Day Eleven

I didn't have time to write yesterday but it was a short and sweet day for food.

Breakfast: Onion, pepper and spinach omelette with a banana.

Lunch: Two mini turkey burgers (1/3rd lb of meat).

Between breakfast and lunch I worked out. I forgot to mention on day ten I made it to three miles, I only had to stop a few times because of my asthma. Well this day I made it past three miles with no asthma problems! :) No matter how much I stretch my legs ache like a mother, so I know it's working lol.

When I worked out in the past I would religiously exercise watching The Office. In time I realized I could time my workouts with every episode which would make time absolutely crawl by. To prevent this I've been popping in movies. My favorite genre is horror so I've watched The Grudge and The Ring on day ten and eleven. They're not scary but they're entertaining enough that I don't look at the clock too too much.

For dinner I cooked up sweet Italian turkey sausage with peppers, onions and mushrooms.

I know the squash is out of place but I needed a vegetable lol.

That's it for day eleven!

Day Ten

We made it to the double digits! One third complete. Super hype.

Breakfast started off with a pepper and onion omelette.

Lunch was a mini turkey basil burger with an orange.

~Not pictured~

Originally for dinner we were going to have turkey sausage, but we ended up running to the store and got fish instead. Cod was on sale so we picked up a pound for less than six dollars ♥ I love cod when it's baked with butter and cracker crumbs. Instead, I tossed it in lemon and olive oil and sprinkled salt, pepper and basil on top.

I covered it with foil and baked it at 400F for twenty minutes. I cooked asparagus to go with it.

Ta-da!

That concludes day ten. I ended up burning one of my wax melts from Yankee Candle to cover the fish smell lol. Cheers!

Day Nine

[Edit: I ended up hitting 'Save' and not 'Publish... Oops. Here's yesterday's entry.]

I hate sweet potatoes. Hate hate hate. I've repeatedly tried them to no avail. I eat most foods with ease, but sweet potatoes have never been my thing. Well, sweet potatoes are allowed on the Whole30, and I was going to give them another shot.

So to mix up breakfast, I made sweet potato hashbrowns, taken from this recipe I googled desperately. I omitted the bacon and garlic, but when I have my hands on some bacon I definitely want to make it again with some.

I took this ugly thing...

Ew.

...and transformed it into this.

This honestly looked like cheese.

While I was grating the potato, I fried up some onions.

I dumped the grated potatoes into the onion mixture and fried for fifteen minutes. I then put the pan in the oven to broil for a few minutes. I served them with a fried egg.

I honestly liked this a lot. I'd rather serve them with scrambled eggs, but milk isn't allowed, sooo yeah. Next time to firm up the potatoes I'm going to spread the potatoes over a baking sheet and broil them for a crispy touch. Not bad at all.

Today was my first day of exercise in a few weeks. Not to make excuses, but for my first week on the Whole30 I wanted to do it sans exercise to see how the change in my diet affected my body. After successfully losing three inches in my waist in a week, it was time to step it up with exercise.

Thankfully I own a treadmill. Just a month ago I was able to do three miles with ease, so I jumped on thinking it would be just as easy with a "newer" body. This was not the case when I hit two miles. I started having an asthma attack, so I had to jump off and collect myself. When you have asthma you never know when your body is having a good day or not, and because I don't have an inhaler I have to be careful.

When I felt better I finished up with floor exercises and I made a mini fritatta for lunch.

 Be jealous, Seth.

 For dinner I made herb crusted pork chops. I took salt, pepper, basil, oregano, crushed rosemary and parsley and rubbed it into my boneless pork chops that were drizzled with olive oil.

I baked them in the oven at 350 for 25 minutes since they were little and boneless. I served them with a side of squash.

Later on I had a bowl of fruit because I was craving some.

Day complete!

Day Eight

Today started off like any other - with a fritatta. While I could eat these bad boys 24/7/365, Seth told me he was sick of fritattas so I'm trying out something new tomorrow : )

 Goodbye, beautiful.

We had to pay my rent today as well as pick up Seth's books for college, but because it was Labor Day everywhere but one lone store was closed. The store was sadly out of his books so the hunt will continue tomorrow.

Dinner was a repeat from last week - thin pan fry steaks with homemade guacamole. This time I cooked up some asparagus and it was delicious.

Super vibrant picture.

Nice, simple day.

I also took the peels from the orange I had with breakfast as well as the lime shells from the guacamole (I juiced them) and simmered them for a few hours with cinnamon, cloves and allspice for homemade potpourri. Waste not, want not : )

Day Seven, One week complete

I know I sound like a broken record, but I SERIOUSLY cannot believe it's been a week since beginning the Whole30. I've seriously been enjoying the ride. Naturally I could go for a soft serve with sprinkles... but whatever.

Today I got a really late start with Seth. So instead of a breakfast fritatta... we had a lunch fritatta. Exciting ; )

I talked to my mom a ton today about the Whole30. Immediately after hanging up the phone the first time we spoke today she went to Nelson's, a local fruits and vegetable stand, and picked up a huge amount of goodies for only $24. Then she drove to Barnes and Noble and bought It Starts With Food, an awesome book about the Whole30! I'm so proud that she's this interested in trying out the program.

I'm happy that she, at least, has taken this challenge I'm doing seriously, whether or not she's interested in participating. The most annoying part of this program to me isn't the cravings or frustrations of not being able to eat my favorite foods (though this has thankfully been rare). No, the most annoying part is the question "Oh, you're still doing the Whole30?"

Yes, I am. It's a thirty day program. It clearly has not been thirty days. I'm not a quitter. I'm obviously passionate enough to be doing this that I've been writing about it literally every day in this blog. Seth's family also contributed to this, as they invited us to a huge barbeque-esque dinner today and already threw barbeque/whatever sauce on everything before telling us about it. They had sides we couldn't eat either. Seth told his mom "Well... we can't eat any of that." So we didn't go. I mean, if they had just had plain and dry meat it would have been fine. But we both explained the program to them multiple times only a week ago.

Like if you don't have faith in me, that's fine. I'm obviously going to prove every doubter wrong. I'm doing this, and I'm doing this for me.

Putting the soapbox away.... Tonight we went grocery shopping. We picked up a lot more meat and fruit this time around, and minus eggs and spinach (we picked up some more a few days ago) the bill totaled $91, only two dollars more than last week, and we obviously got more this time around.

Tonight I'm making lemon basil chicken breasts with zucchini as a side. It's cooking right now but smells heavenly. I'm going to explain the recipe below, but I took it from Eat Yourself Skinny and omitted the wine with a touch more oil.

I preheated the oven to 400. In a small pan, I threw in a splash of extra virgin olive oil with two minced cloves of garlic and let it cook for a minute or two. You don't want to brown the garlic.

When the minute was up, I removed the pan from the hot burner and added the juice from a lemon, a heaping tablespoon of lemon zest, salt, pepper, and a good amount of basil. I didn't measure the basil, just use your best judgement.

Before preparing the sauce, I salted and peppered my chicken breasts in a greased pan. When the sauce was stirred and warmed I poured it over the chicken.

I cooked it for 45 minutes (until it reached an internal temp at 165) and let it rest for ten minutes while I prepared the zucchini. I'm about to go taste it now, I hope it tastes as good as it smells : )

_________________________________________

Verdict: AMAZING.

Amazing, amazing, amazing. It better have been for the price. We got the three for a little over eight dollars. In comparison to dining out it's extremely cheap, but eight dollars is a lot of money to throw down for meat. Anyway, it was incredible and Seth absolutely adored it too (thank goodness). I definitely want to recycle the sauce recipe for when I make fish. I hate fish unless it's cod but I'm saving that rant for another entry, since I'm going to try out salmon and tilapia again.

Hurray for the start of a brand new week!

Day Six - dinner

Not an interesting entry but I like to keep track of what I eat!

For lunch I cooked up some turkey and squash, and had watermelon as a snack. Dinner was old fashioned hamburgers again, with peppers, onions and mushrooms.

Not much to say, other than it was a nice, relaxing day. Today (technically yesterday) makes nine months together with Seth, can't believe time flies! It certainly has with the Whole 30, tomorrow makes one week!

Day Six - morning

It's Saturday, which means Seth and I both got to sleep in. I was determined to make the spinach and egg muffins until I reread the recipe. It calls for four bags of 9oz spinach to make twelve muffins. I had one bag, which only covered maybe four. That's a huge waste of spinach for one breakfast (even though you can reheat the leftovers) so I decided against it and attempted a souffle fritatta instead. (Recipe here, omit butter for oil)

The only difference between a fritatta and a souffle fritatta is that you have to separate the yolks from the whites and beat separately. This recipe requires time to beat the whites into stiff peaks.

I ran out of peppers so I used up the rest of a tomato :) Seth hates tomatoes but I snuck them in anyway.

Beating whites into peaks takes pretty much forever if you don't have the patience. Luckily I do but I don't have a picture of them, just the process.

You're not done yet, keep going.

Even though they were peaky, my brain told me to keep going while my stomach yelled "IT'S FINE, THROW IT TOGETHER ALREADY WOMAN." So I listened to my stomach. I whipped up the egg yolks with a touch of olive oil and threw it in the bowl of egg whites, along with the vegetable medley.

That's when my egg whites went 'lol no' and turned into soup on me. I folded it all together as best as I could, tossed it into the pan, cooked on medium for a few minutes and tossed it into the oven on low broil for ten minutes.

It obviously came out differently from the recipe but it was still fluffy and delicious! Methinks we're going to stick to a regular fritatta from now on, though. If I ever make this again, I'm DEFINITELY beating it longer to prevent what had happened. No big deal though!

Well it's time to get ready for my day!  : )