Whole30 Days 2 & 3 and Rocks in Noses!

So I thought the excitement for my week was going to be getting through the first week of this Whole30 challenge. Livi had other plans! More on that later.

First, Day 2.

What we ate:

Meal 1: A turkey and apple hash that was super easy to make and a nice break from the eggs.  It was filling, though a little strange to consume so much meat in the morning.

Meal 2: Avocado Egg Salad.  I'm not going to lie, I hated this. The picture on Pinterest makes it look amazing, and even mine looks pretty tasty, but I could not do this combination.  I think I would much rather have  my eggs mashed with mustard and some pepper.  Nick thought it was pretty good, but later that night could not even think about eating avocados without getting nauseous.  This one is off the menu for a while.

Meal 3: I had to work late, so Nick made our typical chili recipe and just did not put the beans in.  It came out really good and filling.  The munchkin insisted on eating out of mommy's bowl. :)

How we feel:

Nick: Not feeling too great and has a headache.

Kelly: Well, from 5:30-7:30 I was in a meeting where food was catered and the smell of different types of bread filled the room.  It created quite a craving and because I ate dinner late, I had quite a headache.  As soon as I got home and ate I felt much better. I'm feeling less bloated and think I have lost some weight.

Now on to Day 3.

Here's what we ate:

Meal 1: I just had eggs.  I was running late this morning and did not get my veggies in! I know, I know, bad, bad, bad.

Meal 2: I had a lunch date at Chipotle and had the same bowl I had on Day 1.  It was yet again, delicious!

Meal 3: Here's where things get interesting.  I was out working and Nick picked Livi up from school. A few minutes later, here's the call I get:

Me: "Hello"
Nick" When are you going to be home?"
Me; "Why?" (No, I can't just answer the question)
Nick: "Livi has something stuck up her nose and it won't come out."

Cue Mommy Panic!

So I rushed home and attempted to get this object out of her nose with Nick.  We thought it was a black bean from the left over Chipotle she had had the day before.  Its after hours now, so we call our pediatrician's on call number. They tell us it's not really an emergency and she can sleep with it in her nose and we can bring her in the next day.  Or we can take her to Urgent Care. Ummmmm, my child is not sleeping with an object in her nose.  Off to Urgent Care we go.  There is one right down the street and they were amazing! It was a little traumatic for her (and me, I cried my eyes out) because they had to swaddle her in a sheet so she didn't move, but they got the object out in literally 2 seconds.  And it was not a bean. It was a big 'ol rock! Everyone at Urgent Care nicknamed her "Rocky" and she was quite the little star.

Of course, this totally threw off my dinner plans and I let Livi pick what she wanted for dinner.  For a 2-year-old she eats pretty healthy and does not eat hardly any processed foods, so when she said she wanted chicken nuggets and macaroni and cheese, I obliged her.  We went next door to Chili's and she got what she wanted.

Nick and I had to be pretty strategic as this was not in our plans.  But life happens and you make the best of it. So we ordered a protein and veggies and asked for no butter.  I am sure our food was not 100% compliant due to who knows what was hidden in it, but we did the best we could.  And we felt really good about it because we were sooooooo tempted to throw in the towel, especially with this sitting on our table:

I had to finally put it all in a to go container and Nick had to close the box with sad stringed quartet music playing behind us.

A small victory for us! As for how we feel; tired, but proud we did not cheat!

Here's to a very boring, no rocks in noses, rest of the week!

Whole30 Day 1 Down, 29 to Go!

Day 1 of our Whole30 challenge is essentially complete! Woohoo!!

We started the day with the ceremonious before pictures and measurements. Hopefully I will be brave enough to share those at the end of the challenge.

So here's what we ate today:

Meal 1: A broccoli and beef frittata that I adapted from this recipe.  Check out how gorgeously yummy it looked!

I swapped broccoli for the spinach the recipe called for and it turned out pretty awesome! I paired it with some Monkey Salad. Even Livi enjoyed some, though she wasn't much in an eating mood this morning.

Meal 2: Chipotle. I had the standard Whole30 bowl. Lettuce, carnitas, hot sauce, guac, and more lettuce. I know it is probably odd to eat out on Day 1, but we had church today and the last thing I wanted to do after a morning of cooking and rushing to get there on time, is come home and cook some more. I was well aware I would feel this way, so I planned to go here for lunch ahead a time. It was pretty good. I'm not going to lie, it was a little hard not ordering my usual steak and I was jealous at everyone else's fluffy rice, but I survived and it was actually really good and I felt satisfied when we left.

Meal 3: Shepherd's Pie. Have I mentioned how much I love Pinterest! It just looked super healthy, even while cooking it on the stove. It feels good feeding my family this way.

As you can see, I'm trying to stick to the terminology of calling them "meals" instead of breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  I think it does make it easier to conceptualize what we are supposed to be eating.

Here's how we feel:

Kelly: Good! Not hungry and no major withdrawals yet. I'm not feeling so great from my carb/cruddy food fest I allowed myself to have this week, but hopefully that will subside soon!

Nick: Good, has a headache he cannot get rid of, but may not be related to food intake today.

Livi: Get out of the kitchen mommy!!

I would say overall, Day 1 has been successful. But from what I read, this may be the easiest day!

Ready to tackle tomorrow!

Ready, Set, Whole30!!

To say there has been a lot going on in Livi-Land is an understatement.  2014 has not been the greatest year for our little family, but I am determined to end it on a positive note, with our chins up looking forward to 2015! With stress always comes unhealthy eating patterns, at least for me.  The last several months have been filled with days of clean eating and running (okay, okay,  sloth jogging) and days of pizza, Torchy's, and Oreos.  Thankfully I've managed to not gain any weight, but I haven't lost any either, and to be honest, I feel awful.  But tomorrow is a new day, and for me (and Nick) that means we are starting our Whole30 challenge.

You can visit the Whole30 web page to learn more (or read It Starts with Food), which I highly recommend.  I have had a few friends jump on the Paleo bandwagon and I have researched it extensively.  It just seems to make sense and I am committing the next 30 days to see how this works out for me. Before you get as confused as a I did, the Whole30 challenge is slightly different from Paleo as it does not allow you to create "trigger" foods with compliant ingredients.  (So basically I can't make pancakes out of eggs and bananas or yummy muffins out of almond flour and coconut oil!)  The Whole30 challenge is about more than resetting your body, it is also about resetting your mind and disconnecting some of the psychological associations that exist between our brains and food.  Damn the dopamine!! I'm pretty excited and anxious as well.  Good news is I have enlisted Nick and a friend to do it along with me! Woohoo...we can all be cranky pants together! We have already made our trip to the grocery store for the week.  Check out this stocked fridge (yes, that is 5 dozen eggs!)

I have posted the weekly menu on the fridge with several recipes I got from Pinterest.  Thank goodness for Pinterest! I also put up some "rules" on the inside door of our pantry.  These aren't necessarily the official Whole30 rules, but they are rules that I wanted to make sure we saw when we go into the "danger zone".

I'm also adding a little more to the challenge by picking one vegetable a week I have never cooked and trying it out. This week: butternut squash.

Funny enough, I'm not really anxious about not having grains or dairy, or my super yummy crunchy peanut butter, I'm more nervous about not being able weigh for the next 30 days. Ever since I was about 14 I have had an, admittedly unhealthy, obsession with the scale.  I would often weigh multiple times a day, clothes off and clothes on, before eating, after eating, before working out, after working out, you get the point. So the idea of putting the scale away for 30 days is a little frightening.  To avoid temptation I am going to have Nick hide it.  Let's hope he does a good job.

I plan to post daily on what we have eaten and how we are feeling.  I won't be posting the blog entries on Facebook every day, because, well, I want to keep my friends.  But feel free to come by and visit and see how things are going!   Here's to a clean, whole, (and hopefully not sugar withdrawn cranky) week!