Vanessa

This Whole30 deal makes you do some strange things:

• Kraft stood over the peanut butter jar smelling it for like 10 seconds this morning
• I have this overwhelming urge to have a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios
• As I was serving the kids rice, I got a few grains on my finger and immediately put them in my mouth, then ran to the trash to spit them out. Two grains of rice, folks. #totallyunnecessary

We’re officially Whole30 crazy.

Breakfast: [not pictured]

• Zucchini Noodle Bowl

Lunch:

• Skillet Eggs
• 1/2 an Apple with Almond Butter
• 2-3 slices of turkey (Our grocery store makes in-house real slices of turkey off of a turkey breast. So good and the turkey (not the ham, boo) is Whole30 compliant #awesomesauce)
• Handful of Almonds
• Small Banana

Dinner:

• Apple Cider Pulled Pork (Which really should be called shredded pork because pulled pork implies saucy deliciousness and this has no sauce. Trust me, I’m a Texan.) – This was really good.  I’d say if I had thrown in chipotle peppers while it was cooking it would taste just like The Pioneer Woman’s recipe that uses Dr. Pepper and brown sugar.
• Carrot Sticks
• Sautéed Cruciferous Mix with Garlic – not my favorite, but Kraft liked it
• 1/2 an Avocado
• Grapes

How we felt today:

Just yesterday I uttered the famous last words, “This isn’t so bad. We haven’t really had the symptoms that the Whole30 timeline said. Maybe we were eating better than we thought.”

Ha.

I’ve been hungry all day. Kraft was fine. But the funniest part is that right in the afternoon I totally hit a wall. I could have curled up in the speech therapist’s office I was waiting in and fallen asleep. When I got home, I started putting away laundry but ended up face down on the carpet in my kids’ room dozing off. Lina ran into the room to do something and jumped and screamed because Mama was on the floor fully stretched out.

The general progression of feelings on this program is “Hangover” –> “Kill All the Things” –> “Just Want to Nap”. I skipped the hangover part. I tend towards being grumpy most days so “Kill All the Things” didn’t really phase me. I was thrown headlong into NAP. Now. Nap now. Do it. Don’t think. Do it. Nap. NOW.

Here’s hoping tomorrow brings some more energy and satiety.

 

No, chitchat today. You need to go to Nom Nom Paleo and make her Asian Meatballs. By all means, stop reading now so you can go straight to the store and buy the ingredients. No judgment here. I did only find the Red Boat Fish Sauce (affiliate link) at Whole Foods and not at HEB. I see that you can order on Amazon but then you have to wait two whole days to make this. Seriously, they are the most delicious thing ever. This was the conversation at dinner tonight:

Our oldest kiddo: “Mom, I think these are so good that God would like them.”

Kraft: “Do you think God would say, ‘Oh my Me, those are good!'”

It was really nice to find such a good recipe. Not that the food we’ve been eating has been bad, it’s just nice to find a solid comfort food that is Whole30 compliant.

Breakfast: [no picture]

• BLT Breakfast Salad which I decided I’m never going to make for breakfast again. It would make a better lunch. No one has time to chew that much and that long in the morning.

Lunch:

• Leftover Sheet Pan Fajitas
• Leftover Mexican Cauliflower Rice
• 1/2 an Apple

Dinner:

• Asian Meatballs – Do yourself a favor and make a double batch so you can freeze them for another time or just have leftovers for the rest of the week.
• Power Greens Salad with Almonds and Blueberries
• I was going to make Nom Nom Paleo’s Asian Cauliflower Fried Rice but the meatballs definitely take some time to put together so I just threw together the simple salad above.

How We Felt:

Kraft has been dragging. We’re not sure if it’s because of the “hangover” effect of the Whole30 or just the fact that we suck at going to sleep at a decent time. I’m feeling fine. This is the first day that I’m feeling hungry now right before bed but I’m just drinking a La Croix and hoping that satisfies me.

Today I finally came to terms with the fact that I insanely overbought greens from Trader Joe’s. I’d never shopped there before as they are relatively new to this area but I read post after post of Whole30 peeps raving about how easy their prepackaged salad mixes are. I was sold. Not sure what possessed me but this is what I have currently in our fridge plus we just finished 2 heads of romaine lettuce and a box of spinach. The drawer on the right has everything with a sell by date of 5/26. It’s not looking promising that we’ll be able to eat it all. I’ll have to give some to neighbors or maybe freeze? Hmm.

I will say my biggest fear starting the Whole30 was running out of food that is compliant. With 5 kiddos, it’s not easy to pop over to the grocery store so if we’re out of Whole30 food, hello water and lime. That being the driving force in my mind, when I was at Trader Joe’s I just started compulsively throwing multiple bags of anything that resembled a green in my cart with my 3 year old asking with each throw, “What IS that, Mama???”

I got their Cruciferous (there I go with that word again) mix, Power to the Greens mix, Broccoli Slaw mix, Cabbage mix, and Riced Cauliflower. If I stop posting it’s because we somehow managed to eat all of this before it expired and turned into kale.

Breakfast:

• Skillet Eggs – This took 10 minutes to make and was delicious. Oh, and don’t worry overmuch about the pea tendril and leek thing. I just used plain ol’ white onions and plain spinach and it was still great.
• 1/2 an Apple with Almond Butter

Lunch: (Meal prep earlier in week was clutch, all this was already made)

• Leftover Tuna Salad
• Carrot Sticks
• Blueberries
• Spinach
• Hard-boiled Egg
• Sweet Potato and Applesauce Mash

Dinner:

• Zoodles with Creamy Avocado Sauce (made sauce without the garlic because apparently Kraft’s a vampire and has something against raw garlic)
• Whole Roasted Chicken – shredded
• Roasted Sweet Potato with coconut oil and cinnamon

How We Felt:

Fine. Other than the hand wringing about the underground greens selling ring we’re going to have to start.

 

Today, after Mass, we swung by Whole Foods to pick up a few of the weird ingredients that I need for the week:

• Coconut Aminos,
• Red Boat Fish Sauce,
• Avocado Oil Mayo, and
• Sugar-free bacon. That’s right, sugar-free bacon. (It’s bacon, not a stick of gum, Whole30.)

There we were circling the meat department and we just couldn’t find it. I had just sat through an entire Kerbey Lane breakfast watching my kiddos eat bacon as if it were manna from heaven so I really wanted bacon. This forced me to go up to the meat counter and say, “I hate myself for asking this, but do you have sugar-free bacon?” Thankfully, he didn’t make fun of me and showed me right to it. From Pederson Farms if you’re wondering. Hallelujah.

Breakfast : Kerbey Lane – Harvest Omelette without cheese, home fries, and fruit. I love me some eggs and ketchup (don’t judge) but ketchup is a no-go during a Whole30.

Lunch: Zucchini Noodle Bowl – this was strangely good

Dinner:

• Sheet Pan Fajitas over romaine lettuce,
• Mexican Cauliflower Rice (which doesn’t taste like rice but, when you eat it combined with all the other flavors on the plate, tasted pretty decent, which was very surprising)
• 1/2 an avocado

How I felt:

I felt fine today. It is strange to find out that I love eating so much because of all the stuff we can’t have. Like I could have definitely eaten my omelette much quicker had I had ketchup or if it had queso but not having those things really made me slow down my eating. Same thing with the fajitas. I didn’t eat as much as I would have because we couldn’t eat tortillas so I ate slower and got full faster.

Also, I was exhausted by the end of the day.

Kraft is still getting hungry between meals but I’m guessing it’s because he isn’t really drinking coffee which is his usual go-to between meals. He did try it today with coconut milk but it wasn’t his favorite. He did like the milk cold from the fridge as opposed to it warm from the pantry when we opened the can.

Onward.

We are doing the Whole30 (I’m still not cool enough to know whether I have to put “the Whole30” or “a Whole30”, or just Whole30. I am, however, cool enough to know that there is no space between Whole and 30, thankyouverymuch). It was a pretty sudden decision which was good because given more time to think about it, I would have put more energy in planning cinnamon rolls and doughnuts pre-Whole30 as opposed to planning Whole30 food.

Why are we doing this?:

I’ve been pretty actively trying to lose weight since December. I started being more conscientious of my eating and working out 3 times a week. Then in March I really fell in love with our YMCA and started going to classes 6 days a week. And you know what? Nada. I haven’t seen one change. Sure, I rock at squats but my clothes don’t fit any differently and I haven’t lost a single pound. I’m not that upset about it, because I love it and it is total stress relief but it got me wondering why the heck my body isn’t doing what it’s supposed to be doing.

I realized we probably don’t eat as well as I think we do and maybe my body really just needs a reboot. And if you know me, nothing halfway for this gal. So I figured we’d do this crazy Whole30. Even if it is total bunk, we’re just eating a lot of vegetables and forming better eating habits which can’t be bad for us.

And Kraft’s doing it because I make his food. Ha. And because he wants to be supportive. At least that’s what I read into his shrug when I asked him if he wanted to do this with me. 🙂

So, here we go.

Breakfast:

• Cruciferous Salad with prosciutto and tomatoes, avocado, and soft-boiled egg (this recipe makes more dressing than you’ll need so don’t just dump it all in like I did)
• Cherry Limeade Smoothie
• We can assume hot tea for me and coffee for Kraft at every breakfast

Lunch: [not pictured]

• Tuna Salad (The trick to my mom’s uh-mazing tuna salad recipe is you add diced jalapeño. Do it. Your mouth will thank you, I promise) on romaine lettuce
• Mashed Sweet Potato and Applesauce

Dinner:

• Steak (although it looks like burnt pecan pie in the photo)
• Roasted Broccoli and Cherry Tomatoes

Post-dinner:

• LaCroix Cran-Rasberry. Most delicious sparkling water I’ve ever had. Even better than Dr. Pepper. (No, it’s not, don’t believe that. Are you crazy? I’m just trying to trick myself. 30 days is a long time people. But it is really, really good.)

Prep for this week:

• For pre-workout meals this week I boiled a dozen eggs so we can eat an egg and 1/2 an avocado.
• For post-workout, I made a double batch of Chicken and Veggie Frittata.
• Zoodles for a meal tomorrow and Monday.
• Roasted 8 sweet potatoes (put straight on a sheet tray lined with foil for 45-60 minutes at 400°)
• 4lbs of carrots cut into carrot sticks
• Turned half of the sweet potatoes I roasted into Sweet Potato and Applesauce Mash

 

How we felt:

Whole30 has a hilarious timeline of how you should be feeling as the days go by so I thought it’d be good to jot down how we felt each day to see if it corresponds. I got a headache around lunchtime but it was gone by dinner time.

Breakfast was way too much food. It took me like an hour to chew through that salad and I was full halfway through but I still ate the whole thing because no snacking allowed. I love snacking. I’m very good at snacking. Especially hiding-in-the-pantry-snacking so my kids don’t tackle me and rip the food out of my hands.

I stayed pretty full all day but I definitely felt deprived. I didn’t want to chew salad, I wanted to chew, well, anything else really.

Kraft got pretty hangry between breakfast and lunch and he is really not liking his coffee black.

Meal prep was a lot of work, but I’m hoping I’ll be happy I did it later in the week.

Who the hell am I? Seriously? Even my phone doesn’t know me. Almost every word I’ve typed in this post has been autocorrected because when do I ever say spiralized or Cruciferous. My phone is like, “Hmm. I think you meant leftover Halloween candy or pizza and beer.”

Go big or go home, amiright?