Paleo lunch bento

Paleo lunch bento
Originally uploaded by thatgirljj

So just because I'm doing a strict Whole30 does not mean I don't intend to enjoy my food this month. Oh no. Today's lunch bento is a perfect example:

Thinly sliced applewood smoked tri-tip (with an olive oil, garlic & pepper rub)

Eggplant relish, to cut the overwheming smokiness of the beef

Lebanese lemony spinach & beet greens

Belly dance beet salad

Tangerine (not pictured)


Generally speaking, things have been going pretty smoothly. I haven't had any "carb flu" kind of thing going on because there's no fixed schedule of what to eat when or complicated food combinations, so if I feel a little queasy and it's a long way to a meal, I just eat an apple or a banana. It's nice to not be in service of any kind of dietary perfection, just focusing on eating real food when I'm hungry and letting all the other eating stress fall by the wayside. I've only had a couple potential pitfalls.

1. Cheese and diet coke. Midafternoon I'm used to having a chunk of cheese & a piece of fruit for a snack and then a diet coke at some point. It's totally mindless I've found myself wandering to the fridge, opening up the cheese drawer and reminding myself "Oh yeah, not eating cheese right now!" and redirecting myself to some fruit with either nuts or meat. The diet coke is a little harder because I get a bit of a headache if I skip it, but as long as I remember to make myself some green tea it doesn't bother me too much.

2. I want to weigh myself SO BADLY! I usually weigh myself every day, or at least a couple times a week. The last time I went a whole week without weighing myself I was camping in the desert. I weighed in at 137 pounds on 1/1/2012, and for the next 30 days the only measure I'm going to have of my weight every morning is my chin-ups. Right now my chin-up-o-meter says I haven't drastically dropped 10 pounds in two days or anything crazy. The chin-up-o-meter isn't more specific than that.

In other news, Saturday was such a rough workout (after 10 days off from playing circus) that I'm just barely NOW not sore anymore. But at least my hands didn't rip this time, so I'll be good to go on Thursday.

P.S. I got a new black bento box for myself for Christmas and man, the food looks WAY more appetizing in a black box than the previous sage green box I had. In pictures and in person!