: Cauliflower pizza

Sat 3/28/15
Breakfast: Sweet potato with cottage cheese and rasins
Lunch: Mini meatloafs and roasted parsnip
Snack: hummus and rice crackers
Dinner: Spinach salad with cucumber

Sun 3/29/15
Breakfast: Baked eggs in avocado
Lunch: Sweet potato pumpkin leek soup and broiled sesame cod
Snack: Green apple and almond butter
Dinner: Broccoli bites

So how did it go?

Day One:

I like sweet potatoes and I like cottage cheese and I like raisins, yet somehow this combination was disgusting. Perhaps it was the heat of the potato against the cold of the cheese that I didn't like. I don't know. But it meant that I pushed up the avocado breakfast by a day because I was not going to eat the sweet potato one again.

The tacos with romaine lettuce instead of a shell was delicious. I liked that a lot. I wasn't even missing the shell part at all. I put some brown rice in (I always disliked brown rice before but it turns out I wasn't cooking it right. Have to put in twice as much water and twice the cooking time of white rice!). I seasoned beef with taco seasoning and then I put shredded cheese on top. An excellent meal.

Brown rice redeems itself

For the snack, for some reason I couldn't find rice crackers at the store. So I got seed crackers from the gluten free section instead. They are really good! I ate them with hummus and cucumber and it was the perfect snack.

(I was at work over snack and dinner time so I packed one of my bento "laptop lunch boxes" I love these things! The mix and match inner containers fit into an outer lunch box shell.

Dinner was pizza made with pureed cauliflower as the crust. This is something I had seen on Pinterest for a while and I wanted to try it. I'm not sure how I like this. First off, I accidentally left the egg out so that may change my results significantly and I'll have to try it again. I also really need a new food processor because mine broke and I used our little blender for this. Not ideal!

It was soggier than it should have been (so hard to get all the water out!) and it tasted odd but not terrible. Definitely want to try again with the egg in the recipe.

Day Two:

Went for the baked avocado and I hated that too! I love avocado. And I love eggs. And look how gorgeous it turned out!

What should have been the perfect breakfast!

Yet it was awful. Maybe I should have used Haas instead. Florida avocados may be too sweet for this recipe. But I'm not willing to waste expensive avocado to try again.

Lunch was mini meatloafs which are an old stand-by in our house. I don't even remember where I got the recipe anymore. You just take beef, an egg, some breadcrumbs, and chopped onion and green bell pepper. Mix together and add to muffin tin. Bake until done and eat with ketchup. They are cute and yummy! This time to extend our beef I put grated carrot in as well and I used crushed gram crackers for the bread crumbs. Both added a sweetness that enhanced the meal. My husband and I both loved the update.

I roasted parsnips but then I was reading that parsnip may be just as starchy as regular potato so I don't know if it's the best choice.

Dinner was super simple (my husband ate the lunch meal for dinner, of course). I had leaf spinach with veggies and olive oil as dressing.

Day Three:

Having no more plans for breakfast ideas, I ate leftover mini meatloafs.

For lunch we had soup and fish. The soup was really good. Again I need a food processor! Unfortunately I discovered that I don't like cod very much. Even just the smell of it cooking was off-putting to me. My husband loved the meal but I don't think I'll be doing sesame crusted cod again.

Dinner was a similar situation. I made these cheesy broccoli fritters and my husband liked them while I didn't. They also had breadcrumbs which kind of ruined the "avoid carbs at dinner" rule. 

***

Sunday I planned and grocery shopped and started a new meal plan for Monday. More on those meals next time!

Getting Started

Some basic principles for your diet from WomanCode:

• Only complex carbs and natural sugars
• Avoid all carbs and sugars for dinner
• Make lunch the largest meal of the day
• Focus on protein for breakfast

There is a fantastic chart in the book that has a breakdown of each of the four phases of your cycle and what kinds of foods are best. It's divided by grains, fruits, meats, seafoods, etc. I have the Kindle version and the chart was hard to read for me. This may be a good reason to get the print version and copy the page for reference.

What I did to make meal planning easy for myself in the future is that I created a spreadsheet with a master meal plan list.

I have sections for each of my cycle's four phases and columns for breakfast, lunch, snack, and dinner. Then I started picking ingredients from the book's list and looking up recipes for them on Pinterest and Google. When I found a recipe that sounded/looked delicious and matched the principles, I added it to my master spreadsheet.

So now when I need to meal plan for the week I can look at what phase I'm in and pick meals from that section of my master meal plan sheet.

There's just one little problem with my system...I don't know what phase of my cycle I'm in!

This is one of the challenges of PCOS. I have about three periods a year at most. My temperature doesn't tell me anything useful (I learned how to monitor my temperature for signs of ovulation from the classic Taking Charge of Your Fertility, which is a must read for every woman whether she wants children or not!)

So where do I start? I decided that I'm probably/possibly in the Luteal phase because I'm experiencing intense nesting urges and I'm doing more cleaning and organizing than I have all year! Although that could also be that the weather is finally turning spring-like after an intense winter.

It's all I have to go on unless I want to wait possibly six to nine months to get another period and know for certain I'm in the Menstrual phase. So I'll start there and see how it goes.

I've been on the diet plan for one week so far and next time I'll give you a summary of my meals for this past week!