On Paleo eating on vacay and splurging a little

I promised a post on eating Paleo on vacation.

It's harder in the burbs than in the city.

Unless there's a Chipotle around! It is by far mine and Boudreaux's most favorite place to eat on the road. If I could, I would marry Chipotle.

But I digress.

First time around in Cali this summer, Paleo and GF eating were much easier. We had a wonderful little restaurant across from our hotel that served huge meat and veggie filled dairy free omelettes with fruit on the side. And as there are more choices of restaurants in a fancy place like SF, with some great fish choices, it was easy.

This time around, meh. Our first night in was actually good, and that's because we ate a fancy-ish place that had GF pastas (not that I ate that, but at least they are sensitive to GF life at the very least), but at least cooked their meats in one place, their veggies in another, and gluteny and grainy things somewhere else. Of course there's always the risk of cross contamination, but here it was minimal. My cousin and I each got glorious veal dishes which we shared (my dish had me at prosciutto, you know, bacon's Italian cousin), and wow. Meat, veggies, the appropriate amount of fat. Perfect. I even splurged a bit on dessert--panna cotta--since the dairy was a thick cooked custard (is that redundant), so it gave me minimal trouble. But was worth it. That was okay.

And even Saturday and Sunday morning were good, too. IHOP can be very Paleo friendly, believe it or not, at least in Cali. The catch is that for the omelette, you must get the egg substitute because their regular omelettes are made with buttermilk and pancake batter. So one of their "Fit and Healthy" omelettes, minus the cheese, add some bacon to the side, some avocado on top, and the fruit, and bam! You're in business. No stomach distress or trouble after those meals either. Score!

Saturday night though was the wedding. And I splurged, really, for the first time in months. Bacon wrapped crab cakes? On it (the crab cakes were most certainly breaded)! Ahi tuna on a sesame tortilla? Scarfed down. Baby bbq chicken tostadas? Yummy yummy yummy in my tummy tummy tummy! As the lamb chops were indeed the most Paleo of the appetizers, I made sure to have four of them. Also, there was wine. Lots and lots of wine that was free in which I willingly and copiously partook. The wedding dinner: walnut apple blue cheese salad. Delicious. I got the sea bass which also had bacon in the side dish (were they potatoes? I cannot remember, but I cleaned the plate). And then the wedding cake. Oh glorious wedding cake. It is by far my most favorite of all the cakes in the world, and it is good that I do not have access to it. I ate three pieces! THREE! So worth it. So incredibly indeed most certainly worth it. If I married Chipotle, I would cheat on it with wedding cake.

Well, it will come as no surprise to you then that I didn't sleep all that well Saturday night and that at about mid morning Sunday I started to really feel the effects of the wine and the cake and the night of debauchery (during which I ripped my dress dancing AND worked my calves so hard by hopping around on the dance floor non-stop for about three hours, no lie) and was definitely worse for the wear. I went and laid down in the car during the first stop of our wine tasting on the way out of town Sunday morning. I had a little hair of the dog at the second winery which helped and by the third I was starting to feel more normal again.

But the damage was done. I will fully admit that from Sunday on I was an insufferable bitch even after the hangover wore off.

As I knew pizza would be served later, I insisted on stopping at Chipotle so I could eat. That was fine. I think the mistake was getting the chips (but I hadn't had chips and salsa in soooooooooo long. I just wanted at taste!) And I was fine until I had some of the fondant from the cake topper (no way was I having another piece!) But the sugar just sent my stomach into overload. But I made it up Monday morning and went to the nearby CrossFit box. On our way to Napa we stopped at a cafe I had eaten at before. In theory it was perfect. I got eggs with lox, some bacon, fresh fruit. Perfect. Except I didn't bother to ask if the eggs were prepped with milk. My cousin's girlfriend and I were both starting to feel a little ill, and as it was just the two of us lactose intolerant people, we decided that the eggs had milk. Grrrr. And what should have been a great dinner--gourmet beef hamburger wrapped in lettuce with avocado and bacon (even though I did get the french fries, which I never eat), there was so much cross contamination in the food (even though this was supposed to be fancy) that I swelled up like a balloon and felt like shit driving back to our hotel. And then Tuesday morning wasn't any better. Another diner neither my cousin's girlfriend or I thought to ask about dairy in the eggs, and some stupid potatoes (they were red, not white, still off limits, but the diner's specialty--they were filled with veggies), and bam! Instant grossness. Instant grumpiness. Instant cramping.

I will admit that I made a couple of bad choices, but I think I just opened the door for trouble and just never recovered. Boudreaux giggled at how swollen my belly looked when he saw me. My aunt was like, "oh, it looks like you have a baby in there! how I wish!" (Me: GRRRRRR! That's something all non-pregnant women want to hear: "Oh you look pregnant!"). My head hurt. I was congested. And sad!

It's true! Not only is there an effect on the body from the gluten but on the mind, too. Mentally I just felt horrible.

And let's talk about the sleep issue here, too. The first time in Cali this summer when I was able to minimize the cross contamination gluten issue, I slept great! This time, between the gluten and the wine--ugh! Horrible, horrible sleep! One to two hours, then I'd wake up. Then maybe two to three hours, then I'd wake up. My cousins said one night I was just thrashing in the bed tossing and turning, so clearly that was not some restful sleep at all. Even when I got to my own bed, the effects were devastating. I went to bed at nine. I tossed and turned and was wide awake until after midnight, and I had even take three melatonin at that point to try to sleep, but to no avail. Last night was really the first night in over a week that I got a solid 8 hours, and I feel much better.

Was it worth it? Yes and no. The wedding cake--definitely! But I was just a horrible person for the second half of the trip because I didn't feel well, and I feel really bad about that. I would have preferred to enjoy myself a bit more and not be so nasty to everyone. I had a short fuse, too.

I think next time I need to stick more to salads when I travel than to get hot meals. Depending on where one is, that might be the best way to avoid the cross contamination issue.