Whole 30 - Day 8

Welcome to week 2!!!

Remember that time I was excited to try new recipes and listed what I wanted to get to try them out? Yeah, that'll have to be next week. Costco has been calling my name so my roommate Alyssa and I did the fastest and cheapest Costco run of all time. I came out of it with hearts of romaine (the butter lettuce was calling me but I need to make a salad for church on Sunday and romaine was cheaper), a package of haricots verts (fancy pants French green beans), a big old tub of yellow baby tomatoes, and a 5 lb. bag of frozen asparagus.

Breakfast was a burger from last night. I would like 5 more now please. Sadly I'm all out of those delicious homegrown tomatoes and it was so tempting to grab a bottle of ketchup and squeeze it all over. Since I didn't though I was able to enjoy the delicate taste of the lettuce leaves and the flavor of the red meat that I don't eat very often. I had a cup of unsweetened cinnamon applesauce just before I headed out the door.

For lunch I fried up some eggs and sauteed garlic and spinach. It was not my most delicious meal but it held me over. The kids corndogs were screaming at me again "Eat me Elle!! Bite into my deep fried cornmeal and squishy so called meat core!" Oh pinterest was also an evil thing today. There are SO many tasty little pieces of evil floating around on there.

Dinner was so good! Thinly sliced pork chops breaded with coconut flour and pan fried in coconut oil then simmered in chicken broth and slices of fresh lemon. For my main vegetable I blanched a big fat handful of haricots verts and did the lazy girl version of baking a small potato in the microwave. Post dinner I had a coconut date roll. I'm full, happy and back to space, the final frontier!

Whole 30 - Days 4-7

Ok so don't judge me for not writing. Its been an emotional weekend and I chose to use more of my time sleeping and watching Star Trek than blogging about my yummy food.

Some of my nutrition highlights were the parsnips that I roasted with potatoes, carrots, and onions. Have I declared my love for CARAMELIZED ONIONS yet??? I can't get enough of them! Dinner the other night turned out to be an entire plate full of broccoli with ghee and a chicken apple sausage with them sweet sonsabitches piled on top of it. Add onion to ALL THE THINGS! (As a side note, I just reread my last post where I already praised the onion. Oh well. Its obviously not a lie!)

While I wait for my food to cook I generally flip through this vegetable book I checked out from the library to learn about some things I haven't tried yet and new ways to prepare them.

Today its time for another trip to the grocery store and I'm planning on getting spinach to saute into eggs in the morning and to make my mom's spinach egg salad, cabbage to try this recipe I found on the Pinterest machine, and more sweet potatoes!!!

Last night I gave into the burger craving I'd been salivating over and it turned out delicious. I'm thinking the leftovers are going to be my breakfast! Can we talk about how delicious butter lettuce and homegrown tomatoes are?? I just kept wrapping more and more leaves around that little patty. (Patty is a gross word. Remind me not to use it again).

Whole 30 - Day 3

L: Glazed onions cooked in coconut oil and sun dried tomato chicken sausage & baked butternut squash cooked in olive oil with paprika and Italian seasoning. 1 tsp organic apple cider vinegar in a cup of water.

D: The same :) Only with 2 big ass carrots sliced thinly and cooked in the microwave for a few minutes.

Snacks: Kale chips and 1 coconut date roll, 1 small apple

Its already getting easier! Several days a week I sleep in like a lazy little kid and only eat 2 main meals. So don't judge me for skipping breakfast. Its more like a regular brunch!

Can I just say how much I LOVE glazed onions?? I want to just eat them all day every day. That would give me some winning breath at the salon for sure. My only real exercises in restraint today weren't hard to overcome. Because it was my birthday on Sunday and it was my first day back at the salon this week they bought me a donut as a treat. It was even key lime! Alas I was strong and only smelled it once or twice. As I stared at the candy corn on display I just thought about it as a decoration rather than something I wanted to gobble down by the handfuls.

Since the snack cravings haven't been going away I immediately headed to Whole Foods after work to browse my options. Talk about a cave of wonders! Thats where I found the coconut date rolls. The deliciously decadent perfect little date rolls. Having heard reviews of Larabars I snatched a few of those up and some fruit leather.

A few more treasures I grabbed were for cooking, a bottle of coconut aminos and ghee. My plan is to create a few sauces and get more creative in the way my food is prepared.

Good night day 3!

Whole 30 - Day 2

Day two

B: Handful of raw almonds and half a bell pepper

L: Chicken with garlic, sun dried tomato, and basil (Leftovers from last night) 1 big carrot, 1/2 an apple

Snack: Avocado, banana

D: 3 eggs scrambled with 1/4 onion and a bell pepper and a pinch of homemade taco seasoning, 1 large sweet potato with a tsp of coconut milk and cinnamon

Can I just say that sweet potato was the best thing I've eaten today??? I've noticed the flavors in my food stand out so much but after only 2 days of not eating anything sweet it was amazing!!! The avocado also tasted like a heavenly delight. I got tired mid day but I think that was because I'd stayed up until 2am watching Vampire Diaries 

My biggest temptation was a corndog. Man oh man did I want a bite of corndog. I nanny on Tuesdays and Wednesdays so I'm kind of at the mercy of whatever is in the house and I have to cook for the kids. When I opened a yogurt I had to try really really hard to remember to not lick the foil wrapper off before I threw it away. But I didn't! It was actually interesting to look through the fridge and pantry to see what I could eat and realize how bad the "American Diet" really is! I honestly do believe that whole grains are important but should be used moderately. That doesn't mean I've done that. Lets be real like a week ago I ate a loaf of that $1 french bread from Walmart by myself. Maybe in one day. And it made me happy when it was going into my mouth but I felt so guilty afterwards (that's what she said). My body has felt awesome the past 2 days and I'm really excited for what is to come!

Whole 30 - Day 1

Day one!!! 

It was a sleeping in day so I really only ate two meals and a snack 

B: 2 eggs and 1 white scrambled with onion, bell pepper, fresh basil, and tomato. 2 tsp apple cider vinegar in 8 oz water. 1 Banana

Snack: 1 apple, 2 large carrots

D: 1 chicken breast with garlic, fresh basil, trader joe's sun dried tomatoes. 1/3 of a large zucchini breaded in egg and almond flour panfried in olive oil

Treat: 1/2 cup applesauce (no added sugar!)

Mid day I was crashing a little and held myself over to dinner with the carrots and a big glass of water. Its amazing how the munchies went away and I felt great. Honestly I feel incredible today! My church activities usually end with sweets so I brought the last of my birthday cake over and shared it. It felt really rewarding to not feel the need to eat just for social reasons. I was also paying attention to my body and realized that even if I was going to let myself eat some cake I was so full from dinner that I didn't really want it anyway. 

A friend stopped by and I gave her a few of the last remaining trouble items in my pantry; a sleeve of saltine crackers, croutons that I brought back from San Francisco and are probably stale anyway, and I gave her some of the incredible local produce i was GIVEN for FREE! I'm going to have to go tomato crazy if I want to actually eat them all before they go bad. 

I also made a trip to the library and checked out a few books about paleo diets, one all about vegetables, and a 15 minute workout book & dvd. I'm not going to go crazy on a workout schedule right now because I feel like my nutrition overhaul and spiritual changes I'm working on are enough focus and change for now.

I made 2 chicken breasts so I can take one with me with some carrots and tomatoes to work tomorrow. 

How great does it feel? DAY ONE COMPLETE!!!!!!

Beginning the Whole 30

I am beginning my Whole 30 on Monday October 6th. Its the day after my 26th birthday so it will be a healthy "restart" button for a new year of my life. 

Part of the reason I have chosen to do this is because of arthritic flare ups that I am not willing to treat with medication. I also feel that it will prevent at least some symptoms of seasonal affective disorder. I am overweight and although that doesn't bother me from a body image perspective I want to be healthier and active. Luckily I am pretty much running on empty in the pantry so I won't have to clean out much to start over. 

I'm nervous about slipping up but I love all of the foods that ARE allowed. I'm worried about the cost of starting the program but at the same time I know its actually very affordable. On the plus side my body is worth putting good money and good food into. I will have to really exercise self control because of Halloween but I feel that having this month of paying such close attention to what I put into my body will prepare me to be more in control of what I eat during the holidays.