Whole 30: Day 5 - How I get by

I'm still supposed to want to "Kill All The Things," but I still don't. That's a good thing. However, I think I may feel myself slipping right into "For the Love of Gosling..." A little bloat in other words.  I still feel good though. I went to bed WAY late last night, but still woke about around 6:30 feeling pretty well rested.

I've been exercising too...again...finally. I really love the way I feel right now. I'm happy, clear-headed. I like the idea of getting healthy again and love seeing all those nutritious foods in my fridge.

A challenge


It's the weekend. Which for me usually means going out at least one night (which I won't be doing), and watching Game of Thrones at my friend Heidi's house where we usually eat a fabulous dinner and drink wine. I'm still going to Heidi's house, but I told her I would have to bring dinner for us so I could stick with my program. And I'll be bringing a sparkling water mocktail. And Thank God GOT is on at 6 and I can just watch and go (well, not rudely, but you know, I won't be staying and drinking wine for hours before the show starts like

AND A SPIDER JUST CRAWLED ACROSS MY TABLE!!! I had to shove things on the floor to knock him off!


Okay, sorry, what was I saying? Oh yeah, like we did with The Walking Dead. So, that's how I plan to stick to the program.

Here are a couple...I don't know what to call them, they're not cheats because I'm not cheating on the program...tricks? Wait, I'm going to come up with a good name for them. Talk amongst yourselves, BRB...

The Whole 30 Megan Method, or  TW3MM.

Yes, I know, I'm a dork.

Huh? What do you think?

Anyway...

• I eat on a salad plate instead of a dinner plate. 
• The other day, I was wavering between coffee with coconut oil or coconut milk. I've decided to go with the coconut milk. The taste is pretty bland for both, but the  milk doesn't have that oily texture that kind of made me want to barf. Anyway, blend the milk with your coffee in your Magic Bullet or Blender. It blends it really well and you get a nice frothy head that makes you feel like you're drinking cappuccino.
• My go-to spices: Fresh ground pepper, sea salt, garlic powder. After that base, you can add anything. Last night I added rosemary to my chicken. You could do curry for spice, red pepper flakes or cayenne for heat,etc, etc.
• If you don't want to fork out the cash for Tessamae's salad dressing and you get tired of oil and vinegar, do hot sauce. Many of them are Whole 30 approved. I like Tapatio. Make sure you read the book, It Starts With Food, or check labels before using hot sauces.
• I think I may have mentioned this the other day, but go to your store's discount meat section. I've found awesome deals on the London broil (which was grass fed), other grass fed meats, seafood (which is soooo expensive these days). It makes a big difference and you usually have a day or two to cook it.
• The other day I talked about my vegetable go-packs. If you're going somewhere and you know you may not be able to eat for awhile, take one with you. Or if you get hungry between meals, these packs will already be ready so you don't have to think about it, make something, or make a bad choice.
• I use leftovers in the next day (or two or threes) meals. Like the London broil I had the other night, I've been using in salads for lunches. The buttload of chicken I made last night I'll probably be eating in different meals through the weekend.
• Speaking of salads, this is a good lunch. You can mix it up with different types of proteins each

  

  © Rainer Zenz

  day, steak, chicken, tuna, ground turkey or beef, etc. Add your different veggies. Use different types of lettuce or spinach. Make a taco salad, or a chop salad. Mix it up. It would be hard to get tired of it (unless you hate salad, then you're on your own).
• Tessamae's dressing. These are really good. But they're fresh so the oil base coagulates while it's in the fridge. Take it out of the fridge 15 minutes to half hour before you  need to use it. Or a few minutes before you eat, run it under warm water.
• When it comes to balsamic vinegar, they are not all created equally. Vinegars have sulfites in them. Some have naturally occurring sulfites, others have added sulfites. Only buy the former. It will say right on the label in the ingredients. The bad ones will say "sulfites added" or "contains sulfites."

That's all I can think of right now. 

So yesterday this is what I ate:

Breakfast
One egg with spinach and mushrooms
Pineapple and strawberries

Lunch

Green salad
Leftover London Broil
Grapes
Balsamic vinegar and oil
Coconut water (I really do get tired of plain water all day, and I'd just worked out)

Dinner
Chicken thigh roasted with my basic spice mix from above and rosemary
Roasted asparagus (I like mine crispy. I know, I'm weird)

I made another mocktail for the evening. I used black cherry Arrowhead Sparkling, added frozen
berries and smooshed a fresh strawberry into it. I called it Megan's Cherry Berry Mocktail. It was okay, but not the best, and I added way too much fruit. Had to dump it down the sink.

You can really add any fruit, even to regular water to give it a nice flavor. Cucumbers are good too. I like cucumbers and lemon together, pineapple, strawberries...

On other notes, I had my unemployment appeal yesterday, so send me good vibes. I'll find out in a few days if they accepted it.

And I've put my tornado novel aside for awhile. Going to edit Girl in Motion. I need to do something different for awhile.

Happy Friday!!

Whole 30: Day 4 Kill All The Things!

Day 4 on the Whole 30 and I feel pretty good. I'm still not sleeping perfectly, but I'm rising early (like super early 5:30-6:30) feeling refreshed, which hasn't happened for a long time. And I feel slimmer. Now I may not in a few days according to the program, but for now, I do.

Today is "Kill All The Things Day" for me. So far, I don't feel like killing all the things. Of course, I haven't had my unemployment appeal ye It which takes place in 2 hours. Then we'll see if I want to kill all the things.

Let's talk coffee for a moment. Coffee is totally allowed on the Whole 30. However, anything you'd ever want to put in it is not. My friend Gae Polisner (author of books The Pull of Gravity and The Summer of Letting Go, which you should all buy) told me to try organic coconut oil in the coffee. I did that. It helped with the taste enough to drink it, but of course, there was that oiliness to it that was kind of barfable. I decided to try compliant coconut milk today. It didn't taste as good, but no oily texture. Soooo, I have no idea which I prefer. Probably the oil. I think. I think I'll have another cup and compare.

Even though you're only eating protein, fruits, veggies and fats, you still need to watch your portion size. Here is a guide (as given by the Whole 30, I didn't make this shit up).

Protein = size of your palm
Veggies = after you fill your plate with your protein, fill the rest with veggies
Fruit = I don't remember how exactly they explained it in the book, but pretty much a size you can hold in one hand with with fingers wrapped around it. Does that make sense?
Oils & Butters = Thumb size
Coconut and & Olives  = Handful
Nuts & Seeds = what you an fit in a closed handful.

If I'm explaining that horribly (which I'm pretty sure I am), they have a printout with pictures to show you. They have a lot of helpful printouts actually.

One more thing. I went to my local store to look for LaCroix so I could make the mocktails and my store only had two giant packs, lemon and grapefruit flavored. There is a store nearby that probably has more (I really wanted the coconut), but I was too tired to go there yesterday. I bought Arrowhead Sparkling (AS) instead. There are substitutes, just make sure you read the labels to ensure there are no added sugars.

So anyway, I bought AS in lemon, black cherry, and watermelon, er, I think strawberry (or kiwi, can't remember). I made the mocktail that LaCroix calls Mimi's Mimosa Mocktail.  Of course, instead of the juice, I used fresh squeezed. If you want the Cadillac of citrus juicers, get the Big Boss 8962. It juices oranges in seconds. I put orange slices in as well. It was pretty good. I changed the name of it to Megan's Marvelous Mockmosa. I bought frozen berries, oranges, lemons and limes to add. I also have kiwi and pineapple. I'm going to have a good time with these I think.

I'm going to hit the other store today and see about the other flavors.

So here's the menu from yesterday:

Breakfast
Pork sausage patty
1 egg
spinach

Lunch
Green salad with Tessamae's Balsamic dressing
Avocado (about 1/4)
Topped the salad with leftover grass fed London broil
Red grapes

 Dinner
Shrimp
Roasted sweet potatoes and brussell sprouts
(I couldn't eat it all)