Week 1 of my Whole 30

Whole 30 Day 1:

Breakfast:
Cube Steak, 2 eggs, sauerkraut, avocado, strawberries
Lunch:
Flank steak, Salad (spring mix, tomato, avocado, bell pepper, and carrot) Tessemae Balsamic Vinegar dressing.
Snack:
Trader joe's sardines, plantain chips, and blueberry larabar
Dinner:
Pork loin, brussels sprouts, and green beans with ghee and a handful of mixed dry roasted nuts.

Day 2:

Breakfast:
diced sweet potato, ground beef, kale, 1 egg cooked in coconut oil, 3 strawberries and a small handful of dry roasted nuts. Also, my morning cup of decaf coffee and bottle of water.

Lunch:

leftovers! Pork, brussels srouts topped with ghee, and baby belly peppers. 

Dinner:

Grilled chicken, cauliflower mashed 'potatoes' with ghee, and collard greens sautéed with onions and mushrooms garlic infused olive oil (seriously soooo delicious!!) 

Snacks: 

watermelon and a handful of dry roasted cashews. Oh and I had a few plantain chips while I was cooking dinner!

Day 3: 

Breakfast: 

(almost the same as yesterday!) cube steak, sautéed kale, sweet potato and mushrooms in coconut oil. 1 large egg, a side of watermelon and of course my cup of decaf coffee! 

Lunch: 

A big ole salad again bell pepper, grape tomato, cucumber, avocado, spring mix and romaine. I put Italian seasoned ground beef on top. 

Dinner: 

Cauliflower mashed potatoes, salmon steak and bagged mixed veggies. 

Snacks: 

banana and almond butter, a handful of carrots, a little bit of pork and leftover brussels sprouts. 

Day 4: 

Breakfast: 

Once again! Sweet potato, mushroom, kale  ground beef sautéed in lard with an egg on top! I had about a cup of watermelon with it as well. With my cup of decaf with some coconut milk in it. 

Lunch: 

2 applegate farms beef hotdogs, sauerkraut, mixed veggies, and half an avocado. 

Dinner: 

Chicken from the whole chicken I made in the crockpot, sweet potato, and collard greens and mushrooms sautéed in garlic olive oil.

Snacks:

 trader joes sardines, some baby carrots, 3 strawberries and a handful of mixed dry roasted nuts. 

Day 5: 

Breakfast: 

cube steak and 1 egg cooked in lard, green beans, sweet potato with cinnamon, and a small gala apple. Also, as always, my cup of coffee with some coconut milk in it.

Lunch: 

(whole 30 fail... The tots I'm pretty sure had some ingredients I shouldn't have) we went out to lunch in Baltimore so I tired my best... A chicken sandwhich with no bun and extra lettuce. Had the chicken topped with old bay seasoning and then a side of sweet potato tots and lastly a side of avocado which isn't pictured.

Dinner: 

Another big salad! Avocado, tomato, bell pepper, spring mix, romaine, and tessemae balsamic vinegarette. A side of chicken with paprika, salt, and pepper. 

Snacks: 

Trader joes sardines, a handful of carrots, a handful of dry roasted cashews 

Day 6: 

Breakfast:

 Cube steak, one egg, sautéed sweet potato, kale, beets in lard. Also had a side of black grapes with my coffee and coconut milk.  

Lunch: 

Homemade salmon cakes, mixed stir fry vegetables cooked with ginger. Snacked on some carrots and a banana with cashews as I did meal prep. 

Dinner: 

Lamb steak, sweet potato with ghee, and roasted asparagus. 

Snacks: 

made some plantain chips and tried a few of those, 3 baby peppers and 3 strawberries and some macadamia nuts.

Day 7: 

Breakfast: 

2 eggs cooked in coconut oil, Italian seasoned ground beef, green beans, half an avocado and strawberries. Also my cup of coffee with coconut milk.

Lunch: 

shredded chicken, spaghetti squash with ghee, and beets roasted with coconut oil. 

Dinner: Beef pot roast, sweet potato, spaghetti squash, broccoli all covered with ghee. 

Snacks: 

Trader joes smoked sardines and a blueberry larabar. Also after my workout I had a handful of homemade plantain chips. 

There were a lot of ups and downs to this week. The first 3 days were for sure the worst. Even the night of day 3 I had dreams about eating dark chocolate and pizza and having wine. It was crazy for sure. I think I have now 'killed the sugar dragon' though which feels amazing. If you read It Starts With Food before you start your whole 30 journey it helps a lot. It helped me get more of an idea of the things I would go through mentally and all the recipes in the book are awesome too!  

I have been sleeping better and for sure have more energy. Also, Olivia no longer spits up at all and has so much less gas. Knowing this it gives me that much more motivation to keep this journey going as long as possible. 

The first 3 days I also felt so hungry and felt like I could never get enough food. At day 7 though I finally feel satisfied and I'm actually eating less. It's crazy how fast your hormones level out when you are eating the right things.

I did have a little bit of a cheat and had sweet potato tots which probably had some kind of starch in them and bad oils but I will make sure not to make that mistake again. You can't obsess about the mess up, just move on and that's just what I'm doing! 

Overall I'm really enjoying this experience and it's really helping me get back into the paleo mindset which I needed. I started my workout plan today as well so next week I will be able to write more about what I'm doing and how I'm feeling.

Freezer Meals and Catching up…

I decided back in June that it would be a great idea to start a blog now that I had extra time on my hands. As you guys can see it worked really well… I got one whole post and then got distracted! Well this is going to be try number 2 for this girl! I have a feeling this time I'm going to make it happen!

First off, a lot has happened since I last wrote. I still have many food allergies and digestion issues like normal. I still workout and love being healthy. Now I just have more of a reason to stay fit and be healthy, I have a baby on the way. Just about a week after my June post I found out I was pregnant, no wonder I was having so many digestion issues, my body was trying to figure out how to brew up a baby! Since then I have become even more conscious about what I eat and how well I take care of myself.

I have 5 weeks left of this pregnancy and then a whole new world of motherhood awaits me. Since I'm so close to D day I figured this weekend I would make some freezer meals. I have heard from many new moms that finding time to cook is the hardest part of having a new baby. I decided to get ahead of the curve and make sure our little family is ready for its new addition and has food to power us through the feeding, crying, pooping machine that is about to grace us with her presence.

So far I have made 14 different meals. I'm still planning on making about 5 different breakfast meals to go along with those too. I feel like it's a good start to a good collection of meals.

I spent 2 days making all of these things. Found most of the recipes on pinterest and things I found on other google searches. I noticed as I started making them though I adapted them to things my husband and I like more so I guess you could say I made them my own… I'm not taking any credit for it though.  Most of the meals are paleo, all of them are gluten and dairy free because my body is just not liking those things right now and I don't think they ever will. When I made these things I just kept in my mind "just eat real food" that being said I got some really healthy meals in my freezer.

Now it's time to look at the mess I made and I will kinda go through the process with you to how I made this happen…

First off, I made some overnight bone broth. We had a whole chicken for dinner and I used the bones from that to make some delicious broth as we slept that night. 

If you have never read about the benefits of homemade bone broth you should… it can heal your gut make your skin amazing (collagen) and is full of healthy vitamins and minerals. 

After learning the facts about it I will never buy store bought broth/stock again. 

Then the madness started… 

I started by cutting up everything I needed. I did all the veggies first and then all the meat. 

You will not believe how many onions and carrots I went through… 

Most of the recipes I just had to throw raw ingredients in bags (both veggies and meat) which was super easy but then I also made some soups that are already all made that we just have to thaw.

… and this is the soup mess I made. 

I used the stock I made above in both these recipes. 

Some chicken and quinoa soup and creamy chicken cauliflower mushroom soup is what you can see. They both tasted amazing and I can't wait to have them. 

Lastly… the aftermath… 

I love cooking but I wish I could hire someone to clean up after me… 

Some pictures of the results! It was all well worth it. 

Some of the things I made were… 

Beef Stew, beef stir fry, hawaiian chicken, cilantro lime chicken, bbq chicken, chicken and quinoa soup, creamy cauliflower mushroom soup, pizza soup, sausage and peppers, taco chili, and a large sweet potato cottage pie. 

All of these we can either just warm up or put straight into the crockpot and let cook. 

TOO EASY!!!

Side note:

I didn't use all fresh ingredients, I like to try and keep it fresh but some things are totally ok to me in cans. In these recipes I used canned tomatoes and tomato sauce ( I always use muir glen brand) , pineapple chunks for the hawaiian chicken, salsa (I love muir glen again) and lastly, low sodium black beans (Eden Organic brand). Sometimes canned foods just make life a little easier which is always nice…

Ps. I also bought mostly all the fresh ingredients and other things I needed at Aldi… If you haven't gone to an Aldi before, you need to make a trip like umm… TODAY! It's a life saver for the budget. Just remember… bring a quarter so you can get a cart and bring your own bags, otherwise you will have to buy some at checkout!   

I hope all this can help a person or two with making some awesome freezer meals!   

Recipes:

Sweet potato cottage pie

Creamy Cauliflower Soup

Hawaiian Chicken and Chicken Soup

Taco Chili and Sausage and peppers

The rest of the recipes I got from THIS WEBSITE