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!

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!

What is FLO Living and Can It Cure PCOS?

Welcome! I'm Carolyn and I created this blog mainly to document my meal plans as I rework my diet to the principles found in the book WomanCode by Alisa Vitti.

WomanCode was recommended to me by a friend because we both have PCOS (polycystic overaian syndrome), a leading cause of infertility. While she was able to quickly conceive naturally and recently gave birth to a lovely girl, my husband and I have been trying to conceive for two years without luck.

PCOS has caused my cycles to be very unpredictable and at this point I may not be ovulating at all. The author of the book also has PCOS but got the symptoms under control and a regular cycle back by eating to support the endocrine system.

At first I was reluctant to buy the book but then I realized that I was looking at having to spend thousands of dollars on infertility treatments, so why not spend $10 first and give this diet a try?

Besides, it also helps regulate blood sugar and PCOS has links to diabetes. I'm dangerously close to pre-diabetes at this point and getting my blood sugar levels under control is important no matter what else is going on in my life.

Ms. Vitti calls her method FLO Living and has a website and a consultation service as well as the book.

She teaches us how to not only get our nutrition on track but also how we can support our body with different types of foods and nutrients at different points in our cycle to keep our hormones balanced.

I will be creating meal plans for myself each week based on where I am in my cycle and what foods Ms. Vitti recommends. I'll post pictures, recipes, and results for each meal.

Along with that I will also have posts about home improvement, DIY, and suburban homesteading. We just bought our house five months ago so we're just starting out on all these things but homesteading has been my dream since long before I knew the word for it!