Whole 30 - the rest of the days ;)

Turns out that I'm better at meal planning than blogging!  So here is a post with all the recipes that we used.  Dan did a FABULOUS job sticking with it.  Even when we got unexpectedly stuck in town (because of a really bad accident blocking the ONLY road home), he managed to find appropriate food at the restaurant.

I'm posting these recipes in the order I made them, so if it seems random that's because it is!  For most recipes, I made large batches and froze individual servings to send with him to work later in the month.  Main dishes he had 3-4 times during the 30 days.  Secondary proteins (see Day One to understand our system) showed up much more frequently.  Many morning meals consisted of egg and veggie scrambles (which is what we usually do even when not doing Whole 30.)  Each of the last two weeks, Dan grilled up a TON of compliant brats, sausages, pork chops, steaks, burgers and chicken.  So that was pretty much what we ate for the second half.

Buffalo Chicken - Combine 1 cup Frank's hot sauce and 6 Tbsp coconut oil, mix it with shredded chicken
Scotch Eggs - boil eggs, peel, encase in homemade sausage, bake at 350 for 20 minutes or see linked recipe
Homemade sausage patties
Tuna Salad*
Asian Meatballs
Rosemary Turkey - Whole turkey, rub dried rosemary, salt and pepper UNDER the skin, rub coconut oil ON the skin, then roasted turkey as normal
Broiled Sesame Cod - remember to use ghee or coconut oil in place of butter!
Pot Roast - did my own thing but here is a Whole 30 compliant recipe
Egg Salad*
Chicken Curry - curry paste, coconut milk, lots of veggies: green beans, carrots, potatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, etc (no peas!)
Deviled Eggs*
Turkey Salad* - http://paleoperiodical.com/2011/11/03/recipe-chicken-salad-w-pecans-and-grapes/
Taco Lettuce Wraps - taco seasoned (check for sugar!  I had to make my own!) hamburger, chopped tomatoes, onions, red pepper, etc served in romaine lettuce leaves (sorry, no cheese or sour cream!)
Zucchini Pizza Boats
Coconut Chicken - cook bite size pieces of chicken in a skillet, then add unsweetened coconut (I get mine from Amazon) and salt.  Let the extra coconut in the skillet brown up but be careful, as it quickly goes from perfect to burnt!
Garlic Chicken -  cook bite size pieces of chicken in a skillet, then add minced garlic (I use pre-minced and pour in some of the juice, too.)
Spaghetti Squash Spaghetti - use the spaghetti squash as the noodles and make sure your sauce doesn't have sugar
Grilled meats (Applewood Bratwurst, pork chops, steaks, burgers, Aidell Chicken and Apple Sausage)
*used homemade mayo made with avocado oil and kombucha vinegar, using this method


We loaded up on both fresh and frozen fruits and veggies at Costco, so he would have a variety.  Think outside of your usual veggies!  We splurged on things like snap peas and Japanese cucumbers, even though they were more than we would usually pay.  You want foods that will keep you from getting bored. There were even some fruit cups that didn't have sugar (look for ones packed in ONLY fruit juice.) And we had several types of nuts (just NO PEANUTS, as they are a legume.) Some "easy day" foods we purchased were the sausages and brats.  MOST BRANDS HAVE SUGAR!  Applewood and Aidell both have options without sugar but make sure you are also getting ones without cheese while you are doing Whole 30.  Another easy option was smoked salmon but, again, check for sugar!  Costco had 3 brands and only one didn't have sugar.

Another recipe I really wanted to try but never quite got to was Sausage and Spinach Breakfast Casserole.

Whole30 - Day Four

I'm pretty excited about today's menu! Since I am not a fish person, Dan usually handles any fish meals. But I found a recipe I want to try, so I'm going for it today. Because I anticipate Dan sleeping in again, I planned a decent Meal One (M1) and light M2.

Day Four
Meal One: Beef, potato and onion skillet, strawberries
Meal Two: Egg salad (with homemade paleo mayo), salad (spinach, kale, chard, romaine lettuce) with homemade kombucha/avocado oil dressing
Meal Three: Broiled Sesame Cod, roasted zucchini, steamed carrots

Whole30 - Day Three

It was Dan's first day off since we started and we were kind-of winging it. I thought Dan had to fast before his medical appointment - so there was NO menu for meal one (M1) and I planned on taking stuff to eat in the car after the appointment for M2. Turns out, that wasn't the case! Fortunately, I found out the night before, so I had M1 ready for him when he got up. Since he slept in and we didn't want to eat M2 so soon after M1, we did still end up "snacking" for M2. (Remember the disclaimer that we're not perfect?) But we came home to the scent of a lovely rosemary turkey in the oven! He was quite happy to feast on turkey after feeling rather deprived on Day Two. I actually made potatoes to go with dinner but we were both full from the turkey and veggies.

Day Three
Meal One: Beef, mushrooms and onion, half banana
Meal Two: Scotch egg and roasted almonds
Meal Three: Rosemary Turkey (rosemary, salt and pepper rubbed under the skin, coconut oil rubbed on the skin), Normandy veggies (cooked broccoli, cauliflower and carrots)
Evening snack (yeah, not supposed to do that but dinner was early because lunch was so small): cherry tomatoes

Whole30 - Day Two

After telling you that I don't do recipes that require a lot of time, I spent about an hour mincing stuff for those darn Asian Meatballs!  When I mention that to Dan, he reminded me that we recently bought a food processor.  Oops!  He tried a couple last night and likes them, so at least they were worth the work.  He also approved of the mayo but we agreed that I should use a little less vinegar next time.  Fortunately, this was a pretty small batch so it will be used up quickly.

Today, I'm defrosting a turkey to cook tomorrow.  I will also make curry chicken and veggies.  It isn't on Dan's menu until Saturday but I don't do my batch cooking on his days off, so I need to get it done.  I simply add curry paste and/or curry powder to coconut milk and let it simmer down for a while.  Then I add bite-size pieces of chicken and LOTS of veggies (I always add frozen peas and green beans, and sometimes include carrots or potatoes.)  Since I love curry, and don't mind eating the same thing over and over, I'll make a HUGE batch.  Some will be frozen for Dan's work meals and the rest will stay in the fridge for me to eat the next several days.

Day Two:
Meal One: Egg scramble with onions, homemade sausage, strawberry grape lemon water*
Packed for work:
Tuna Salad (with homemade paleo mayo)
Power greens (romaine lettuce, kale, chard and spinach)
Kombucha vinegar/avocado oil dressing (added dried onions and seasonings to the vinegar/oil blend)
Asian Meatballs
Red bell pepper strips
Canned green beans
Banana
Macadamia nuts

*We typically drink a lot of homemade lemonade but use stevia in it.  Since Whole30 doesn't allow sweeteners, we are experimenting with different ways to flavor water.  This batch was 3 strawberries, 6 grapes and some water blended together, then added to a 64 oz cup with 1/2 cup lemon juice and enough water and ice to fill the cup.  I don't usually measure the lemon juice, I just do a 3 second squeeze of the bottle.  I only measured it today to give you a general idea but we are used to drinking that much at a time. I'd probably recommend starting out with less!  Especially since this wasn't sweet, even with the fruit.
Tip: do NOT add the lemon juice to the blender!  It foams up like crazy.

Whole30 - Day One

I've decided to share our Whole30 journey this time through but first I need to explain why we do it a little differently.  Whole30 frowns (heavily) on snacking, even if the snacks are Whole30 foods.  But when Dan works, he is gone for 14 hours a day and he only gets ONE meal break.  So I absolutely have to pack "snacks" that he can grab and eat while he is working.  I pack a main protein (usually needs to be heated, this is what he eats when he actually sits down for a meal), secondary protein (grab and go option), frozen or canned veggie (for his sit down meal), fresh veggies, a fruit and nuts.  When he leaves work, he'll let me know if he is hungry and needs me to have something ready for him when he gets home.

As for me, I did Whole30 diligently our first time through (early this year) and while I did benefit from it some, I did not lose a single pound, nor did I sleep better or have more energy.  I do have a medical issue (with my adrenals) that affects my ability to lose weight right now.  So I've decided that I'll eat Whole30 compliant with Dan when he is home and I'll eat "clean" for the month but I'm not doing a strict Whole30 this time around.  My reason for sharing our journey is not to hold us up as a perfect example of Whole30.  There is no perfection here, just plenty of reality! Besides sharing some recipes, I want to be able to encourage people that it isn't as hard as it seems and you can adapt things to work for your lifestyle. For example, I do batch cooking so that I'm not spending so much time in the kitchen. Many of the entrees Dan takes to work will be on the menu 3 or 4 times during the month.  The first time it is on the menu, I make enough for the month and freeze the rest in individual servings.  I also do very, very simple recipes!  With my own health issues, I just don't have it in me to spend tons of time chopping, mixing, sauteing, cooking, etc.  If it was just me, I'd throw a huge batch of something in the crockpot and eat it until it was gone.  But my BabyLove happens to like variety, so batch cooking/freezing simple recipes is our compromise.

I'm glad I did it 100% the first time and I would strongly encourage everyone to give it a shot. Even though I didn't lose weight, it was helpful to learn some foods that I don't tolerate as well.  And a short time of disciplined eating is never a bad thing!  It is good to periodically be reminded that we do NOT need to indulge every "craving" or desire.  With that being said, however, I want to also point out that we have no intention of going paleo long term.  I don't believe that eliminating major food groups is the healthiest option in the long run.  I also have a tendency to become obsessive with food tracking and planning, which is not how I want to live my life!

Let's get started!

Yesterday, I boiled up a bunch of boneless chicken thighs.  Today, I mixed up Buffalo Sauce (1 cup Frank's hot sauce and 6 Tbsp coconut oil) and mixed it with shredded chicken.  One serving went into Dan's lunch today and three servings were individually frozen for later in the month.  Since I am sending tuna salad tomorrow, I needed to make paleo mayo today.  This was my first time doing it with a stick blender.  I used this recipe, with avocado oil and used kombucha vinegar in place of white vinegar. The directions for using the stick blender are here. I'm not a mayo person, so I'll let Dan taste it and give input before I make changes to the next batch.  But I felt it was too tangy, so probably less lemon juice/vinegar.  A lot of other mayo recipes had other spices (paprika, pepper, garlic, etc.)  I may add some in next time but since this batch was specifically to go in tuna salad and turkey salad, I didn't worry about it.  But if we were doing sandwiches with it, it would probably be nice to add some other flavors.  It was super quick and easy to make, and turned out very creamy!  The other thing I'll make today is Asian meatballs (a new recipe for me.)  You'll see the meatballs show up as secondary protein some days and breakfast Meal One on other days.

Day One

Meal One: egg scramble with red bell peppers and sauteed greens (chard, kale and spinach) and fresh lilikoi (passion fruit - we have access to a massive vine for free, so you'll see it on our menu quite a bit!)

Packed for work:

Buffalo Chicken 

Scotch Eggs (boiled egg encased in homemade sausage, then baked at 350 degress for 20 minutes.) 

Frozen mixed veggies

Fresh sugar snap peas

Fresh baby carrots and cauliflower mix

Banana

Pistachios

And here we go again...

I've spent a lot of time analyzing what went wrong.  Not to place blame - if there is any "blame" to be had, it rests solely on me.  But I desperately want to avoid a repeat and, if possible, help others to avoid this "repeat journey" in their own lives.  And so I analyze.

One of the conclusions I have come to is that hope is a much bigger factor than most people realize.  I discovered this on my weight loss journey and it was the loss of hope that ended that journey.  For those who are new to my story, I lost 130 pounds and won an amazing opportunity to do a Ragnar Relay with a team of Biggest Loser alumni.  My weight loss had been inspired by The Biggest Loser and some of my favorite alumni were a part of this event.  It was literally a dream come true!  I did VERY little running before winning this spot and I had just two months to get ready.  And I did!  I went from running maybe a mile every other week to running several miles, two or three times a day.  I ran very slow, mind you, but I ran.  I found out just what I was capable of, when I put my mind to something, and it was a wonderful experience. HOWEVER, many of the alumni had regained a good bit of weight and I found that very discouraging.  If these people who had some of the best trainers in the world, who had lived their journey in public, who had all the knowledge they could possibly need - if THEY couldn't keep it off, what chance did I have of doing any better?  Again, I do not place blame on anyone other than me.  After all, I know Ali Vincent and she has kept it off.  Tara is another amazing example and she was even in my van, so I spent a lot of time around her.  I have no excuse but I did allow my hope to be extinguished and that was a costly mistake.  My weight loss stopped then and there.

Another extremely critical factor is sleep. This was also something I discovered during my weight loss journey and when it slipped away, my weight began creeping back on.  I have been married almost 8 months now and I still struggle to sleep with someone else in the room (even though I love him dearly!)  Add to that the fact that his work schedule rotates between days and night every two weeks, and perhaps you can understand my sleep issues.  It is so bad that even being on vacation (and having my own room) for two weeks, I still couldn't sleep through the night.  I haven't yet found anything that will give me consistently good sleep.  Delta waves, melatonin, heating pad, hot shower... sometimes they help and sometimes they don't.  I'm starting a new alkalinity program and hopefully that will help but for now, I'll just have to be disciplined to go to bed super early on the nights that my husband works, so that I can have a LONG period of time to try to get in 7 or 8 hours of sleep.  When I first started losing weight, I had to train myself to sleep that long.  In fact, some nights it took me 12 hours to get 7 hours of sleep!  But I was single and not working a lot back then, so I was able to do it.  I'm not sure how to make that happen in my current life but somehow I must.

Something I'm finding out about trying to lose a major amount of weight a second time is that it is so much harder than the first time!  On one hand, I know I can do it, since I've done it before.  But since I also regained the weight, there is the fear that all this hard work will be for nothing yet again.  So it is extremely tough to buckle down and do the work.  But I must.

UPDATE:  In Sept (2013) we discovered that I had adrenal issues, cause primarily by stress and lack of sleep, that made it nearly impossible to lose the weight.  In fact, that was the biggest cause behind the weight gain in the first place.  So now, my major goal is not a number on the scale but to get healthy again, sleep well and recapture that hope!

Emotions vs Logic

This last month has been really, really tough. I've been struggling with a lot of food issues that I thought were behind me. Well, struggling and losing the battle, to be perfectly honest. I've gained back about 7 lbs and while that isn't a lot, it is a step in the wrong direction. Seventeen steps, actually, since I should have been losing during this time. But every time I've hit a stumbling block during this journey, I remind myself that there is something to learn from it that I'll be able to pass on to others some day. Every challenge makes me stronger. Every battle, won or lost, provides new insight. My insight this time? Even though I am a very logical person, I am ruled by emotions when it comes to body/weight/food issues. I know I've gained 7 lbs and I know what 7 lbs looks like. But for some reason, when someone took a picture of me at the beach last weekend, I expected it to look like my 'before' pictures. I was literally shocked to look at the picture and see a 'normal' size person. My mind had gone back to 290+ lbs, even if my body didn't come close to that. And, in case you are wondering, yes I do have mirrors in my house. But what I saw reflected in those mirrors was a bloated, depressed, frustrated person. There is no logic to it, but our mind has so much power over how we view things. Fortunately, we can choose to take our thoughts captive. I had a conversation with a dear friend once about how to do that. She joked that it would be nice to have a thought catcher to wear on top of her head. So I made her one! Okay, so there is nothing magical about this baseball cap. But it is a fun reminder that it is a CHOICE we make, each and every time we are faced with negative thoughts: will we listen to them or will we take them captive and speak the truth to ourselves? Personally, I'm ready for some truth, thank you very much.