Day 30

It's the last day...holy cow we made it!  I want to finish today on a strong note and by not over-eating. I feel like yesterday was not a great day and I ate A LOT (although all compliant) during Superbowl.

Thinking about the last 30 days, here are a few things I've realized:

1. While I love my green tea, I've also come to love having coffee in the morning as well. I've never been a morning coffee person, but instead more of an after dinner cup of coffee person. Maybe its because its so cold out and my office is always freezing so its a way to warm up when I first arrive. And I have no problem drinking black coffee so I've never felt like I was missing anything, unlike others who had to give up their precious flavored creamers in their coffee to do Whole30.

2. I can't eat eggs for breakfast every day. I could eat a hard-boiled egg every day but not scrambled or over-easy every day. A banana with some almond butter has become a good back-up breakfast for me and I LOVE the combination together. It almost tastes like a treat.

3. Thirty days is not long enough to slay my sugar dragon. I still very much crave sweets. And with Valentine's day and then my Birthday right around the corner, they are EVERYWHERE and I want them ALL! It's going to be a hard couple of weeks, although we are done with Whole30, to not eat all the cupcakes, chocolates and ice cream in sight. I need to find some balance, somehow. One mantra I've tried in the past is telling myself I know what it tastes like and I'm sure I'll have it again sometime in the future, so that doesn't mean I have to eat a crap ton of it now. We'll see if that works.

4. Working out is my constant and has become like a drug for me. I don't like missing a Bootcamp class and I try to go 4-5 times a week. I skipped a happy hour recently because I would have had to miss bootcamp and I didn't want to do that. I've taken work conference calls with a headset on while at bootcamp. When I've had a not-so-great eating day, working out is my redemption. I can be successful there and end the day on a high note. I'm proud to be one of the stronger people in a lot of my classes but there are also people that are stronger and faster and they push me to get better, and I need that. I'm going to do a sprint triathalon this summer with a bunch of bootcamp friends and I'm really looking forward to trying something new.

Breakfast:
Banana with Almond Butter
Coffee

Lunch:
Leftover turkey meatloaf
Roasted veggies & potatoes

Snack:
Cutie
Leftover paleo spinach artichoke dip with carrots & celery

Dinner:
Leftover chicken wings and paleo ranch from Super Bowl
Hot Dog
Carrot & celery sticks
Diced pears

Day 29

Ahh its the second to last day!! While we're not going to just drop everything on Wednesday and go back to eating crap all the time, its still exciting to almost be done.

I'm pretty pumped for my zucchini fritters this morning. I made them on Friday and loved them. And I'm getting sick of eating eggs for breakfast all the time. Actually I got sick of eggs for breakfast about 2 weeks ago.  :/

Dinner tonight was pretty awesome. Especially considering it was a last minute decision. This was a super easy dish to pull together. I didn't have fire-roasted tomatoes so I just used regular diced tomatoes and added a little cumin and some red pepper flakes to give it some heat and smokey flavor. It turned out great and definitely had the heat! This was super easy and delicious so I will definitely be making this again!

Breakfast:
2 leftover zucchini fritters with hot sauce
Cutie
Green Tea

Lunch:
Leftover pork carnitas served over lettuce with salsa
Roasted peppers and onions
Applesauce

Snack:
1/2 apple, it was mushy  :(
Almond Butter

Dinner:
Tuesday Night Chicken
Green Beans

Day 28 - Super Bowl!!

Its Superbowl day! Always a little bit difficult when you're trying to eat health or even harder when you're trying to eat clean. Most party foods are filled with cheese or other dairy, grains and usually some sweets thrown in the mix too.  J and I have had a plan for what we could make and bring to the Superbowl party for awhile so hopefully that should make it easier to not be tempted by all the other snacks there that we can't have.

Update: the superbowl foods turned out awesome! Wings were great and the last minute decision to make some paleo ranch to dip them in was the best decision of the day! The spinach artichoke dip also turned out really good and you couldn't tell it was made with cashews. It still had a really creamy texture that tons of cheese would normally give spin dip. I definitely ate way more food than is pictured below. That was simply plate #1. But we ate pretty light earlier in the day and basically forgot to eat lunch so I figure all the Super Bowl eating makes up for that.

Breakfast:

Scrambled eggs w/leftover pork carnitas & peppers

Bacon

Raspberries

OJ

Lunch/Snack:

Cashews

Dinner:

Wings with Tessemae's hot buffalo sauce, and homemade paleo ranch

Pork stuffed, bacon-wrapped jalapeño poppers

Paleo spinach artichoke dip with sweet potato chips and veggies
Fruit (strawberries, raspberries, orange slices)
Plantain chips & homemade pico de gallo

Day 27

I made some zucchini fritters yesterday for breakfast and they made a pretty decent snack today as well! We've been looking forward to making the pork carnitas for awhile and decided to make them towards the end of our 30 days so we would have plenty of leftover to eat off of. They turned out great and were delicious but I forgot to take a picture of my meal so I'll have to come back and update that later.

Breakfast:

Rx bar, blueberry

1/2 banana

Lunch:

Leftover ginger beef with snow peas and carrots

Snack:

Hard-boiled egg

Cutie

Leftover Zucchini fritter w/Frank's hot sauce

Dinner:

Pork carnitas, lettuce wrap with salsa

Bell peppers & onions

Day 26

I took Friday off work so stay at home days are always hard for me because I am tempted to eat everything in the pantry. I've been trying to stay away from the plantain chips because they are made with sunflower oil and its one ingredient you're supposed to eat sparingly on Whole30 and I think that's what made my GI angry the last time I had a bunch of them. But they are delicious!

Breakfast:

2 zucchini fritters with some hot sauce

Apple

Lunch:

Leftover shrimp & cauliflower rice

Green beans

Snack:

Hard-boiled egg

Plantain chips

Dinner:

Buffalo ranch chicken stuffed pepper 

Applesauce

Day 25

Feeling good in the final week! Looking forward to the stir fry tonight for dinner. We've made it before and it was pretty yummy! I love snow peas, especially in stir fry, so this recipe is perfect.

Last night after dinner, I had some major weak moments while J was out playing hockey. I was sitting on the couch watching a show and I was literally having a battle inside my head about if I should or shouldn't cheat. Craving chocolate like crazy! At one moment I convinced myself that one little bite or something delicious wouldn't be the end of the world. And then I would talk myself off the ledge. I don't want to lie to people when they ask "did you really not eat any sugar for 30 days, not even a little?!"  This internal struggle went back and forth a few times while watching SVU.

In the end I sort of caved and had a little treat, although a compliant one: 1/2 banana mashed with some almond butter and a dash of raw cacao powder. I've been craving the peanut butter & chocolate combination lately so this was as close as I could get. It pretty much did the trick. I felt good for not caving and eating a candy bar. Baby steps.

Breakfast:
Blueberry tortilla
Apple chicken sausage
Coffee

Lunch:
Leftover turkey meatloaf from last night
Roasted veggies, potatoes & broccoli

Snack:
Coconut chocolate Rx bar

Dinner:
Ginger beef with snow peas & carrots

Day 24

Finally coming off the cashew binge and feeling less full and more normal this morning. Happy that we are on the last week of this journey. Only 6 days left after today! I'm starting to think about what I want to re-introduce first and I'm thinking it might be grains. I miss having oatmeal for breakfast in the morning. And I miss pasta. This Italian girl needs to eat pasta every once in awhile, its practically in my blood.  And pizza. I miss GOOD pizza. I'm not talking Dominos pizza. I mean like Katie's or Pastria. Good, well-worth the calories, pizza. A much as I still do crave (read: daydream) about sweets, I don't think that will be the first thing I re-introduce. I need more time away from my beloved cookies and cupcakes. The sugar dragon is not fully slayed yet. And probably never will be, but one can hope.

Breakfast:
Blueberry egg tortilla
Apple chicken sausage
Coffee

Lunch:
Salad with a mix of Tessemae's balsamic and SW Ranch dressings
2 slices of Applegate roast beef (the only pre-packaged deli meat I can find that is compliant!)

Snack:
Apple Pie Larabar

Dinner:
Turkey meatloaf
roasted carrots, fingerling potatoes & onions
Broccoli

Day 23

After looking at all the leftover food still in our fridge from late last week and the weekend, we decided that we don't need to cook dinner tonight, we can just survive off the leftovers for another day. Plus, a few of the meals I'm planning for the week will have more than just 2 lunches leftover, like the turkey meatloaf and the pork carnitas. There will be several servings of those leftover.

Since I ate like 1/3 a container of cashews in the afternoon as a snack, I still felt extremely full by dinner time and decided to just make a light salad and have some prosciutto for a little protein. Ugh. I may have just ruined cashews for me for awhile. :(

Breakfast:
Banana with almond butter
Hard-boiled Egg
Coffee

Lunch:
Leftover burger with ketchup and wrapped in lettuce
Carrots
Strawberries & peaches

Snack:
Cashews (ugh I ate way too many, hens the empty container!!)

Dinner:
Salad with Tessemae's Balsamic dressing
1 slice of prosciutto

Day 22

I felt like the weekend went really great, both eating and just enjoying the beautiful weather! While I'm not a fan of Mondays in general, I feel good going into this week. I'm really starting to see the results of eating clean; my pants are much looser and I've been feeling energized at my workouts.

We ate off a bunch of leftovers over the weekend to help clear out the fridge for the upcoming week. It was nice not to spend the whole weekend cooking. I'm excited to try something new for breakfast this morning. The blueberry tortilla thing is a recipe I've had on my Whole30 list since last summer. It got a little messy when I flipped it (need to work on my chef skills) but overall it tasted pretty good! I'm glad I decided to add some sausage to the breakfast otherwise just the egg/blueberry thing would not have been filling enough.

For dinner tonight, i'm pumped to have shrimp because we haven't had them at all yet on this Whole30. This meal is one of my favorites and its pretty easy to pull together and its nice and light. Making the cauliflower rice the day before helps a lot, and its easy to just heat up at meal time. For the shrimp, I seasoned and marinated them overnight with the following: S&P, touch of cumin, red pepper flakes, lime zest, lime juice and some fresh cilantro. I wanted to pull some of the same cilantro lime flavors from the cauliflower rice into the shrimp as well but kick them up a notch with the cumin and red pepper flakes. We'll pair it with either broccoli or asparagus if I can get to the store on my way home from work tonight. The asparagus at Schnucks last night sucked so we didn't buy any. Hoping Whole Foods has some that looks better.

Breakfast:
Sweet & Savory Blueberry tortilla
Apple Chicken Sausage
Green Tea

Lunch:
Leftover chicken fajitas, served over some shredded lettuce

Snack:
Apple

Cashews

Dinner:
Cilantro Lime Cauliflower Rice
Shrimp
Asparagus
Slices strawberries & peaches

Day 21

The weather was so beautiful today (high 60s and sunny!) so we decided to g out and enjoy the day after breakfast. We went to Lone Elk Park and did a 4-mile hike. Ended up seeing tons of wildlife (elk, deer, and bison) along the way which was a lot of fun! After our hike we had a small lunch and relaxed for a bit before having an early dinner because J wanted to watch the NHL All-Star Game. After dinner we went to the grocery store and got all our food for the week. Sundays are typically my meal planning and food prep day for the upcoming week. And we usually spend some of Sunday evening doing various meal preps. J makes a big batch of his potato, sausage & egg hash so he has 5 breakfasts for the week. I also like to make something for my breakfasts for the week and decided to try a new recipe this time: a sweet and savory blueberry egg bake. That should make 4 breakfasts. I also made some more cauliflower rice seasoned with lime juice & zest, garlic, onion and cilantro. We're planning on having shrimp for dinner on Monday night and the cilantro rice (cauliflower) goes will with shrimp served on top. And because I get home late on Monday nights because of bootcamp (6:30-7:30), it makes dinner prep go so much faster!

Breakfast:

Scrambled eggs

Bacon

Strawberries & pineapple

Lunch:

Hard-boiled egg

Apple with almond butter

Snack:
none

Dinner:

Leftover pork chop with applesauce

Roasted brussel sprouts

Day 20

Today was a busy day so I didn't have time for much snacking, which is probably for the better. Started off with the usual 8am bootcamp class, then had a florist appointment in the city at 1:00pm. Since I had a late breakfast after bootcamp, I wasn't hungry enough to eat again before leaving for the appointment so I just brought a beef sick with me in case I got hungry while out with my mamma. Glad I did because we ended up running around to a few stores after the appointment and I was definitely hungry then!

Didn't get home until after 4:00pm so it was too late to have a snack without ruining dinner. We heated up the leftover burgers and fries (baked) for dinner tonight which was very yummy! Then headed out to a movie - The Big Short. It was pretty good. Have to admit, it kind of sucks going to the movies while on Whole30. I love popcorn and it smells so damn good the second you walk in. I don't even need the butter, just plain popcorn would do fine. So to help curb my popcorn desire and the need to snack at a movie, I brought a little bag od sliced almonds and unsweetened coconut strips. It is a surprising good combination, although not as good as popcorn :/

Breakfast:

Blueberry Rx bar

Chocolate coconut shake

Lunch:

Beef stick

Snack:

none

Dinner:

Burger with pineapple slice and Tessemae's ketchup
Baked fries
Green beans

Day 19

I love Fridays because I only have to work until Noon in the office and then I get the rest of the day off. Working 9 hour days through the rest of the week is worth it to get Friday afternoons off. Plus it was a beautiful day!

For dinner, I made the zesty chicken tenders recipe that another Whole30-doin' bootcamper shared and said were pretty good. They ended up being really good. Only thing missing is that chicken tender crispness. But you're only going to get that if you fry them and even if you use compliant oil, it kind of defeats the point. I used chicken tenders instead of cutting them into little pieces and I doubled the spice/breading mixture to make about 10 or so chicken tenders. So we'll have plenty leftover.

Breakfast:

Sweet potato hash

Sunny side up egg

Blackberries

Green tea

Lunch:

Leftover Meatball Veggie soup

Leftover sweet potato fries

Applesauce

Snack:

Hard-boiled egg

2 slices prosciutto

Sweet potato chips (not pictured, but I ate WAY too many!)

Dinner:

Zesty chicken tenders (my sad dinner because I was still full from gorging on sweet potato chips earlier)

Green beans