First of all, HELLO!  Remember me?  It’s been quite a while since I have published a blog post… actually, my recent “break” was the longest period of time I have neglected the blog since I started it.  It feels good to be back!

As you may have seen on my Facebook page, I recently returned from a week-long vacation in Disney World.  We had some good times, and some good foods!  But I have to admit, it is wonderful to be back home.

Eating Paleo-style is a little more difficult on busy vacations and hectic trips.  We took this trip with my husband’s family, and we had 5 parks to visit in 5 days, with two full travel days (10-hour drives each way).  My typical idea of a vacation is having no schedule at all… no time crunches or restraints (check out this post to see how I normally eat on vacation).  But, if you have ever been to Disney World, you know that the idea of “no schedule” is just a happy, distant thought.  From the time we arrived until the time we left, we were constantly on the run.  Late nights and early mornings were followed by crowd-fighting, sweating, and power-walking from attraction to attraction.

We stopped at a grocery store shortly after we arrived to pick up a few essentials.  Our breakfasts consisted of halved avocados, rotisserie chicken, blueberries, Paleo Krunch with coconut milk, and almond milk.  Not bad, but not ideal.  We were eating on the go to allow for more sleep each morning.

For lunches and snacks, we packed turkey-rolled avocado slices, raw fruit/nut bars, apples, sliced red and yellow peppers, pistachios, and Paleo Kits.

We mainly ate out for our dinners, except for two nights when we had burgers with guacamole, or baked chicken with a wonderful berry salad and brussels sprouts.  I was very impressed by our dinner at Smokey Bones Bar and Grill.  There were a ton of meat options on the menu, with lots of simply-cooked vegetables as sides.  I had 1/2 a chicken (and almost finished the entire thing!) with broccoli and sweet potato.  It was delicious and filling.  I’m sure the sauce contained more sugar than I would have liked though.

Another place that really impressed me was the Rainforest Cafe.  I had salmon grilled on a cedar plank (WOW – AMAZING!), and a few veggie sides that I don’t even remember because the salmon was so amazing.  There were several great options in the way of meat and seafood on the menu.

 

So what is this traveler’s life-saver that I mentioned?  The Paleo Kit, of course!  Order yours at StevesOriginal.com.  I had not tried these little bags of goodness until I attended the Balanced Bites Workshop a few weekends ago, where I fell in love with them.  I ordered 15 of them before our trip, and I was so glad I did!  It was really nice to have well-sourced protein (jerky), some good fat (coconut), and a hint of sweetness (strawberries) during those long days.  Each kit is SUPER filling, and really delicious.  From now on, I will always be sure to stock up on Paleo Kits before we travel.  Having a healthy, filling, and delicious snack option kept us from going overboard on overpriced, over-sweetened goodies between meals while we were at Disney.

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A Gut-Health Update

To those of you who have asked how I’ve been feeling lately, thank you!  In answer to your question, I am feeling great!  

For those who have no idea what I mean here, I recently had some pretty serious digestion woes.  After a few weeks of constant stomach aches after every meal, I created my own gut-healing protocol.  Within a few days, I was already seeing amazing results.  And now, months later, I have basically stuck with this program (only having nuts occasionally), and I’m doing really well with it!

My conclusion is that the cause of my extreme gut sensitivity was an intense period of stress and travel, combined with seriously overdoing it on nuts (raw almonds and pistachios, almond butter, almond flour, almond milk, raw fruit/nut bars, etc.) and eggs (I was eating around 3-4 each and every day).

Through this painful process, I learned some valuable lessons!  First and foremost, even if you’re eating “paleo foods,” balance is SO important!  Nuts were definitely too large a part of my diet before this experience.

I also learned that eggs are not the only breakfast food worth eating… check out my no-egg breakfast ideas here!  And, unfortunately, I still cannot consume eggs.  For one thing, I have no desire for them at all.  The thought of them makes me feel a little sick.  And for another thing, when I have experimented with them since healing my gut, I have had stomach pain right away.  Sad, but true!  I’ll probably try again every few months, but for now, I’m dealing with what seems to be an egg allergy.

So, again, thank you for asking about me!  I’m enjoying better gut health than I’ve ever experienced.