Whole 30 day 26

Day 26 HOLLAAAAA! Holy shit only four days left!

Starting to think about reintroduction, which feels crazy. 

Day 25 meals: 

1: three eggs with prosciutto and mushroom, half a sweet potato, 1/4 of an avocado

2: 3 slices turkey, cherry tomatoes, guacamole mini

3: leftover shrimp and broccoli, sweet potato, olive oil for fat

4a (pre yoga class): scrambled eggs, salsa, 1/4 avocado

4b (post-yoga class): 2 hard boiled eggs, guacamole mini, small bell pepper cut in strips

Day 26 so far: 

1. three eggs, prosciutto and mushrooms, most of an apple with almond butter (shared with toddler!)

2: two hard boiled eggs, 2 guac minis, cup of cherry tomatoes, cup of cut up mango

3: leftover shrimp and broccoli, sweet potato, olive oil for fat!

4: gonna be kind of crazy, actually... we have some canned tuna and I have a little mayo left, and we have some veg, so I'm thinking... salad and tuna/veg patties, maybe? Blargh, I wish I had a better plan. Must get to the grocery store this weekend! 

As far as re-intro goes.... I'm thinking dairy first. A little yogurt and fruit in the morning, cheese with my snack, more cheese (feta, how i've missed you!) on my lunch salad, and some sort of pulled chicken dish so I can make raita to go with dinner!

Whole 30 day 24

Wow, I've neglected this log for almost a whole week. That's crazy. No way will I remember everything I ate during that week, but let's recap a few highlights. 

This past weekend was GLORIOUS weather. It was 60 degrees on Saturday! Saturday morning we went to a W30 friend's house for brunch in the morning - she has two young kids so we brought miss J and they had a great time playing. I made a tortilla espanola and some lemon/caper/parsley mayonnaise, the hosts made homemade turkey sausage patties and chia coconut pudding parfaits with banana and strawberry, there was a sweet potato apple bacon hash and smoked salmon with cucumbers and another homemade mayo sauce. It was all so delicious! And so nice to socialize without worrying about compliance. Saturday afternoon we spent at a playground with spring coats on!!! Dinner was salmon rubbed with taco seasoning mix and broiled, and a salad of romaine, avocado, red onion pickled in lime juice and salt, and mango. Mango! So good and I never remember it. Pre Whole30 I would have defaulted to rice with the salmon, but the salad was excellent. 

Sunday we spent the morning at a playground and then on the walk home decided to try lunch out at the pub near our house. I had the burger and a salad, but no dressing because they couldn't do olive oil and vinegar, and no bacon, no cheese, no bun (no fun!). I had guacamole for my burger but they brought me a commercial vinaigrette for the salad so I had to use the guac as both burger topping and salad dressing. Honestly it was pretty sad. I hate feeling like "that person" at a restaurant and I could tell the waitress was annoyed. I guess it's good that we haven't eaten out much this month. 

Now that I'm in the home stretch (less than a week left!) I'm feeling pretty good. My NSVs are where I hoped they'd be - better sleep, clearer skin, better attitude. I think I've lost some weight but won't get on the scale till next Tuesday - my face looks thinner and my tummy is smaller... and I just feel lighter. That said, this is not a sustainable diet option for me long term. I miss beans and tofu and inexpensive protein! I've managed to mostly stick to our grocery budget but only because I got a grocery gift card for my birthday (my family knows me so well!). I think the sugar cut was the most helpful, and I hope I'm able to stick with saying no to things that aren't worth it once W30 is over. I like the idea of filling the plate with veg rather than starch, but I do miss the ease of rice bowls for dinner. I'm hoping rice isn't a problem for me! I can see myself doing a re-set w5 or w7 in the future if I need to, but I cannot see myself doing another w30 again. And I've been researching reintroduction protocols. I'm thinking dairy (cheese with breakfast, yogurt with lunch, sour cream with dinner), then beans (soy sauce with breakfast, black beans or chickpeas with lunch, tofu with dinner), then non gluten grains (oatmeal with breakfast, quinoa with lunch, rice with dinner) and gluten on the last day (toast, maybe farro with lunch, bread - or beer! - with dinner). At some point I'll reintroduce alcohol, will probably start with wine and save beer for the gluten day. We leave for a trip to New Orleans 9 days after I finish so I'm hoping reintroduction goes smoothly and I make good choices while we're traveling!  

Anyway, still a week to go! 

Day 24 meals: 

Breakfast: 3 scrambled eggs with prosciutto, half an avocado, half a sweet potato. No greens left from last night, alas!

Snack: 3 slices compliant turkey, a bunch of cherry tomatoes and a wholly guacamole mini cup, banana and a few tbsp almond butter

Lunch (will be): leftover mocha rubbed beef, cauli rice and kale

Dinner (will be): baked sweet potato, melissa clark's roasted shrimp and broccoli

Whole 30 day 18

Catch up post! 

Day 16:

Back to basics for breakfast with a chicken sausage, two eggs, half an avocado and half a sweet potato for breakfast. Snack was my favorite smoky spicy egg salad with red pepper strips and a banana with almond butter. Lunch was leftover chicken soup (not enough fat!). Dinner was Moroccan spiced shepherd's pie with sweet potato. 

Day 17: 

Same breakfast as the day before, but with a chicken apple sausage instead of the roasted red pepper and spinach ones. I really vastly prefer the spinach/RRP ones, the apple ones are kind of grossly sweet. Snack of Dietz & Watson mesquite smoked turkey slices wrapped around pepper strips with the end of my homemade mayo and some mustard. Also a clementine that was disgustingly sweet. Lunch of leftover shepherd's pie (way too sweet) and cherry tomatoes (too sweet!) in guacamole. WTF is happening to my tongue? Dinner of lamb chops, roasted butternut squash and satueed greens. The giant bag of "power greens" from Costco is awesome - cooks fast because it's baby greens and lasts us two meals instead of barely one meal, which is what we get out of the grocery store bags! 

Day 18: 

Breakfast of leftover lamb chop, a few butternut wedges and #putaneggonit. I always forget to cover sunny side up eggs so it was a little runnier than I'd have preferred, but edible. Snack of the last small portion of chicken soup (never enough fat), apple and almond butter. Lunch will be leftover shepherd's pie, more guacamole with some pepper strips. 

I realized this morning that I'm definitely sleeping better. The crazy intense dreams of the first ten days have worn off and mostly gone away and I was able to go back to sleep for half an hour after husband's verrry early alarm went off. My sugar cravings have abated some but aren't completely gone. It's been really easy to say no to off-plan food the last few days and I'm hoping that continues. 

Whole 30 day 16

Good morning day 16! 

Day 16. Over the hump! On the down hill slope! MORE THAN HALF WAY DONE.

Let's catch up on meals: 

Day 13 (Saturday)

Breakfast: Baked eggs over mushrooms and swiss chard, turkey bacon, black coffee

Lunch: Leftover NNP spicy tuna cakes, roasted broccoli and black radish, green beans, sunshine sauce

Dinner: Broiled salmon, sauce of mayo/capers/parsley/lemon, cucumber/avocado/scallion salad, roasted turnip soup

Day 14 (Valentine's day)

Breakfast: Hubs and kiddo had oatmeal, I had the last bits of salmon and green beans plus two fried eggs.

Lunch: A couple slices of turkey rolled around the last few bites of the cuke/avo salad, half a lara bar, and like an hour later a hard boiled egg

Dinner: Our favorite Zuni Cafe roasted chicken, sauteed power greens and burst cherry tomatoes, boiled fingerling potatoes for scooping up the chicken fat and juices from the roasting pan (by far the best part of the meal, yum).

Day 15 (President's Day holiday)

Breakfast: The end of the sauteed greens and cherry tomatoes, two poached eggs, one chicken sausage

Lunch: We went to a friend's house about 40 mins away for brunch; I brought smoked salmon (Costco hollaaaah) and a spanish tortilla and more mayo with capers and parsley. With the exception of a couple pieces of prosciutto and some grapes it was the only thing I could eat! So I ate rather a lot of it. When we got home at 2:30 I finished the turnip soup and the other half of that Lara bar from the day before.

Dinner: Chicken soup with onion, carrot and celery, leftover potatoes for starch and all the meat I could pull off the chicken.

I made the stock for the soup using the carcass of the roasted chicken from Sunday, and I did it in the instant pot. I wasn't sure how it would turn out, but it was.... fine? A little flat tasting but I saved the carrots for the actual soup and just chucked in the small mixed bag of veg scraps I had in the freezer (mostly celery and parsley and mushroom stems). I should have put an onion in there, too, but.... I didn't. It was quick compared to other stock making methods, at least, though it wasn't like lightning. I put in the bones, the veg scraps, and filled the pot 2/3 with water. Perhaps I should have added some fish sauce or cider vinegar? Anyway I put it on high pressure for an hour, but it took about 30 mins to come up to pressure, and then once it was done I let it release naturally for another hour, but by then I was ready to use it in the soup so I had to manually release it. The soup was fattier than mine usually is because I didn't chill the stock and scrape off the fat layer, but I guess that's ok for my purposes this month? I think I'll continue experimenting with pressure cooker stock, though. 

Whole 30 day 12

I've been logging my Whole 30 on the whole30.com forums, but I thought I should move it over here since this is where I usually write. I'm at the half way point now, and I'll keep posting in both places, I think. I'm back dating the previous posts so they make a little more sense. –ACB 2/16/16

Hey there day 12!

Breakfast: three scrambled eggs and a small handful of swiss chard, all cooked in ghee. Not enough food but it was a weird morning and I couldn't think of anything else! Of course, once the kiddo was starting to wake up and need attention I noticed the two on-the-brink avocados on the counter, oops! 

Snack: the end of the chicken salad with cashews and dried apricots, plus a few bell pepper strips and about a cup of mixed berries. Still not enough fat!

Lunch: Oh man lunch was so awesome. And it was just a bunch of random stuff I grabbed out of the fridge this morning! Thank goodness I've been doing so much prep. Two boiled eggs, a chicken sausage (one of the Costco ones that comes fully cooked, I heated it up but probably didnt' have to), half a baked potato cut into chunks, some roasted broccoli and cauliflower, and some blanched green beans, plus about 1/4 cup of homemade mayo and a handful of olives. I put it all on a plate instead of eating it out of the giant tupperware, so it felt like a real treat, even if my office mate was totally giving me the side eye about how much food there was ON said plate :-p 

Dinner tonight will be the NNP spicy tuna cakes - I think perhaps I didn't use enough sweet potato in the mix but we'll see how they hold up to reheating. 

Feeling a little lethargic this afternoon, and my shoulders and wrists hurt a lot, but I think that's from a really back and shoulders intensive yoga class last night. 

ENormous image of my lunch because I cannot figure out how to post photos! 

Whole 30 Day 11

I've been logging my Whole 30 on the whole30.com forums, but I thought I should move it over here since this is where I usually write. I'm at the half way point now, and I'll keep posting in both places, I think. I'm back dating the previous posts so they make a little more sense. –ACB 2/16/16

Good morning day 11! 

Last night's dinner was some random piece of beef I cooked with the lamb we had the night before, so basically the exact same meal. Not very inspired and therefore not very good. Kiddo liked it, so that's cool, but I was bored. I did a ton of cooking after baby bedtime though: 

NNP's spicy tuna cakes (will eat for dinner tonight!) 

blanched 2lbs green beans

roasted the broccoli we got in our CSA (about a sheet pan worth)

roasted the 3 small beets we got in or CSA and peeled them

made my first batch of sunshine sauce - holy cannoli it is sooooo gooood

improvised a soup - sauteed an onion and a carrot in ghee, added about 3 cups of roasted turnips because i had a ton of roasted turnips, added a big scoop of the ginger paste i get at the asian market, and a quart of chicken broth. Simmer simmer simmer, buzzed it with the immersion blender and added coconut milk, lime juice and salt. It's delicious! 

So far today I've had breakfast and first lunch. Breakfast was some of that soup with a chicken sausage and an egg cooked and added on top. Super yum and I'm glad to have had some variety. Husband was like "you're having soup.... for breakfast?" YES. And it's good.  

My first lunch coincided with staff coffee/snack hour at work, as it does every Thursday. I brought in my plate of food and was glad for it - my snack was better than theirs! I had a scoop of chicken salad (homemade mayo, dried apricots, cashews, cilantro), half an orange pepper, almond butter and a berry medley I bought at whole foods on the way to work this morning. Totally overpriced ($5, oy) but a worth-it indulgence because it was delicious.

I really am eating more fruit and vegetables than ever before this month!

Whole 30 day 10

I've been logging my Whole 30 on the whole30.com forums, but I thought I should move it over here since this is where I usually write. I'm at the half way point now, and I'll keep posting in both places, I think. I'm back dating the previous posts so they make a little more sense. –ACB 2/16/16

That green curry with halibut was DELICIOUS. I'm looking forward to leftovers for lunch today! Worth the painstaking effort to hand cut each julienne of zucchini. Not sure I loved it enough to buy a spiralizer, but enjoyed the veggies cut in strips rather than chunks! 

Day 9 (yesterday) was hard. I wanted cookies all afternoon. There were easily 50 sandwiches left over after a poorly attended meeting and I had to move them (plus sodas and cookies and a mountain of cheese) out of the conference room they were in. So hard not to stuff a bunch of cheese cubes into my face! Meals were: 

Breakfast: the end of the egg bake, the other half of the avocado. 

Mid-morning-mini-meal: 5 leftover sausage stuffed mushrooms, an apple and some almond butter

Lunch: salad of arugula, celery and strawberries, topped with a big scoop of chicken salad (cashew, dried apricot, mayo)

Dinner: pot roasted leg of lamb (cooked in the instant pot on Sunday!) in tomato sauce, baked potato with ghee (I only ate half, it was a huge potato), sauteed garlicky kale. AFter dinner I ate the last four prosciutto wrapped dates and I'm glad they're gone now because that is definitely candy and I couldn't control myself around them. 

Day 10 is today! Day 10! I'm 1/3 of the way through! So far today breakfast was a 2 egg scramble of chopped roasted cauliflower with some leftover sliced scallions and jalapeno from garnishing the curry the other night, a little scoop of chicken salad, plus the last two slices of prosciutto which I crisped in the pan. It wasn't enough food, which is obvious when I see it written down. Needs more fat! Going to start adding a few olives to my plate in the morning, I think. 

I was hungry for my mini-meal pretty early but work interfered so I ate it at my regular 10:30 snack time. The last of the stuffed mushrooms (5), half an orange pepper dipped in almond butter. It's shocking how sweet bell peppers taste to me now! About to have my lunch of the green curry with halibut, which I'm looking forward to! Hoping it held up ok. 

So today and tomorrow are supposed to be my hardest days, according to the timeline. Yesterday was REALLY HARD so I hope I'm just a little ahead of the timeline, as I seem to have been for most of my whole30 - no hangover, KATT on days 3-5, exhaustion started day 6 as expected but my pants haven't felt tighter yet, thank goodness! The dreams though. Oh my god the dreams. I've been having intense and vivid dreams since day 2. It's really unsettling, even though they're not directly terrifying they're just so weird, and I don't ever remember the whole thing. I do wake up feeling like I didn't get much sleep despite my fit bit not showing an uptick in restlessness. My poor brain is working so hard at saying no to sugar I feel like it's throwing tantrums every night. Get it together, brain! I already deal with one toddler every day, I don't need shit fits from you, too!
 

Anyway, hopefully that calms down in the next few days? It's a long weekend and there are several family outings on the docket, one of which is a brunch at someone's house. I'll definitely eat in advance and bring something compliant to share, but I'm nervous about it.