Whole30: Day 24 – 30 (and beyond)

Meals Day 25 – 30

  • Breakfast: Eggs, eggs, eggs, meat, bacon, sausage, meat, sweet potatoes, carrots, eggs…..
  • Lunch: Left over what we had for dinner the night before or some meat and veggie platter.
  • Dinner: A bunch of meat and some vegetables and most likely sweet potatoes and more meat.
  • Snack: Nuts. Lots and lots of nuts and fruit.

There’s no need to break down what I ate. I have pictures of it, I ate it, it was delicious, and the next day, I ate the same thing with slight variation.

The breakdown

Well, damn. I reckon the wheels really did come off this whole frequent update thing. Here it is a week after the Whole30 ended and I’m just now getting around to making a post about the final week. I mean, that final week was a drag. Regardless I figured I’d make at least one final post about the Whole30 and our experience with it. Like I said, its been a week since the end of the program, and this post is actually supposed to cover the final week. That means I gotta remember two weeks back?! Nah, I’m good. Well, I can recount some of it, but the details will remain tucked away in my paleo brain.

The final week was pretty much like the third week. We stuck to the plan and made approved dishes. We longed for fall beers and pancakes. Jess and I both wanted a Pumpkin Spice Latte and despite the overwhelming temptations we held strong. The gym was on par with all other weeks as well. On Saturday the 14th we participated in the Run For Your Lives.
The race this year was much different than last year. This year was full of rocks and hills and not a whole lot of zombies. Last year was mud, rain, and I didn’t have my wife by my side to fend off the hordes.

UPDATE:
So….. This post got started like 2 weeks ago, and the Whole30 ended like a week prior to that. In fact, this past weekend we had a post Whole30 celebration dinner! With that being said, rather than even attempt to go back and recount details, I’ll give a super high overview. Mainly because at some point I’d like to look back on this and remember how much of a rewarding challenge it was. When the dust settled I didn’t win the whole thing, but I did win the Spirit of the Challenge distinction. This basically means that I was the most involved and did my best to keep the team going. I really enjoyed that aspect of the challenge. I like to motivate people and be as social as I can. I didn’t expect to win the whole thing and was happy to have participated with such a great group of people.

Now that the Whole30 is over, Jess and I have decided to mostly stay paleo. She’s a bit more strict than I am, but for the most part we’re both staying on the plan. Jess has found that dairy gives her a splitting headache and gluten tears up her stomach (maybe TMI, but whateves). Those things don’t really effect me, so I tend to include more in my daily routine.

What we’ve learned since doing more paleo is that this community of people will do what ever they can to twist approved ingredients into food that is ridiculously indulgent. Just do a search and you’ll find recipes for dark chocolate paleo cookies or bacon wrapped…. anything. It’s just crazy the lengths people will go to, to try and recreate a non-paleo food. Luckily, Jess and I are foodies and find that part of the “diet” fun! And if you’re having fun and don’t feel restricted then the chances of success increase tenfold.

So that’s that’s, that. I’m sure there’s a lot I’ve left off. Its been weeks since we’ve finished, we’ve done more workouts and struggled, had beer, ate countless eggs, and many many packs of bacon. I love everything that’s come out of the Whole30 challenge. I feel fantastic and better than I ever have in my life. My wife looks more stunning and beautiful every day. She’s stuck to this thing and continues to improve and keep me honest. I loved having her as a partner and wouldn’t want to go through this with anyone else.

Here’s the pics!

Jess - After front
Jess – After front
Jess - Before front
Jess – Before front
Ben - Before front
Ben – Before front
Ben - After front
Ben – After front

Oh, and please note, that I’m kinda half typing this and half watching the Real Housewives of New Jersey reunion. So I’m sure there are some holes and lapses in thought. But it’s all good. 🙂

Whole30: Day 19 – 24

Meals Day 19 – 9/06/13

  • Breakfast: Omelette, sausage, sweet potato mash
  • Lunch: Chopped steak salad with avocado, mushrooms, peppers and tomatoes
  • Dinner: Salmon, asparagus, mushrooms, puréed peas
  • Snack: This big ass bouquet of fruit! (Well, some of it)*

Meals Day 20 – 9/07/13

  • Breakfast: 2 egg omellette, sausage, sweet potato hash, tomato
  • Lunch: Turkey breast, collard greens, broccoli
  • Dinner: Rotisserie chicken… like literally half a chicken

Meals Day 21 – 9/08/13

  • Breakfast: Sausage and egg scramble, fruit
  • Lunch: Pork chop, zucchini, tomato
  • Dinner: Brats, peppers onions mushrooms, guacamole

Meals Day 22 – 9/09/13

  • Breakfast: Sausage and egg scramble, sweet potato hash
  • Lunch: Salad with steak, guacamole, bacon
  • Dinner: Chorizo stuff tomatoes with avocado

Meals Day 23 – 9/10/13

  • Breakfast: Banana, turkey bacon, egg white (Starbucks breakfast sandwich w/o the bread or cheese)
  • Lunch: Burger patty with tomato, pickle, avocado
  • Dinner: Salad with steak, guacamole, bacon

Meals Day 24 – 9/11/13

  • Breakfast: Bacon, eggs, sweet potato hash
  • Lunch: Grilled chicken salad with avocado, egg, and bacon
  • Dinner: Steak and eggs with sweet potatoes and bacon

The breakdown

In all honesty, I’ve kinda fallen off the wagon. Not necessarily the food wagon, but more so with the updates. In the beginning I was gung-ho about the updates and posting about food and whatnot, but now… its a tedious process to update/post my food and then post it again and take a picture, etc. Here it is day 24 and I’m just now making my post for day 19 – 23. The food and eating is pretty easy at this point. I know what to look for at the store or on a menu. I know how to fix a meal that meets the restrictions of the program. And in all honesty, I don’t really think the program is all that restrictive any more. There are so many foods that I can eat, that I don’t really think about the foods that I can’t. Plus, the foods that I can’t, I don’t really even want, so that’s definitely a good thing.

These past few days have been fairly good. I’m still battling this stupid sickness and its making me frustrated. In addition to the runny nose, cough, and congestion, I also get dizzy when I stand up from sitting down. It could be from the couch or the car or a chair at the office, but when I stand I get dizzy. I’m fairly confident that I have chronic subjective dizziness. And by CSD I mean, that I get dizzy and its most likely related to the head congestion. I did go to the doc to get things checked out, but its most likely not anything alarming. I don’t think it has anything to do with the food or workouts. I’ll just wait to see what the doc says when my blood work comes back.

On Friday the weather was great and our usual group of co-workers headed out to lunch. This meant a patio and an extended break from the humdrum day. The eatery of choice today was Mellow Mushroom. Dude, I LOVE me some pizza and add a patio and the notion that I didn’t have to return to work for a while and that’s a recipe for beers and a lazy afternoon. NOT TODAY!! While the rest of the crew ordered their calzones, cheesy garlic bread appetizers, and beers-a-plenty, I went with a salad and some water. I could look around the table and see each of them getting more and more sluggish as the meal went on. In addition, no one finished their lunch… other than me. Either beer or Coke + loads of cheese and meat and bread was just too much to handle. Plus they were all sweaty and hot from the sun. Gross! I mean, this is rather braggadocious of me, but I felt great. I had a salad with some steak and avocado and bacon and was good to go! I ate all the food I paid for ($7 for lunch ain’t bad) and the rest of the day I didn’t “need a nap”. Bam! PALEO!!!

When I got back from lunch I noticed a huge ass basket of fruit sitting on my desk. I thought surely someone placed it there by mistake. However to my surprise it was a gift from my wife! She had been hinting at wanting a basket of fruit all day, but it wasn’t until I got back from lunch that I realized why. Earlier that day she placed an order and had it delivered to my office. Literally there couldn’t have been a better gift waiting on me when I got back from lunch. We snacked on that bad boy for a few days. Yum!!

On quick side note about Friday’s dinner… We had dinner at The Chicken and the Egg and I was incredibly underwhelmed with that place. Way over priced and our waiter wasn’t helpful at all when I asked how various items on the menu were prepared. When we asked about subbing items he pretty much said we couldn’t. When I asked him to leave the honey off my salmon, he said “it’s just a little bit on there.” That doesn’t work for me. I don’t care how much of something is on there, if I don’t want it or ask for it to be left off, please do so. For a place this pretentious, I expected a lot more accommodations when it comes to their “farm to table” approach. It really did come down to the service. I mean, the guy was just REALLY not helpful at all. Simple things like “can I get the collards with the trout instead of the rice and beans?” was met with a “no, it just kinda comes that way.” That’s unacceptable. I know chef must have put some thought into how the dishes were prepared and what would go well with each protein, but I should be able to sub an item out. Especially on a limited item menu. In addition, they brought me the wrong food, then offered me a salad. I said sure, and the salad came out with cheese and a vinaigrette. I guess thats on me for not asking what all was on the salad, but I sent that back too. Then to make up for the messed up dinner they offered us dessert. When I turned it down, he said that it was on them. Again, if I turn something down, don’t continue to offer it. Your justification of why I should have it, will never be as good as my reason I shouldn’t have it. I left there feeling very frustrated and mad. It was my fault for taking in a kid that was cranky, and I understand that. But nothing about the food made me want to go back, even after the Whole30 thing is over. I can prepare meals at home just as good if not better.

Saturday, Jess went and got her hair chopped off (it’s suuuuper cute btw) while Lane and I had some boy time. The weather was gorgeous and we knew we wanted to go to a park and spend the afternoon outside. On the way we stopped by the store to pick up some toys and such for Lane and some snacks. The problem was, there’s not really anything to snack on, while out and about, that’s Whole30 approved. Jess, always the thinker did the best thing she possibly could… she got us a rotisserie chicken! That’s right, we ate an entire chicken as a snack. Two people driving down the road on the way to the park just devouring a chicken, caveman style! It was pretty crazy just nomming on a chicken, but sure enough, 20 mins later and the thing was down to just fat, skin, and bones. Needless to say, it might be a while before we go to town on another rotisserie chicken again.

Tuesday night was another pretty big milestone for both Jess and I. We went and saw Mumford & Sons and typically we would have had a few beers before going in and then maybe a few more during the concert. This would have made one or both of us have to make constant trips to the bathroom. On top of that we would have been bloated, hot and sweaty, felt sluggish, and then the next morning we would have been hung over and just wasted the day trying to sleep off the effects of our poor choices. However, we made a smart choice to not drink. The friends that we met up with certainly did not make the same choice and were constantly back and forth to the beer line or having to pee, and I’m sure they felt the effects in the morning. I attribute being sober to us enjoying the show more. We didn’t have to worry about drinking or being uncomfortable we could just enjoy the breeze, the music, and each other’s company. It really was just about us and not about what we were consuming. The show was hands down one of the best I had ever seen and I really didn’t miss the drinking one bit.
[KGVID width=”640″ height=”360″]http://www.sniperbear.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/mumford.mp4[/KGVID]

Wednesday Jess and I both had the day off. We took this opportunity to go to the gym together. This is a rare occurrence and one that we like to take advantage of whenever possible. Now that we’re doing the Olympic Lifting Program I was really looking forward to today’s workout. Mario (one of the owners/trainers) gave a fantastic session on proper cleans. One thing that I’m really trying to work on is my overall technique. The strength portion will come with time, but if I’m lifting improperly then it doesn’t matter how strong I am. As it pertains to the Whole30, I’ve been doing a lot of reading about proper pre/post-workout fuel. With it being a noon workout we knew going in that we had plenty of time before to load up on proper proteins and fats to give us energy and we made preparations for after so that we wouldn’t be struggling. Well, by “preparations” I mean that we went to Taco Mac and had a grilled chicken salad and like 14 cups of water. This turned out to be clutch as we felt good for the rest of the day… other than the general soreness of the actual workout.

We’re now down to the wire. Six more days and the Whole30 is a wrap. I don’t know what my final results will show, but I can tell you now that I feel better. I feel stronger and more adept to what ever life may throw at me. I don’t feel dependent on food or drinks to get me through the day. I eat to fuel my body properly and that’s becoming enough. Food to fix problems that food caused is no longer my way out. Just six more days and that’s it! I have a feeling that post Whole30 this family will continue to reap the benefits of the Paleo lifestyle.

 

Whole30: Day 13 – 18

Meals Day 13 – 8/31/13

  • Breakfast: Bacon and eggs
  • Lunch: Pulled pork, home made BBQ sauce and carrots
  • Dinner: Steak, roasted sweet potatoes, asparagus

Meals Day 14 – 9/01/13

  • Breakfast: Bacon, eggs, roasted southwest sweet potatoes
  • Lunch: Left over chicken curry
  • Dinner: Pork burgers with sautéed mushrooms, and, guacamole with a side of crispy sweet potatoes

Meals Day 15 – 9/02/13

  • Breakfast: “Cereal” consisting of the Cinnamon Faux-st Crunch, unsweetened almond milk, cashews, almonds, unsweetened coconut flakes, walnuts, dried cranberries. T’was delish!
  • Lunch: Sautéed peppers and onions with left over steak and sausage
  • Dinner: Pork ribs, collard greens, roasted carrots!

Meals Day 16 – 9/03/13

  • Breakfast: Omelette with salami and half a banana
  • Lunch: Burger patties with a fried egg and left over collard greens and a pickle
  • Dinner: Shrimp and scallops with diced tomatoes over spaghetti squash

Meals Day 17 – 9/04/13

  • Breakfast: 2 egg omelette, sausage, sweet potato hash, avocado
  • Lunch: Left over shrimp & scallops over spaghetti squash
  • Dinner: Grilled chicken breast, roasted butternut squash, sautéed spinach with olives, mushrooms, and sun dried tomatoes

Meals Day 18 – 9/05/13

  • Breakfast: Chicken breast, omelette, sweet potato hash
  • Lunch: Chicken breast, collard greens, tomato
  • Dinner: Roasted buffalo wings and broccoli

The breakdown

You know… it’s been a hectic week. Hectic but it flew by. Im fairly behind on my updates, mainly because I’ve just not had time to sit down and write out in full detail how my day is going, how I felt about the food I was eating, the gym, etc. So rather than try to go back and remember, I figured I’d just give a general recap of the week based on what I do remember.

So last weekend college football kicked off, literally… it’s football. And with football usually comes beer and drinkin that beer and grilling and whatnot. It also usually signals the turn of the weather, which means festivals and being outdoors more and again, more beer and drinking. Saturday morning we loaded up the car and went to the local farmer’s market where they were having some big festival thing with all kinds of arts and crafts and chalk artists in addition to the usual food vendors that are there. We really just wanted to get our usual staple of almond butter and meat, but we decided to walk around a bit and see what all was the happs. In all honesty, it was kinda boring. I mean, there was some decent art, but we really art artsy people. I’m glad that people are talented enough to make fish sculptures out of scrap metal or whittle a hunk of wood into a bowl, but that’s really not something we need around our house. Oh, and that black and white photograph of fog rolling in over Turner Field… neat. So we made our way over to the food stuffs and picked up what we had come for and were on our way. Nothing too fancy, but it was good to walk around and enjoy the weather.

After the farmer’s market we headed off to a few other stores to pick up a few items we needed for meals during the holiday weekend. This would be the first of SEVERAL trips to the store during a mere three day span. I think in total we made 5 trips to the store in 3 days. But I digress. We both knew, by the time lunch rolled around that we were going to want a beer with our steaks while the Georgia game was on. It was a late game, and dinner would be done right at kickoff. It was merely a toasting beer to celebrate the opening of the season, not a GO DAWGS SICK’EM drunken ordeal. After all, 15 days into Whole30, you become a cheap drunk, so it wouldn’t have taken much any way. We made steaks for dinner, roasted up some vegetables and settled in for the game. Twenty minutes later we were watching an episode of Bone’s and piddling on our phones while Chase roamed the neighborhood with his friends. In reality, we’re more of a social football watching kinda crew. If there’s people around and its a good game we’ll watch it, but sitting on our couch for 4+ hours watching a football game after having one beer… not really the BEST way to spend our evenings.

BUSTED!! Actually, she didn't have any of this tasty treat! :)
BUSTED!!
Actually, she didn’t have any of this tasty treat! 🙂

So that was Saturday. I know I said I was gonna just generalize the week, and I still will, but I wanted to at least set the tone for how things would go for the next few days. Sunday was fairly straight forward. Another trip to the store and some off-the-chain ground bacon burgers from Pine Street Market. These things are unreal, by the way. Monday rolled around it was rainy and gloomy in the morning. Originally we were going to go on a Labor Day Trail Run with some people from the gym, but after hours and hours of rain we decided it best to stay home. Plus it was lightning and they cancelled the whole thing. Jess’ mom and sister were coming over that afternoon and ribs were on the menu for “lunch”. I use the term loosely because the day was really weird. Like in the morning it was raining and bleh, and when the family got here we just kinda sat around and played cards and looked through photo albums. Jess and I had some left overs from the night before around lunch time. Then the sun punched through and suddenly it was all sunny and perfect weather outside! The ribs had been cookin in the oven and as soon as they came out err body wanted to get up on the BBQ! So we ate, again… like at 3 or something. Lunch at noon when it was rainy, then lunch/dinner around 3 and it was sunny. We ate and decided that since it was so nice we would head to the pool. I know right?! Like we didn’t go for a trail run a few hours prior due to lightning and such, and now we’re heading to the pool. It totally worked out and we had a blast. BLT loves to swim and despite the water being a tad chilly we had a really fun time. The rest of the day was spent chilling and playing more cards. Chase and Jess’ sister made Monkey Bread and despite everything in my being telling me to eat a piece, both Jess and I held strong and didn’t have a single bite. When Jess’ sister and mom left, they took all the left overs with them. Whew! No more monkey bread temping us in the house!

Tuesday rolls around and its back to the grind. Well, I worked from home so it wasn’t a total grind for me, but the rest of the fam was back in their respective schools. I made it to the gym where we started our Olympic Power Lifting program and man is that fun! I’ve been wanting to lift things and get stronger for a while. I’m really glad we’re doing this program now. Food/energy/mental health wise, things were good. I can really only speak for me, but my mood seemed to be fairly even keel. No major ups or downs.

The rest of the week was par for the course. Moments of hunger, being completely satiated, grumpiness, joy, laughter, powerfulness, etc. This appears to be the norm with the Whole30. Most of what I’ve read from other people who’ve done this before have said that by week 3 things start to level out. I don’t know that things are “level” but they certainly aren’t huge waves of emotional distress. In the beginning I’d feel completely hollow and sad or I’d feel like I could fight a panda. It was a roller coaster. Now its more like a lazy boat ride and ever now and then the boat gets a bit wobbly.

I will say that by Thursday Jess and I were feeling the need to get out of the house. The boys were tired of eating frozen things from a box (granted we could probably start fixing them a bit more suitable food) and we didn’t have it in us to cook yet ANOTHER meal then clean up and do the dishes and pack lunches and all that jazz. So we went out to our favorite establishment Taco Mac… again. Surprisingly enough, its actually really easy to eat well there. They now have roasted buffalo wings. That’s right, roasted, not fried! That with some broccoli or a side salad and I’m set. They have a good selection of salads, fajitas, grilled chicken, burgers with avocado and bacon. You don’t have to get a plate of nachos and beers-a-plenty. The boys enjoyed their food and we enjoyed not having to clean up after the mess! Everyone wins!

So that was that. Technically its already day 20 as of the publishing of this, and another post should be coming out either tomorrow or Monday, but for now this should be a good catch up. Ten more days! I can’t believe how quickly the first 20 have gone by!!

Whole30: Day 10 – 12

Meals Day 10 – 8/28/13

  • Breakfast: Pancetta omelette with sweet potato hash
  • Lunch: Left over chicken and vegetable soup
  • Dinner: Grilled southwest hot wings, roasted sweet potatoes
  • Snacks: Banana with almond butter and raisins

Meals Day 11 – 8/29/13

  • Breakfast: Turkey sausage and egg frittata
  • Lunch: Half of a salad with tomatoes, crispy prosciutto and grilled chicken
  • Dinner: Chicken fajitas* and broccoli
  • Snack: Almonds, cashews, banana

Meals Day 12 – 8/30/13

  • Breakfast: Pulled pork, poached eggs, sweet potato hash
  • Lunch: Bison patty, fried egg, bacon, tomato, side of roasted green beans
  • Dinner: Chicken curry (yum!)
  • Snacks: Orange

The breakdown

Random McPerson: “So what can you eat on this diet?”
Me: “Well, its not really a diet as much as a clean eating / detox 30 day period. And I can eat a lot really. I eat a lot of good quality meats, lots of vegetables, some fruits, and nuts. No alcohol, dairy, legumes, sugars, etc.”
Random McPerson: “You can eat fruit? Well you know fruit has a lot of sugar in it. Like I know bananas have a lot of sugar in them. So can’t eat those right?”
Me: “Well, its not about the amount of sugar that’s naturally IN something like fruit, its added sugar. Like sweet tea, or most baked goods. Bananas don’t have ADDED sugar.”

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had that same conversation over the past 13 days. People seem to think they either know more than me or know what they are talking about when it comes to food. And unless you have a degree in food science or are a foodamatician, I don’t want to hear it. It just gets real annoying explaining to people over and over that I’m not just rushing into this thing and that I kinda know what I’m talking about when it comes to this plan more than they do.

I think my tire might need some air.
I think my tire might need some air.

Any way, now that my rant is over…… Let’s talk about how the past few days went. The previous few days I had been sick and it was a doozy. I mean, I was literally hocking up my lungs, my head felt like there was an actual dagger in it, I think at one point my left eye popped out from all the sinus pressure, and then my hearing went out. Well, looking back it may not have been THAT bad, but it was still a pretty crappy cold, especially for someone who doesn’t usually get them. Day 10 started off with me going back to work for the first time in a few days. I was pumped up and ready to get it, well that was until I blew out my tire. This wasn’t just like a nail in my tire, I somehow managed to get a whole the size of a silver dollar in my tire from hitting a curb! Why did I hit a curb? Well the roads in Atlanta are bajank and there was a car beside me that swerved to avoid a pothole, so I swerved to avoid them and in doing so, hit the curb. The next thing I know I’m riding in a truck to a dealership where I have to fork over $200 for a new tire. But hey, I got a free car wash out of it! The rest of the day was meh at best. I mean, after being sick for 2 days then busting up my tire I wasn’t really feelin all giddy to be at work eating chicken and vegetable soup. But alas, that was my day. Other than the tire it was rather even keel. I wasn’t overly hungry or grumpy from hunger or anything. The Whole30 thing was really just kind of a way that I ate by this point so no real issues here.

Day 11 and we have nothing in the house and again I’m home from work. The baby is still sick, I’m back to coughing and snotting all over the place and I just want this week to end. There’s a 3 day weekend staring me in the face and it can’t get here soon enough. At the gym I managed to get two new PRs (115# snatch and 48.5# TGU) and that had me on cloud nine! I did good with my pre/post-workout meals. For the most part it was a really good day. At home we didn’t have much in the way of food so we decided to go to Taco Mac and torture ourselves. We stood strong though and got items that were as on plan as we could. Our boys on the other hand had root beer, boneless wings, fries, chicken fingers, ranch dressing, ketchup, and cookies. In the end it actually felt pretty good to be able to look at those items and not really crave them like I use to. Sure I wanted one of the Sam Adams Seasonal beers or what ever latest pumpkin ale was out, but there will be times when I can have that, it just wasn’t that night.

By the time Friday rolled around, things were going pretty good. I actually made it into the office despite some lingering sickness. DragonCon was this weekend so there were lots of people in town. It usually gets pretty crazy down town, especially in the afternoon when D*Con is around, so my plan was to leave after lunch. Before that though, I was going to meet up with some friends that were visiting for D*Con. We had lunch out at an Irish Pub and despite the tastiness that permeated the menu I stuck to my guns and ate on plan once again. It was good to catch up and talk to friends and enjoy a healthy lunch. Typically I would have had a beer or two, maybe an app, then a big lunch leaving me feeling groggy and sluggish for the rest of the day. Not this time! It really is a great feeling not feeling like crap for the rest of the day just because of what I ate for lunch or breakfast.

Friday night we were home and needed a few groceries to get us through the weekend. This was definitely a turing point for us. Our usual Friday nights would consist of coming home, snacking until we decided on what to have or where to go, then loading up the car with the boys and heading to some restaurant where we would have some beer or wine, some apps, and a big meal that would leave us sluggish for the remainder of the night and most likely feeling like crap the next morning. We would inevitably blame it on not having a good night sleep or something OTHER than the food/alcohol, but in reality that’s what it would boil down to. This Friday however, we headed to the grocery store with some specific items that we needed in mind, loaded up our cart with all manner of nutritious foods and ended up cooking a meal at home! We made some curry and enjoyed some down time on the couch. I can tell you that Saturday we woke up feeling MUCH better than we would had we gone out to eat.

So that was day 10 – 12. Things are falling into place. Energy levels are leveling out. We’ve got a handle on the food and what we can/can’t eat during the program. We have a system in place for preparation and have keep a staple of food around the house. It certainly is much easier than day 1 – 3 or even 1 – 9.

Another thing I’ve noticed, and a) this might be TMI and b) I’m not sure if its related to the Whole30 or the cold, but I have been waking up at night literally dripping/covered in sweat. I mean its to the point where I’ll have to lay a towel down on the bed so that I’m no longer laying in it. It sucks to get up and go to the bathroom only to come back and freeze from laying in a pool of sweat. I know, that’s utterly gross and WAY TOO MUCH info, this is my bloggins and I figured I could write about what I want.

Whole30: Shop-a-thon

Yesterday was the binge and purge of all the food in our kitchen. Well, not entirely, our boys still have to eat. But for the most part, our kitchen has been cleansed of all the starchy, creamy, stuff we can’t eat over the next 30 days. And boy did it send me on a tizzy.

It's the size of my head!!
It’s the size of my head!!

The day started off with a tip to the Marietta City Farmer’s Market, where I loaded us up on some fresh veggies. There’s nothing quite as good as local produce. Its crazy the difference home grown/organic makes. I mean, check out this friggin’ sweet potato! It’s the size of my head! It was a good haul of sweet potatoes, avocados, okra, green beans, peaches, tomatoes, kale, red and green peppers, some sausage, and almond butter. We will definitely be going back here for future produce purchases.

We knew we needed a lot more stuff so a trip to our local grocery store was up for the afternoon. As this Whole30 thing continues, I find it both easier and more difficult to shop at places like Publix and Kroger. The Kroger near us has a fairly good “natural” food section and some decent produce, but I really just dislike the store in general. It feels dirty and the service there is awful. I don’t shop there often enough to know where everything is and I don’t like the layout. The deli counter is meh at best, and the seafood was something I’d rather not see. Publix on the other hand is like a magical wonderland full of helpful employees, samples, fresher looking produce, free cookies for the kids, and occasional free samples for the adults! We can walk around in our racecar shopping carts, up and down the aisles loading up our cart with all the tasty treats we’ve come to enjoy and love! Wait… not any more we can’t.

That’s the thing. We once were able to make a list, go to the store, and 30 mins later be out the door with a full cart, cookies for the baby, and we’d be stocked up for the week. Now we have to stop and read the labels. Every. Single. Label. Granted if we stayed to the outside perimeter of the store and only went into the innards of the store for stuff like coconut milk and frozen items, we should be fine. But even then, its not that easy. Want some bacon? Nope, its sugar cured. Forget about the dairy section. Almond/Coconut milk, nah, sugar or some other added chemicals for “flavor”. The label checking is hard enough, but throw 2 kids in the mix and difficulty increases tenfold.

I was having a mini anxiety attack after leaving the store, but despite a grocery store that was lackluster in what we REALLY needed we still managed to load up with all manner of things that we can eat over the next 30 days. The label looking will get easier and we’ll soon know what’s on/off limits. I have a few butchers I need to visit so we can find some more choice meat, and I’m gonna look online for some other items to stock up on.

Fruits and veggies galore!

Next level salad!

4 meat salad
Four meat salad!

We are constantly looking for ways to eat cleaner and stick to our Whole30 Challenge. Well last night we went out for some BBQ and I ordered the 4 meat + 2 side combo (Sausage, Brisket, Chicken, Turkey + Salad and Collards). There was no way I was going to be able to eat all of it so I brought the meats home with me. Today rather than have a simple pile of meat on a plate I made an epic salad. What made it doubly epic wasn’t just the fact that it had 4 different animals on it, but I got creative and “hard boiled” an egg in the break room microwave! For dressing I had simple oil, vinegar, and seasonings. It ’twas a yummy salad to say the least. I felt satisfied and good after!

Typically I would have had some sort of bread or starch with this meat pile. I would have also had a soda or something with it. Then a few hour later I would have most likely went into a slump at work and wanted to just fall asleep. That would have made going to the gym tonight even more difficult. Instead I felt pretty good and decided to take a walk and enjoy the afternoon weather that’s finally cooperating in Georgia. The rest of my afternoon I’ve felt productive and can’t wait to go to the gym and crush some PRs!

All this from a “simple” salad! Who knew that eating clean had so many benefits. I can’t wait to see what deliciousness I bring for tomorrow’s lunch.

Microwaved poached/hard boiled egg
– Add roughly 1/3 cup water to a coffee cup, or other microwave safe container.
– Crack the egg and add the yolk and whites to the water
– Microwave for 40-60 secs on 80% power
– Check your egg for doneness
– Enjoy
I’ve found that if I use the hot water from the coffee maker I can poach the egg leaving a velvety center in roughly 40 seconds. If I cook the egg for 60 seconds the egg comes out closer to hard boiled.

 

PaleO Snap!

So over the weekend Jess and I started our adventure into this Whole30/Paleo deal. I think we were a bit confused. Now I think I’ve got it sorted out. The Whole30 is essentially a 30 day cleanse/challenge which is a more strict and streamlined version of Paleo. Paleo itself is already pretty rigid in terms of what you should/shouldn’t eat, but the Whole30 is on another level.

From what we can ascertain we went Paleo. We didn’t contract “polio” as Chase would have everyone believe, instead we began a journey into a cleaner and healthier way of eating. So far it’s been a bit taxing, but not impossible. Heck, I’ve lost like 3lbs since Saturday so we must be doing something right! But today, one of the owners of our gym posted that on August 19th they would be starting the Whole30 challenge. At first I was VERY intimidated by the challenge, but then the more I got to chatting with the gym folks the more I became intimidated by them for me to NOT do the challenge. And so I inadvertently signed Jess and I up for this thing. The good news, we will have had like a 6 day head start to get our bodies adjusted to the change.

I posted the other day about this whole change, but since then some new information has come out and I’d like to make some updates. For starters, I will be giving up sugar of all forms. Yes, this means my morning coffee(s). I’ve gone over it a thousand times in my brain on how to accomplish this no sugar thing and still have my coffee, but I just can’t drink straight black coffee. It doesn’t work for me. What I can drink, and really enjoy is unsweet tea. That is something I can live with. Other things that I’ll be giving up are all forms of grains, which means pastas, breads, oatmeal, etc. Also, there will be no beans of any type. That doesn’t mean that I’m going to be living off water and grass for the next 30 days. I have a whole list of vegetables, fruits, fats, and meats that I can load our kitchen with. Jess and I are like Mr. Wizard and a female version of Bill Nye in the kitchen when it comes to making delicious meals, so this shouldn’t be a problem.

What IS a problem is the shock that my body is currently going through. Like I said I’ve lost anywhere between 3 and 5 pounds since Saturday, and it’s only Tuesday! Right now I am laying in bed feeling hollow and hungry. I feel like I’m just empty and need to eat something. But a) there’s nothing here to eat that meets the criteria or our new diet and b) I refuse to gorge myself of food at 11 at night. I know this is temporary, but it still sucks. I just don’t think we were initially prepared so we didn’t stock out kitchen with enough proper foods to sustain us for the week. Yeah we got through the first few days, but now we’re scrambling and everything feels like we’re giving something up and not like we are making a smart choice. I don’t think I’m replacing the stuff I’ve given up with anything that’s providing me with the fullness I had before. Again, this will take some time to adjust, but tonight… It sucks. I’m restless and want a damn plate of nachos.

So that’s my rant. I figured if I can’t have any food, I can at least make a post about it. This feels like a good outlet. I feel better about the choice we’ve made and hope to keep up with the rigor. Stay tuned for more updates and progress reports!

Oh, the cover photo for this post is my sausage, spinach, and egg frittata. It wa amazeballs. I plan on having a lot of that over the next 30+ days.

The week that never ended

Well, I mean eventually it ended, but damn this week was a pain in the ass.

When I say “pain in the ass” I literally mean it when it comes to what we’ve had to deal with this past week. Lane, Chase, Jess, and I all have had the doom stomach sickness. It started with BLT puking in his bed last Thursday night and rolling around in it all night. He proceeded to throw up again all over himself and highchair Friday morning. Then Saturday, it hit me like a ton of bricks, or a ton of feathers, either way, I was down for the count. JT was a trooper and took care of Lane and I… that is until she got smacked with the black death around 3am on Sunday. Now we had a baby that was recovering from being sick, Jess feeling the effects, and me doing my best to hold it together. We thought our lil’ guy was on the mend, that was until he lost the contents of his stomach all over again.

We went into the weekend with such high hopes, even visited the local farmers market in search of fresh produce and such. But it quickly turned into a festering pool of dispair and unmentionables. Surely come Monday we could kick it into over drive and plow through the week.

Oh, my bad… I must have been thinking of some other week. Jess was still writing on Monday and had to stay out of work. Since she was mobile for the most part she stayed with BLT and Chase and trucked on through the day. Got the sheets clean and windows open. Things were looking up and by Tuesday we were all back to work/school!

BAM! In your face good mood! Tuesday afternoon turned out to be probably the worst, or at least second worst day of the week. For starters Lane is getting to the point where he just LOVES to hear him self babble and yell and blow raspberries and spit out his food and… well, here lemme show you.
Lane in the car:

Lane “eating” dinner:

This is what Jess has to put up with for upwards of 3 hours a day JUST in the car. She gets home before me and has to try and get him fed too. That’s just insane. Anyone else’s kid and they would be out back with the coyote. Yeah, we have those now apparently too. I mean bajeeze this kid is loud. Any way, she puts up with this and has a splitting headache on Tuesday only to find out that she does not have a key to get in the house. So now she’s suck outside of her safe haven with a fussy baby, a hungry 10 year old, and a migrane. Damn you Tuesday, you suck worse than the whole weekend combined.

So Wednesday rolls around and its rainy and we’re running late in the morning and this weeks in the shitter, but we’re gonna push on, right? Well Wednesday is my usual work from home day and I am usually able to get work done because the fam is off at school/work. Well Jess has asked me to keep Lane home with me. Admittedly I was somewhat of a turd and didn’t want to keep him. I wanted my peace. ME ME ME!! That’s totally not fair to her at all, do you remember the videos? So stomped my feet, pouted like a little girl, but kept BLT home with me. We made the best of it, I put on my big boy pants and I got the majority of the work I needed to do done. By the time Jess got home I was needing a break just as bad as she did on Monday.

Whew, time for a breather. We had dinner, watched Survivor, and did our best to just be calm for the remainder of the night Chase had to go to the bathroom a few times, but honestly that was nothing new since he really chew his food as much as he inhales it. What we didn’t realize was that it was the precursor to the mudbutt.

Thursday morning and we’re getting ready to head in as if it were any other day and SLAP! Reality hits us in the face. JT calls me to come to Chases room where we are greeted with a delightful crime scene art project. This kid has some how rolled over in the middle of the night, and blew chunks from the top bunk down to the white carpet below and went back to sleep. I mean, hot dog bits mixed with ketchup and vegetable soup. It was literally a 4 foot splatter radius. I don’t think he ever even knew he did it. Earlier when I said that Tuesday was the second worst day, it was second to this. There was simply no way that JT or I would be able to handle this day alone so we both elected to stay home. She watched BLT while I went to the store to rent a RugDoctor.

The rest of the day was spent tending to a sick Chase and a fussy Lane. Oh and working and cleaning the house and doing other chores and you know… living. The afternoon wasn’t that bad and we even managed to squeeze in a family walk, which is good considering we’re doing Tough Mudder in like 4 months.

So we made it to Friday and just as we’re on our way out the door Lane’s baby sitter texts and says that her grandson has the stomach bug. WTF?! Can we not escape this damn thing?! Now we have OTHER people’s kids preventing us from simply having a normal day. Well, we decided to take Lane to the sitter and she would just quarantine the sick child in another room. Whether or not that work remains to be seen and I’m sure if anything comes of it we’ll be cleaning it up in the morning.

At this point the house is pretty much sterile, the carpet is pearly white, the family is happy and resting and we have a game plan of attack on the leaves and duties of the house tomorrow. Grammy is gonna watch Lane while we move stuff to the attic and deal with the leaves outside and then its shopping and decorate-fest 2k12 all over again!

This week has been a bitch, but we pulled through so far. There’s still two days to go, but I feel like we can make it. It’s not the worst this family has ever been through and I’m sure we’ll deal with this sort of thing again. We’re better than little things like puke and yelling babies. We can pull through the strife. We’re the Snipers! Its what we do.

Oh, and in case you were curious how our Friday night went, this should give you a good indication.

Bacon, Egg, and cheese breakfast cups

Bacon, Egg, and Cheese breakfast cups
Bacon, Egg, and Cheese breakfast cups

Around here, breakfast on Saturday mornings gives us the opportunity to try something new and delicious. I often find myself wanting to get up and make some sort of extravagant meal involving tons of ingredients and steps and something that takes a considerable amount of time to prepare. Then again, I also find that waking up and having a cup of coffee and a bowl of cereal works just as well.
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I need a hobby

Everyone has things they enjoy doing. Whether it’s snow boarding, bear wrangling, knitting, or deep sea fishing, people generally just like being active. For me the things that I enjoy doing are going to the gym (or exercise in general), cooking, and/or doing something with my hands. I really like the process of taking nothing or raw materials and creating a finished product. I don’t claim to be the best cook or most prolific builder, but I give it my all when I get into it. Over the past few months work has started to creep into my life more and more, thus taking away time to do other things I enjoy.

This post was started a few months ago, and I never got around to publishing it. Some might say that I found a hobby. Lately my life has been full of the things I enjoy doing. Certainly work has come into play, but now I find myself doing more a more of the things I love to do, cooking, building things, spending time with my family, etc.

With the baby on the way, there is always something to be done. Whether it’s building a bookcase, or painting, or baby-proofing the house, there is no shortage of stuff to do. This week in fact we’ve put together the crib, and got it all set up. We hung a vinyl decal on the wall, and today I finished a bookcase that I built. Not something I simply put together, but I built it. I love getting things ready for the baby’s room. Jess is doing all the hard work with growing the little fella, so the least I can do is paint and build things to make it more cozy for the pair of them when he arrives. Chase has also been a huge help! He was out there with me, cutting wood, sanding, and painting. It was great to get to work with him in the garage, and I know he enjoyed it a lot too.

So that’s that. I’ve been busy around the house with yard sales, cooking (made my favorite Brisket Chili w/ Butternut Squash last night), building, and just enjoying life. Fall is my favorite season, and this one especially has got me loving life more than I could have ever imagined.