Surviving a Whole30

I made myself a list on how I can survive this Whole30 and I hope this can help others succeed as well :)


1. Make 4 egg bakes or something similar for mornings and freeze 3 of them. In our house, between the two of us we can power through one a week. I use this recipe most often and modify it as I see fit. http://hannahshanks.blogspot.com/2013/01/whole30-breakfast-egg-casserole.html

2. Invest in large tupperware - trust me, you'll need it to store your leftovers, your prepped foods, and all other weird things you want.

3. meal plan, meal plan, meal plan!! I write down my meals for each day of the week, then make a grocery list for only what we need. We rarely have to pitch food when I do this.

4. Prep veggies on Sunday - when prepping the veggies do so in different variations; for salads, for roasting, steaming, etc.. freeze some chopped for easy steam veggies later in your whole30 when you're starting to tire of chopping and prepping. Use the energy/excitement you have in the beginning to get yourself as prepped as possible so when it gets harder to stay focused, life is a little easier for you.

5. Hard boil a batch of eggs per week. I typically will make 6 at a time since I'm the only one who eats them. They're great for protein on a salad or for a quick bite when you can't put down your child. Oh, that only happens to me?

6. Find support online or in person. I've made 'digital' friends to support me on my whole30 journey because most of my 'real life' friends just don't get it. I don't expect them to, it seems extreme because of the rules, so I can't expect them to understand what I'm going through at the moment.

7. Make a list of reason to finish or motivation to keep going so you can reflect on it during hard days. It can be 1 reason or 25, regardless, it'll help.

8. Cook extra each dinner so you have a quick breakfast or lunch made of leftovers. This is something I've been doing for years now and it makes life so much easier. When we are cleaning up after dinner, we just portion the leftovers into our respective tupperware containers for lunch the next day, so easy.

9. Buy what's on sale. Say your grocery store has chicken on sale, buy bulk and throw it in the freezer. You'll thank yourself later.

10. Follow whole30recipes, planksloveandguacamole, & amazon_ashley on Instagram for some great recipe inspiration.

11. Try new foods, they may suck, but you also might end up really liking them. For us, parsnips was a new one and I'm a bit of a fan. I'm excited to try new ways to cook/eat it.

12. Stock up on crock pot recipes for lazy and busy days

13. Get familiar with your local stores and farmers markets, you'll know where to get the best produce for the best price.

14. Learn to brew kombucha. It's so good for you and is pretty easy to do once you're set up. Plus, it's pretty delicious too.

15. Invest in rubber gloves or just give in to dry hands for 30 days. Seriously, you'll be doing a lot more dishes than usual and your hands will suffer.

16. Read labels. THIS IS IMPORTANT SO DO IT.

17. Clear your house of any temptation if possible. I got "lucky" and our refrigerator broke a few weeks ago so there is NOTHING in there that isn't whole30 approved.

18. Be creative. Most of my best meals are made by just playing with flavors in the kitchen.

19. Always know where your next meal is. Have a back up plan/emergency plan. Always have a lara bar or something similar handy and know how to order a meal whole30 style if necessary.

20. Learn to roast a whole chicken. It'll feed you for a few days, it's delicious, and easy to do. Here is one recipe I use and LOVE.


Here are some other great resources for your whole30

http://planksloveandguacamole.blogspot.com/
http://nomnompaleo.com/
http://theclothesmakethegirl.com/wellfed/

When I fail, I fail hard

Man oh man, it's been a long couple of weeks, mostly because I've been a lazy girl who forgot how to care about eating properly. Time to make a plan again because I cannot continue not caring, it's just dangerous.
So next week I go home (my original home), it'll be hard to eat properly while traveling but I WILL make better decisions about what to and not to eat. I am also going to pack some safe travel snacks since it will be a really long day of traveling. While I'm home it'll be fairly easy to eat well since I'll be staying at Mom's and she doesn't really keep anything unhealthy in the house. And I'll be hanging with my sister, who is a healthy ass vegetarian so I'm pretty confident in making positive choices while I'm there. 
The following weekend we're heading to Georgia for the weekend to visit friends and that trip will be a lot harder to make the best choices. I am going to pack a cooler of pre-made food though so I can make the best choices. Although we will be going to our favorite restaurant there and well, I am really looking forward to fish tacos and homemade guacamole (that I didn't have to make!). We'll probably go twice which means a taco salad will probably make an appearance as well. Now this restaurant is really close to my heart, it is my favorite place to eat ever, and have nothing in this area to replace it so this is a really special place and treat. 

After that, it's back cooking a lot and making the best choices. It may involve some paleo desserts but it's better than the other choices I've been known to make. I'm just honestly planning on using fruit as my snack and really just going to do my best to stick to whole foods. Whole30 is great but I just don't know if I have the will to do it. I'm really hoping I can give it a go before the baby comes, hoping March will be my month, we will just have to see!  

What I ate - Whole30 (not really) day 17

So I had dairy last night and turns out, I do okay with it, it just makes me congested. Which I hate because my allergies are bad enough without it, so I will be aware of that in the future. Other than that, I feel okay about eating like a buttface last night. This morning I got back into the swing of eating clean and that's really what my goal for the Whole30 was/is. I'll still be updating this blog with how I'm feeling and how I'm eating for awhile and any of the food I post will still be Whole30 approved, for those using this for inspiration. Obviously, I'm not the person to be inspired by though, but it was a good effort by me. 

Breakfast

3 eggs cooked in ghee
banana
1/2 apple
celery
cucumber
carrots
nutbutter

Dinner 

Almond flour fish 
Broccoli 
Green beans
Apple 

There we go. Some healthy food for ya. We went to a movie today during lunch so we skipped lunch (Bad I know) but had larabars to hold us over until dinner. 

What I ate - Whole30 day 16

Breakfast 

3 eggs
banana
celery
tomato
cucumber
macadamia nuts
sweet potatoes

Lunch 

Lemon pepper chicken
cauliflower mash
okra
apple sauce
clementine

Dinner 

Today I failed the Whole30. I'm human, it sucks, but it happened. I guess I just kind of gave up. We had pizza with friends and spent an evening enjoying cards and company. 

What I ate - Whole30 day 15

It's Saturday and we're halfway through, what a wonderful day! Minus the fact that we're about to spend too much time scrubbing the oven. Thankfully we have a 3 day weekend and hubby doesn't have to fly!

Breakfast 

3 eggs
cauliflower
cucumber
tomatoes
celery with a little bit of sunflower seed butter
cashews

Lunch

Leftover lemon chicken
green beans
cauliflower mash
carrots
2 clementines
applesauce
cashews

Dinner

1/4 lb hamburger

tomato 

lettuce

guacamole

asparagus

okra

I think I've hit my wall with this blog. I'll do better to update regularly but it may not happen as much as I'd like. 

What I ate - Whole30 day 14

Woke up with a bit of energy today, so I hope it's a good sign for the day. Legs are a little tight from yesterday but not miserable and my back pain is gone today, so lots of positives already today.

Breakfast

3 eggs
cucumber
carrot
tomato
celery
cashews
banana

Lunch

Leftover lemon chicken
cauliflower mash
carrots
tomato
cucumber
1/2 serving of apple sauce
macadamia nuts

Today has been a good day, woke up feeling good and got going immediately. Laundry finished, 2 large batches of cauliflower mash, and made some homemade ghee. Then I almost burned the kitchen down by running the self cleaning oven feature! Apparently olive oil has a burning temperature that the oven CAN get to while cleaning. I feel like a big dumb idiot but I'm mostly just glad that there wasn't a fire and hopefully I didn't ruin the oven. Turns out, we don't have a fire extinguisher in the house, looks like we'll be purchasing one soon! (Or making the landlord get us one) Now I've shut the doors to the kitchen and opened lots of windows and put some fans on, hoping that the house airs out quickly. Guess I have no choice but to stay out of the kitchen for the rest of the day! 

Snack 

Cashew cookie larabar

Banana bread larabar

I know it wasn't the best snack that I could have had but honestly, I can't go in the kitchen and I had to get out of the house, so it was the best option I could have at the time. Now I'm just waiting for hubby to come home so he can warm up some food for me or we can go out to dinner.

Dinner 

Longhorn salad without cheese or crutons and oil & vinegar dressing

Longhorn salmon without marinade

Sweet potato with cinnamon

Ordered asparagus without the lemon butter but tasted two spears and am fairly sure there was lemon butter still on it so I decided not to eat it, just to be safe. 

Today I feel good, stayed up later than I have in a long time and now I'm exhausted, definitely read for bed! 

What I ate - Whole30 day 13

Today was my first day back at the box since mid-December, to say I'm a little rusty is a serious understatement! Warm up was 10-12-15 wall balls, box jumps, and lazy pushups, turns out this momma isn't jumping much these days so I did step-ups, and lazy pushups mean laying on baby girl and she doesn't like it, so I did pushups against the box. Got real warm after that so I sat around for a few minutes, turns out it was really hot for everyone, so we opened some doors and I felt so much better! 
Also, my body is still adjusting to the Whole30 so I used a trainer bar for the snatch complex we did and am pretty sure I'm going to be switching to dumbbells soon since this belly is popping out! Made it through the wod alright, slowly, but made it. Thankfully, hubby was my partner so our number wasn't too pathetic. Next week I'll go 2 days and then 3 times the week after that. I figure slowly re-introduce it and continue not to push it. Makes me happy. :)  

Pre-Workout Snack
2 hard boiled eggs 
handful of cashews

Breakfast
3 eggs
cucumber
tomato 
carrot 
sweet potato hash
macadamia nuts

Afternoon Snack 
Banana

Lunch
Crab cakes
celery
tomato
cucumber
cauliflower mash
cashews

Dinner

Lemon pepper chicken (made from this recipe)

celery

cucumber

tomato 

carrot

apple sauce

cashews

Feeling lazy today, as you can tell, most of my vegetable choices were easy to prep, not much thought involved. Hoping using the pregnancy pillow and a good night of sleep will make tomorrow better. Excited to have a long weekend with the hubbs this weekend, although he's probably going to fly on Saturday, which means a "normal" weekend for us, but he flew last weekend so it'll be nice for him either way. I'm also waiting for this "boundless energy" to show up that usually arrives between days 12-15, maybe tomorrow?