Two days in, going strong (well, still going, anyway)! #Whole30

Here's the recap from the first two days of this crazy venture called Whole30.

DAY ONE:

Yesterday was both exciting and daunting, and I spent half of my day cooking and the other half stressing about what I would cook. Despite how prepared I thought I was in terms of having the right food, when it was actually time to make lunch and dinner I freaked out just a bit. It turned out fine, but I think I was in the kitchen more yesterday than the entire month of December put together! (So no, I'm no gourmet cook--my family would attest to this fact. Party foods? Sure! Baked goods? Absolutely! But real MEALS? Not so much.)

Here's how it went. I had a pre-workout mini-meal of 1/2 banana with a teaspoon of sunflower seed butter, then hit the home gym for a 45-minute kettlebell workout.

Breakfast looked like this:

Scrambled eggs with mushrooms and spinach, with a side of hash brown style sweet potatoes (with nutmeg, cinnamon and walnuts). Pretty tasty!

Lunch consisted of salad greens with a small can of albacore tuna in a homemade cilantro lime balsamic vinaigrette dressing. (No photo, was too hungry to stop long enough to take one!)

For dinner I made cauliflower rice, since rice is definitely one of my top "I'm gonna miss it" foods. I LOVE rice--white rice, yellow rice, brown rice, red beans and rice, black beans and rice, fried rice--well, you get the picture. This was a time-consuming recipe, but worth it. To accompany this I made ground turkey with a hodge-podge of seasonings that somehow worked, including tahini paste, Chinese 5-spice powder, ground ginger, sweet onion, garlic, salt and pepper. I was not at all sure that the turkey dish would mesh well with the cauliflower rice, but thankfully it did, because at this point Tony (who is being the ultimate stand-up hubby and going through this torture with me) and I were famished.

I am not going to sugar-coat this for y'all (pun totally intended)--WE MISSED DESSERT. We both have insanely gigantic sugar dragons to slay during this process, so after dinner we were both looking at each other thinking, "Where's the cake??" If you are familiar with the Whole30 concept, you know that the point is to SKIP dessert, not try to replace it with something compliant. However, neither of us can go quite this cold turkey, so we each had two dates and a few cashews. Again, we realize that we need to get to the point that we are not seeking that sweet treat after dinner, but we're still miles ahead of where we were just a few days ago. (Please don't ask me about the Oreos. It was ugly. Really ugly.) We'll get there, one step at a time. And the good news--the AMAZING news--is that we made it through the entire day 100% compliant.

DAY TWO:

I did not feel all that horrible when I woke up, despite the warnings in the book that I might feel a bit like I had a hangover. I repeated yesterday's pre-workout mini-meal and then pounded out 4 miles on the dreadmill.

Breakfast was another yummy batch of eggs, this time with the addition of 1/2 an avocado, and no sweet potatoes.

Shortly before lunch, I had to get a few more groceries and wait for a prescription, and that's when the first carb-flu symptoms hit me. I felt like something hit me over the head, and I'm pretty sure I made absolutely no sense to the poor pharmacy staff! I couldn't wait to get home and make lunch to see if that would help, and it really did. Plus it was a tasty lunch--turkey burgers (we each had 1 1/2), topped with grilled avocado, some Whole30 ketchup that I made yesterday, and a portabello mushroom cap for a "top bun". (I just couldn't wrap my head around having two of those huge mushroom caps as a complete burger bun, as suggested in the book. Maybe someday, but not today.) We had salad greens with a few chopped walnuts and more of the homemade cilantro dressing from yesterday as our veggie side.

Time for a Public Service Announcement (along with a TMI warning): Be careful if you do this program and are suddenly filling your body with more vegetables in a day than you typically ingest in a month. You might find yourself in a sporting goods store, for example, and really, REALLY wish you were at home. 'Nuff said.

Dinner was a very nice surprise. When I brought home a spaghetti squash last week, Tony did not look enthusiastic, and this is a man who could eat yellow squash and zucchini every day of the week. My mother, also a die-hard veggie lover, indicated a similar dislike for this type of squash. However, I was determined to make spaghetti--a weekly staple in our home--so I roasted the squash in the oven while my homemade sauce with organic ground beef simmered on the stove. I wish I had remembered a photo of it, because it was quite yummy--Tony said he was very surprised at how tasty the squash was! I think it all hinged on cooking it to just the right consistency. Dessert was ONE DATE. Getting better!!!

I will not lie and say this is easy. It is not. And since the girls are not doing this with us, I still have to prepare something at least vaguely resembling a meal for them (thankfully the older two are fairly self-sufficient). And I miss chewing gum. How stupid is that? But seriously, I really miss my Orbit Wintermint! Old habits die HARD.

No matter how hard this is, though, I have already proved to myself that I CAN learn to like new foods, healthy foods. I've got this!!

Happy, healthy eating!