From the trenches of day 22

Blogging daily got woefully monotonous, so I stopped. Gives me more time to make my food, which has consumed my life. My husband did the dishes yesterday and I said "Thank you for doing the dishes!" and his reply was "We were out of spoons." We were meant to be, obviously. Anyone who knows me knows I only do the dishes when there are no more spoons. My kitchen now constantly looks like a tornado moved through it. I am already plotting how to deal with needing to do all this cooking when I go back to work in 9 days (BARF!). Anyway, back to whole30 observations.

I think my stomach is getting smaller. Not on the outside, although I know that one is getting smaller based on everyone but my husband being so complimentary (he hasn't noticed) and the fact that my brand new shorts are too damn big  (I didn't know I was going to do this when I bought them). Plus, I totally cheated and stepped on a scale. I'm down 10 pounds as of day 17. Yesterday morning I made my Cowboy Skillet and I served myself half of the half recipe I make, like I usually do, and two eggs, and I couldn't finish it! I was stuffed. I had to stop eating or fear the over eating bloat. Today all I had was a larabar and that totally held me until lunch. Plus, I am never starving. Ever. Hungry, yes, but I have stopped feeling like I must eat or someone may die. That is probably from the meal planning though, and not my inside stomach shrinking.

Some new recipes I have done since my last blog:

I made my own mayo for tuna salad. The blog says fool proof and to that I say NAY. You HAVE to use light tasting olive oil, or it's disgusting. Someone suggest grapeseed oil and I might try that out first since I own that.  I put half a can of tuna in the too olivey mayo and put that on trader joes mixed greens with avocado and sliced tomato cherries. Delicious.

I made this Paleo Mexican Chicken soup and it was TO. DIE. FOR. Seriously. If you want to be able to serve it to kids or people with sensitivity to spices, skip the red pepper flakes. It was seriously spicy. My friend and I both had 3 bowls each. I only made half the recipe due to my weirdo husbands fowl allergy and I still froze three big servings. Plus, WHO HAS A PAN TO BOIL 2 WHOLE CHICKENS? Not this girl.

I made this taco salad. I ran out of cumin. What? That has never happened. So there was less cumin then there was supposed to be. J had told me several times this week that my cooking is the best ever. He's 4, so he has a hard time lying unless he's in trouble.  I topped it with guacamole and cherry tomatoes. You know what? I didn't even miss the cheese.

I made the primal non-dairy creamer with light coconut milk and added cinnamon along with ground vanilla bean powder and it was much better. I'm super happy about it. Or maybe my taste buds have changed? Either way, coffee without sugar has become much more pleasurable.

Two nights for dinner I had these Crockpot Meatballs except I FORGOT that they were crock pot, so while they were baking in the oven, I put the ingredients for the sauce plus two tomato sauce cans, some Italian seasoning, and some garlic salt and let it simmer for 20 minutes, then added the meatballs and let it simmer for 5 more. I used an immersion blender to make it more saucey (before I added the meatballs) because J has an aversion to cooked tomatoes. I served it over roasted  spaghetti squash and made my whole family eat it. Why should I make pasta just for them? After I bribed J to at least taste it before declaring he didn't like it, he claimed it was delicious, ate 3/4 of his meal, and told me I was the best cooker ever. The husband asked me if I made the sauce myself and when I told him I did, he told me it was the best sauce he has ever had. So I may never make it the way the recipe suggests. Or maybe I will, and just add my stuff to the crock pot.

I've been eating out a lot more, mostly salads. Restaurants are surprisingly accommodating, and I add two bucks to my 20 percent tip for being difficult. I had the best salad at California Pizza Kitchen, but I added Shrimp and as soon as I took a bite, I knew it was sauteed in butter. That didn't stop me from eating it, but I will be more careful next time I order stuff there. I had a yummy salad bowl at Chipolte, even though I did get some looks for not getting rice, or beans, or cheese. Or sour cream. I didn't feel deprived at all though.

I had the pleasure of being the designated driver at a birthday party and, yes I missed drinking, but having soda water with lime helped make me feel not left out and nobody died because I was the driver. It helped that my friend L also abstained because she is doing the 21 day fix which also does not allow more than a glass of wine. She says, and I agree, "What is the point of that?" There is no such thing as "leftover wine."

Finally, the weirdest thing that has happened to me is the dream I had last night. In my dream I walked into a bar and said "FUCK WHOLE30!!" and started slamming shots and ate a cheese cake and an enchilada style red chili burrito. So while I may feel awesome and powerful when I am awake, my dreams have a way of reminding me I am weak and still very reliant on food to deal with my feelings. Whole30 might become whole365. Damn unhealthy relationship with food.

I'll write more next week, depending on how I am feeling and what recipes I try, and then a "final" blog on my 30th day, even though I don't plan on stopping then.

Day 12-15

I've been eating pretty much the same things over and over. More cowboy skillet or a fruit smoothie for breakfast. Leftovers for lunch. Dinners are where it is at. 4th of July was hard because I wanted to snack, so I made guacamole and ate it with an entire bag of plantains. It was delicious.

Anyway, this week I made these Paleo Steak Kebabs. Did you know if you grill wooden sticks they start on fire? Well they do. Despite that little mishap, these were delicious. I also made ribs using a marinade that consisted of olive oil and tasterfully simple simply steak spice. That's what I ate for dinner for fourth of July. So good. I have also made this Paleo Bacon and  Brussel Sprout hash twice. I didn't think I could like Brussel sprouts, but it turns out I was wrong because this was SO GOOD.  So good.

That's all the new stuff from the last two days. I will try to be more diligent about documenting and blogging!

Day 11

I think maybe I am starting to feel the effects of sugar detox. SOOOO TIRED today. Was in bed until noon.


Brunch: Cowboy Skillet. You should know I halve the recipe, because it's just for me. I put three eggs in today because it was both breakfast and lunch.  I added tastefully simples seasoned salt to the sweet potatoes. DELICIOUS and I didn't burn myself like last time. Score. Had some leftover sausage and sweet potatoes to add eggs to tomorrow. I also had iced coffee with my homemade "creamer." Not sure how long it's good for. It's been a week though...

Dinner: This Paleo Butternut Squash Soup.  I FORGOT to add the coconut milk though! My family was on my case about being hungry so I skipped a step. Oops. The recipe calls for almond, but Chad is allergic and you have to make your own almond milk for it to be whole30 compliant and ain't nobody got time for that. It was so good though, without the milk, I am sure the only reason you need it is to get your healthy fat on, and I did that with my favorite, banana "ice cream." I actually bought and froze bananas so I could do this the right way and holy shit it's good. It's so good it demanded a curse word! I add two frozen strawberries too and it was delicious. I will be eating it again tomorrow. It's sinful!

Day 10

Today I was just not hungry. At all. Until dinner and then I was starving.

Breakfast: A chocolate coconut chew larabar. Before you get excited, the "chocolate" was 100% coco powder which has no sugar in it at all. It wasn't tasteless, but definitely not my favorite. I also had black iced coffee from Dutch Brothers.

Lunch: Yeah... I again, not hungry. This happens sometimes in the summer. I had cashew butter with plantain chips at about 3. Just a handful and I used it like dip. It was delicious. Not really an "approved" lunch with a protein and a lot of vegetables. Sorry.

Dinner: I had the rest of the leftover burrito bowl's with an entire avocado's worth of guacamole. It was delicious. After dinner my mom wanted to have a yogurt date with Jacob, so I had a bowl of fruit while they ate yogurt. It was so good, I didn't even miss the yogurt!