Whole30 Challenge: Day 4 Menu

I slept so, so well last night. It was incredible. And I continue to feel good--alert, optimistic, and satisfied with the foods I'm eating. (Did you see my dinner last night? Yum!)

One thing I think needs work is my breakfast options, because I am tearing through eggs, and I don't want to overdose on them. Variety is the spice of life, right? So I need to start experimenting with some filling shake options (but need to work in protein without my go-to whey protein powder) or some hash options. (I've seen some good recipes for sweet potato hash with ground turkey, etc.)

That said, I'm feeling great. I did have mild heart palpitations this morning, but that's the first time I've noticed them since I started the challenge, and could easily have been dehydration.

I also need to get over my fear of cooking fish and work on some seafood recipes. Maybe a coconut soup with shrimp? We'll see.

At any rate, here's what I ate today:

Breakfast: Another of Fannetastic Anne's protein pancakes--not burnt this time--with a light spread of unsweetened almond butter. Yum! (No picture today.)

Lunch: This is the last day I'll be able to eat my Super Butternut Squash Soup before I overdose (leftovers will be frozen tonight), but I went for it today. I could only eat about 1/3 of the portion I'd brought. I also had some sliced grape tomatoes with unsweetened rice vinegar, salt and pepper, and tossed in some diced avocado. I had some fruit salad with blackberries, mango and strawberries to round it out.

Dinner: I was starving by the time I got home, so I needed convenience food. I picked up a rotisserie chicken and made "tacos" with my romaine lettuce leaves, salsa, and guacamole. The pictures shows one... I had a couple, along with some mixed olives (thank goodness olives are diet-approved). I also had a couple of slices of dried pineapple, and half of a Naked juice that promised to be 100% fruit, no sugar added--the label looked legit. (That won't be a regular part of my diet, but it was much needed last night!)

Doesn't look great, but hit the spot.

Snacks: My usual 4pm snack, though not surprising today since I ate very little lunch. So I had some cantaloupe and celery with a smidgen of sunflower butter. (I need to make sure I'm not overdoing some of these nuts per Whole 30 guidelines.)

Exercise: If mall walking counts, I'm good to go! In reality, this is considered a rest day.

Overall, I notice that I'm getting full faster than normal and better responding to my body's cues of hunger and fullness. 

Whole30 Challenge: Day 3 Menu

The challenge continues, and I am feeling good. I've had a few moments of frustration at not being able to fall back on convenience meals and snacks like egg sandwiches and cheese and crackers, and I keep thinking how good a piece of chocolate would taste. (But the craving seems more habit than a true craving.)

Here's today's rundown:

Breakfast: This was delicious. Eggs with onion, Brussels sprouts and prosciutto sauteed in olive oil. Plus a few blackberries and some mango. (I didn't eat all the fruit as I was full.) And, of course, my daily pumpkin spiced coffee with unsweetened vanilla almond milk!

Lunch: Surprise! More Super Butternut Squash Soup. I will get tired of it soon, but for now it's still hitting the spot. I ate a bowl with my leftover mango & blackberry fruit mix from the morning, and an apple.

Dinner: I felt like I wanted a night of "comfort" food.... so I opted for a burger with baked sweet potato fries. I ate the burger in slices wrapped in romaine hearts with guacamole. It hit the spot! I finished off with some strawberries (but not the whole bowl... I was full from dinner!).

Yum.

Snacks: Had some pistachios (a handful) and a banana around 4:30 p.m. to fuel a post-work workout. Right before hitting the gym, I ate three small slices of dried pineapple. (I was starving... 6:30 p.m.)

Exercise: Did 45 minutes on the elliptical and stretched. I was very close to just staying at home for the night, but my FitBit shamed me into the workout because I was only at 1,500 steps for the day. I'll finish with around 9,500 steps and 4.75 miles.

I can foresee getting tired of coming up with grain-free, dairy-free meals in the coming weeks, but I do feel good. This is my second night in a row without heart palpitations, which had become a fact of my daily life. Again, we'll see if that maintains over time.

And in the meantime, I will keep moving along! Onward!

Whole30 Challenge: Day 2 Menu

Day 2 kicked off to a stuttering start. My smoke detector battery started dying at 4:47 a.m., which totally threw my morning off (the beeping every few minutes). While I should have just gotten up and gone to the gym, I grumpily tried to sleep longer through the incessant chirp. 

I had the strangest, most realistic dreams last night. Not about food (as predicted in It Starts With Food) but about former coworkers and high school classmates I haven't seen in years. A strange night's sleep all in all!

Breakfast: This morning, when I finally got up, I felt sluggish and on the edge of nausea. I was craving a bagel or English muffin. So, instead, I made an awesome flour-free pancake from fannetastic food:

Photo courtesy of http://www.fannetasticfood.com

My pancake (made with egg and banana as the base) didn't look that good, so I'm borrowing Anne's pretty picture. I slightly overcooked it, and I added pumpkin pie spice and some unsweetened cocoa powder (making it more brown than golden). Flax seed and sunflower butter spread are on my "okay occasionally" list so those rounded out my breakfast.

Lunch: I enjoyed some of my coconut milk curry (cauliflower, sweet potato, peas, tomato, and onion with green curry paste and coconut milk) as a soup with a few slices of mango. I felt good... until about 3:30 when I got ravenous. (See snacks section below.)

Dinner: Again with the ravenous. I snacked on some dried pineapple and celery as I prepared dinner, and prepared roasted broccoli to go with my Super Butternut Squash Soup. Blackberries rounded out my meal as dessert.

Feeling very healthy about now.

Snack: Late afternoon, I was starving. The curry needs some more protein, I think, since it's mostly veggies in broth. (Note to self.) So I stopped at Trader Joe's to stock up on fruit, dried fruit and a bag of pistachios (dried fruit and nuts to be eaten in moderation). To snack, I had some of the dried pineapple, freeze dried strawberries, a small handful of pistachios, and a couple of small slices of cantaloupe. All the fruit is unsweetened and unsulfured, so I felt good about it. It was a big snack, but I was hungry and tonight's a run night so I'll need some fuel in my system.

Exercise: I ran just under 3 miles with the Fleet Feet group. I ended the day with just over 9,000 steps and 4.4 miles logged for the day.

One last observation: I was missing something last night... the thunderous heart palpitations I usually experience in the evening. I'll be interested to keep an eye on this to see if it was a fluke last night or part of a trend.

Two down, 28 to go.

Whole30 Challenge: Day 1 Menu

I don't anticipate posting my Whole30 Challenge menu every day, but since this is the first day I figure it's worth a shot.

So here's what I ate: 

Breakfast: Eggs with prosciutto, broccoli and onion cooked in a little bit of evoo. Coffee with unsweetened almond milk. A slice of mango.

Doesn't look so good but tasted great

Lunch: My Super Butternut Squash Soup with a few mango slices. Water.

Aaand this is when it's clear I'm not a food stylist.

Dinner: My first dining out challenge, at a Mexican restaurant, where I normally would dive into chips and salsa and gooey cheesy enchiladas. I ordered grilled chicken and shrimp, ignored the rice and beans, and savored the avocado. It was a success. (I have no idea what they cooked the meat in, but in the grand scheme of Mexican, it was a success.)

I forgot to photograph it before eating...

Snacks: Ultimately the goal will be to cut out snacking, but I did snack today--probably more out of habit than hunger. At 4, I had an apple. At 5, I had about 5 cashews and 2 almonds. And later in the evening, when I was wishing for dessert and feeling peckish (this is definitely the snacking period I need to eliminate), I had an apple and two dried apricots (not sweetened).

Exercise: I took a rest day after Saturday's 13-mile run and my hour at the gym yesterday (elliptical and stair climber). Plus I didn't want to start the week short on sleep (which I would have done to get up in time to exercise pre-work), and I had plans right after work that would prohibit an afternoon workout. So, a rest day. FitBit says I walked just over 4,000 steps. Tomorrow will be better!

All in all, a good day. Seems too early for the withdrawal symptoms predicted, so we'll see how the next few days play out.

Onward!

A Recipe for Magic

Okay, it's not quite magic, but it's close, and I had to share this recipe for "Super Soup" somewhere online so I can pin it and find it again. (Right now it's sitting in my work inbox.) The original recipe reads as follows:

"So put all of the following ingredients chopped into a large soup pot

Carrots
Sweet potato
Butternut squash
Red apples
Cauliflower
Evoo
Salt/pepper/ sage/ rosemary/nutmeg

Cover with chicken broth and boil till all veggies are soft, blend with hand mixer till desired consistency, adding more broth. I had rotisserie chicken so I added it to make it heartier. So healthy and yummy!"

So, that's pretty much what I did. But I'll share details and approximate measurements below. The soup is great because it's 100% Whole30 compliant, hearty and incredibly easy to make. Here's an estimate of the recipe I used:

Not the prettiest picture but oh so tasty!

1-2 lb butternut squash (medium to large), peeled and cubed
1 sweet potato, peeled and cubed
About 1 cup of roughly chopped carrot, maybe more
1/2 yellow onion, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
1 to 1.5 cups of cauliflower, roughly chopped
1 tbsp olive oil
1 red apple (gala or fuji), peeled and chopped
1 bay leaf
Salt, pepper and thyme to taste
Sufficient chicken broth to cover the veggies and adjust final texture
One rotisserie chicken (skin removed), torn into bite-sized pieces

Place vegetables, evoo, apple, and seasonings into large soup pot. Cover with chicken broth and simmer until all vegetables are soft. Allow to cool slightly, then carefully blend with an immersion blender, avoiding spatter. Reheat on low and stir in chicken. Taste, and adjust seasoning as needed.

It made for a delicious lunch, and I paired it with some sliced mango to satisfy my sweet tooth.

More posts coming soon with my meals. Feeling easy now, but I'm facing dinner out tonight already, and it's easy to not feel bored or limited just one day in!

Enjoy this magical, healthy soup!

Overdue Musings and A New Challenge

Well, here I thought I'd written up my Nashville marathon experience and I hadn't. That is a post for another day, because it deserves the time and detail I don't have just now. (The good news is that I documented it in my journal, so I can revisit that for the full & glorious recap.) 

Short story: I finished Nashville just under my goal time (slow, but faster than I'd hoped for) in the pouring down, cold rain. It rained until mile 23 when the sun broke through and I could at last shed the clear garbage bag I'd been wearing all along as added protection from the wet. I ran the whole way with a training buddy, Michelle, and managed (barely) to not pass out as I nearly lost my breath fighting off tears of joy and relief when we crossed the finish line. It was hard, painful and mentally an uphill battle. But I did it, and I am so glad I did. I do have another marathon in me... maybe even this coming spring. TBD.

Regarding my last post, my heart still palpitates but has not caused further trouble. My official diagnosis is "heart palpitations," but my doctor refers to it as a "ticklish heart" which basically just means it's very reactionary. (Every once in a while I feel sick to my stomach and my heart rate skyrockets during spin class or a hard hill or track workout, but I haven't yet gotten ill, so, that's something.)

Looking at this blog you can see a series of new beginnings, and then posts months later when I start something else new. This is no exception.

I am about to embark upon the Whole30 challenge. It is essentially the Paleo Diet, though I'm still digging through the differences and what exactly I can eat. In general, meat, seafood, eggs, veggies, fruits and healthy fats all are in. Sugar, dairy, grains, alcohol and legumes all are out. At least for the first 30 days, after which I can reintroduce foods. (I am confident I'll be ready to bring back in beans and lentils!)



I've long resisted the diet, reasoning that any diet that doesn't allow you to eat oatmeal is just plain wrong. (In the same way I would never do Atkins, because any diet that lets you eat bacon and not fruit is seriously, seriously flawed.)

But I feel like I've been working so hard this year to build up my fitness, adding gym classes and cross-training, running the marathon, and nothing is changing. If anything, I've put on a couple of pounds. Reading through the Whole30 book, "It Starts With Food," I feel like I am the textbook case they're addressing. If I get nothing else from this experience, it will at least be a chance to break my sugar cravings and clean up my diet before the holidays. I'm in between training seasons, so don't have to worry about it interfering with long runs, and I will finish up before Thanksgiving, which makes this a realistic goal.

So here goes. Day 1 will be Monday, October 28. Day 30 will be Tuesday, November 26. The biggest obstacles I foresee are a few dinners planned with friends at home (which is harder than ordering out) and a weekend trip to Chicago with my college roommate. 

Days 1-7, I can expect "withdrawal" symptoms--crankiness, headaches, fatigue. I'll do my best to document this process here on my blog... because I think it will be worthwhile to look back on it.

I'm ready to go: I made a butternut squash soup with sweet potato, cauliflower, carrots, onion, celery, seasonings and broth pureed with rotisserie chicken stirred in (so yummy!), and a cauliflower coconut milk curry with sweet potato, red pepper, and green peas (allowed on the diet). I've got veggies galore loaded into my fridge, and a variety of fruit on hand. I've planned out breakfasts for the week: almond milk pumpkin smoothies or eggs with salsa and prosciutto, and a side of fruit.

Let's see what happens. Onward!