Whole30...Day 6

Being at home alone with a new crawler in the house is exhausting to begin with but add this Whole30 thing to it and I was drained by the end of the day.  I also decided to start painting a bedroom in the house so I was DONE!

I felt ok when I woke up, just tired. I had leftover meatloaf from earlier this week (yes, there was still meatloaf left!). Deacon and I hit up the grocery store and lets just say that staying on the perimeter for the most part at a grocery store is expensive.  I'm telling you, I better look like Rachel Zoe when I'm done ;)

Poor Ben had two retirement parties at work with one consisting of pizza and wings - his favorite. He resisted and I'm so proud of him. He did go to Barbarita's at night to get an approved meal so he could save his chili for Sunday lunch and dinner.

I picked up some already cut fajita veggies and already sliced fajita meat threw them in the pan with some asian dry spices and dinner was simple and good.  One thing was missing - WINE! After this exhausting day and "re-directing" a 9 month old, I just wanted a big ole glass of Pinot!

Exhausting Day 6 is over!

Whole30...Day 5

So...that whole crockpot chili recipe I put together the night before...well, I forgot to take it out of the fridge and turn on but for some reason I woke up at 3:30 a.m. and remembered. I jumped up and put it on high so it would be done before Ben left.

Day 5 was on a Friday and since I don't work on Fridays, I was able to get an ice chest of food ready for Ben to take to Guard. His usual guard food is basically hot pockets, Arbys, something fried, etc.  I packed him the no-mayo chicken salad for him to eat on the way down for dinner and then two servings of chili. I also packed him several bananas and Larabars to live off of for the weekend.

Ben made us a fried egg in the morning using a "different" method.  I have no idea what he did but it was tasty.  For lunch, Ben went to a sandwich shop that slices the meat and got a sandwich without the bun - basically, a salad. I decided to eat the chicken salad that I made the night before.  Took one bite and spit it out. So I had a Larabar and a banana...

For dinner I had the chili and it was delicious! I will definitely make it again even when we aren't doing Whole30. Ben had the chicken salad and didn't hate it as much as I did but I don't think he'll be begging me to make it again.

EDIT since original post: I made the chili again and it was not that good. Maybe we were just really hungry since it was during our first week of Whole30.

Whole30...Day 4

I woke up Thursday feeling like a completely new person! Ben felt good too.  I had crumbled some of the leftover meatloaf from the night before and through it in with some scrambled eggs and breakfast was yummy.

Honestly, all day we both felt pretty good. The WORST part of the day was around 9:30 a.m. when I had to make a Sam's run for a work event and my car was filled with Oreos, pretzels, Famous Amos cookies, Grandma's cookies, chips. All I want to do was rip into a bag of Famous Amos cookies!!

I was headache free until Deacon head butted me right between the eyes on the nose - painful!!

For dinner we had buffalo chicken stuffed peppers....we threw the extra one away if that tells you how much we did not like it.

Ben leaves for guard the next day, so I put a crockpot chili on overnight so he could have some for the weekend and make a chicken salad.

Day 4...conquered!

Whole30...Day 3

During the night, I woke up and had a headache...I woke up again and still had a headache....the alarm went off and a full on migraine was there.  Per the "timeline", day 2-3 is when many people get headaches. Apparently advil is not compliant and this is all we had at home. Since I knew via the Whole30 timeline that this was probably going to happen, I still got up with Ben and worked out.

Since I prepped breakfast the night before, I threw it all in the pan - eggs, chicken & apple sausage, onion, and jalepeno.  It was tasty but I felt so terrible that it was making me ill to eat. I knew I had to eat, so I finished it.  The headache would NOT go away! Ben found online that Tylenol is compliant so after I dropped Deacon off at Weekday, I headed to target for some much needed Tylenol.

The severe pain went away but a nagging headache stayed for hours...and hours...basically all day!!

It was just a bad day all around. I didn't want to talk to anyone and I just wanted to sulk - HA!

That night, we had meatloaf and roasted potatoes for dinner.  The meatloaf was ok - I probably won't make again - but I made enough for lunch the next day, so that's what we ate.

At the end of Day 3 when going to bed I said to Ben "I hate my life"....

Whole30...Day 2

Day two started off decent...

We got up and did a work-out then Ben made us eggs & bacon (sugar free bacon which is not easy to find!).

I normally have my coffee with a flavored cream - I mean, who turns down sweetness in the morning?!? Since that is clearly a "no" during Whole30, I decided to try what they recommend....add coconut milk.  Lets just say, I was NOT a fan. I tried for like 5 sips and then my stomach started hurting. It looked like oil was floating on the top of my coffee - YES, I stirred the coconut oil.

I started getting hungry around 10:30 but held off until around 12 and had left overs from the night before. It was tasty and I was full.  Ben felt the same way with his leftovers until I called him and he was starving and headed to the grocery store to pick up approved Larabars to snack on.  We are eating more protein than we did beforehand BUT it's that we "can't" eat sweets, etc that is making us hungry!

Ben also got a bad headache during the day. This is apparently "normal". I got a small one but nothing too terrible.

I got home and started feeding Deacon and cooked peas and tried a few to make sure they weren't too hot and BOOM....these were not compliant - oops! Do I need to start over?!?! Well, since I seriously only ate 5 and it was for the good of not burning my babies mouth I decided to press on.  (Ben did give me the stank eye when I told him about it!)

For dinner we had a YUMMY carne asada that I will make again and again. I bought a large one so we would have leftovers for lunch the next day.  I steamed some green beans to go with it and dinner was delicious.

Ben has a meeting tomorrow night and I wanted to make sure he could eat something compliant before he leaves for his meeting so I whipped up Day 3's dinner and put in the fridge. I also decided to prep breakfast for the next morning. Lets just say I basically was in the kitchen for the majority of the time I was home and was not happy by the time I went to bed.

The grumpiness is starting to set in...

Whole30...Day 1

It's clearly been awhile since I blogged but I wanted to keep a record/my thoughts on our journey with Whole30. There are a few reasons we are doing this...

1. Over the past few years, I have had stomach issues where I'm in so much pain. While pregnant, they thought they pinpointed it and I was able to get the virus out but it came back...
2. I have about 5/10 more lbs of pregnancy weight to lose and lets be honest, I just want my jeans to fit like they did prior to pregnancy.
3. When we are eating healthy, it makes us want to work-out.
4. Ben still has his "pregnancy weight" and would like to lose it.
5. We also hope this helps jump start eating healthy as a whole - especially since Deacon can begin eating "our" food now.

Day 1 started on Labor Day. I hadn't gone grocery shopping or anything. My family was in town all weekend and we binged ate - cupcakes, desserts, mexican, pizza, etc. 

Ben had done some Whole30 research but since I usually go to the grocery store, I clearly needed to know something.... I had a few friends who have done Whole30 before and told me they have recipes on their Pinterest board. The night before we started, I went through and pinned some things from their boards and then Ben and I sat down and figured out our meals for the week. We are going to attempt to make enough food for dinner and then lunch the following day. (We will see how that goes...)

The next morning, Ben made us an egg... I refrained from coffee since you have to drink black or with coconut milk.

I was off on Labor Day but Ben needed to go into the office. Deacon went down for his morning nap and I finalized the grocery list and finally did research so I wouldn't be completely in the dark on what the heck I was doing over the next 30 days. 

Lunchtime happened and all I had in the house was a sweet potato so I added little cinnamon (I had to look and see if I could even add this) and popped it in the oven. I found out later that Ben basically had a gourmet meal - a bun-less bison burger with avocado on top...

After lunch, Deacon and I headed to the grocery store. I felt pretty organized but it still took me an hour! Searching for stuff like coconut milk, almond flour, ghee, bacon with no sugar, etc. I could not find any of this at Kroger but, we did buy lots of other meets and veggies.  I'm hoping the rest of my grocery trips aren't as stressful - lets be real, it was painful!

Once Ben got home, we needed to go to the new Sprouts that just opened near our house. We were able to find no-sugar bacon and all of the other "Whole 30 approved" items.  

Dinner on night 1 was pretty yummy. I edited the Baked Coconut Shrimp recipe in order to comply with the "rules".  I also steamed some squash and Ben added a spice concoction he threw together. For the sauce on the shrimp, instead of using pineapple preserves, I muddled fresh pineapple. It didn't turn into a sauce but more of a chunky liquid but added some flavoring. For the shrimp, I substituted the cornstarch for almond flour. 

We made 2 lbs of shrimp and have PLENTY for a lunch meal. 

We are both dessert people...Ben gave me a pitted date to help with my sweet craving. I will not make a comment on that one pitted date I had after dinner...

All in all, Day 1 wasn't terrible...

End of 2012

It's been awhile since I've updated our blog, but thought I'd give a quick recap of our Christmas season.  Christmas was filled with new fun memories as we celebrated our first Christmas as a married couple.  Even though I forgot to take any pictures on Christmas (I'm waiting for my mom to send me some), we have lots of good memories.  First, here's our fun Christmas card that I had made:

We headed to Louisiana for several days to spend time with my family.  It was definitely a great time as it was laid back and not rush, rush, rush.  A few family Christmas' were rearranged a little and I happened to enjoy it that way as we were able to stay in our lounge clothes on Christmas at my parents house.  We also got to do something that we have never done - gone to the movies on Christmas day.  It was so much fun with the family!  We also whipped by Duck Commander headquarters and Ben was able to get a pic in front of his favorite reality show!

We drove back to Georgia the day after Christmas and then headed to Ellijay to visit Ben's parents and celebrate Christmas.  We got to see their house "under construction" and we can't wait to see the final product of their new kitchen.

For those that know me well, know that I love Christmas lights.  Long story short, I bought a Groupon to the Atlanta Botanical Garden of Lights for Ben and I.  After two different attempts, we were finally able to go the Friday after Christmas and see these beautiful lights.  So glad we decided to go.

We are looking forward to what 2013 brings to our little family and will continue to put our trust in God.