Whole 30 update

So here we are in June and we finished our whole 30 four months ago. I thought I would give all my eager readers a little update.

1. We still eat eggs for breakfast. One of the biggest changes to our diet came at breakfast. During our Whole 30 experience we cut out all the sugary/bready/carby things at breakfast. This is probably one of the more difficult changes to our diet as it requires more time in the morning but I believe is an important change.

2. Weight loss. Hubby and I have both gained a little of our lost weight back but have kept off over half of what we lost. When the summer is over and we are home more we are hoping to do another Whole 30 so we can lose a little more.

3. Labs. I know a lot of people have expressed to me concern about increased cholesterol since we increased the amount of meat we were eating. Recent labs show that blood sugar levels are lower even 4 months after the Whole 30. Bad cholesterol (LDL) and triglyceride levels both dropped over 20 points. I believe this is related to the decreased in processed food and increase in natural fat we are consuming.

4. Processed food. We still avoid as much processed food as possible. We ran out of our Tessemae salad dressing a few weeks ago and I had a salad slathered in Ranch dressing. I gagged. It was awful! It felt so heavy and thick. We do eat a little bread and we do eat out about twice a week but this is a hug improvement from what we were doing this time last year.

5. Coffee. I know you are all anxious to hear about this one. This is where I have fallen off the wagon. I am back on my coffee creamer...sorry to let you all down. I guess this is how smokers feel. It's a hard addiction to give up. Hubby however has let it go. He still drinks coconut milk in his coffee.

So there's the update. Some successes and some failures. The key, I know, is that if we go back to eating the way we were the weight will come back on. I don't feel as energetic as I did when I was doing the Whole 30 but it's not something we can do 365 days a year and it wasn't designed that way. If you haven't tried it yet give it a go. If you have and fell off the wagon before the 30 days was up get back up and try it again.

Life After Whole 30

Christmas Day I was helping my sister in law cook Christmas dinner and texting my sister at the same time. My sister said "We should take the girls an American Girl store sometime." And thus began the planning for a girls weekend. There was bargaining over where we would meet because there is no store halfway between us. Then my mother says "You really think this is going to happen?" She's known us (my sisters and I) for over 3 and a half decades you would think she would know by now that a comment like that only makes us  more determined to make it happen. So this past weekend my 9 year old daughter and I flew to Nashville to meet my mother, father, sisters and nieces for a girls weekend. I was way off what has become my regular diet the first day and by the end of the day I bloated and having a lot of abdominal pain. That alone convinced me to try to stick closer to my plan. It's not easy eating out and staying on a strict diet. I ate a lot of grilled chicken and salad. I know the dressing was on the plan but I did not eat as much of it as I once would have. I found some Larabars at Target and packed those for breakfast on the trip home. We stopped at Cracker barrel for lunch and I had grilled fish and sweet potato but had to scoop off the brown sugar.

I got home just in time for our Super Bowl party with the students from church. I ate off plan in a big way Sunday night. Monday morning though I just got back on track with eggs and thin sliced steaks. Lunch was chicken strips, roasted sweet potato and asparagus. I never thought I would be looking forward to my routine lunch but it was so good. This morning I cooked up the rest of the thin sliced steak. We had some for breakfast and saved the rest for lunch.

I put a roast in the crock pot for dinner and covered it with Tessemae's slow roasted garlic and added potatoes. The kids had 2-3 helpings each of the roast so I guess it was good stuff. I also used the Chesapeake Mayo as dip. First time I've had mayo in over a month. I've been a mayo addict longer than I've been a coffee creamer addict!

I gained 1 pound back in my off plan eating over the weekend but Hubby was at home and stayed on target. He's lost almost 20 pounds now. A lot of people have commented about his weight loss.

I did drink some coffee with real creamer and even one Starbucks coffee this past weekend. But Monday morning I went back to my coconut milk and cinnamon. Today is Fat Tuesday. Lent starts tomorrow. A lot of people will give up something for Lent. Sounds like a great time to start your Whole 30 journey!

Whole 30: Reintroduction

Reintroduction is scary. Because the program works well. We eat well. We feel well. We're in a routine. Why change things now? We can continue if we want but that's not the way the program works. Part of the point is to find how certain food affect your body. Being in control of your choices and not letting cravings dictate what you eat and how much of it you eat is a huge gain.

Yesterday morning I got up, pushed the button on my Keurig and grabbed the new container of coffee creamer out of the fridge. Regardless of what the book said about reintroduction I was having creamer! And it was GROSS! The taste was all off. I had 3 cups of coffee with real creamer and today I went back to coconut milk, cinnamon and cocoa. It was much better and less sugar and less calories.

We had edamame at dinner. If you haven't ever tried this green legume you should (after your whole 30). We were introduced to them at a sushi restaurant and the whole family loves them. But by bedtime and again this morning my stomach was hurting. I think it was the coffee creamer but it may have been the edamame.

Tonight I made chili with plantain chips for dinner. It was pretty good. I think I let the plantains sit too long because I read they make better chips if they are green and mine were not. But we ate it. Two different students at church told Hubby he looked thinner. I think that made him feel pretty good.

Friday we get to reintroduce dairy. We'll see how that goes.

Whole 30: Day 30!!!!!!!

This is how I feel right now! We did it...as long as we can last the next 2 hours and 49 minutes. Today our food was mostly just about getting through the day. We had poached eggs and pork chops with greens and cherry tomatoes. I made 4 pork chops at breakfast so lunch was already cooked. We heated up roasted sweet potatoes (I like roasted sweet potato but I'm about sick of it just to be honest) and had salad with our pork chops for lunch. Dinner was baked salmon, asparagus and I made homemade french fries. So that's it. Our last official day. We still have another 10 days of reintroduction and will quite likely do a whole 10 or whole 14 several times in the next few months. 

I've lost a total of 8 pounds this month. And I was not hungry. I realized in October that I needed to lose about 15 pounds. I counted my calories religiously and went to bed hungry for 6 weeks and barely lost 2 pounds. This month we ate. A lot. And the weight was easy to come off. I have not added exercise to my plan yet. Quite honestly I have a stressful job and I come home to 3 kids ages 2-9. I have a hard time figuring out where to fit exercise. This month was about food and it took all my energy to cook 3 meals a day and keep the kitchen somewhat clean.

So a few pieces of advice I would give anyone thinking about taking on the Whole 30:

1. Read the book. Visit the website.- Make sure you have all the information about the how and why. In my experience if you understand why you are doing something it makes it easier to stick to the plan.

2. Get on pinterest and Instagram. - I can't tell you how many recipes I got off Instagram. Don't try to come up with your own food combinations. Thousands of people have done this before you. Take advantage of that.

3. Amazon.- Find the products others are raving about and order them. Our first week was rough because we had not done research on some of these products. Once we broke down and bought them it made things more enjoyable.

4. Have a buddy.- This is not something you can do alone. You need someone to sit down and eat meals with who can make a meal if you are sick or get too busy with other things in life. Accountability is key

5. You can do this.- I live 45 minutes from the nearest Wal-Mart and who knows where the nearest Whole Foods store is located. I work full time and am raising 3 kids. If I can do this so can  you!

PS- I am going to add a little creamer to my coffee tomorrow.

Whole 30: Day 29

This morning I listened to a post on periscope by Melissa Hartwig about the reintroduction phase of the Whole 30. I tried to find it and link it here but with periscope posts are only up for 24 hours so it's gone. I looked for it on YouTube but it's not there yet. However, here is the link to her blog post on Whole30.com about reintroduction. My daughter and I have some plans this weekend for a girls weekend which will leave Hubby and the boys on their own for a few meals. Hubby says "We'll probably get pizza." I said "Do you really want to go back to eating that way?" He replied "No." That really made me think that we need a game plan for the next 2 weeks. The past 29 days have been pretty well laid out. It was easy and not easy all at the same time.

I made a point to read the reintroduction chapter of It Starts With Food. Day 1 we can reintroduce legumes. Hubby doesn't really like peas and lima beans (which I was raised eating and like) but the whole family is a fan of edamame (soybeans in the pod). So I'm thinking that may be our reintroduction day 1. By Thursday or Friday we can add dairy back to our diet. Grains and gluten don't get added back until around day 10. The point is to take a few days and see how certain foods affect our bodies before adding in more food. On periscope Melissa talked about how grains make her feel lethargic and unsociable. So she's aware of how she will feel if she eats too much of one certain type of food.

A few things I think we will continue doing after finishing the Whole 30:

1. Coconut Oil- This oil has less of the bad fat and more of the good fat we need in our diet. It has a mild taste and really doesn't make the food taste all coconutty.

2. Sunbutter- Even our kids like sunbutter without sugar as well as peanut butter. So why eat something with sugar when there is a healthier alternative we like just as well.

3. Tesseme- Why eat salad dressing with fake ingredients and sugar when there are healthier alternatives? We really like the Tesseme dressings and there are lots of options available.

4- Eating a full breakfast and lunch- I have really gotten used to eating a full meal at breakfast and lunch. I don't get starving hungry at 10 AM or 3 PM and have to have a snack. I think I have a clearer mind and better focus when I'm not hungry. I also don't get "Hangry".

5- Clarified butter- Have you ever tried this stuff? So much better than butter or that fake margarine. I love it on my baked potatoes!

6- Avoiding processed food- I've been preaching this for years but until now have not found a way to do it so completely myself.

So tomorrow is the last day. The first week was long and hard. But we've just about done it.

Whole 30: Day 28

One of the things we have given up in the Whole 30 is bread, well any type of grain actually. For years we have been told we need grains at every meal. But if you are looking for fiber there are lots of ways to get fiber without using grains. The Mayo Clinic web page has this chart showing the fiber content of different foods. Cutting out a lot of the food we eat every day has forced us to try new food and in new ways.

I wasn't very hungry this morning when I got up so I had banana and Sunbutter. I think Hubby made himself some eggs. I went for groceries and got back late so lunch was not until 2 and I made chicken on spinach and arugula with avocado, grapes and grape tomatoes. It was beautiful outside today so we cooked dinner on the grill outside. We had grilled chicken and steak and I roasted parsnip fries and asparagus for dinner. The kids had friends over and they even tried the parsnip fries and asparagus. Not sure they cared for it but they tried it.

I wanted to make the breakfast meatloaf I found on Pinterest again. Last time I used some Italian sausage I found but it really called for ground pork and added seasonings. I had looked for ground pork for weeks and could not find it. Earlier this week I asked one of the guys at the local grocery store if he could ground me some pork and he had it done by the time I finished the rest of my shopping. I guess that's the benefit of living in a small town. I've got the breakfast meatloaf in the slow cooker now.

I have been thinking about our reintroduction this next week. I don't want to go back to eating the way we have in the past. My skin looks clearer and I got into some pants today that I haven't been able to wear in several months. So I don't want to go back but I am looking forward to relaxing the rules a little.

Whole 30: Day 27

Friday is Hubby's day off work so I try to let him and the 2 year old sleep in. I get the other 2 kids up and ready for school. Today I made sausage and poached eggs for breakfast. The 9 year old told me she wouldn't mind eating eggs for breakfast every day so she had what I had today. The 5 year old pukes when I feed him eggs but he wanted sausage so I only had to make one breakfast this morning.

I ended up not getting to leave work for lunch. I had some fruit which held me for a little while. Hubby had to come to town at 3 so he brought me a salad with chicken, tomatoes and avocado. Kids wanted chicken nuggets and mac and cheese for dinner. I don't know about anyone else but by Friday evening I am worn out. Pan fried chicken and roasted sweet potatoes have become my quick and easy go to dinner. So while they ate junk I did not.

Not much planned for this weekend. Hoping to get some rest.

Sorry for such a short post tonight. I'll try to have some new information to bring you tomorrow night.

Whole 30: Day 26

So I was getting tired of eggs, sausage and sweet potato for breakfast every morning. I had cooked it about all the ways I could find to cook it. So today I decided to try salmon for breakfast.

I put 4 small pieces in the fridge to thaw last night and cooked all 4 this morning. Hubby helped me make poached eggs and wilted greens. It was really a good filling breakfast. I'm thinking I should have thrown in some avocado as well. We used the other 2 pieces in a salad a lunch. 

One night a month I volunteer as the nurse practitioner at a local free clinic. I knew I did not have time to get home and get dinner before going to the clinic after my full time job so I had an apple and sunbutter to get me by until I could get home. The manager at the free clinic usually makes dinner but since I'm being so particular about what I'm eating I just figured I'd eat when I got home. The manager had heard I was doing the Whole 30 and made a compliant soup with chicken, sweet potato and carrots. It was so good! I have found that people are willing to help if they know what we are doing.

I prepared meatloaf for the kids and Hubby to have for dinner. All Hubby had to do was stick it in the oven. He also cut up a sweet potato (the 9 year old was quick to point out she peeled the sweet potato with the potato peeler) and roasted it with some asparagus. The kids didn't like the meatloaf and I tried it when I got home and probably won't try it again. Kind of a strange flavor.

4 days left! I think we're gonna make it!

Whole 30: Day 25

Today was a little crazy. I overslept by about 30 minutes. I've had this sinus infection for 2 weeks now. Monday I went to see the Dr in our clinic and got a steroid shot and some antibiotics. I took one NyQuil capsule (they come 2 in a pack) last night and apparently slept through the 2 year old falling out of his toddler bed. Fortunately, Hubby heard him and got him back in bed. So I think that was partly why I had trouble getting up. I was tired of sausage and potatoes with my eggs so we had leftover pork chops with wilted greens and poached eggs for breakfast. "It Starts With Food" suggests looking at meals as Meal 1, Meal 2 and Meal 3 instead of breakfast, lunch and dinner so you are not locked into a mindset of what is ok to eat at what time.

For lunch we had salad with chicken, avocado, grape tomato and grapes. I used Tesseme's Southwest Ranch dressing and Hubby had the Cracked Pepper dressing. I compared the calories and the Southwest Ranch has 90 cal per serving and the Cracked Pepper had 100 vs Buttermilk Ranch dressing at 120. Low Fat Ranch dressing has more calories but also more added junk. The list of ingredients for Ranch and Low Fat Ranch is long and includes sugar. The calories from the Tesseme's dressing mostly comes from olive oil.

Avocados have a lot of fat but it is a good fat and helps increase the good fat in your body. The fat also helps keep you full longer. I use a spring mix salad mix. It's a good mix of textures and flavor. The darker greens have more vitamins and are better for you.

My new dishwasher was delivered this afternoon but the install guy did not finish til 4:30. I usually pick the kids up at 3:30 on Wednesday so they can get chores and baths done before church. Since I was running an hour behind I barely got dinner fixed for Hubby and I before heading back to church. We had chicken and roasted sweet potato. Corn dogs were on the menu at church and my kids love them. I like them occasionally as well but I was satisfied with my dinner tonight. The closer we get to the end of this whole 30 journey the more nervous I get. We have worked so hard to get all the junk out of our diet I'm afraid to introduce any of it back in.

5 days to go!

Whole 30: Day 23 & 24

One of the comments I have heard from a lot of people is concern about the amount of fat in our diet. We eat 2 eggs every morning and have sausage with those eggs most mornings. We have been conditioned in the past to look at eggs, sausage and red meat as "bad" food. I have been a little concerned about that as well. But if you look at the fat we have cut out of our diet it evens out. Think about the amount of fat in dairy, bread and processed food that we eat every day. Those foods have been eliminated from our diet therefore, that fat has been eliminated. Next week we finish our Whole 30 so I have been pushing to finish reading "It Starts With Food". At the end of the book there is a reintroduction phase which discusses how to reintroduce the foods that we have eliminated (just as a side note I haven't found where they want me to reintroduce my sugary coffee creamer, huh wonder where that note can be found?). They suggest adding one food group and see how it affects the body so we know what foods make us feel bad and which ones we can tolerate. Added sugar and processed food is not on the reintroduction list.

Yesterday it was potatoes and eggs over easy with wilted greens and grape tomatoes, lunch was chicken breast with roasted asparagus and sweet potatoes, dinner was balsamic chicken again with roasted butternut squash. Hubby was out of town yesterday. He had chicken and veggies from a whole food store for lunch then his sister made him dinner. She called to make sure what she cooked was on his eating plan. It's nice when others in the family take enough care and concern to be supportive of this strict diet. He even did his driving without having to have an energy drink to say awake.

This morning I made eggs with lime, cilantro and mushrooms and added some fruit on the side. The eggs turned out a little mushy but the flavor was good. Lunch was chicken with leftover veggies from yesterday. I made baked pork steak with garlic and rosemary mashed potatoes and parsnips. It was kind of a weird flavor but the 2 year old had 2 helpings. I'm trying to use more spices and different flavor combinations to combat the food fatigue.

One piece of exciting news that I know will thrill all my readers : My new dishwasher comes tomorrow!

Whole 30: Day 22

8 more days of our super strict diet left. We have decided we want to transition into a Paleo diet/lifestyle from here. Paleo supports most of how we have been learning to eat this past month but gives a little more leeway in that you can have honey and maple syrup where on Whole 30 you cannot. I'm not sure if I will go back to my normal coffee creamer or not. I'm sure if I do I won't use near as much of it. I probably needed an intervention on that stuff anyway.

I made poached eggs with sweet potato and fruit for breakfast. The 9 year old ate eggs and potatoes as well and the 2 year old ate most of my blueberries. I put ribs in the crock pot for lunch with Tesseme bbq sauce and we had sweet potatoes and salad with it. For dinner we had leftovers from Friday dinner and today's lunch.

I was talking to a friend today about sticking on our diet while there was pizza and cinnamon rolls available. She asked if I didn't just crave it. It's hard to describe how the craving is different. There is the thought that it would taste good but then there is the decision not to eat it. Instead of a craving driving my food decision it is a choice to eat or not to eat. I am in control of my food choices and that is a good feeling to have.

The dress pants I wore to church today fit better and my jeans were a little loose tonight. I'm not down a pant's size yet but it's nice not to have to suck in the gut and wear a loose shirt to cover up the belly hanging over (come on, admit it, you know what I'm talking about). It's also easier to stick to this plan when the results are obvious.

Whole 30: Day21

We finally ventured out into the world of dining out. Until today we had not eaten anything that I had not cooked in 3 weeks. I lead a high school small group at church on Sunday morning and today was our yearly outing. We had decided to go to Incredible Pizza. Just in case you are wondering, pizza is not on the whole 30 plan...no matter how incredible it is. I made a big breakfast because I wasn't sure what we would find that we could eat for lunch. We had breakfast pork chops with fried egg, wilted greens and grape tomato. I use coconut oil for anything I fry or brown in the skillet.

We did find a few things we could eat at Incredible Pizza. Mostly salad and I took my own salad dressing so I knew it was compliant. Hubby put some taco meat on his salad and had some chili. I ate green beans and salad. We saw some ham and asked how it was cooked and sure enough it had brown sugar in it so we passed on the ham.

One of Hubby's friends from college was going to be close to us around dinner time so after we dropped off the high schoolers we picked up our kids and drove over to Chili's for dinner. I had avocado steak with salad for dinner. It had another sauce on it but after asking the waitress I found it had sugar in it so I asked for no sauce. I also requested no cheese or dressing on the salad and pulled out my own dressing. The steak was excellent. Hubby had steak and broccoli.

So we survived our first dining out experience. We are hoping to stay on a Paleo diet when we finish our whole30. Getting some experience asking about how things are cooked was helpful.

Whole 30: Day 19

Food fatigue is starting to set in a few days early. I'm just tired of cooking. I feel like I cook the same stuff over and over and over again. Eggs, Italian sausage and sweet potatoes are my breakfast staple. And I've done it about every way I possibly can. Today I made poached eggs with Italian sausage and wilted greens (spinach I threw in the skillet after the sausage came out but doesn't "wilted greens" sound fancier?) and grape tomatoes. We cleaned out the fridge for lunch and came up with a sliver of leftover steak, a piece of baked fish and a piece of bbq pork. For veggies we split the last of roasted squash and made a salad. It was healthy, our plates and bellies were full and I did not have to cook an extra meal so we called it good. I made balsalmic chicken with mushrooms and thyme. All the kids loved it and so did Hubby. I might have to try that one again. I made roasted carrot fries which really tasted sweeter than raw carrots and not so carroty. Which is good because none of us really care for carrots that much.

After dinner I discovered our dishwasher is broken. I always turn it on in the morning and when we went to empty it I discovered the dishes were not clean so I turned it back on again. It got stuck with 1 minute left and it was not hot inside and the dishes were still not clean.

12 days to go! We can do this!

Whole 30: Day 18

My word for this year is "Healthy". There are a lot of different ways to get healthy. Physically, mentally, spiritually...the list could go on and on. The first thing we did this year to get healthy had to do with physical health. Tonight I sat in on the preview for Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University at our church. When Hubby and I got married 11 1/2 years ago his best friend gave him a copy of Dave's "Total Money Makeover".  We both had some debt and I had quite a bit in savings. Hubby read the book and said "This is what we need to do." I said "sure, ok". And we focused in on paying off our debt. Within 2 months we had paid off both our vehicles and a small credit card debt. It took us longer to pay off his student loans but we got it done. When I decided to go back to school for my Master's in nursing we decided to do it debt free. I had the option of taking out student loans and then hoping I would get a job with a company that offered loan repayment (incidentally I did get a job that offered that but I didn't need it). My conviction was that I did not need to be indebted to anyone but my God. I wanted to be free to pick up and go if He said move. We have not always followed Dave's principle's to the letter but anytime we do take out a loan we try to pay it off as quickly as possible.

I say all of that to say this. A lot of people are slaves to food. Just as many people are slaves to money, people are slaves to food. We crave it. We think about how good it tastes and how we want certain things to eat.  When we stop eating those things we get headaches and withdrawals. The Bible says we are to worship God alone. Not food. Not money. Not anything else.  These past 18 days I have recognized more when I am hungry and when I am full. I have beat back cravings. And I don't want to go back to being enslaved by those cravings.

Today's eating was just plan old leftovers. But it nourished my body just the same. I made sure the money we spent on food did not go to waste because we ate what was leftover.

What is  your plan to get healthy in 2016?

Whole 30: Day 17

24 hours with our Tesseme dressings and Michael is ready to buy another box because they are that good. Seriously, read the ingredient list. You can pronounce all the names. It's all real stuff!

I made a egg and sweet potato casserole for breakfast. Hubby thought I used too many sweet potatoes and not enough eggs. I like sweet potato more than eggs so I guess we will have to agree to disagree on this one.

For lunch we had leftover salmon on spinach with grape tomatoes and avocado. We used the Southwest Ranch dressing. I was hungry by dinner time so I grabbed a few almonds while I was cooking to tide me over. We had pork loin that marinated in the Tesseme BBQ sauce and I put on the George Foreman grill. I served it with mashed potatoes and salad. We used the Tesseme ranch dressing with the salad (I told you we were in love with these dressings!).

 Not being able to load up the mashed potatoes with butter, milk and sour cream was a bit of a challenge in in the beginning. Tonight I used Trader Joe's clarified butter, along with some coconut milk and to thin it out a little I added some of the chicken stock from the chicken I cooked the crock pot Sunday night. There were no potatoes left. All 3 of the kids had a clean plate after tonight's dinner so I'm gonna call this one a definite win. Now you and I both know I can cook the exact same dinner the exact same way next week and they will refuse to eat it!

Cooking 3 meals a day for 17 days takes a lot of time and leaves a very messy kitchen. After one particularly nasty tantrum from one of our older kids Hubby and I decided their 2 measly chores were not enough. For the past 18 months they have each emptied part of the dishwasher and folded 10 pieces of clothing every day. This was a good start to the chore list but they needed to be doing more. I guess I kind of got into the groove of doing everything for them because they were little. Then one day I looked up and I had a 9 year old. Tonight I branched out and let her cut up the potatoes after I peeled them. I have been very hesitant to give any of my children sharp knives. But she did a good job. The 9 year old and the 5 year old helped mash potatoes and pound out the pork chops. Maybe that's why they ate better because they helped cook it. Who knows. We are learning a lot more than just about food through this 30 day journey!

Whole 30: Day 16

After 2 weeks of virtually no sauces on anything we splurged and bought this set of Tesseme dressings off Amazon. It was $40 for the lot but to finally have some ranch dressing it was worth it. I read the ingredients and it made me feel healthier just reading them. No sugar. In any of them. Fresh ingredients and mostly olive oil.

We did not get them til lunch so we did not use them on breakfast. I made poached eggs with roasted sweet potato and asparagus. I cut up extra sweet potatoes and asparagus for breakfast and stuck some in the fridge for lunch. When lunch time came around I heated up some of the chicken I made in the crock pot yesterday and added the Southwest Ranch dressing and we had lunch in less than 5 minutes after adding the sweet potato and asparagus. For dinner we had fish. We bought a HUGE thing of fish at Sam's at the beginning of the month. I made salmon and tilapia. I put salt and pepper on all of it then on half of each I added paprika and lemon. On the other half I added lime and cilantro. We had broccoli on the side. Even the picky 5 year old ate the fish and broccoli without arguing tonight.

I plan to use the salmon on a salad for lunch tomorrow. I feel like we are finally getting a groove that does not require cooking every single day for lunch. I was just getting into a groove of cooking enough to feed 5 people without having too much left over. Now we are actually eating our leftovers so I don't feel so bad when I 've got stuff left. My fridge is much cleaner too because we don't have a lot of stuff that we don't eventually eat.

I don't think I'm getting enough sleep. Most parents I talk to say "We're all in the bed by 9:30." Most nights I'm up til almost 11. I've decided I'm doing too much and we've added some chores to the list of things the kids have to do so that is helping. Mostly I just need to turn off the TV and go to bed.

Whole 30: Day 15 Halfway!

When I was growing up we lived 4 hours from our state capital Jackson, MS. Whenever we traveled to Jackson we took the Natchez Trace Parkway. There was really no place to stop for gas or bathroom break until about halfway. We grew up calling it the "Halfway Station".  Today we are at the Halfway Station on our journey through 30 days of no processed food or added sugar. We have found a good groove and have a stock of healthy food with which to cook.

 Time management on Sunday is a big deal and the past few weeks I've been late to church because of the breakfast I cook. This week I ironed clothes for church last night so that made this morning go a little smoother. We had poached eggs with sausage, fried potatoes and cherry tomatoes for breakfast. I intended to make chicken with carrots and potatoes for lunch but I did not get it in the crock pot in time so we had left over chili  and saved the chicken for dinner. The 2 year old ate 3 helpings of carrots. I have a hard time telling any of my children "No" when they ask for more vegetables.

Our 9 year old will try almost anything we cook at least once. The 5 year old starts dinner by saying "I don't want that." He sometimes even says it before he knows what we are having. We eat most dinner/supper at the kitchen table. There are lots of research articles out there proclaiming the benefits of eating dinner at the table as a family. The list of benefits includes lower rates of obesity and lower rates of drug and alcohol abuse. So even if one our children does not want what we are having for dinner everyone sits at the dinner table. Your plate may be empty but you will sit and talk with us. Most of the time our picky eater will choose something to eat. It may take 10 minutes but 90% of the time something ends up on his plate. We gave up making him take one bite of everything a long time ago. If push comes to shove and he just refuses to eat I offer fruit. I do not make a second meal and I do not offer junk food. My kids love dessert but they do not get it after every meal. They also know if they did not eat enough dinner they do not get dessert. If you are still hungry then you need to eat more real food to fill up your belly and not junk. So there is my trick to getting kids to eat healthy. Put it on the table. Eat dinner together. Do not ask them to eat something you won't eat. And it's a lot easier to start these habits when they are young and when you have your spouse on board.

Today I found out that I am officially Board Certified in Advanced Diabetes Management as a Nurse Practitioner. I have been working on this for about 7 months. Going through the Whole 30 makes me think about how I advise my patients with diabetes regarding food.

Also, today walking through church Hubby says "I think you look thinner." I just smiled and said "thank you" but inside I was doing the happy dance.

Whole 30: day 14

Tomorrow marks 2 weeks that we began our Whole 30 adventure and Monday we will be halfway done. One of the things on the "do not eat list" is peanut butter. We tried some almond butter but it was a little grainy and we had trouble finding the sugar free variety locally. I had read some recommendations for Sunbutter 
and we ordered some from Amazon it came in yesterday. Today I had that and apples for breakfast. Michael made sausage and eggs and I ate a little of that but mostly just the apples and Sunbutter. It's made from sunflower seeds and we bought the sugar free variety. It really tastes a lot like peanut butter. It has 2 more grams of fat per serving but half the carbohydrates as regular peanut butter. I figure we will try to switch the kids over to this instead of peanut butter since it is a healthier alternative.

I made chocolate chili for lunch.I could not really taste the chocolate but it was good. Our 9 year old had a bowl of it and started yelling because the 2 year old was eating out of her bowl so I gave him his own bowl of chili. So I figure it's pretty good.

Dinner was nothing special just grilled chicken, sweet potato fries and salad. 

I looked at our grocery spending this month and it was really shocking how much we've spent. But we haven't been eating out and we've eaten most of what we have bought we've had very little that we have thrown away. In the past I've thrown a lot of fresh fruit and veggies away because they went bad before they were used. Looking at what to expect this week we should be having vivid food dreams then experiencing the most energy we will have during the process starting the first of this next week.  So I'll keep you updated. I'm really looking forward to the more energy part!

Whole 30: Day 13 Life Happens

Living Whole 30 in the real world today. Friday is Hubby's day off so I get the two older kids up and ready for school by myself. I made 2 poached eggs and threw some cherry tomatoes on top and grabbed some fruit. I had planned to come home at lunch and bring diced tomatoes so we could get chocolate chili in the crockpot but I had an patient that ended up needing some additional time and care at 11:50 and didn't get to go to lunch til 12:40 so I did not have time to go home for lunch. I had a grilled pork chop I had taken to work a couple of days ago and did not eat so I had that and some more fruit for lunch. We altered our dinner plans and decided to have steak tonight and try chocolate chili tomorrow night.

Tonight we have a house full of 8 and 9 year old girls. They had pizza and cake and ice cream. We did not feel bad missing out on pizza when we had steak, baked potatoes, asparagus and portabella mushrooms. We got some clarified butter from Amazon today.


It worked really well on the potatoes.The first week on Whole 30 we stuck to our meal plan pretty well all week. This week we had to adjust and do some meals on the fly. I feel like we kind of hit our stride with meal planning. We are almost halfway done with our Whole 30. I could see this affecting how we eat for a long time.

Whole 30: Day 12

I'm a little late getting this posted. Yesterday did not go as planned as far as my food. I had planned to have leftover sausage and sweet potato hash I had made Wednesday. When I put it in the fridge there were 2 servings left. I did not know Hubby had eaten one serving Wednesday for lunch. So I told him that was breakfast and he ate the last serving. I discovered this about 5 minutes before I had to walk out the door. So I found some leftover grilled pork and some fruit and that was breakfast. Not really what I wanted but I made it work. My house cleaner was coming around lunch (she comes about every 2 weeks and with 3 kids it's a life saver to have someone else come scrub the toilets and dust and pick up and do the floors...well you get the idea) anyway, I try to stay out of her way so I avoided coming home at lunch. I had leftover squash soup, pork loin from Sunday and green beans. Hubby made a salad of greens, tomato, avocado and bought some shrimp at the store to go on it. Dinner was crazy. My 9 year old is in Girl Scouts and she is presenting a project on cooking Sunday afternoon at their meeting. One of the requirements is to make a full meal. Since we don't have time to make a full meal at Girl Scouts we decided to video ourselves making roasted butternut squash, cracklin' chicken and steamed broccoli. Oh my word! What a fiasco! She picked crazy spices to put on the squash including red pepper. It took forever to get it cut up. I cut my finger with the potato peeler. We finally go the chicken on to cook and I let the first batch cook too long and the skin burned and the smoke alarm went off. Not sure how I'm going to edit that out of the video! It was nearly 7:30 by the time dinner was ready (we try to eat between 6:30 and 7). I was exhausted and my newly cleaned kitchen was a disaster. The video needs some editing but it's done. The boys ate more broccoli than squash which is fine and one we peeled the burned part off the first batch of chicken it tasted fine.

I must add today that I could not do this with out my Hubby. I knew I had to have a partner if I was going to attempt this. It's not really something you can do on your own. Also knowing that I have made this commitment to clean eating public and that other people are watching helps keep me on track too. Accountability is really key.

I ordered some Cacoa powder yesterday. 
I added some to my coffee today cinnamon and coconut milk. It's very dry and kind of bitter so you have to be careful to not add too much but it adds a little flavor.