Trial week: Autoimmune Diet

I used this week to test out some new foods for the Autoimmune Protocol diet and not worry about being strictly compliant.  Overall, it was a lot easier than I thought it would be, likely because I am already gluten and dairy-free.

Breakfast
Breakfast is the hardest piece to figure out, with no eggs and no grains.  Ugh, what to eat??   This week I tried a smoothie:  coconut milk, berries or a banana, collagen protein powder, and glutamine.   Most days I was hungry within the hour.  :(  I tried to supplement with some roasted veggies and that was ok but I do think I need something different for breakfast that's more substantial.   Next week, I will be trying this recipe:  Sweet potato, apple and pancetta hash.

Snacks
The easiest thing was to have fruits and veggies on hand to eat.  Carrots, apples, bananas, roasted veggies, and so on.  A few times I was craving something salty/crunchy and so I had plantain chips on hand and some seaweed snacks.   Sweet was a little harder and I tried to keep my mind off of the chocolate bar I wanted to devour by having some peppermint or ginger tea.

Lunch
I had a salad with grilled chicken for lunch with balsamic vinegar/olive oil dressing and cucumbers, avocado, beets, bacon.  (because, bacon!)

Dinner
On Sunday I made pot roast and we had leftovers for a few nights.   We grilled salmon another night with roasted broccoli and acorn quash.  Last night was pork tenderloins with cherry sauce.

Oops
My husband might have bought me a cupcake for no reason and I might have eaten it.  I'm not proud.  But it was tasty.

Overall
This week really wasn't too bad.  The biggest successful strategy was to plan.  If I didn't know what I was going to eat at a certain time, I was stuck pretty much trying to convince myself to not run to the vending machine... which was way hard to ignore.  When I'm hungry, I want food, like four minutes ago.   As long as I had something reasonable ready to go, I was fine.    Weekends will be the biggest hurdle as we always go out for brunch at least one of the days.  It's our weekend "thing" and I'll need to avoid the temptation to fall into our usual habits. :)