Whole30 + 7

So we finished whole30 about a week ago and it was great! We were feeling better, we weren't bloated, or achy, or greasy gross. 

Then St. Patrick's day came around and we ate and drank to our little hearts desires. And we felt like crap. 

It's weird being finished with Whole30, it's like the restraints are gone and we can do whatever we want! 

How freaking terrible is that? The restraints should always be there. We should always be recognizing that shitty food makes you feel shitty so I should stop eating it, right? You'd think it would be easier to eat healthy than to eat sugar. But I'm dead serious when I say sugar is addicting. And it will kill you. 

Why aren't people talking about this!? According to "Fed Up", a wonderful documentary on Netflix, sugar is just as addicting as cocaine and shoots out the same pleasure sensors in the brain... So what in the world!? It also leads to obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and DEATH! I mean come on people!? Do people not care about what this is doing to people? Sorry.. crazyhighhorsetangent finished..

So as of today, bec and I are sticking to our guns, we're staying with the Whole30 process, but throwing in a glass of wine or whiskey night cap in every once in a while. 

We will keep peeps updated with weight loss. 

As of Sunday, I am down 9lbs, bec is down 7, and  we have 2 months until swintrunk season! 

The Home Stretch

Hello all!

Maura kept insisting that it was my turn to write despite the fact that I wrote the last post, but here I am again! We’ve entered our last full week of Whole30. As of Sunday, we’re both down 8 lbs. That’s a pretty good chunk for three weeks.

Saturday we went back down to Shock Trauma to visit my friend, and then grabbed dinner at the Nalley Fresh right by the hospital. This was our first meal at a restaurant since we began Whole30. In case you're like me and had never heard of Nalley Fresh, it's basically a Chipotle but for healthy food. Everything is fresh and it's not going to break the bank. However, I guess being that it still was a restaurant, it upset both of our stomachs pretty well.

Sunday we made our weekly run to Aldi's (have I mentioned lately how much I love that place?) and I went a little crazy. I got a ton of produce but also a bunch of sugarless organic healthy stuff that's normally a million dollars in a regular grocery store. I also picked up some steaks, and so this meal was born:

Eye Round Steak, Roasted Asparagus, Baked Potato, 

and Salad with homemade "caesar" dressing

It was amazing. The steak was marinated in some spice combo I found on a Whole30 site, the dressing was a bit of a pain to make but totally worth it, and the meal overall was so good. The best part was that it hardly took any time to throw together. I'm officially calling the dressing my Guilt-Free Dressing. That's what I'm talking about!

Maura has really been craving pancakes, so we decided to try a pumpkin pancake recipe we found using almond flour. Well...this was an interesting outcome.

Pumpkin Pancakes, Bacon, Fruit Salad, 

and Organic Apple Sauce

Okay, so they don't really look like "traditional" pancakes. They were really difficult to flip and they wanted to burn before they cooked all the way through. Nevertheless, now we know that maybe we try a different recipe. The bacon was amazing (Isn't it always) and the fruit was super fresh. We also indulged in a little not-from-concentrate pineapple orange juice.

Last night (Monday night), the weather was so nice that we decided to make a fire on our patio and throw some burgers on the grill. Maura was trying to be proactive and help me chop up some sweet potato fries before I got home from work and the mandolin slicer bit her, so that was almost a trip to the emergency room. I'm happy to report, however, that if all goes well she should keep the arm.

Seasoned Hamburger topped with Guilt-Free Dressing

and Garlic Sweet Potato Fries

This meal was a home run. The fries could have been crisped a little longer, but the burger was cooked to perfection. The dressing on top even gave it a little bit of the "creamy" factor that you would get from melted cheese. But for someone who actively ignores their lactose intolerance (me) this was a great fix!

It's crazy how, now that this experiment is coming to a close, you feel like "cheating." We were so strong in the beginning, especially the first week. So determined. We've found ourselves saying, "I won't tell if you don't tell." And you just feel like...you're so close, why not have that beer? Or bend a little and have a few chips? You're basically already there anyway, what would it matter? But you'll know that you'll have cheated. And you'll know that you'll have wasted the last 30 days only to blow it at the end. And nothing could possibly taste as good as skinny feels. 

And so we'll finish out our 30 days and know that we've been successful, that we haven't broken, and that we've not only lost weight but gained knowledge of healthier foods and experience in the kitchen. And that was the goal all along.

I'll Take My Coffee Black, Please

I think one of my favorite things about this "diet" is that I haven't counted a single calorie. I haven't even really been keeping track of what I've been eating, it's just been real food. Did I have one apple today, or six? (Answer: just one, because six will most definitely give you the poops. Moving on.)

So it's Day 17, and I haven't had a single cup of coffee in seventeen days. Mostly because I'm one of those disgusting people that likes cinnamon roll creamer plus one or two sugars, and I'm terrified that if I even have it black, I'll go off the deep end. But this morning I made a pot of natural hazelnut coffee, and I read on a Whole30 blog that a sprinkle of cinnamon over the grounds can help to take some of the bitterness out. It totally worked! Either that, or I'm desensitized from the sugar coma that my three-cups-a-day brought on. Either way, it's good (although a little weak) and I'm a happy camper. 

I've made lots of kitchen creations this week. On Sunday, Maura had some leftover Pork Verde that I made on Saturday night to take with us to a friend's house, and I was craving something different. We haven't gotten on the coconut flour train, but I attempted to make some salmon cakes. 

They were amazing! I just used 1 can of salmon, drained, an egg, parsley, oregano, onion powder, and thyme and served them over a small bit of tomato sauce. So good!

On Monday night, I made eggplant lasagna, which sadly we dove into so quickly that I didn't get a picture. But it was great because I prepared it in the morning (slices of eggplant layered in a chunky tomato meat sauce) and then had Maura pop it in the oven about 15 minutes before I came home. Boom! Done. I did sauté up some seasoned asparagus to go on the side as well. 

Then, last night for dinner, I put an entire roasting chicken in the crockpot with a spicy seasoning mix I made and let it cook from about 7:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. The chicken was so juicy and tender that we couldn't lift it out of the crockpot because it wanted to fall apart. 

Then with that, I steamed up some fresh broccoli and made our paleo mashed potatoes with clarified butter and parsley. The best.

I do feel a bit like I spend my life in the kitchen now, but it hasn't been all bad. I do have a lot of time in the mornings and the meals have totally been worth it,

Back to the grind! 13 more days!