Losing the #wheatbelly - A look back at Day 2 and what I'm eating today, Day 3 #healthyliving #motherhood #cooking

Are you interested in following me in my journey to lead a more healthy, gluten-free lifestyle?

Read about my journey HERE.

And click on the link --------> over there to follow my SparkPeople blog where I'm documenting every bite of food I put in my mouth and how each day has gone.

Losing the wheat belly - a look back at Day 2, which was yesterday:

I spent about 2 hours yesterday preparing for not just this week but many weeks after this one.

I made a list of all the meals and snacks I love that are gluten-free - I have two pages of stuff so far!

I started with my Master Meal List and just made a few modifications:

• I replaced regular pastas with Quinoa and/or brown rice varieties that I can easily find at Trader Joe's
• I replaced breads and biscuits with polenta (Trader Joe's makes a fantastic ready-to-slice one!), brown rice, quinoa, couscous, and bulger.
• I replaced flour tortillas in fajitas, tacos, and enchiladas with corn tortillas and came up with some creative spinoff recipes for things like pizza, calzones, sandwiches, which was basically just eating the insides and toppings over polenta, quinoa, or as a salad!
• I also eliminated as many white potatoes as possible and added in things like roasted cauliflower, balsamic Brussels sprouts, steamed fresh vegetables, baked sweet potatoes, and other raw foods. 
• I also cut meat, poultry and fish portions back to only 4oz, replaced them with beans, and/or just eliminated them all together.

A healthy lifestyle is about a whole lot more to me than just eliminating gluten!

I then did my usual meal planning, creating dinners from that list, and made my grocery list accordingly.

BREAKFAST: I grabbed a quick meal of 1C banana chunks sprinkled with 2T ground flaxseed and 1T unsweetened coconut and a glass of milk before heading off to do my shopping. Talk about filling. Wow! That was at 9:15am and I wasn't hungry for lunch until after 1:00pm! I think my body is finally pulling out of that vicious gluten-withdrawal that causes more gluten cravings cycle.

LUNCH: When I got home from shopping, I warmed up the leftover Orange Peel Chicken we had for dinner the other night. It was 1C brown rice, 1/4C of the sauce, and 4oz portion of chicken. I sauteed 1C of the snow peas I bought today in a non-stick skillet to add to the meal. Leftovers are a HUGE key to my own personal success for lunches during the week: they are the proper portion if you do the work beforehand to store them so, quick, and delicious!

SNACK: I got amazing berries from Costco and cut up 1C strawberries, 1C raspberries, and 1/4C blueberries to have as a snack this afternoon.

DINNER: David always grills up chicken over the weekend and agreed to grill up the Tilapia I got at Costco today. I'll sprinkle it with fresh lime juice and cilantro and stuff it inside corn tortillas topped with 1C shredded Napa cabbage and 2T of Trader Joe's Corn salsa. YUM!

I slept so great last night and have been met with so much support and encouragement both here and on my family blog - I'm so blessed and wanted to say thank you!!!