Monday, October 29, 2012

How I stayed paleo on a busy weekend

Anyone else surrounded by candy and Halloween treats?  Man, do I want a Twix right now.  But I'm gonna stay strong, although I promised myself a mini-binge ON Halloween.  After all, who else is going to eat the Almond Joys and Mounds bars that my kids hate?  (Hey, Coconut, almonds and chocolate are paleo)

This was the last weekend before Halloween, so of course it was crammed full of parties and events. On Saturday, my 11 year old and I ran the Spooktacular 5k.  We were the cute mommy/son pair dressed as Superman and Super girl.  This was the inaugural race and I hope they run it every year.  Lake Murray is am awesome location, with gentle rolling hills that provide a challenge for those who make 5ks their preferred distance.  The medals and bibs were adorable.  There was such a great turnout of costumed runners too!  A decent sized vendor fair, with 2 races and a few local businesses represented.  I'll definitely run this again.

We followed up the race with a Halloween party for military families at the Harley-Davidson of San Diego.  Put on by the USO, they offered BBQ, games and trick-or-treating.  I knew that BBQ meant hot dogs or hamburgers, probably chips or beans too.  So with mine and my son's special dietary needs, we just bypassed the "free" lunch and I let the boy choose McDonald's for his awesome effort at the 5k.  I find that being paleo, I have to skip meals at events often.  I have had luck calling ahead and asking for a special meal.  But only when its an event that I've had to pay for my dinner.  I've also found that being paleo, places like McDonalds are NOT a fun option.  Even their healthiest options, the salads and wraps, contain CHEESE and LEGUMES.  So I have to be prepared to do some doctoring.  I order the bacon ranch salad with grilled chicken.  I have to painstakingly remove ALL the cheese from the salad.  If I'm lucky, the preparer has clumped it all together.  Ironically, this is something I HATED before I was paleo.  Then, I make sure to bring an avocado with me and instead of dressing, I cut up my avocado and add it to my salad.  I like to mash it with a bit of salt.  Yes, it takes me forever to start eating, but I'm MUCH happier with my lunch this way.

We got a short respite from Halloween events and during that time I ate an early dinner.  I tried the Coconut Chicken Curry from Fitzee Foods and coupled it with some Coconut Paleo bread from Julian Bakery.  It's nice to have some pre-made meals that are ready when I'm hungry on busy days like that.  We would shortly head off to an elementary school Halloween Carnival where my family would indulge in pizza, nachos, pretzels, popcorn and soda.  I was able to resist temptation by eating ahead of time.

I made sure to hydrate throughout that busy saturday because the next morning I got up to run a distance runs on hills.  I am committed to besting my PR of 2:48:24 at my next half marathon.  That means hill workouts!  I did 10 miles at a 15 min pace.  Slow, yes, but man did my hip flexors get a workout!  That means that my run did exactly what I wanted it to do.  I did get to refuel with a carne asada burrito, but the only non-paleo thing in it was the tortilla itself.

Paleo on a busy family weekend is completely possible.  You just need to pre-plan, have meals ready to go and be flexible when you're dining out.


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