Whole30 Day 3: Heading into the first turn

Well, here we are again, another successful day of my Whole30! Today, I had a MUCH longed for day off work. And not only off work, but I did a minimum of freelance work. I haven't had a complete day off in months- early February? Late January? Anywho, I at least got the entire morning with absolutely no work, which was great. I slept.

Penelope woke me up about 8:30, and when we came home from our walk, I grabbed breakfast, and when I was done with it, I went back to bed and slept until 11:30. I made some lists, did the stack of dishes, cleaned up my apartment, and then sat down and did a small amount of work. I then left the house, Penelope in tow, and drove to see my brand spanking new almost-niece! She is simply beautiful, and her momma is doing great. Love it that such wonderful things are happening to my friends! Then I went and had family dinner tonight with my mom and her beau, my aunt and my grandmother. My aunt cooked, and they were so so sweet and supportive about this! My aunt very carefully cooked things so that I had plenty to eat, and it was all SO delicious.

I'm still in a really great mood- no crankiness at all, and I have pretty good energy. I mean, I slept most of the morning, but I think that had more to do with pushing myself too hard than with food. In short, everything seems pretty great right now. I did, this afternoon, kind of wish for a snack of some kind, but I dismissed it quickly, without much thought. Yay!

Here's today's food log:

Meal 1: Leftover pork patty and banana. Not a great combination. I think the pork made the banana taste a little weird. And I probably should have had some veggies with it, but I just couldn't stomach salad at 9:00 am. I should have roasted some sunchokes or something, but well, I didn't. Oh well.

Snack: Handful of almonds

Meal 2: Since I slept so long, I didn't really find myself hungry at meal time. So when I got to the hospital about three, I ate 2 hard boiled eggs and a baggie of strawberries. Again, should have had veggies, but didn't have anything prepped. Need to make that happen for this next week when I prepare for the work week.

Meal 3: Baked porkchop with roasted butternut squash, spinach salad with sunflower seeds, red onion, apple & olive oil and lemon juice dressing. Cut up strawberries, blueberries and pineapple for dessert. This was SO tasty!! I need to get a broiler pan, what a great substitute for some things since I don't have access to a grill. And I'm not usually a huge fan of squash, but this was DELICIOUS! A little goes a long way, in my opinion, so one serving was exactly the right amount. The Sunflower seeds I wasn't totally sure about, but decided they were probably safe, and I ate around a lot of them as I don't much care for the flavor anyway.

All in all, another great day. You know, the best part about this is that I can eat as much of anything as I want, as long as it's compliant. I was just telling a friend today that I really CANNOT count calories or points, or whatever, but this, I just eat until I'm full, which happens quickly because I'm not stuffed full of crap. AND best of all, I stay full for several hours. I'm telling you, this better get hard or I'm really not going to see why people think it is so difficult to get through!

until next time~
xoxox

Whole30 Day 2: And we're off!

I wonder how long I can keep up the race metaphors...?

A few days more, at least.

Another successful day! Today, I got to prepare everything I ate myself, which, I have to admit, was kind of a relief. I mean, I'm sure my "unwhich" was complaint yesterday, but well, call me a control freak, I like to know.

I feel good, very good. It was another RIDICULOUSLY busy day at work, but I had plenty of energy, I wasn't overly hungry, and I was in a relatively good mood. I am noticing some... uh, digestive irregularity, but not discomfort. And honestly, at this early in the game, that could be pretty much anything still.

Also, I'm dreaming a LOT this week, and very vividly too. I have no idea if that's tied to my food, but if it is, I could do without it,  honestly.

Anyway, here's what I ate today:

Meal 1: 2 prosciutto-egg-veggie quiches

Meal 2: half a chicken breast with roasted sunchokes, half a grapefruit. See the note below about sunchokes! The grapefruit I was worried about. I love grapefruit, but I usually douse mine in sugar because they're so tart. However, it really wasn't bad!I have one left in my fridge, so I'm looking forward to it now as a potential breakfast add on.

Meal 3: ground pork slider on a baked cabbage steak with oven roasted sunchokes. This was very tasty. I'm telling you, these sunchokes are awesome! They're so good roasted. The pork slider is a recipe from my new cookbook- she serves them with a great looking pineapple relish, but I didn't want to buy a bunch MORE produce when I already get a bunch in my CSA. However, I would love to try the relish at some point- it sounds absolutely awesome! But the pork patty was good on it's own, and very easy. Best of all, it makes 4, so now I have a lot of left over protein servings!  The cabbage steak needs a little bit of tweaking. It was good, but kind of bland. A little lemon juice and some salt worked wonders, but I think if I make these again, I'll try to come up with some kind of compliant sauce or marinade type thingy that I can cook them in, other than olive oil which I could still taste as I was eating it.

I know it's not a very good photo- maybe this challenge will help me with some of my blogging skills too-, but that's what dinner looked like! I didn't even miss the bun.

Today's toughest moment was this afternoon, about an hour and a half after meal 2. Like I said, it was crazy at work, so my boss asked me to run and get lunch for her and one of my coworkers, who is (very) pregnant. I, of course, agreed- everyone knows you don't get in between a pregnant lady and her food- so, boss's credit card in one hand and a list in the other, I went to Wendy's. The whole way there, I thought to myself, "there has to be SOMETHING I can eat!" And probably, I could eat a baked potato, or a side salad with no dressing. But what I wanted was french fries and a chocolate frosty.

Especially after they put both of those items into my car and I drove back to work with the smell of fresh salty fries filling up my car.

BUT! I didn't eat a single one. No fries, no taste of frosty, no nothing, just a big ole drink of water when I got back to work. Whew!

Oh, and about sunchokes: they're also known as Jerusalem Artichokes, but they aren't part of the artichoke family. They're a root vegetable! The above ground plant apparently looks like a sunflower, which is where they get their name. The vegetable itself looks like a less knobby ginger root. The flesh inside is white, kind of like a more vegetable-y potato. You can eat them raw, but my preference is to roast them. They're sweet , kind of like carrots or sweet potatoes! I've gotten a ton of them in my CSA boxes, so be prepared to hear about them now and then.

Till next time-
xoxo

Whole30 Day one: GO!

Well, I think it is safe to say I made it. I feel pretty good, had plenty of energy, and I wasn't even very hungry!

Today's meals:

Meal 1: 2 muffin sized quiches with prosciutto, spinach, mushrooms, egg, olives and cherry tomatoes

morning snack: banana ( I know it says not to eat fruit alone, but, well, I wasn't hungry for more.)

Meal 2: salad with two different lettuces, half an avocado, mushrooms, lemon juice 2 hardboiled eggs with a little lemon juice squeezed on top, a few strawberries.

Meal 3: This is where it got tricky. I ended up having to work until after 7, and my co workers (and I) were very hungry. So we ordered Jimmy Johns. Here's what I got. A vegetarian unwhich (lettuce wrap) with: avocado spread, tomato, cucumber, onion and bean sprouts. Also a pickle. I wanted meat for protein pretty badly, but I've already learned that deli meats come with a LOT of forbidden additives- everything from sugar to carageenan to MSG to who knows what else. So I opted for no meat. Although it was a bit like (another) salad, it was tasty. But it wasn't super filling. And so...

Meal 4: Since I didn't cook "dinner" tonight (my primary source of lunches because I don't halve recipes) I needed something to take for tomorrow- and after two salads today I was ready to skip on that tomorrow. So I baked a large chicken breast and cut up 3-4 sunchokes to roast. I ate about half of that this evening after my walk with Penelope (my furbaby) and the two sets of bodyweight exercises.

Honestly, I kind of forgot a few times that I had started today. I didn't crave anything, or feel weird, or have digestive issues. I'm pretty achy today, but it is supposed to rain tomorrow, so that's not surprising. All in all, I had a nice (if very busy) day at work, and I felt like my body was fueled and up for it. Success!!

Whole30: Get set...

Tomorrow's the day!!

I've got my food packed up, I've had all my favorites ;), dinner is ready to throw together tomorrow after my afternoon walk and strength training regimen, water bottle packed. Everything is all ready to go tomorrow.

Emotionally? I'm scared. On the one hand, its only 30 days. Like, really. I can do ANYTHING for 30 days. I'm not a picky eater, I like to cook, and ask anyone- I'm super stubborn. On the other hand, so many people I've talked to are on the "oh my gosh, I could never!" or "wow, I'm staying away from you this month!" or "That sounds awfully difficult" side of the fence. And tonight, those voices are kind of winning.

But I know I can do this. I know that I have the ability to get through this. It's just food. I mean really. It. Is. Just. Food.

So I think I'm ready! I'm prepped for tomorrow and I'm ready to face the new me head on tomorrow.


OH! By the way, I'm not allowed to weigh myself or take measurements during this. So I'm planning on weighing myself in the morning, but it takes me a while to turn into a human, so if I forget- I weighed myself on Sunday (3/28) and came in at 198. I was very pleased with that, as a year ago this time I was at 245. So that's fabulous, almost 50 pounds in the last year. I'll be sure to check myself at the end of my Whole30 and let you know.

Ok, it's super late and tomorrow is already a long day and it's late. I'll check in tomorrow night and let you know how my first day was!

Sweet dreams!

Whole30: On your Mark...

Well, hello there!

As is often the way of things, I got distracted, life got busy, I have a million excuses, but really, I just let this lapse. Oh well.

I'm gearing up for a Whole30, and I think it will be very helpful to be able to journey the experience. That's all I'm promising. A record and journal as I undertake this.


What's the Whole30?
The Whole30 is a month long nutritional reset program designed to change how a person views food. For thirty days, participants eat absolutely no added sugars, no alcohol, no dairy of any kind, no grains of any kind (including quinoa!), and no soy.

I am interested in trying this for many reasons:

• to test my follow through on things I say I will do
• to alter the addictive nature of my relationship with food
• to change my taste buds
• to help with body composition change & weight loss
• to see how much the things I eat affect my energy, skin, and other slight physical issues

If you have questions about the program, please visit the website .

I'm starting my Whole30 on April 1. However, considering that that's a Wednesday, I wanted to do a lot of the food prep today. And now that I've got the shopping and most of the prepping done, I thought I'd grab a minute and talk about the things I'm already learning. 

Shopping

I've been a big meal planner and grocery shopper for most of my adult life. I like to have a plan and when you're as busy as I am, not having to think about dinner is great. I typically plan dinner meals and then have a few standards for breakfasts. I tend to alternate between leftovers and salads for lunches. 

So I very carefully planned my week. Here's what I've got:

Monday: chicken and veggie soup

Tuesday: dinner meeting for work, so out.

Wednesday: barbecue pork chops with sunchokes and fingerling potatoes

Thursday: chicken breast with veggies 

Friday: Pork "sliders" with veggies

Breakfasts: muffin cup veggie quiche with prosciutto "crust"

Alright, I thought. Here we go. 

I bought "The Frugal Paleo Cookbook" a couple of nights ago and so far I'm very excited. Not all of the recipes are Whole30 compliant, but many are and the ones that aren't will keep for a month! You can find it here. I got the recipe for the barbecue chops and the ground pork sliders from there. I figured I could make up a tasty soup, and a baked chicken breast and veggies is pretty easy but 

filling. I also get a CSA box every Tuesday, which gives me some freedoms about my choices of vegetables. 

I made a shopping list. It read:

1 lb. ground pork

red onion

prosciutto

ground mustard

chili powder

paprika

ghee

chicken broth

olives

eggs

apple cider vinegar

mushrooms

muffin liners

and a few other non-food items. 

All told this week, I probably spent about $90 on food. Ouch. Read on to find out where that went.

I hit the lottery right off the bat- organic grass fed ground pork was on sale for only $2.50 a pound! So I went a little hog wild (sorry, couldn't resist!) and bought six pounds to freeze. So that was an extra $12.50 right there.

But my local kroger doesn't carry prosciutto. Did you know that almost all deli meats have added sugar? Nope, me either. So there I was, holding up the line examining ingredients when I finally find it! Applewood naturals turkey: Turkey, salt and carageenan from seaweed! YES! $5 for a package. OUCH. I wince and buy it. When I got home, however, I found out that carageenan is on the no-no list. DAMN IT.  So I popped it in the freezer and added that to my "specialty store" purchases. Sure enough, Trader Joe's has prosciutto, ingredients: ham and salt. SCORE. I bought two packages, so I could make plenty of breakfasts. 

Next on the problem list is ghee. Ghee, or clarified butter, is pure butter fats. Basically, you warm up butter, strain out the last of the milk fats and proteins and when it cools, you get ghee! Since I'm mildly allergic to coconut, Ghee and olive oil are basically my only choices for cooking fats. Surprise, surprise, no ghee to be found at Kroger. I tracked it down at Trader Joe's too, 3.99 for 8 oz. Good thing I don't plan on using it much, as I like olive oil better for almost everything. 

Chicken broth turned out to be my real enemy here. There were NO brands of chicken broth that don't have added sugar, and most have added soy as well. I sighed and gave up, thinking I would look at the health food store. Then, I forgot to look at Trader Joe's and found some in the organics section at a second Kroger store. Riddle me this though: The brand had two different sizes of chicken broth. The small size? No sugar, no soy. The larger size? Added cane syrup. WHAT?! I couldn't find any other differences! I sighed, bought two of the more expensive small packages and bought them. When I got home, however, I must have forgotten the bag, because I do not have my broth. At this point, I'm about ready to give up on my soup, except I paid for the broth, and true to form, it wasn't cheap. So I guess tomorrow after work I'll drive BACK to the specialty Kroger and ask them about it... I wonder if I kept that receipt. The soup itself should be fairly easy to make, and quick, so it shouldn't through me off track. Just a bummer. 

Everything else was pretty straightforward- as long as I read the ingredients. And I mean, on EVERYTHING. Even the organic stuff! Everything but produce had to get checked and double checked for non compliant ingredients. 

I don't think I'll be doing my shopping on Saturday afternoons anymore. The stores were PSYCHO, and it was really difficult to ask an employee where something might be, or to stop and check ingredients without being totally in someone's way. Early mornings it is.

So, this morning, I got up and went to my kitchen. I started, ironically, with some scones. I had some scone mix on hand, and I needed to use it up, so I made wild blueberry scones to take to work tomorrow morning- where I can be sure I won't have them lying around in my house on Wedneseday!

As the scones were baking, I mixed up the barbecue seasoning for my pork chops and put it in a tiny ziplock container for later use. Then, I put some eggs (my new favorite snack!) on to hardboil. While the water was warming up, I tore up the last of my lettuce and most of my spinach for a salad at work tomorrow. Now that I have some mushrooms, I'll add those, two hardboiled eggs, and an avocado to round out the lettuce. Next I started some cucumber chips. I sliced two cucumbers very thin. Then I tossed them liberally in apple cider vinegar and salt before laying them out on cookie sheets and setting them to bake for 90 minutes. They're baking as I type this, but they smell good! I'm not a huge fan of cucumber, so I'm hoping this will help me to eat them, as I got them in my CSA box last week.

Then I went to start the chicken soup. Now that I've discovered the missing broth, I'll package that up and let the chicken keep defrosting over night before whipping up a quick soup when I get home tomorrow night. The last thing on my to-do list for today is the mini quiches. All I have to do there is chop up some cherry tomatoes, spinach, kale, onion, mushrooms and a few of my olives very small, and mix them all together. In a separate bowl, whisk up 12 eggs. Line muffin pan with liners. lay one slice prosciutto in the bottom of each muffin cup, mix veggies and eggs together. Pour the eggs and veggies into each muffin cup and let them bake for about 20-25 minutes. Pull them out, let them cool, package them up and pop them in the fridge- great, protein packed breakfasts! I'm also going to parse out some olives, eggs, and veggies for snacks in case I need them during the day!

Whew! Alright, y'all. I'm off to walk my dog before I finish making a mess in my kitchen so I can do the dishes and get myself off to bed at a reasonable hour. 

Eat well!

Charis

headstrong and stubborn

Today I'm broaching a rather tricky subject, but I'm thinking about it, and well, here we are.

To quickly catch you up with my life:

• I have an incredibly wonderful relationship with a man I'll call J. We've been together for about 5 months or so, and I swear I've never felt more right about things. 
• So right, in fact, that I'm practically living with him. (That's a whole other blog post)
• So right, in fact, that without even realizing what had happened, I've slipped into the role of home-maker. I'm buying groceries, cleaning the house, even occasionally cooking meals.
• Yes, I'm still working- in fact, in addition to my day job, I'm working on two shows this Spring, one of which is for the professional theatre in town, so that's super exciting.

Ok, that about covers it. But here's my issue. Today, as I was vacuuming the carpets in the house, I realized that I was quickly becoming overwhelmed by the amount of work there is to be done on the house. It's been neglected for far too long, and for my own piece of mind, whether he notices or not, I like to have things cleaned. A quick google search later, and I had what I was looking for: a quick, easy to do list for weekly cleaning. It was on a lovely blog, time-warp-wife.blogspot.com. Clearly, she has her life pretty together. She's been married for 24 years, has four kids, and if her cleaning schedule is any judge, lives a very comfortable, organized, clean life.

I am none of those things. Not a single one. But, what struck me the most was that this is yet another woman blogging who's blog is about being a Christian wife and mother. Now, I am a Christian. That's the way I was raised, and those are my beliefs. But the idea that women were intended to "serve" their husbands, and not to be their own women, or to hold her own place in the world makes me crazy. ABSOLUTELY CRAZY. I've said since I was a child that if I ever choose to put myself in a relationship with a man- and I have- that I will not settle for anything less than being a full partner in that relationship.

I will not be the woman that has no say in decision making.
I will not be the woman that takes her role in life from someone else, even her romantic partner.
I will not be the woman that says "yes, dear" even when her heart leads her somewhere else.
I will not be the woman that makes her man a sandwich.
I will not be the woman "pregnant, barefoot and in the kitchen".

I have friends that want nothing more than to be stay at home wives and mothers, and I applaud them for that.

But I can't do it. I won't, and I resent the implication, both from friends and bloggers, that I am less of a woman because of it.  I'm working three jobs, plus commissions from my website, AND I'm managing to keep track of the house and groceries. I have earned my place in our relationship, and I won't give that up for anything. We are partners, taking life on one day at a time, together. He keeps the lights, heat, and internet on, and I keep the dust to a minimum and milk in the fridge. When it gets warm, I might even plant some flowers.

Because I am a woman, no matter what.

goals for a new year

Good Lord, did life get busy!

The year ended well in most ways. I'm very happy, and oh so busy with lots of sewing projects and ideas.

In the New Year, I have hopes to expand that into a more profitable enterprise, as well as start to market myself in this area as a costumer and a stage manager, and, hopefully, an actress.


The area I'm slacking in the most right now is my physical fitness habits. After a year of doing so well, I have really let it slip in the last two months. I am maintaining my weight, but I do not feel as good and my muscle tone is not as good.

I have some serious goals for 2013 about THAT as well, but for now, I just need to get back on track with exercising and eating well. That's my biggest goal.

So, without further ado, I present:

Goals for 2013:

• post to blog 1x weekly, minimum
• create and maintain an etsy store to sell my bags and other creations
• build a professional portfolio enabling theatres to hire me
• continue to develop and enjoy my personal relationships
• get back to exercising 5-6x/week on average, for at least 30 minutes
• get eating habits under control again- do whatever it takes. 
• read books- one per month at least
• develop my building skills through classes, tutorials and practice

There might be more, and I hope to develop them further in the coming weeks. We'll see.

I hope you all had wonderful, healthy happy New Years! Here's to 2013!