Last Thursday, my husband and I drove to Jacksonville to support a friend at her college class gallery opening. Since Jacksonville has all sorts of stores and restaurants we don't have near us, we like to make a trip of it and run as many errands as possible. So before heading on to the gallery, we decided to get dinner at Chipotle.
For those of you that are not familiar with it, Chipotle is to burritos what Subway is to sandwiches, only Chipotle's ingredients tend to be fresher. You pretty much go down the counter, requesting different items on your burrito or tacos, and they assemble it for you. Chipotle has a great selection of vegetarian items, even to the point of claiming that their cheese and sour cream are made in such a way that it is acceptable for a vegetarian to eat.
I've resigned myself to the fact that, at many restaurants, I may have to disassemble my food in order to skip the enriched flour. At Steak & Shake a few weeks ago, for example, I ate my burger - including lettuce & tomato - without the bun. This doesn't bother me, as the bread pretty much tends to be filler anyway. But one of the great things about Chipotle is, they offer another choice (not just burritos or tacos): The burrito bowl.
You can get more veggies this way!
The burrito bowl is the same price as ordering a burrito, and the worker at the Chipotle we went to was happy to add extra lettuce to my bowl. All this, for about six dollars!
Friday, I had an opportunity to meet some old coworkers of mine, from the company I worked with before starting my own business. It was good to catch up with the girls, but their choice of a restaurant for lunch wasn't very good considering my dietary changes: Cici's Pizza. I did eat a lot of salad at Cici's, and only indulged in two small slices of pizza. I suppose my weekend started early, oops.
Then, on Saturday, my husband and I spent the better part of the day walking around downtown Saint Augustine, exploring the Castillo de San Marcos (it was free admission, thanks to National Park Week!) and then walking to our favorite weekend spot, Borrillo's pizza, about half a mile away. I had my "usual" single slice (fills the plate!) of pizza, but I found that within a short time (just an hour or so) I was feeling low on energy again! Since I don't seem to lose energy during the week, I think it's safe to say that the spike in energy (and then sudden drop) was due to consuming the enriched flour in the pizza crust. It seems that I don't get this spike-and-then-drop when I avoid enriched flour (ie, eating the burger without the bun) but I also don't get the drop if I consume whole grain flour instead of enriched, either.
Of course, having less whole grains in your diet for a day leads to, ah, other problems too. One would think this would be easily remedied by eating something with more fiber later on in the day (I love Kellogg's FiberPlus bars, great flavor!) but it seems that something in the enriched flour just stops me up, and no amount of extra fiber later in the day gets me back on track.
I'm starting to get to a good point in my diet modification, one where I am able to not rely on a cheat day for a sampling of enriched flour. After four weeks, I no longer crave enriched flour as I once did, so taking a nibble here or there will not be a problem for me. Having "cheat" days on the weekends gave me something to look forward to in the event that I was having horrible cravings - this was how I overcame my soda addiction - and now I can go for weeks without drinking a soda, then have one on a weekday (instead of a previously-assigned weekend cheat day) and be back to "normal" the next day without a problem. I can definitely see myself skipping out on enriched flour choices on the weekends, because my body is just unhappy with the energy it receives from this less-than-nourishing food.
Friday, I had an opportunity to meet some old coworkers of mine, from the company I worked with before starting my own business. It was good to catch up with the girls, but their choice of a restaurant for lunch wasn't very good considering my dietary changes: Cici's Pizza. I did eat a lot of salad at Cici's, and only indulged in two small slices of pizza. I suppose my weekend started early, oops.
Then, on Saturday, my husband and I spent the better part of the day walking around downtown Saint Augustine, exploring the Castillo de San Marcos (it was free admission, thanks to National Park Week!) and then walking to our favorite weekend spot, Borrillo's pizza, about half a mile away. I had my "usual" single slice (fills the plate!) of pizza, but I found that within a short time (just an hour or so) I was feeling low on energy again! Since I don't seem to lose energy during the week, I think it's safe to say that the spike in energy (and then sudden drop) was due to consuming the enriched flour in the pizza crust. It seems that I don't get this spike-and-then-drop when I avoid enriched flour (ie, eating the burger without the bun) but I also don't get the drop if I consume whole grain flour instead of enriched, either.
Of course, having less whole grains in your diet for a day leads to, ah, other problems too. One would think this would be easily remedied by eating something with more fiber later on in the day (I love Kellogg's FiberPlus bars, great flavor!) but it seems that something in the enriched flour just stops me up, and no amount of extra fiber later in the day gets me back on track.
I'm starting to get to a good point in my diet modification, one where I am able to not rely on a cheat day for a sampling of enriched flour. After four weeks, I no longer crave enriched flour as I once did, so taking a nibble here or there will not be a problem for me. Having "cheat" days on the weekends gave me something to look forward to in the event that I was having horrible cravings - this was how I overcame my soda addiction - and now I can go for weeks without drinking a soda, then have one on a weekday (instead of a previously-assigned weekend cheat day) and be back to "normal" the next day without a problem. I can definitely see myself skipping out on enriched flour choices on the weekends, because my body is just unhappy with the energy it receives from this less-than-nourishing food.
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