Paleo Day 20: Keeping it low key

Friday, June 20–A low key day and a very low interest meal selection for the day.  A heavy breakfast, a light lunch and a pretty decent dinner combined with hanging out with some friends is one way to round out a week.

After the 17 hour day and after-midnight bed time, my body was no longer on east coast time.  I am now waking up at 7:15 local time.  That would be great except for the fact that I have to get up early throughout the next week.  If these are my biggest problems then I’m not going to complain.

Not knowing what the food options were going to be throughout the day I opted to eat a very large breakfast.  The hotel had a nice buffet setup, made with meat and egg products that supposedly came from local sustainable farms.  I don’t know if it was marketing schtick or legitimate, but because it makes me feel better I’m going to go with it being legitimate.

I started off the breakfast with a big omelet with mushrooms, spinach, tomatoes and ham in it.  On the side I added some sausage and bacon.  The omelet took up the better part of the large plate, so I figured that was enough not to get a second course.  Rather than going pure protein and fat on the second course I headed over to the fruit bar and got an assortment of berries, melon and pineapple.  I wanted to end on a savory note, so I left a strip of bacon as the last thing that I ate.

My friend picked me up from the hotel around 10:30 and we spent the next several hours hanging out and catching up.  Before we knew it it was 2 pm and we decided to grab a quick lunch.  He didn’t realize I had dietary restrictions, so it wasn’t until we were actually driving around that he realized he’d have to change plans.  We ended up at a local burrito place.  Again this place supposedly is about grass fed sustainably raised meat.  Is this a nationwide trend or just a part of living in California?  Either way I’ll take it at face value and make due as I can.  There were lots of options but almost none of them Paleo compliant.  I therefore ended up really just having a big pile of lettuce, guacamole, skirt steak and a citrus tomatillo vinaigrette dressing.

We hung out for several hours more and then made my way back to the hotel.  Unfortunately traffic was ridiculous, even by LA standards, and we didn’t actually get me to the hotel until after 8:00 pm.  I was going to be on my own for a few more hours since my partner had some conference stuff to do, so I washed up and made my way to the hotel bar.  Most of their menu was similarly non-Paleo, but their California Cobb Salad with vinaigrette instead of ranch was perfect as long as I got them to ditch the bleu cheese crumbles.  Even if I wasn’t on Paleo I would have ditched that cheese.  When I’m not doing Paleo I’m trying to build up an appreciation for these pungent cheeses, but I’m not making as much progress as I would like.

I decided to have a glass of white wine while waiting for and to pair with my salad.  When it came out the salad looked like the size of my head, despite being in an enormous bowl.  The woman next to me even commented on how ridiculously large it was.  At first I figured I wouldn’t be able to eat most of it, but a lot of the size was just mountains of romaine lettuce.  If this was drenched in dressing it would be one thing, but I used the dressing sparingly.  By the half way mark my partner was back from his conference activities and got his own plate of fried calamari.  We chatted as I finished the salad and realized I really wanted more.  I wasn’t in the mood for dessert but instead some tuna tartar over guacamole.  I quickly ordered that with a glass of champagne to help wash it down.  That finally did the trick anD I was feeling satiated for once that day.  A bit more conversation, with yet one more glass of champagne, rounded out the evening.