My Elimination Diet

In this post, I have documented the meals I made each day and my thoughts on the recipes I had for Week 3. (You can read my post My Elimination Diet for more info.) You can also review my thoughts on Week 1 and Week 2 if you missed it!

Overall Thoughts for Week 3

This was the week that the cravings started to hit hard. My guess is that this is when the food groups I had cut out actually began to fully clear out of my system. My body was saying “They’re GONE, help!!” On Thursday, I wanted to dive into the bread basket at a restaurant, and by Sunday no matter what I made all I could think about was eating a whole pizza by myself. Thankfully I endured and made it to the end successfully!

I totally fell off the wagon this week of my goal to eat at least 1/2 of an avocado every day – I didn’t time buying them at the right time and they weren’t ripe until the end of the week. I also didn’t get to eat quite as many vegetables every day as I would have liked. But I was still able to try out a bunch of recipes and everything stayed compliant.

After the week was over I felt accomplished and overall felt like my body was responding favorably – less headaches, less acne, no digestive issues, etc. I started to feel more nervous about incorporating the items back into my diet than I was about taking them out, but also relieved that I was coming to a point where I would hopefully be able to start eating a less strict diet.

Here’s the meals I had for Week 3!

Monday

Breakfast: Moroccan-inspired Breakfast Skillet and a Good Morning Sunshine Breakfast Cookie

My thoughts: This skillet gets better and better. I ate it with the last of the batch of breakfast cookies.

Lunch: Leftovers (from Sunday night) of Sesame Garlic Chicken and Veggies with brown jasmine rice

My thoughts: No recipe for this, as it was something I threw together to use some of the veggies that needed to be eaten in our fridge: broccoli, matchstick carrots, and peppers. Cooked it with sliced chicken and my new favorite Asian sauce from Wegmans, the organic Sesame Garlic sauce. Added some extra chili garlic sauce for spicyness and topped it with sesame seeds and green onions. It was delicious and made great leftovers.

Dinner: French Chicken Provencal with mashed potatoes and lemony arugula

My thoughts: This has become one of our favorites. To make it compliant I used GF flour. If you want to try French cooking but want to stay paleo, go for traditional Provencal dishes. Much less likely to incorporate cream and more heavy on olive oil and herbs. For the mashed potatoes, I put in ghee, garlic, salt and pepper, and coconut milk.

Tuesday

Breakfast: Cinnamon Vanilla N’ Oatmeal with blueberries

My thoughts: This “oatmeal” had no actual oats and was made up of pecans, walnuts, almonds, pumpkin seeds, and coconut flakes that I crushed in my food processor. To make the oatmeal I added the nut mixture to a pan and then slowly poured the coconut milk into the pan as it cooked. The end result was good; it was creamy but still had small bits left from the nuts to give it texture. It’s a good way to get nuts into your diet and I’ll use it as an alternative when I am craving a different option for breakfast.

Lunch: Leftovers of French Chicken Provencal with mashed potatoes and lemony arugula

Dinner: Blackened Mahi Lettuce Tacos with Cajun Remoulade

My thoughts: These lettuce tacos were tasty! There are so many flavors going on at once. They are a bit time intensive since there is three sets of toppings, but my husband was at a meeting that night so didn’t mind spending more time making it. The mahi is topped with pico de gallo, cabbage slaw, and cajun remoulade. I used the Just Mayo brand for the mayonnaise because it is vegan, dairy, and gluten free. I can get relatively affordable frozen packs of mahi at Costco so I will be making this again.

Wednesday

Breakfast: Blueberry Banana Cinnamon Pancakes with bacon and raspberries

My thoughts: The flavor of these pancakes were good but I haven’t been able to get the right texture for these pancakes. I think I may need to double the amount of almond milk to help with how thick the batter is when I put it in the pan. I used general purpose gluten free flour and not brown rice flour, which could have changed the texture. I have enough pancake recipes that I don’t think I will go back to this one.

Lunch: Leftovers of Blackened Mahi Lettuce Tacos with Cajun Remoulade

My thoughts: I still had leftovers of the pico, cajun remoulade, and cabbage slaw from the night before, so all I had to do was season more mahi mahi and fry it up in a pan. Great leftovers!

Dinner: Asian Oven Pulled Pork with Coconut Lime Quinoa and green beans

My thoughts: This is one of my favorite pork recipes. I did not have to change anything even with all of the ingredients to make it compliant which is a plus. Unfortunately I forgot about it when it was cooking in the oven and totally burnt a good portion of the sauce. Doh! The coconut lime quinoa was a hit though.

Thursday

Breakfast: Aidell’s chicken & apple sausage, leftover Blueberry Banana Cinnamon Pancakes, and sliced kiwi

Lunch: Sautéed Pepper, Red Onion, and Shredded Pork Salad

My thoughts: I used the leftover Asian Pulled Pork as the base for this recipe. To fight off the desire to eat the ravioli my sister had in her fridge, I made this beautiful looking and tasting salad. I would highly recommend using lemony arugula with this (I get it at Wegmans) to add a depth of flavor to this dish.

Dinner: Simply Grilled Salmon with a side of seasonal veggies at Blue Ridge Grill

My thoughts: My husband’s grandma took us out to dinner and we chose a local restaurant that I knew I would be able to find something I could eat. The salmon was good but basic. This evening was where the cravings started to hit me hard. Sitting across from a basket of bread and butter that I couldn’t eat was getting old. To make myself feel better, I ordered a glass of Pinot Noir to go with my salmon even though I had only been allowing myself wine on the weekend. I figured it would be better to indulge in a glass of wine than dessert or a whole basket of bread.

Friday

Breakfast: Roasted peppers, onions, and sweet potato, bacon, and a leftover Blueberry Banana Cinnamon Pancake

My thoughts: Made a version of my go-to skillet and ate the last of the pancake leftovers.

Lunch: Lettuce tacos made with Asian Oven Pulled Pork leftovers

My thoughts: I still had some of the ingredients leftover from the mahi lettuce tacos and the pulled pork, so I combined the two and made pulled pork lettuce tacos with shredded cabbage and carrot and cilantro. Another great way to use the remainder of the pulled pork.

Dinner: Slow Cooker Crispy Chicken Carnitas

My thoughts: These were delicious! I would like to experiment with them to give them a little more flavor, but I love the idea of crisping up the chicken at the end in the oven, it keeps the chicken from going into the tacos soggy straight from the crock pot. I used chicken stock instead of beer to keep it compliant.

Saturday

Breakfast: Vanilla Chai Vegan Banana Pancakes with Aidell’s chicken & apple sausage and raspberries

My thoughts: I love chai spices so I couldn’t wait to try this one. I used gluten free flour to keep them compliant. The flavor and texture were both good so I will be making these again when I’m craving something with chai!

Lunch: Chicken and shrimp fajitas with rice and corn tortillas

My thoughts: Lunch out in DC with the hubby! We stopped at a mexican restaurant and I was able to keep it compliant by getting chicken and shrimp fajitas with rice on the side and corn tortillas.

Dinner: Garlic basil chicken meatballs in pasta sauce with gluten-free Barilla fettuccine

My thoughts: Since we had a late lunch I made a simple dinner at home using gluten-free Barilla fettuccine and a sauce with Coleman’s Chicken and Garlic Meatballs, garlic, onion, green olives, artichokes, and parsley. The Barilla gluten free pasta is as close as I have been able to get to regular pasta because it’s a mix of corn and rice and not just rice.

Sunday

Breakfast: Leftovers of Vanilla Chai Vegan Banana Pancakes

Lunch: Fruit, veggies, and chips & salsa and pulled chicken salad

My thoughts: I attended a baby shower after church this day and I was able to eat off of the vegetable and fruit tray and corn tortilla chips and salsa. I also had a slice of the no-bake raspberry chocolate tart that I brought for the shower. To keep myself from starving I made a salad with the leftover crispy chicken carnitas from Friday night when I got home. The cravings started to become really tough, and no matter what I made I just wanted a giant piece of pizza.

Dinner: Chipotle Crusted Pork Tenderloin, potatoes, and veggies

My thoughts: We hosted a young adult dinner at our house and made one of our go-to meals. This is a great meal to make for a crowd because I can get pork tenderloin for cheap at Costco and it’s an easy recipe. After the tenderloin is done marinating, throw it on the grill and roast the potatoes and green beans in the oven. This was my last official meal of the elimination diet!

Thoughts on the re-introduction phase coming soon! Or go back and read Week 1 and Week 2 if you missed them.

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