Whole 30 Days Finished!

It's an official Day 30 of the Whole30 for me because I started on January 3.  As I was making my delicious asparagus frittata for breakfast this morning and thinking over the last 30 days and how I felt in comparison to Jan. 3, a couple more aha's popped in my mind.

I have to say that besides feeling incredibly bloated and unhappy about my weight for the last few months I didn't have any physical issues like pains in my knees, hips, joints, etc.  No skin problems, except that extra layer that gravity has decided to pull over my upper eye lid so I can be sure to look like I have crossed over the half century mark.  And I get headaches very rarely and when I do I freak out because I'm just not used to it.  I was never overly tired and seem to be on a pretty even keel with energy for the most part.  Most of that is because I get at least 9 hours of sleep a day and I had been doing about a 75/25 lo-carb diet for the last four years.  It was only in the last few months that everything started to slip out of control.  On January 2 when I gorged myself of the remainders of the leftover carb and sugar-laden goodies from a New Year's Day party did I feel like I hit bottom.  If that's the biggest bottom I had to hit then I know I truly am blessed! Hah! :-).

So on Jan. 2 as I was laying around in my carb-laden state, surfing the net because I was unable to focus on anything else, I happened upon the Whole 9 Paleo Nutrition site.  I was already familiar with Paleo having had Robb Wolf's Paleo Solution Book for the last year.  I was trying to put some of the food concepts into practice but figured I'd never be able to actually stay on a Paleo plan for 30 days.  It took feeling so uncomfortable with myself that the Whole 30 plan seemed like the perfect way and plan to start.  I knew I needed to get back in control.

Now that it's over I can't believe 30 days has gone by already.  As I said in my last post, I am surprised that I had no problem with the dairy.  Two things that were the biggest changes for me were having a glass of wine with dinner during the week (I like to cook and eat around what wine would go best with the meal), and foregoing the can of diet Mt. Dew that I usually had every day after lunch.  The wine habit I am happy to give up during the week now and researching about the unhealthy effects of soda has made me happy to give that up as well.  But I really do miss the taste of that Dew!  But I don't miss that "medicine head" that I get from it after drinking it.

The one thing that I wanted to know from this 30 day experiment was whether my eating/drinking habits had any effect on how clear my mind was.  It took almost 30 days but I can say that my mind does feel clearer.  It's like an invisible band around my forehead has been removed.  Was it life-changing?  Not really.  But I now feel back in control with my eating habits, I now know that I can save $300 a month by not eating at work/out just for breakfast and lunch alone, and that's with buying the "expensive" fruits and vegetables and better cuts of meat (grass fed) and organic foods.

Finally, what next?  I am continuing on a modified plan of the Whole30, eating Paleo choices, and starting an exercise plan.  I feel good.  (think James Brown's song, nah nah nah nah nah nah nah) !

In love and health,
Brenda

Ten Things I've learned from my Whole 30 Paleo experiment

Ten Things I’ve learned from doing the Whole 30 Experiment:

1.              I can drink coffee without cream.  Really. 

2.              I had no problem whatsoever giving up the cheese.  It is actually possible to eat an omelet without cheese.  Who knew?

3.              I now know what the cafeteria at work uses to coat the grill with – soy spray from a can.  It kept me away from having my daily egg white with cheese omelet.

4.              I also learned that the butter the grill cook uses is clarified.  Yay!  I had a few squirts of that on some tasteless looking broccoli one day.  Saved me from getting whiney over what was for sure to be a yucky lunch day.

5.              I can make it through the week without wine.

6.              Strangely enough I didn’t have any sugar cravings until around day 11 which came disguised as a craving for Friday night wine.  Crafty sly sugar brain…

7.              I finally realized just how much money I was spending a month eating out between work and after work.   Now I can afford Cross Fit if I can actually get there to start the On Ramp program.

8.              I learned what to do with the rest of tomato paste (freeze it in an ice cube tray).

9.              I love coconut even more than I thought.  And I love Ghee too!

10.         And most importantly, it’s not about the food after all.  It’s about learning how to be non-judgmental about myself and others.

Today is actually Day 27.  It's no problem to make it through the next three days strictly following the plan.  In addition to the above 10 items, I have learned I really enjoy eating this way.  Is it tough to stick to it?  It sure is when confronted with situations outside of my home environment.  Besides going to work, I pretty much stayed home the whole month.  I don't know how I would have fared if I had a bunch of eating out, celebration challenges.  The few events I did have to attend were tough and I wasn't 100% compliant but they were little slips and I made it through it still feeling pretty good about my choices.

End result?  I'm going to go another 30 days...  with exercise this time.

Paleo 30-Day Experiment - Day 20!

OH My.  Only ten days to go.  Day 20.  Time is starting to go by faster now.  The first week crawled by.  Now the days are starting to blur together.  Missed our Saturday shopping trip because of the snow storm in CT.   I was so focused on making the Paleo coconut crepes that I forgot about meals for the rest of the day.  After spending a few hours out in the freezing cold taking photographs of snow crystals I was really hungry and did not have anything for a quick bite.  Instead I munched on one tiny piece of pineapple leftover from breakfast, guzzled some water, threw some chicken legs into the oven and went back out in the cold to continue photographing.  Hunger pangs go away pretty quickly when you fill up on water and you are busy with a project :-)

An early dinner consisted of the baked chicken legs and then I made a turkey shepard's pie.   Will post pics and recipe on that later.  That was one of the tastiest meals I've had so far.  

Today, back to the "cow store", Stew Leonard's in Newington.   Look at how beautiful the rows of nice veggies are.   Not that these are organic but I really like cucumbers for lunch.  Stew's food always looks so fresh.  And I'm getting used to the maze that takes you through the store.  It used to irritate the heck out of me walking through there but when you bypass so much of it to get to just to the fruits, veggies, seafood and meats it makes the journey through the store much quicker. It is pretty funny going through the cheese section with words "gotta have cheese" sung out of the speakers by the animatronics in the cheese section.

I look at the whole shopping trip now as an experience rather than a chore.  Just another way of thinking about food!

Paleo 30-Day Experiment - Day 19 with Paleo Crepes

Woo Hoo!  It's Saturday. Thank you GOD!  A friend was going to have a cooking class for a few friends and make ham and asparagus crepes, normal style.  I was going to attend and try to make the same Paleo style.  Alas - her event had to be cancelled so it gave me a change to try it at home.  Hubby got the benefit of this delicious feast and helped in the process.

Paleo Style Crepes:

Mix together all the following ingredients:

3 Tablespoons Organic Coconut Flour (I used Bob's Red Mill)

2 eggs (cage free if you can get them)

3 Tablespoons Organic Coconut milk (in a can) full fat - without any sugar

2-1/2 Tablespoons water

pinch of salt

Use an 8" crepe pan.  I used a teflon coated one which helped the crepe to just slide off.  If anyone knows where to find a non-teflon crepe pan please let me know... I'd like to get away from teflon if possible.

Heat the pan.  Add some coconut oil.  Add 1/3 of the batter or just enough to be able to spread the batter all around the pan.  The batter should have a runny enough consistency to easily slide from side to side.  It did take me until the second batch and the fifth crepe before it came out as nice as in the picture.  

I had previously microwaved some asparagus.  I used the crepe pan to heat up some baked, low sodium ham - as Paleo/Whole 30 as I could find it... added that to the crepe rolled it up and added it to the beautiful fruit plated dishes he had ready.   The coconut flour really did the trick.  The crepes had the flexibility that would not be there is you use almond flour.  The added benefit is they are slightly sweet (probably to those who have not been eating any sugar for a while).   It was an awesome breakfast for a snowy New England morning.  Gave us the energy to go out and deal with the snow later. :-)

Paleo 30-Day Experiment - Day 17

Still hanging in there on Day 17.   Getting into the routine of buying, preparing, and generally keeping a steady food stock in my kitchen.  My next step is finding a local farm for my supply of grass fed beef.  I did find the list of the farms on this wonderful Eat Wild website.  Now it's just a matter of going to get the beef!   Or chicken or pork.  I am so happy to find out that I can go to a local farm for some great, grain free, sustainable food sources.  We won't have time to get to any this weekend but hoping for a food run by the end of the month.

Only had one temptation day in work so far.  We had a Department social with lots of "rewarding" sweet food.  I really would have loved to have tried the butterscotch/chocolate chip brownies because they smelled so good but it wasn't that hard to leave them alone.  My observation that day was that here I was on my "plan" and avoiding the sweets and it was somewhat of a challenge to me yet no one else in the room was eating the cake, cookies, and brownies either and it was no big deal to them at all.  It was an eye opener for me.  If I wasn't on Whole 30 I probably would have been the only one in the room eating one and the last one that should have been either if one as measuring body size... So, saved again by Whole 30 and I continue on!

Today I had leftover filet mignon from New Year's day for breakfast and blueberries.  Not grass fed but it was what I had available to eat.  Therefore my need to fill the freezer with the right kind of beef.  Lunch was a HUGE spinach salad with asparagus, tuna and sliced almonds.  Dinner, leftover pork tenderloin, broccoli, more blueberries with some coconut milk on top.

Time for some eye appealing dinners for more photos.

Paleo 30-Day Experiment

Yeah - this is a good celebrating paleo night.  Just because it's the weekend, Gridiron Greats Magazine is on its way to our subscribers, we have not eaten out since December 31, and lobster was on sale at our favorite grocery store.  All good good good!

Meal of the day:  Lobster.  Lots of it.  We cooked it ourselves on the grill outdoors in about 30 degrees F weather no less.  Since we have a flat top cook top we thought the big pan would be boil the water faster and fit the two lobsters if we cooked them on the side of the grill outside.  Still had to cook one at a time.  They were pretty big lobsters.  So happy we had some awesome Ghee to go with the lobster.  So for once, hubby got to actually have some buttery taste with his lobster.  He cannot eat dairy at all so me going Whole 30 and dropping the dairy just got us on the same page.  I discovered Ghee, and now he gets to have that taste he liked without the dairy.  The added fun part is that when I take the top off the Ghee, my cat, Angie comes running.  She LOVES the taste of the Ghee.  I'm sure it helps to keep her furs and coat nice and soft as well as helping with our own skin.

To get our fill of veggies I made a broccoli salad - cooked broccoli, fried up some non nitrite bacon, sliced up some grapes, chopped up some almonds since I had no sliced almonds in the house (ut oh) , and instead of making some paleo mayo, we decided - who needs that anyway and just squeezed some lemon over the broccoli.  It worked perfectly.

Happy eating everyone!  I know I'm enjoying this immensely.  :-)

Paleo 30-Day Experiment - Day 8

Another lovely Paleo day here in Connecticut on the Whole 30 plan.  I haven't noticed any real difference in my sleeping patterns yet.  I guess I expected that I'd be sleeping soundly ALL through the night and would wake up feeling refreshed and ready to just jump out of bed with all the energy I have stored up from eating such a marvelous diet.  Alas, that is not the case.  The only thing that has improved is that my husband commented that my snoring is not as bad as it usually is so I guess that's an improvement although not as outstanding as I expected.  I also suppose that once I get into a regular work out or exercise routine that will help too.

Here's the food primer for today.  I decided to listen to my body and my body said it wanted fruit.  I haven't been eating very much fruit for some time so it was time to try something different for a change (I usually have eggs and something).  So for a real treat since I made it to DAY 8 I had blueberries and raspberries covered with coconut milk and a liberal dosing of ground cinnamon.  OMG.  Well I found my new favorite treat.  Who needs sugar when you have something this good?  And no, the coconut milk did not have sugar it in.

As I was preparing my lunch to take to work I finally realized that the reason I had gotten so out of control with my food choices is that I wasn't preparing anything!  I was running out of the house every day without making breakfast or lunch, eating at the cafeteria at work every morning then at lunch time or I would go out.  Then once I got home I had no ideas or plans of what to make so usually it was another night out at a restaurant or bring home take out food from a good restaurant but take out nonetheless.   So that was my epiphany for the day.  I didn't have the best leftovers or lunch idea for today so it was the chicken wing leftovers with lots of organic baby spinach and cucumber.  We have a great cafeteria with a pretty varied salad bar so I added some asparagus, tuna, roasted red pepper (not out of the jar) and brussels sprouts to it.  It ended up way too much to eat it all at lunch and it was very satisfying.

Dinner started out with a plan to make some talapia with a recipe off the coconut milk can.  I got it all prepped with cut up red and green peppers, onions, garlic all ready to saute and then I took a look at the pre-frozen now thawed talapia.  One of them was GREEN! gag.  For a brief moment I thought this whoe Paleo thing was really going to my head and I was seeing things.  Not.  Ok so toss the fish and make note to myself to make sure I don't buy frozen talapia anymore.   Plan B.  Chicken sausage with red and green peppers, onion, garlic.  The sausage was from my favorite Stew Leonard's store from their fabulous "naked" food product line which meant no hormones, antibiotics, preservatives, etc. just chicken, peppers, and garlic.  Not bad.  Cooked up a batch of broccoli rabe and mixed it all together.  Perfect.  I guess if my camera is not right in front of my face I forget to take a picture.   That reminds me though I did take a picture of my lovely breakfast...  And, I was not hungry again until noon.  Now that was a surprise since it was just a small bowl of fruit.  Love that coconut milk!