Whole30 Day 3

I woke up this morning feeling rested and ready for some action on the slopes!  I blended some french pressed coffee with the usual butter and coconut milk with cinnamon and I have to say, it's starting to grow on me.

I did sweet potato hash take 2 (added some dino kale to it and it was delicious) with a ghee fried egg and half of an avocado with lime and salt. Sorry, I remembered to take a photo AFTER I had eaten half of it.  Thats the hard part of doing this! Remembering to take photos because I'm usually so darned hungry and amped up when a meal is ready. 

I've been making some really delicious smoothies for the kids each morning.  I'll have a sip or two but don't really want to start my day with a sweet concoction even if it's 'ok' technically.  The kids aren't expected to abide by the rules of this but I have removed almost all sugar from their diets and they eat the meals I prepare for dinner.  

Eno has been helping with the smoothies every morning and he's so good at it!  I've decided to treat them to a 'smoothie of the week' throughout this because it's such a good way to get some important stuff in their bellies right at the start of the day (along with an egg or two).  The smoothie of week 1 is: The Sunshine Smoothie

1/2 cup frozen mango

3/4 cup frozen pineapple

1 ripe banana

1/2 cup of coconut milk

juice from 1/2 of an orange (I ate the other half)

Blend until smooth. ENJOY! 

We went skiing today which meant I needed to pack lunches.  I quickly put together a kale salad with grilled chicken that I prepped on Sunday, carrots and tomatoes in basalmic vinegar and olive oil. I made a big enough salad for us to share.  I actually brought a larabar for us to share but it was too sweet and I couldn't eat more than a few bites. 

Dinner was the dumbest, easiest and most satisfying meal of the day.  I fried slices of plantains in ghee, kevin made some guacamole and we ate beef hotdogs with franks original hot sauce. This is the only photo I took. HA!  Plantain chips are my new obsession. 

I felt amazing today.  My energy level was through the roof.  Ready to do it all again tomorrow!

Oh, and HAPPY NEW YEAR!  (I think this is the first New Years Eve in a decade that I've been 100% sober :)

Whole30

I wrote a really long, mellow dramatic post yesterday about the Whole30 challenge I've officially started. Then I erased it. I did it because I don't want this to be a 'thing' in my life. I don't want it to be a big deal. I HATE extreme thinking and feel like if I adopt an extreme attitude about this challenge, it will be a failure from the beginning. I want this to be simple. To do: 1. Make meal plan and grocery list every Saturday 2. Go grocery shopping on Sunday 3. Prep food for the week on Sunday 4. Eat when hungry 5. Feel better 6. Life continues the same wether I'm eating sugar & gluten or not.

I really like food and have a pretty healthy relationship with it. I don't claim to be gluten intolerant or anything super tricky like that. For me, once again, It's simple. I've suffered from debilitating pain in my digestive tract for half of my life. I've left countless fun evenings with friends to go home and curl up in pain on my bed and I know certain foods do this to me I just don't know which ones. So here I am doing something about it. Hopefully I'll feel great at the end of this and will be able to test out certain foods to get to the bottom of the drama.

It's day two now. Day one was great, I felt great too. I'll try to post photos of some of the meals I make for us. Yesterday I had two eggs for breakfast because we had nothing else in the house (I hadn't shopped yet). For lunch I wrapped shredded carrots, cucumber and avocado in sliced roasted turkey and drizzled a little Franks Original on top. For a snack I had half of an apple with almond butter. Dinner was This cracklin chicken from nomnompaleo with steamed baby broccoli, roasted sweet potato fries and this REALLY tasty BBQ sauce!

Last night I really wanted something sweet before bed but had a cup of tea and called it a night.

Today I woke up feeling rested and made myself a cup of coffee with a tablespoon of grassfed irish butter, a dash of cinnamon and a little coconut milk (I know, it sounds disgusting but its actually quite good...ish).  Wanna know why the hell I'm drinking my coffee like this now? read this

I made smoothies for the kids while I drank my coffee and then started on this gem of a breakfast:

1lb Chorizo (I used Boulder brand)
1 large sweet potato diced
1 tbsp Olive Oil (for roasting sweet potatoes)
1-2 avocados
juice of half a lime
a few cilantro leaves torn
salt and pepper (for the sweet potatoes)
1-2 farm fresh eggs



This is a chorizo and sweet potato hash topped with a ghee fried farm fresh egg with a side of guacamole.  It kept me full until 1pm (and we eat breakfast early).  Dice and roast sweet potatoes tossed in olive oil, salt and pepper in the oven at 400 for about 20-30 minutes (I did this while making the sweet potato fries last night.  Who wants to roast anything at 8am?).  In a skillet, cook a pound of chorizo (I use Boulder brand...it doesn't have any sugar in it) and if you want the chorizo to be a little broken up, do so in a food processor once it's cooked through.  Warm and crisp up the potatoes in a little ghee or olive oil in the same skillet after you remove the cooked chorizo.  Once potatoes are hot, add your chorizo and mix together.  Fry an egg how you like it in a separate pan with some ghee or butter.  (btw I made my own ghee and its freakin amazing.  Recipe here)

For the guacamole I diced up 1.5 avocados and squeezed half a lime, tore some cilantro and added salt and gave it a quick, easy mash/stir.  I like my guac chunky.

Thats it.  Enjoy!

For lunch, We had some leftover pieces of the cracklin chicken, a hard boiled farm egg and an apple 'sandwich' (basically two slices of apple with almond butter smeared between them).

For dinner I grilled a hangar steak and roasted some green beans with tomatoes and fried up some plantain chips in ghee as a little pre-dinner snack.  We ate that amazing bbq sauce with the steak too (the one that I linked to earlier in this dreadfully long post ;)!

Today I felt like I was going to punch someone in the face after breakfast (it was an obvious result of this little adventure I'm embarking on).  I needed to get OUT of the house and rage on a trail somewhere.  Thats exactly what the doctor ordered.  I feel like if I'm going to push through the grumpiness of cleaning up my food act for the next 28 days, exercise is going to be my trick.  If I have negative energy happening, it will serve a far better purpose on a snowy trail somewhere in the mountains rather than me stewing around my house being a bitch to everybody.  So we went for a 3 mile hike in the glorious mountains of Crested Butte.  I was in my head for 2 hours and it re-centered me.

Now it's 7:30pm, we've had dinner and I've had a cup of fennel tea to curb my after dinner cookie craving.  I feel like it's still too soon to offer any tips or real insight.  I'm just finding my rhythm.

Til tomorrow...