Yummy paleo treats

I came home from a wonderful family party tonight w a full belly. My aunt made delicious meat balls and sausage in a red sauce. While everyone else enjoyed meatball and sausage sandwiches I enjoyed eating plain ol' meat balls and sausages. Plus a wonderfully large salad w balsamic vinegar. And the were just amazing! The best part of all? I complimented the meal so much that she sent me home with some leftovers for lunch!

She gave me the recipe and trust me I will be making this sooner than later. 

So after that amazing dinner, everyone gathered around the counter. For what you say?

                                         A sundae bar, of course!

So I stared at it and for a second and went on with my life as my family stuffed their faces with that deliciousness. 

I came home with quite a sweet tooth. I went to raid the kitchen and I found something good!!

Raw cacao I found at Mother's Market

                                    Raw Almond butter 

                                   (also a Mother's treat)

I took the raw almond butter

and spread it all over the small

piece of cacao 

                     I took some unsweetened coconut flakes and just did what came natural to me....

 And then I was happy. It was delectable. Just what I needed after a nice meal.

Good days keep on comin

My kombucha is done!! It's all in the fridge and ready for me to drink. For being my first batch I think it came out amazing.

My favorite by far is the plain strawberry. It's sweet and delicious and bubbly. Tomorrow im gonna show a really good whole roasted chicken recipe so stay tuned for that!

My accomplishment and the temptation

So today was a great day! Today is exactly 30 days that I have been Paleo. No mistakes. No cheats. And I must say I'm incredibly proud of myself. I have some great numbers to post up without any shame because I am still going to lose more weight and gain more muscle. 

Starting weight: 136

Waist: 33.5

Hips: 37.5

Arms: 12.5

Legs: 21.5

30 day weight: 127

Waist: 30.5 (-3 inches)

Hips: 35.5 (-2 inches)

Arms: 11.5 (-1 inch)

Legs: 21 (-.5 inch)

I'm extremely happy with what I've accomplished in 30 short days. It took me a year to put on about 15 pounds and in 30 days I'm already down 9. I'm not at the end of my journey, just at the beginning. Tomorrow I'm going to start working out. I haven't worked out at all in the past 30 days and now I'm ready to kick it into high gear. 

So now that I got the good stuff out... Today I went to a family party. My cousin just had a baby and we had a get together to meet the little guy. 

I was starving when I got there and was happy to hear they would have carne asada, chicken, salad, and fruit. I was not so excited to see the many dips, breads, macaroni salad, etc they had. This was by far the hardest day I've had. The temptation was right there in front of me. My family was there saying " oh try this!!" "why arent you eating any? try it" So the entree part was a hard time but I got through it. This is what my plate looked like.

Now this was delicious. Everything was really good. Did I want a side of macaroni salad? YES. Did I want a couple of tortillas to put my meats in? YES. Did I want a soda to wash it all down? YES!!! You know what else I want? To look good in a bikini and play volleyball on the beach. So I stuck to the meal above. 

Then came dessert. As if the main course wasn't hard enough, everyone started to head upstairs for cobbler, ice cream, pandulce, and milk. All things I have no business eating. I walked in for just a minute to watch everyone enjoy themselves and catch a pic.

I said no to the temptation. Why work 30 days as hard as I did, lose a great amount of weight, and then "reward" myself with crap. It's just not worth it to me yet. On that note, I will have cheat days one day. Further in the future when I feel like I'm a lot closer if not at my goal. It will have to wait until then because ITS JUST NOT WORTH IT! 1 minute of yumminess in my mouth will equal probably a week of regret. 

I did feel the need for something so I stopped at fresh and easy,  grabbed a cup of coffee bean coffee, added a good amount of unsweetened almond milk, and some cinnamon. It was just what I needed to get rid of my little sweet tooth. Delicious! 

Bottle service

Alright! Today is the DAY!!! I just tasted my kombucha that has been brewing for 7 days in its little happy spot! AKA under my computer desk. I closed the vent for the air conditioner and put a blanket to partially cover the tea.

I tasted this today and it was so good. It wasn't too sweet not too sour. Just PERFECT. I've been reading that it depends on preference on how sweet or sour you like it and I feel that it is just PERFECT!!!! I'm SO excited. I was even more excited for what was about to come...the bottling!!

So first the not so fun part. I took all of my saved up kombucha bottles and started to take the labels off. This was a pain in the ass. Like a real pain. I got this stuff called goo off that worked really well. I sprayed, soaked, and peeled. Then sprayed again, soaked, and peeled. It took a couple of times and a couple of wrinkly fingers and a couple of hours but I finally finished!!

Once I was done gettin' all the junk off the bottles I put them in the dishwasher to disinfect and sanitize. They finished up and I was so excited to start bottling. First thing was first - I decorated my bottles. Just with cute little stickers because I felt like IT! 

After I cut up some fruits - strawberries, raspberries, apples, and peaches. I also juiced some ginger to make some yummy gingerale komchucha. The bottles looked like this right before I added the kombucha.

                        Pretty bottles with pretty fruit ready to be bottled!

Right before I started the bottling I took out the scoby. Check out how big my new scoby is! That little guy I'm pulling off is my starter scoby and that huge one underneath is my new guy! He is awesome and I love him!

              I started the bottling process. This was pretty messy but fun as well .

Last thing I did was took my bottles to my kombucha place. I'm going to let them ferment for another three days and burp them everyday to avoid any explosion. I'll update when they are ready with which are my favorites and least favorites! Until next time...

Slow cooker chicken, please

Yesterday was exactly 3 weeks being 100% paleo! I was extremely proud of myself and woke up excited to jump on the scale and see if I had lost anymore weight. At my previous weigh in last Sunday I lost 5 lbs. and inches. I was stoked! This time I lost another 3 lbs. Total= 8 lbs and inches all around in 3 weeks. I'm really happy with how this is coming along. I'm guessing by September I will be at a really good place. At that point I want to start working out pretty hard core and getting into really really good shape.

So I was in a really good mood yesterday because of the results and decided I'd go shopping and pick up some good stuff for the week. I came home with a bunch of flank steak, chicken breasts, and lots of greens and veggies. I got a 4 pack of chicken breasts for a really good cost and decided I'd make a good slow cooker chicken and enjoy it for a couple of days. 

Put your crockpot on high and start prepping the other ingredients. 

 Start with the spices. 

1 1/4 tsp cumin
1 tablespoon chili powder
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper 

Put them all together and save them for later

Chop up a whole medium onion, 4 cloves of 

garlic, a small jalapeno chopped, and grab some cilantro. I didn't measure I just know I LOVE cilantro and grabbed a bunch.

Grab a lemon, a lime, and some vegetable or chicken broth. I went with veggie broth for this one. Juice the lemon and lime and set aside.

 

Start your onions and garlic in a pan for about 5 minutes.

 Grab your chicken (4 breasts) and add some salt and pepper. Put them in the crock pot.

 Once you've had the onions and garlic cooking - add the spices. Let them cook with the onions for about 2 minutes. You'll start to smell the goodness about now...

De glaze the pan with the veggie broth

 Add in all the goods. Start with the lemon and lime juice. Add in the jalapeno and cilantro. Finally throw on that load of goodness (onions and spice mix) Cover this and leave on high for about an hour. Then turn to low for about 4-5 hours.

 

 

Once you are able to break it all up with a fork its done. It's DELICIOUS. Has a spicy but not too spicy flavor.

Kombucha heaven

So have you heard the rumors? They are all true. Kombucha is heaven in bottle not just for your taste buds but for your insides! 

Kombucha has a ton of great health benefits. Kombucha contains probiotics or healthy bacteria that your gut needs. This helps a lot with digestion. It helps to detoxify the liver, increase energy..the list goes on!

I've been a soda addict for as long as I can remember and I know how terrible it is. Now saying all of that outloud and thinking about it were easy. Not taking a sip of soda was the harder part. I just love the way soda has that strong sizzle when you drink it. I love the sweetness. I love the can. I love it. A couple of times I though I'd abandon the idea and just have a sip. Well it's been almost 3 weeks and I haven't had a drink.

I drank kombucha before and enjoyed it alot but when you haven't had soda in 8 days and you get the first taste of kombucha...pure heaven.

I like GT's trilogy. It has raspberry ginger and lemon. It's delicious. What's not so delicious? $3.50+ a bottle. I bought a case last week for 40 bucks and figured I needed to a better solution. Time to brew up some of my own magic!

I found kombucha kamp online an decided to try the starter kit. It was a good deal and everything came in perfect! I started up my first brew and it went a little somethin' like this....

This is how I made 2 gallons of kombucha!! 

Started with 8 cups of distilled water in a large pot. Just as it started to boil I turned it off and put it in my large glass vessel!

 Then I steep the loose leaf tea (10 tsp) for about 5-7 minutes. Add 2 cups of sugar and stir until fully dissolved. I know 2 cups seems like a lot, but this does get fermented so it will turn into a lot less per serving!

 

after the sugar is fully dissolved add about 16 more cups of distilled water so it is almost filled to the top. Add in that good looking scoby and two cups of starter liquid. Cover up with a cute cloth and put a rubber band around to keep on tight.

 

In Hannah's recipe she adds that you can say intentions to your kombucha so I did.

 "To health, love, and happiness"

 

So in 7 days I'm going to take a sip of this and see how it comes along. I've started saving my GT's Kombucha bottles and taking the labels off. I'm going to decorate them and make them my own. Stay tuned Paleo peeps!

Paleo chill

Is it cold in here or is it just me? 

Hi! I'm Mari :D I'm 25 years young and way excited to start this blog. So what will I be talking about? PALEO! + MY LIFE! + Everything in between

Let me start with a little background info about me...

       I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis about 3 years ago. When I first found out and was having just horrible side effects I took it all as a joke. I didn't care about it...I ate whatever the hell I wanted, drank till my liver cried, and smoked cigarettes like they weren't killing me. About a year after all of this I ended up in the hospital because my hemoglobin level was at 5.4. (should be at 12-13) I was losing so much blood that I was basically a zombie. I had no color, no energy, no real feelings...

      I couldn't find an iron that I wasn't allergic to so I was just continuing to lose blood and getting sicker and sicker. I ended up in the hospital one more time after for another couple bags of blood and that still didn't shake me. 

I've gone through a few periods of time through the last 3 years where I was so excited about getting healthy...

        "I'M GONNA DO A 30 DAY JUICE FEAST!"

            "I'M GONNA HAVE GREEN SMOOTHIES

                   EVERYDAY FOR EVERY MEAL!"

        "I'M GONNA DO THE GERSON THERAPY DIET"

And then I failed. Each and every time I would exclaim these great excited plans I had. They ended just as soon as I got the word out there. 

I tried eating Paleo about 2 years ago. I liked it a lot but I just wasn't ready to make that big of a commitment. I'm addicted to shitty food. Straight up addicted. And then it happened...

I don't remember why I thought of trying again but I did. One day I just made the decison that I would start eating Paleo. I had "the last day" meals and Sunday the 8th I started. I did a 180. I stopped thinking about the shitty food and started thinking about my health. 

I know...I know... it's only been 19 days. But in the past 19 days I haven't had one urge to cheat. I have high hopes for myself this time. I feel really good. When I eat I never get that feeling of I'm gonna puke right now if I stand up or talk. I always feel satisfied and not crazy full. 

AND!! - very little blood from the  bum! (humor = less gross) I usually have quit a bit of blood from my bum and it has significantly reduced. AND I am having regular bm's.... poop. Something else I don't usually have.

 I've already dropped 5 lbs and inches all around. I'm never bloated. And I know that I'm going to continue this for the rest of my life. I've made the decision to change and I'm not going back. 

So... this is what I'm gonna do! I'm gonna blog about my life, about my recipes, about paleo! I'm excited and I think this will also help keep me in line. The next post I do is going to be about my new favorite thing......