Day 8, Oct. 9, 2014

Breakfast – three eggs with red peppers

Lunch – pork chops, carrots and parsnips, mashed acorn squash (made with ghee, salt, pepper and coconut milk – FINALLY found the key to making mashed acorn squash taste good)

Dinner – pumpkin seeds, grapes (FAIL, I KNOW)

Snacks – pumpkin seeds, banana

Sleep: six hours

Afraid of my blog posts getting boring, thankfully, being on the road today for work made for some interesting situations.

One of my biologists bought cookies for those of us who came out into the field. Really good cookies from Country Aire Natural Food Markets. She had just enough for all of us. I politely refused and explained what I was doing. They just said, oh, well, cool. Psychologically, I wanted it (I’ve been wanting a lot of things lately I don’t normally want, like cupcakes with icing) but my gut said, nah, you’re good.

The other thing was wanting to nosh on some protein, i.e. jerky, on the two hour drive from Port Angeles. I went into the above-mentioned market, thinking they HAVE to have something. I found the small stash and everything had some sugar added to it or was NOT appealing or was vegan (really?!?!? This girl doesn’t do vegan.). Except the Echo Bars – dried cherries were added as the “sugar” to the beef with habanero bar. Technically, it’s legal.

After I hesitantly purchased it (also the first place I’ve been able to find bacon with no sugar!), one bite immediately reminded me of Clif Bar texture… then that sweet cherry taste… then kinda like dog food… then followed up by the spicy kick.

A few more bites, I eventually tossed into the back seat.

* sigh * Oh well. Back to pumpkin seeds.

While I was in the store, it occurred to me how ridiculous I was getting about label checking. Or am I? I mean, if I’m going to do this program, I’m going to do it right. So, frankly, failure doesn’t exist because I know what I need to do to not fail. So, label checking and no sugar it is.

(Yes, I realize that of the three people reading this, one of them is my father and he’s rolling his eyes right now. Just wanted to make sure I acknowledged this.)

I guess my point is that reading labels has really opened my eyes as to what’s in our food. I mean, I knew but didn’t really know. I know I’m getting a little fanatic about it, but I’m definitely getting an education too.

Talking to Brian about this tonight (Him: “I never would have thought there would be sugar in bacon!”) I was sort of ranting about the label reading and it just further proves my theory: eating fresh, local veggies and fruits and buying my meat directly from the person who raised the cow and having a conversation with them about their farm makes me feel better about what I’m fueling my body to function.

And as for functioning, despite getting six hours of sleep last night, I felt pretty good today. While it usually takes me a LONG time to even talk in the morning and dragging myself out of bed is one of the things in the world I despise, I was wide awake with 10 minutes.