Day 4

Dehydrated!!! That’s how everyone feels today.  I felt thirsty all day and I could see it in my face when I looked in the mirror and see my skin looks all crinkly dry.  Other than that, today was a good day.  With all this cooking means a whole lot of cleaning.  My mom and I have been washing a bazillion dishes and the cooking- I’m going to try to leave more of the dishes for the men 🙂   Our living situation is that a) we just sold our house last week b) we moved into my parents basement while we save again and look for a new home c) our friend is ALSO living with my parents d) this is not weird.

I grew up always having people that were either stuck or in in-between places of life living with our family.  My parents have always had extra space and have been generous with letting people use them!  My dad is retired now so he’s up at the family cabin a lot- so I’m sure my mom actually likes it, having people around and all!  I love it because my mom and I are so close so it’s fun to spend time together.  We are really blessed to be staying here.

Today, I forgot my lunch AGAIN. What is wrong with me? I left it on the island but this time my lovely husband told me he’d bring it to me.  It’s almost a shame because I would have rather had raspberries, carrots and guac, and a kombucha like I did on Monday.  I don’t like chicken thighs.  They look gross, they smell gross, I literally had to plug my nose eating this salad.  But I ate it all, and choked it down.  Seriously though, just a basic salad.  Spinach, avocado, carrots, cucumbers, chicken thighs, lemon juice and olive oil.  BUT, my boss made this amazing soup out of potatoes, carrots and squash.  It was all Whole 30 approved all though I don’t have the recipe link to post… It was just pureed and straight delicious.  That made up for the thighs.

But dinner…. My OH my!  Was this delicious.  Besides the fact that I literally didn’t have to do any of the prep work for it (thanks Mom!) it was one of my favorite tasting dishes yet.  It was so filling.  And no, the yellow/orange item in the photo is not cheese, it’s an heirloom tomato.  The recipe was from the Whole 30 blog and my mom found it.  (http://whole30.com/2014/09/buns-not-included/)  In the photo off the blog, the slider looks huge but keep in mind the “bun” is a slice of sweet potato and those  rounds are small.  I think we each got 3-4 but it was a perfect amount.  Snacked on some of the leftover turkey.  Definitely make these- although my mom did say they were a lot of work!

Day 3

Wahoo!  I read so many things about the Whole 30 plan and some people said they feel awful day 3-4 but I feel fine!  Actually, I have been so stressed (my own fault about over analyzing everything) that I haven’t thought much about how I felt about all the food.  Not to be braggy, because everyone probably starts the Whole 30 at different parts of their health journey, but I feel like I eat pretty similarly to this in real life.  I guess I eat maybe a bit more fruit, I eat peanut butter, I’ll have dairy too.  Actually, I just figured out what will be most different to me in this diet- dairy.  I like cheese a lot!  The others said yesterday and today were feeling kind of crummy, really hungry, groggy etc.

This morning we all had a hard boiled egg and a breakfast sausage.  I think the breakfast sausage was chicken and fennel… not my fave because I don’t love fennel but it was fine.  There weren’t many options because so many sausage have lots of extra ingredients!  I won’t add a photo… because I took it and well, its just looks like a hot dog on a frying pan and I think everyone knows what that would look like. Nothing special!  Ok, ok, I’ll post it.

 <— There it is.  Intriguing huh?

Then for lunch I ate some left overs that I didn’t get to eat yesterday and then for another lunch I made Paleo Fall Curry last night. This is another one of my favorite recipes. I love curry and this is an awesome, easy recipe.  I want to stay I stumbled upon this recipe sometime last year and make it probably every other week. (http://www.paleodietandliving.com/paleo-diet/recipe-paleo-fall-curry/).

For dinner we made chicken with apple and hatch chiles.  Also, I had a hatch chile which is why I chose this recipe- when I went back to Whole Foods they were already out of season- so we bought poblano instead to at the advisement of the produce man.(http://www.whatigather.com/2014/04/hatch-green-chile-and-apple-stuffed.html).

Not my favorite recipe, it was fine but just not a whole ton of flavor.

I wish I had some witty remarks to say about life but since I don’t, I’ll stick to posting the my Whole 30 journey and sharing photos of breakfast sausages!

Day Two- a day late!

Yikes.  Yesterday was exhausting, I was forcing myself to stay up and post our day but as I sent the photos of our meals by phone died and I just went to bed.

For breakfast we sautéed a zucchini, onion, and spinach in ghee and had two eggs on the side.  I’m guessing that breakfast will always entail something like this.  It’s easy and quick, unfortunately something that’s important when you only wake up 25 minutes before you have to leave for work!

Next for lunch, I spent all this time prepping the leftovers in everyones containers, with a cooked sweet potato and 1/4 chicken breast for a snack, and I left mine on the island.  So I ran to Whole Foods over my lunch break and grabbed some Kale Guacamole and carrots, as well as a Strawberry Serenity kombucha.  This one is awesome! And it’s also the lowest in sugar.  I did check online to make sure that kombucha was on the ‘ok’ list to drink- and it is!

For dinner we had these awesome chicken slides from What I Gather- Chicken Sliders (http://www.whatigather.com/2013/01/jalapeno-lime-chicken-sliders.html).  I had some leftover guacamole from lunch so we topped it with that and then had a side of green beans.  My mom added her fork to the photo because she said it looked “artsy.”  The photo looks kind of gross…. but it was awesome!  Later on for a snack we had Sugar Detox Carrot Cake Pudding (http://paleomg.com/sugar-detox-carrot-cake-pudding/).  I’ve made this before and was HAPPILY reminded this would fit into Whole 30.   I know you’re not really supposed to remake desserts, but I felt ok about eating this.  I wasn’t eating it because I was craving a sweet/candy, I was just still hungry!  We couldn’t get a picture of this because we ate it before I was able to.  It’s so good! Doesn’t taste like cooked carrots- which I absolutely hate. Also, I don’t keep coconut butter on hand because I don’t use it much but Whole Foods has these little 2 T packets which are perfect for the recipe!

So two days in, for me personally it’s been hard not to grab an extra sweet. I often get lunch from Whole Foods and do choose healthy options but it was weird not being able to get some sort of chocolate with lunch!  I missed that- but hey, it saved me a few dollars!

I haven’t added any physical activity besides my normal in… so no updates on that!

I also was hoping to add in some sort of routine with my relationship with God in, something where I struggle with discipline… I’m still thinking on that.  I have been really thankful though to God to be able to do this Whole 30 with family/friends because it’s fun to see something that I am passionate take a place in someone else’s life- that hopefully extends beyond 30 days.  I feel like God has really given me a passion for healthy/holistic living (and His power in that) and I love sharing that!

Day One

Today was day 1 of our whole30 plan.

Before we started this plan I chose a bunch of recipes that matched the plan’s guidelines and created a menu that would help set us all up for success.  We decided going shopping every 4 days (about) would work best as the foods we are eating go bad at a much quicker rate!  The whole30 plans says that it’s more important to stick to the do’s/don’t rather than worrying about whether something is organic, free-range, non-gmo etc.  Personally, I do care about those things so since not everyone in our clan does care, we decided to use the Clean 15/Dirty Dozen list when choosing organic or not.  If you are not familiar, this list shows what foods, when tested, show the highest amounts of pesticides and why it would be important to choose organic in these cases.  Seemed like a fair compromise for me!

The whole30 plan’s rule #7 tells you to ditch your scale, as there are better ways to measure your health.  So, we won’t be weighing ourselves to see if we lost weight in the midst of our next 30 days, but we will do before and after numbers so see if this happened over the 30 days, just because of course we will be curious!

Back to day 1.  Today we ate hard-boiled eggs (2) for breakfast, Cinco de Mayo Steak Salad (http://stupideasypaleo.com/2013/05/05/cinco-de-mayo-steak-salad/) for lunch, and Garbage Stir-Fry with Curried Cabbage for dinner (http://nomnompaleo.com/post/41781593486/whole30-day-29-garbage-stir-fry-with-curried-cabbage).

Breakfast was fine, as we ate this with coffee (creamed with coconut milk) in hand on the way to church this morning.  By the time we were on our way home, my stomach was feeling pretty hungry!

For lunch, instead of steak we used chicken breasts to top the salad.  It was good, but I found myself thinking, “Oh wow, this would be so good with some goat cheese!”  Scratch that.  I was still a tiny bit hungry after, but felt fine.   It was funny because today at church my husband, Aaron, said, “I can’t wait to go home and watch the football game and eat a salad.” Sarcastically of course- but he liked the salad.

For dinner we doubled the recipe so that we could eat this for lunch tomorrow as well.  Well, we’ll have to modify our plan because it just wasn’t enough food.  We ate a bit extra and left a bit for lunch but will need to add more.  We also ate some carrots and I ate a few raisins.  Aaron and Ezra, our friend, each at 2 eggs as well.  Yikes!  Guess I’ll need to plan appropriate sizes and/or an appropriate side next time.  Oh well, we’ll figure it out.  The recipe was really good though- loved the flavor!

So we have day one down and in the books!  Only, errr… only?, 29 days to go!  I’m excited about it, and for me personally, it will be more of a mental challenge than a physical one.  Not sure what has been the most challenging aspect for others, but that’s how I’m feeling now.  Who knows how I’ll feel tomorrow or next week!

Whole 30- Why?

For the past few years, I’ve eaten fairly healthy as I became more educated on what I was eating/probably shouldn’t be eating and became more passionate about cooking and what I was feeding my body. By eating this way, yes, I did lose a few pounds, but more than that I gained a healthy view on food and most stunning to me was it’s effect on my anxiety.

As of late, I’ve slipped into some old habits while I was under stress from selling our house and moving and honestly, became a bit lazy about daily meals. After a friend informed me she was in the middle of doing the Whole30 program, I recruited my husband, a friend who we are living with, and my mom to join me and delve into a 30 day plan, designed to strategically “change your life” and help you “reset” in many different areas. Today marks day 1!