Whole 30: The last week... Are we finished yet?

Wow - it's been a CRAZY week around here!  So busy that I didn't realize until tonight that I hadn't updated my blog in a while.

We finished the Whole30!  Yay!  I will admit to cheating about 12 hours before the program ended 😥... Lucia, however, finished strong.  I am so proud of her!!!

I won't bother listing what I ate, since it is pretty much the same as other days.  I am listing below the few things that were new, and if they have recipes, I've linked them.

• Tom Kha Gai Soup (Thai Coconut Chicken Soup)
• Brussel sprouts with balsamic vinegar
• Oven roasted beets

So all in all, it was a good experience.  We had some good results:  I lost 10 pounds, Lu lost 8.  We each lost inches around the stomach/hips.  Dennis also lost some weight, but he had to travel throughout the program and wasn't able to be as focused on it as we were.

I definitely think that I will do it again at some point, but more importantly, I really enjoyed how good I felt on it.  I have tried a few pieces of candy over the last day or two and man, it hit me like a ton of bricks (and not in a good way).  

We are slowly easing back into the real world.  We need to phase in some foods to see how/if we have reactions to them.  We are trying gluten-free grains first.  Once we see how those go, we'll move on to the other areas:  Dairy, normal grains, legumes...  I'll keep things updated here on the next few days!

Thanks for following... I'm excited to see where this goes!  I definitely will be focusing on healthier eating and cooking going forward.

Whole 30 Days 20 - 24... Trudging toward the end!

Well, we are 7 days out.  I am ready for some bread, but I am trudging my way forward and going to try my best to finish strong!  Clearly I've lost my blog posting motivation, but I really want to complete as many goals associated with this effort as I can.

I haven't been doing as well with my daily praying / meditation, but I HAVE been purging and definitely have met that goal with at least a full car load to go to Goodwill!

I found a recipe for a DELICIOUS Chocolate Almond Energy Bite... SO GOOD!  But also, so good that we ate all of them in a sitting between the 4 of us, so could be dangerous.  Recipe is below.

Here's where I am on the food front...

Day 20:

• Meal 1: Lemon Rx Bar & Coconut Latte
• Meal 2: Chicken & Apple Sausage and Butternut Squash Soup
• Meal 3: Half of a Green Goddess Cobb Salad with Chicken (from Panera) - no cheese or dressing
• Snacks: Banana

Day 21:

• Meal 1: 2 Eggs, Sliced Avocado
• Meal 2: Spicy Lemongrass Soup with Chicken
• Meal 3: Butternut Squash Soup
• Snacks: Lemon Rx Bar, Coconut Latte

Day 22:

• Meal 1: 2 Eggs, Banana, 2 pieces of Bacon, Sweet potato fries, Coconut Latte
• Meal 2: Chocolate Almond Butter energy bites
• Meal 3: Curry Chicken with Riced Cauliflower
• Snacks: Banana

Day 23:

• Meal 1: 2 Eggs, Sliced Avocado, unsweetened applesauce
• Meal 2: Curry Chicken, Chocolate Almond Energy Bites
• Meal 3: Spaghetti Squash with meat sauce, apple cider
• Snacks: banana, energy bites

Day 24:

• Meal 1: 2 eggs, bacon and home fries.  Coconut Latte
• Meal 2: Banana, handful of nuts
• Meal 3: Pulled pork and sauce, baked sweet potato
• Snacks: Coconut Chocolate Rx Bar

Whole 30: 18 & 19 ... I am getting a little tired of this...

Yup - I've hit a bit of a wall.  I know there are 10000 recipes out there, but I'm stuck in a rut of making what I know works and what we will eat.  Although I haven't found a bad recipe yet, but I'm just kind of tired of being so aware of the program.  BUT... I know it is good with me and I definitely feel better, so I will keep on going and finish out strong!







Day 18 - ate out every meal :-(

• Meal 1:  2 poached eggs, bacon and hash browns (I was out with a friend - so didn't cook myself, but stayed as on program as I could)
• Meal 2: Panera... 1/2 a Fuji Apple Salad with chicken (no cheese, onions or dressing)
• Meal 3: Publix Salad Bar with grilled chicken
• Snacks: Cut fruit, half a banana

Day 19

• Meal 1:  2 Egg puffs, coffee with dates and almond creamer
• Meal 2:  Sweet potato with blueberries, apples, walnuts and coconut
• Meal 3:  Acorn Squash soup, chicken & apple sausage and Kale salad
• Snacks: Lemon Lara bar, Apple chips

Onward and upward!  (or hopefully, downward on the scale front)

Whole 30: Days 15-17... Halloween Candy - yikes!

Today is Halloween... hasn't been too hard ... YET.  We are heading out to go trick-or-treating in about 30 minutes and when the candy comes back IN the house, that will be when the challenge starts.

I've branched out with a few more recipes over the last day or two.  Some good, some okay.  I've noticed that I am definitely less hungry than I've been in a while.  That is great!  So here are the last few days...

Day 15:

• Meal 1:
• Meal 2:  2 eggs and bacon; sweet potato fries
• Meal 3:  Coconut Curry chicken and cauliflower rice.  DELICIOUS!  I didn't think I liked curry, but my daughter insisted I make it and it was really yummy.  Definitely a keeper.
• Snacks:  Cashews, banana, blueberry Rxbar

Day 16:

• Meal 1:  Egg with avocado, banana
• Meal 2: Pumpkin un-oatmeal with walnuts, scrambled egg  ("oatmeal" was okay, wouldn't do it again)
• Meal 3:  Pork chops and apple sauce, salad
• Snacks:  Chocolate Sea Salt RxBar

Day 17:

• Meal 1:  Banana, 1 egg scrambled with bacon and veggies
• Meal 2:  1 egg souffle, 1 piece of bacon
• Meal 3:  Hamburgers and sweet potato fries and apple sauce
• Snack:  Almond milk latte, terra chips

Whole 30: Days 12-14... I've eaten more bananas in the last week than I have in my entire lifetime.

A strange thing has happened on the Whole 30.  I am now eating bananas.  I know, probably not weird to you but TRUST ME, I DO NOT EAT BANANAS.  From a baby on, I haven't liked them at all.  Mom can attest to that.  Within the last few years, I've been willing to put them into smoothies and occasionally will try banana bread but that was my limit.  

Within the last week, I've easily eaten a dozen bananas, straight out of the skin.  Some days, I've eaten 3.  WHAT IS HAPPENING?!?!?  I really like them all of the sudden!  

We are 2 full weeks into the Whole 30.  It is going well.  While I am glad that I now have a taste for bananas  I'm getting kind of tired of sweet potatoes and eggs.  I've found some great recipes, but it is time to shake things up a bit and try some new ones.  Hopefully this coming week will be a little more sane to allow me to do that!

Here is what I ate the last few days.  A lot more "snacks" than I want with Robotics though, so need to come up with some better options there.

Day 12:

• Meal 1:  Scrambled eggs with spinach, prosciutto and salsa; coffee with "pumpkin spice" non-dairy creamer.  Yummy but not worth the daily effort!
• Meal 2:  Banana and RxBar (not really hungry)
• Meal 3: Acorn squash with sausage, caramelized onions, apples and spinach
• Snacks: Banana and RxBar

Day 13:

• Meal 1:  Banana and Rx Bar
• Meal 2:  2 scrambled eggs with diced turkey, spinach, honey nut squash and onions.
• Meal 3:  Sweet potato with BBQ on top and a salad
• Snacks: Banana

Day 14: 

• Meal 1:  Green Juice from Costco, 2 eggs and sweet potato toast
• Meal 2: Salad bar from Legman's with Chicken Breast and Hard Boiled egg
• Meal 3:  Chicken & Apple sausage and sweet potato
• Snacks: Banana, carrots and almond butter, Beet chips

Day 14:

Whole 30: Days 10 & 11 - The Kitchen Sink

Boy my hand hurts...  Definitely won't be using a mandolin again.  I am so thankful it is a pretty superficial cut.  It is deep and will take a while to heal, but it could have been SO. MUCH. WORSE.

Whole 30 is continuing on... I feel pretty good overall.  Definitely feel better on the energy front and I'm sleeping REALLY well at night.  as of today, we are 1/3 of the way through it and I think I can finish strong!  Of course, we still have 19 days to go including Halloween.  But I can do this.  Here is what I ate the last few days...



Day 10:

• MEAL 1:  Sweet potato bowl with blueberries, apple, coconut and walnuts
• MEAL 2:  Pulled pork with homemade BBQ sauce and a banana.  The sauce was AWESOME. I tweaked it a bit and used apple cider instead of juice, and added some liquid smoke.  YUM!!!
• MEAL 3:  I made a delicious frittata...  basically I threw random stuff in it, and it was delicious!  Basically everything in my fridge but the kitchen sink.  It had sausage, diced sweet potato, onion, spinach, etc...  The picture above is the finished product.
• SNACKS:  Cantaloupe, Banana

Day 11:

• MEAL 1:  Sweet potato bowl with blueberries, apple, coconut and walnuts
• MEAL 2:  I hit the hot bar at Wegman's for lunch - they have some great W30 options!  I loaded up with green beans, red skin potatoes, roasted butternut squash with spinach and craisins and a piece of chicken.  Yum!
• MEAL 3:  Leftover frittata, and I tried to make sweet potato latkes.  They didn't turn out well.  Tasted good, but not pretty.  Need to keep working on my latke skills!

I am a little worried about the next few weeks, in that we are getting into a REALLY busy time of year for all of us.  Lucia is trying to figure out where she is applying for high school, and has been doing a lot of open houses and will be doing shadow days.  Plus, she is in Robotics, and our competition is in a little over 3 weeks.  Yikes!  But, we will make it work!

Whole 30: Days 7, 8 & 9... Ghee (Butter) Coffee and a W30 accident

Today is Day 9 on the plan.  Everything has been going so well, it was bound to mean that something had to go wrong.  So I had an accident this morning while I was prepping dinner.  

And I didn't think you wanted a picture of my hand, so here is the butter coffee I reference below...

I was slicing sweet potatoes to make sweet potato chips for dinner using my mandolin.  I went to a thicker slice level to try to make some sweet potato toast, and after a few swipes, ended up slicing off a good chunk of my hand/wrist.  Fun.  Nothing like an unexpected ER visit!  Nothing to stitch, but bandaged up for a few days {{sigh}}...  I promptly threw away the mandolin and am going to look for something else to slice my veggies!  I have a food processor, but it doesn't have a "feeder" function for slicing.

Here are my last two days, and then what I've had so far today (and what is planned).

Day 7:

• Coffee sweetened with Medjool Dates and Almond/Coconut creamer
• Meal 1 = Banana, Fried Egg & 1/2 a sliced Avocado
• Meal 2 = Lunch at The Daily:  Shared a Crabstack (crabmeat on top of tomato and avocado) and a Mahi BLT (no roll or mayo)
• Meal 3 = Salad with grilled chicken and blueberries
• Snack = Kombucha and Chocolate Sea Salt RxBar (W30 compliant)

Day 8:

• Meal 1 = Banana and an Apple Pie Lara bar.  I started the morning off with "Butter" Coffee (Coffee sweetened with Medjool Dates, Almond Creamer and a tsp. of Ghee) - DELICIOUS!  Really thick, and seemed to give me a nice energy boost.  A lot of calories but a nice treat now and then.  (Note: the link isn't the exact recipe I follow but it is a close one.  I used Ghee instead of butter, no sweetener but did add Dates and blended them in, and no coconut oil or vanilla extract.  I may try the extract tomorrow).
• Meal 2 = Eggs and Bacon 
• Meal 3 = Grilled Chicken and Crash Hot Potatoes

No snacks on Sunday - I was REALLY content with what I had over the day, so I definitely count that as a win!!!

Day 9:   

• Meal 1 = Butter coffee, banana and a piece of bacon and Kombucha
• Meal 2 = Scrambled Eggs with diced chicken, spinach and salsa.  Slice of Bacon and cup of unsweetened Almond Milk
• Meal 3 (FUTURE) = ** Planned for Pulled Pork, Sweet Potato chips and salad

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Whole 30: Days 5 & 6 (I'm exhausted!)

It is so true to how the Whole 30 book suggests the days will go, the feelings I've had have been pretty spot-on.  Days 4&5 were entitled "Kill all things" and days 6&7 are entitled "I just want a nap".

Yes.

In fact, yesterday (day 6) I felt like crap.  I ended up taking a 2 hour nap.  That helped, but man - I was not ready to feel like that.  I'm just lucky I could lay down and sleep it off.


But, I am noticing that things that were snug are a little looser, and I feel, well, different.  Less bloated, overall good.  The food we are eating is DELICIOUS and I think can be easily incorporated long-term.  And I've had a few "eating out" challenges that I've been able to accomplish well.  Between lunch out the other day, and dinner last night for Robotics at the school, I'm still sticking to plan.

I will definitely admit to some cravings.  Someone brought in dinner last night for the Robotics Team, and the smell of the butter and ritz crackers on the chicken casserole was heaven.  And the Halloween mini cupcakes looks amazing (even with the green and orange frosting).  Usually they taste like cardboard but last night they looked decadent.  However, I had my W30 compliant dessert and did fine.  In fact, I cooked dinner for the 4 of us who are doing W30 and brought it in, along with some extra dinner for the other adults and got rave reviews!

My only complaint so far is how much I miss my coffee...  working on a compliant option for that!  Black coffee just won't do it for me.

So here was what I managed the last two days.

Day 5:

• Meal 1:  Good old Sweet Potato bowl with Blueberries, Walnuts and coconut.
• Snack: Honey crisp apple with almond butter and coconut
• Meal 2:  Steak Tacos at Outback (but I only ate the steak, pico de gallo and a dry sweet potato and mixed it all together)
• Meal 3: Coconut Chicken Tenders and green beans
• Snack: Cashew Cookie Lara bar

Day 6:

• Meal 1:  Fried Eggs (cooked in Ghee) and Avocado
• Meal 2:  2 Coconut Chicken Tenders and an Apple with Almond Butter & Coconut
• Meal 3:  Acorn Squash with Caramelized Onions, Sausage & Apple stuffing and Apples with almond butter and coconut
• Snack: Apple Pie Larabar

Picture of the Acorn Squash... SO DARN YUMMY!!! 

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Whole 30: Days 3 & 4

3 days in and I fell off the blog-posting wagon already!  But back up I get...

I have been POOPED OUT the last couple of days!  Definitely missing my coffee.  I tried it black, but just couldn't do it, so back to tea I go.  I need to find some caffeinated tea with some decent flavor.  So far, all I've found are herbals that I like which don't quite give me the boost I'm looking for in the energy arena.  I'm hoping that I will start seeing an increase in my energy in the next day or two...

Here is what I did for food:

DAY 3:

• MEAL 1 (Breakfast):  Stuck with my Sweet potato bowl... I find it really filling and yummy!
• MEAL 2 (Lunch):  Mashed Sweet potato with a Fried Egg (I used Ghee to cook the egg)
• SNACKS:  Freeze Dried Peaches and an Apple with Almond Butter and shredded unsweetened coconut.  Yum!
• MEAL 3 (Dinner):  Paleo Beef Stew
• SNACK:  1/2 of an RxBar

DAY 4:

• MEAL 1 (Breakfast):  Fried Egg, small piece of avocado and some honeydew melon
• SNACK:  Honeydew Melon, Red grapes and a strawberry
• MEAL 2 (Lunch):  Ate out at Panera - I got 1/2 of a Fuji Apple Salad with chicken, without cheese or dressing (or onions)
• SNACKS:  Sweet potato bowl with blueberries, walnuts & coconut
• MEAL 3 (Dinner):  Roasted butternut squash, apples & onions and Aidell's Chicken & Apple sausage
• SNACK:   Cherry, Apple and Chia "Pressed by Kind" Bar

As for the other goals, I had Bible Study this morning and definitely got my prayer and reading in.  I am struggling with the exercise piece, but the plan does say in the beginning not to worry about that until your energy is back so I am taking that to heart!

Whole 30 Day 2: It was a good day for a lot of reasons

Today was a REALLY good day for a lot of reasons.

In regard to W30 Day 2, I started out the day with prayer and my daily devotional, which was a good way to stop and slow down before the craziness of the school week truly kicked in.  We knew today was coming on the financial front, so I did a lot of praying about it this morning.

We planned and packed our lunches Sunday night for today, which definitely was a time saver on this rainy, yucky Monday!  I did not get in my exercise or my reading, but the night isn't over (for reading at least).

Meals today were the following:

• Meal 1 (breakfast):  Sweet potato bowl with blueberries, apples, walnuts and almond milk
• Meal 2 (lunch):  I cooked up a double batch of Whole 30 tomato sauce and threw a pound of turkey and a pound of ground beef in it.  It was simmering all day, so I tried "Zoodles" (zucchini noodles) with the sauce.  Yum.  
• Meal 3 (dinner):  We had Spaghetti Squash with the Meat Sauce.  The sauce could have been a meal on its own.
• Snacks:  Melon with Prosciutto, Apple with Almond Butter, Ants on a Log (Almond Butter) and a few nuts

~~~~~~~~

In regard to the rest of the day (i.e. non W30), today was a REALLY good day.  I got my car back from the auto body shop, all fixed up.  And Dennis and I had a big financial goal and we met it.  IT IS SUCH AN AMAZING FEELING TO CHECK THE BOX ON THE GOAL!!! 

If you haven't ever checked out Dave Ramsey, I highly suggest him.  The Financial Peace program is amazing. 

Live like no one else so that later you can LIVE like no one else.  Amen.

Here's to another good day tomorrow.

Whole30 Day 1: Holy Headache!

First day is underway, and for the most part, going well.  It's been a little anti-climatic but that is better than overly surprising!  We've been pretty busy, which I think is also a good thing as it's kept my mind off of food.  

So the different thing about Whole 30 is that you have 3 meals a day, but they aren't specifically breakfast, lunch, dinner.  You can eat anything at any time.  So for today, we've had the following:

• Meal 1 (Breakfast):  Fried eggs and sliced avocado
• Snack:  We were picking up a few things at Whole Foods, and found two bars that were allowed:  Epic bars (kind of like jerky) and Rx Bars.  Our plan is that these are only for emergencies, but we did sample one of each between the three of us.
• Meal 2 (Lunch):  Baked Sweet Potatoes.  Dennis had his with chicken, and Lucia and I had ours with diced apples, blueberries and walnuts along with a dash of almond/coconut creamer.  Holy cow that was tasty!
• Snack: Melon with Prosciutto, veggies and fruit
• Meal 3 (Dinner):  Chicken, Butternut Squash and Onions

We had a few temptations at a high school open house we attended and then at a friend's house we stopped by at, but we were able to make compliant choices!

Right now my head is killing me.  I mean, every ounce of my body is screaming for a large cup of coffee and something sugary.  But I took 3 Tylenol instead, and had a quarter of an apple.   I'm pretty tired out too, so I think it will be an early night to bed for all of us.

In regard to my other goals, I went to church today and definitely got in my prayer and quiet time.  Still need to fit in some reading.  I took a tour of a high school with Lucia which was over 90 minutes of walking, so I will count that toward my exercise for today!

See you tomorrow!

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30 days to a healthier me!

It's been a long time since I've blogged... too long.  A lot has happened in a year, almost all good.  No complaints.  And I'm still sober, which is a really good thing.

However, I've definitely replaced the alcohol with some less positive habits like more sugar, less exercise, less prayer, etc... so I am choosing to reboot myself and refocus on taking better care of ME.  As a side benefit, that will help me take better care of my family.

We are starting The Whole 30 tomorrow.

We are beginning the program (as a family).  We need too.  Our eating habits are not good right now.  We could all use a reboot in that area. Liam may not be follow it completely, but I will be making as many changes as I realistically can with him as a 6 year old.

When I started reading about the program, one particular tough-love section stood out to me with flashing lights all around it...

“It is not hard. 

Don’t you dare tell us this is hard. 

Quitting heroin is hard. 

Beating cancer is hard. 

Drinking your coffee black. Is. Not. Hard.”

Getting sober over 2 years ago was hard.  But I did it.  I can do this too.  

The program rules are the following:

The other big one not listed is that you DO NOT STEP ON THE SCALE.  AT ALL.  FOR 30 DAYS.  

I am committing to blogging each day about it, and also holding myself to a few other challenges during the next 30 days which include 

• Taking 30 minutes a day for myself (for meditation, my daily devotional, prayer and reading)
• Fitting in 30 minutes of exercise a day
• Keeping a simple gratitude list
• Getting 30 things a week out of my house

All for a healthier me.  See you tomorrow!