40 Day Paleo Challenge - Day 2

We are 1/20th of the way there! Keep it up! :)

This is Apollo having a make-out sesh with his favorite blanket. Actually, we have two of these blankets, a brown one and a burnt orange one. Since Apollo is still very young, he still does the suckling thing on super soft, kitty mommy-like surfaces. His absolute favorite - these blankets. I regularly find him face deep, purring like a little engine. And don't even try to detach him from it. Well, you could try, but he will NOT let go. Too funny.

I apparently feel like rambling today. This is a lengthy post. My apologies to you short-attention-span folks...


Yesterday was go-go-go from the moment I woke up until my head hit the pillow for bedtime. I'm going to relax a little tonight and hopefully unwind from another jam-packed day today. As usual, I began my day with an awesome workout.  For those of you who don't know, I do 6 weeks on, 1 week rest/light activity, then repeat... as recommended by Tatianna from Loving Fit. However, I decided for each 6 week period, I'd vary my weekly workout format to keep things lively. I thought I'd share a little about that format in today's post.

If you're curious, I described my previous format in my  return-to-blogland post. Late January I finished my first 6 weeks, took a week off, and now I'm into a new set of 6 weeks.  My new format looks a little something like this:

Sunday: Full Body workout (LF)
Monday: rest
Tuesday: hot yoga
Wednesday: Lower Body workout (LF)
Thursday: Upper Body workout (LF)
Friday: rest (+ salsa class!!! yayyyy!!)
Saturday: Core (LF) and Cardio

LF denotes that I usually grab a workout from LovingFit.com.  My rule of thumb is that if the workout less than 30 minutes, then the rest of workout must be some form of cardio. And just in case I don't get enough built in during the week, I added some to Saturday.

So I'm in week 2 of this format. I quite like the change of pace.  Today, being Thursday, I did the Circuit Training Combo Burning workout from LF.  She Rx'd the workout for 3 rounds, I however, could only complete 2 rounds. My shoulders were BURNING!  My time was just under 25 minutes, so I tacked on 5 intervals of 30 sec/30 sec of high knees and jumping jacks. I love days that begin with a workout.

After work, I had a doctor's appointment. After the hospital fun in December, I decided to get lined up with a primary care physician. I hadn't had one previously as I rarely get sick beyond minor colds (or at least anything worth visiting a doctor for). I had an annual physical a few weeks ago, and we did lab work as well. Turns out my TSH levels are a bit high. Thyroid issues run in my family, so I'll be going next Wednesday to get an ultrasound to see if I have a thyroid disease. High TSH levels would suggest hypothyroidism, which means I have an under-active thyroid. I have started researching what this all means, but won't worry about it too much until I have more information. But it makes me wonder -- will this Paleo challenge help my thyroid function? 'Paleo' and 'hypothyroid' will definitely be search criteria for me as I continue to research.

That is a nice transition onward to our Paleo challenge portion of today's chat.  How'd you do? Any special achievements worth noting? Congrats to Ashley for avoiding all temptation at a Valentine's Day themed party at work. Chock full of candy, cupcakes, and all sorts of bad, processed, non-nutritional stuff. And she had NONE of it. Rock on!!

My meal breakdown for today:
Breakfast
 A scramble again -- eggs + veggies. This is pretty standard for us. And a surprise item - raw/dehydrated onion bread to alleviate our want for toast.  Onion bread ingredients: flax seeds, sunflower seeds, onions, sweet peppers, soy sauce, cayenne pepper, chili powder. The quality of the photos is poor, my apologies. But Marcos was proud of his onion bread and wanted pics on the blog. You're welcome, dear.

Lunch
Leftovers - same as yesterday - the slow-cooked soup: made of hot Italian sausage (Publix Organic), collard greens, broccoli, mushrooms, carrots, squash, garlic, cayenne, salt pepper. Had a banana shortly later as a snack as there wasn't much soup left over.

Snack

Onion bread - tastes better than it looks

An apple, and some of the blueberry Paleo bread we made later last night.  It was a spin on the Blueberry Chocolate Loaf from PaleOMG. We didn't have a really ripe banana nor pumpkin puree, so we substituted both by using grated zucchini (thank heavens for a food processor!). Marcos and I had decided that chocolate chips are not allowed on our challenge, so we added some cocoa powder to the batter instead.  The only downside to our substitutions was that without the ripe banana and chocolate chips, this batch turned out less sweet than our normal batches. That's okay though... just add honey, honey.

Dinner
Haven't had it yet, but I am thinking something simple like brinner. I love brinner. And I love words created by squishing other words together.  I also see some of the Paleo fudge we made yesterday in my future. I don't want to get into the habit of having regular desserts during this Paleo challenge, but...heck, it is Valentine's Day.

I hope you had a successful Day 2!