Melissa Jones

I decided to finally give it my best shot by trying the meal plans from the genotypediet website. I've glanced at them before and tried a few recipes that looked good, but now I'm going all out at it...sort of.

I printed out 3 days worth, and did the shopping for them. Of course, plans change and events come up, but I'll get these 3 days worth done within a week I'm sure. So many of my meals for the first three days involve cooked sliced turkey breast that I decided to just cook and slice an actual turkey breast, rather than skirt the avoids in storebought ones. I also made up a few of my lunches and snacks ahead of time on Sunday afternoon. That meal was a hit, as I made mashed potatoes and gravy for everyone else (potatoes are an avoid for all of us, but I didn't think they'd appreciate having braised fennel and quinoa tabouleh as the only sides, and I didn't touch them or the gravy...well I touched the gravy a tiny bit).

I'm allowing myself a little wiggle room, even though I haven't earned black dots yet, I find that allowing myself to have a tiny bit when I feel like a treat does help keep me out of outright toxin territory. The nice thing about the black dots is that some of them don't trigger the craving spirals that outright toxins do. Last night I had one small scoop of goat milk ice cream, with lots of raspberries. That hit the spot and kept me from craving worse. If you need to cheat or have a little treat, you can be smart about it.

That brings me to the other benefit of using the meal plans...I always have food and plans on hand so I never get hungry enough to really stray from the diet. I still have to be creative, and don't always stick to the plan. For instance, I've really been craving rye bread lately, so this morning I made flax focaccia with some teff, molasses, and caraway seeds in it. It turned out really well, so I pulled out the lingonberry jam and spread some on. I've heard that lingonberry jam is very good on rye bread but I've never tried it...I have to agree that it is an amazing combination. I didn't even feel the need to sweeten my herbal tea. The jam has a little sugar in it, but was the best choice I could find in the lingonberry jam department.

I also whipped up some flax cranberry muffins, since I had all my baking stuff out already. I'll have to ration all these goodies, of course, it's mostly flax and egg so the only bad thing about eating too much is the possiblity of eating too much fiber. It's almost time to pull those out of the oven.

My sister and I are planning the meal for a large family gathering this weekend, it's a fun job as my sister is also gluten free and low carb, so we're planning everything to be healthy (and yummy). Ah, I love the power of planning a meal...even if it does mean a bit of work. Usually my mom would do the work, and she does a great job of it, but this party is for her and my dad, so we are trying to spare her the work. We'll probably have chili, lots of fruits and vegetables, and some stuff for the carb-eaters, like cornbread or baked potatoes. I better get to planning, as soon as I pull these muffins out...