I’m here, I’m here! I know it’s been a while…

Hello everyone!

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted and for that, I am sorry! It’s been very busy here the past few months!

For starters, I finished my second Whole30. My results were good, but admittedly not as impressive as the first time around. But from what I read online from other people who have done multiple Whole30’s, that’s pretty common. It’s also common for the second time around to be harder. Which it was. I didn’t lose nearly as much weight as the first time, but I did manage to lose another 5 lbs. So my total weight loss now is 45 lbs since July of last year. So that’s still pretty cool. Even if I do still have quite a ways to go. 🙂

Another new development is that my IBS has returned. This is probably the most stressing thing going on now, which inadvertently isn’t helping my IBS. 🙂 I’m not sure why it’s come back, since it completely went away the first time I did my Whole30. So I’m looking out for other eating plans and methods of controlling it, at the moment. I’ve looked into the Low-FODMAP diet, which has gotten great results in people with IBS and other stomach issues. However it’s even more restrictive than the Whole30 and so I’m still researching it. Have any of you gone on it or tried anything like it?

Aside from my healthy eating journey, I’ve also been busy with a lot of freelance work lately, which is good. For anyone who may not know, I became a stay-at-home Mom in March 2014. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed getting to spend more time with my daughter and also getting the chance, in my personal opinion, to take better care of my family. In fact, I wholeheartedly believe that if it weren’t for me staying at home and having more free ‘me’ time, I would not have been as successful on my first Whole30 as I was. Of course, that’s not to say that you can’t do a Whole30 while working, because you certainly can and people do all the time. I’m just saying for me personally, it helped me tremendously to have the time to dedicate to the process, the cooking, the research, etc.

So as I was saying, I am a stay-at-home Mom. However, I also am a creative-minded person. And if you yourself are one, or know someone who is, you know that we can’t stay still for very long. So for the past few months, I’ve been doing freelance work, as well as a ton of craft projects. Okay, so lots of freelance work….and the craft projects have mainly been in my head..a long, ever-growing list of things that I really, really want to do, but haven’t actually had the chance to do.

I’ve tried a couple of new recipes along the way.. I tried making meatballs. They didn’t turn out that great, but I didn’t follow an actual recipe. I think next time I will. 🙂 I’ve made my own taco seasoning and used it several times in tacos and taco salads. Very easy and very tasty! We visited a farm in Ellijay, Ga where they sell grass-fed and grass-finished beef and pork. Even though it wasn’t very budget-friendly, we did manage to get a lot of ground beef, ground pork, bacon, steaks and pork chops. The coolest thing I got was this package of ‘leaf fat’, which is essentially cubes of fat from around the pig’s organs. You melt it down and render it into lard and use it to cook with. It’s incredibly clean, with no pork smell or taste. We love it. And it was pretty cool to render it myself..

So my apologies for not keeping up my blog for the past few months! Life does tend to get in the way sometimes. 🙂 I hope you’re all doing well on your journey!

Many blessings!

~Jenn

‘Practicing What I Preach’, or rather, Why I Have Decided to Start My Whole30 Over From Day One

Hello everyone.

It’s time for some honesty. And some tough love, mainly for myself. So here goes.

As you may know, I am doing my second Whole30. Today (1/23/15) is Day 18 of that 30 days. Because this is my second Whole30, I knew the rules going in. I have the ‘do not eat’ list memorized. I know how to do this. However, I am still the same Jenn deep down. Even though it’s a much lighter version, it’s still the same ‘me’ with the same faults and issues. Like so many other people who have done multiple Whole30s, I have found the second time around much harder.  Two specific issues have come up during this second Whole30 that have led me to my decision to start the Whole30 completely over from Day One, starting today. Now before you start grabbing tomatoes to throw at me while yelling ‘cheater’, let me first tell you the reasons for my desire to start over.

Don’t Weigh Me Down

One of the biggest parts of doing a Whole30 is the rule of not weighing yourself for the ENTIRE 30 days that you’re doing the program. You weigh yourself the morning of your first day and then that’s it, all the way until the end of the 30th day, or even better, the morning of the 31st day. The creators of the program established this rule for several reasons, but the biggest is because this program is not only about weight loss. It’s about resetting your health to a place of whole and happy. If you turn it into a weight loss program, you will be focused on the wrong things. If you weigh yourself every day, you will be so focused on whether the number on the scale went up or down that day, that you might miss the fact that you didn’t have heartburn that evening or your back doesn’t hurt anymore when you bend over. It’s an important rule. And if you do decide to break this rule, you are supposed to start over, all the way back to Day One.

Over the past two weeks, I have had to get myself weighed 3 times for various doctor appointments and medical exams. So on three separate occasions, I found out how my weight was doing on this second Whole30. And each time I found out what the magic number was, I felt a bit more deflated and a bit more critical and a bit more discouraged. Why wasn’t I dropping weight as quickly as I did the first time I did the Whole30? How many pounds do my clothes weigh? Would my weight be less if I took everything off (not that that would’ve happened, mind you!)? My whole focus shifted from ‘how do I feel?’ to ‘why isn’t it coming off quicker?’. It was entirely unproductive and completely against the spirit of the Whole30. That alone should’ve been enough to make me want to restart but I’ve got one more reason to share…

One Potato, Two Potato, Five Potatoes More

Potatoes. No matter what kind they are, I love them. Potatoes, both sweet and white, are allowed on the Whole30 program. You can have as many sweet potatoes as you want without any problems, unless you do actually have problems with them. White potatoes, on the other hand, are a different story. You see, when I first started the Whole30 program, they were on the ‘do not eat’ list. And then about a week and a half into the program, the creators changed the program and started allowing white potatoes, with the caveat that you could include them in your diet provided you were an active person and didn’t have issues with potatoes. If you were an overweight, metabolically-challenged individual, they really encouraged you to keep them out. So I’ve stuck mainly with sweet potatoes but have let a few white potatoes slip in every now and then while on the Whole30.

In between my first and second Whole30, when I was ‘riding my own bike’, I found these lovely things called ‘Trader Joe’s Kettle Cooked Olive Oil Potato Chips’, also now known as Devil Spawn. They are crispy, salty, potato-y, and the ingredients in them are Whole30 compliant. Let me state that again. The INGREDIENTS are Whole30 compliant. However, if you read the book and know the program, you may remember the rule about not eating junk food made from Whole30-compliant ingredients. Well, see, my memory on that particular rule wasn’t so great this second time around. In fact, it wasn’t until I saw a Facebook posting on snacking from the Whole30 creators that I realized, “Oh crap, my Whole30-compliant chips aren’t actually Whole30 compliant. They’re just chips. And eating 1/4 of the bag for lunch isn’t justified just because they’re only potatoes, olive oil, and salt.”

For this, I hang my head in shame. I’m a smart girl. I should’ve known better. Potato chips of any kind are junk food. For me, they’re also a trigger food. And for those of us with unhealthy relationships with food, junk food leads us in a direction that we are clawing our way back from by doing the Whole30 in the first place.

Because of these two reasons, I have decided to start over from Day One. I thought about just extending my Whole30 an equal number of days to make up for those times I ate the chips or had negative self-talk about my weight. That would certainly be easier. But then I thought about my blog and what my goal of starting it was. It was to inspire anyone who was either doing a Whole30 themselves, trying to survive after doing one, or contemplating starting one, to give it a try. I’ve talked about my journey and have been honest with you all along the way. So it only seems right to be honest with you now about my transgressions. To show you how important I feel this program to be, to my health and to your health. Important enough that I’d restart halfway through it because I screwed up. Important enough to extend it over my daughter’s birthday (boo to no cake!) and Valentine’s Day (boo to no chocolate!).

But the most genuine reason to restart is, if I don’t ‘practice what I preach’, why would you bother reading this?

Sincerely,
~ Jenn

Look What I Found at Costco!! Love It!! (Whole30-compliant)

Hello Everyone!

I have something to share with you that I sincerely hope you can find at your local Costco. I know for a fact it’s at mine (metro Atlanta area), but since each market is different, I can’t be sure it’s at yours… but I hope so!

Today, I found Cuisine Solutions’ Sliced Beef in the cold cases amongst the prepared, packaged foods. I had it today. It is wonderful! I had it on a bed of romaine lettuce with a drizzling of homemade balsamic vinaigrette for lunch.

The package costs around $13-14 (again, at my local Costco) and contains two pouches inside the outer pouch. Each pouch contains a huge chunk of beef, pre-sliced, and nestled in a little bit of juice. The meat is cooked sous-vide, which I have to admit I don’t know a lot about, but I know that Michelle Tam at Nom Nom Paleo raves about this particular cooking method because of how juicy and tender it makes everything.

Inside the outer bag, there are two large pouches of juicy, sliced beef!

This is a perfect addition to my ‘go-to foods list’ during my Whole30! It has three ingredients, all of which are Whole30-compliant: Beef, kosher salt, and black pepper. That’s it!! No carrageenan! No caramel color! No MSG! No funky oils! Can you hear my excitement from over there??

Look at how wonderful this sliced beef looks! Incredibly juice and perfectly cooked. Yummy!

Here are the nutrition facts, just FYI:

I am over the moon about this stuff! If you’re looking for something quick, tasty, beefy, and Whole30-compliant, I recommend checking out your Costco to see if they carry it.

Happy eating!
~Jenn

PS – I am not getting paid for this endorsement, nor was I given any product to try and review. ( I wish!)  I found it on my own, bought it on my own, and am so thrilled about my new find that I had to share with all of you! 🙂 Enjoy!

First Weekend on 2nd Whole30, plus The Virtue of Preplanning

Hello everyone!

I hope you’re all doing well! I am happy to say I am getting more and more followers with each post! Yay! Granted, it’s still a super small number, but I am just so thrilled each time someone takes a step to follow me and keep up with my journey. It’s a great feeling! My hope is that anyone who decides to read my blog gets some inspiration, hope, or joy out of what I’m writing, since that’s why I’m doing it. 🙂 Well that, and also to keep me accountable. I didn’t always journal the whole time I did my first Whole30 and I certainly wish I had. So this time, I’m trying my best to keep the blog updated. It hasn’t been on a daily basis, since life usually gets in the way whenever I plan on that, but I am giving weekly updates and new recipes as I create them, as well as anything else I think people might find interesting. So thank you to anyone who has read my blog, liked any of my posts, or decided to follow me. It means a lot!

First Weekend Down, Several More To Go

The first weekend of my second Whole30 has come and gone, and I have to say, it was pretty easy to get through, even with all the eating out we did! I am more prepared now than I was in the beginning: I’ve got my shelves stocked with my staples (coconut milk, almond butter, nuts, vinegars, coconut oil); I’ve got the fridge packed with fresh veggies; and I’ve made my meat trip to Costco so the freezer looks like a butcher shop! Below are the meals I made or ate this past weekend:

Day 4 (Friday, January 9, 2015):

I actually already included this meal in my last post. You can find it here. Please also check out the new recipe for Jamabalya at that same posting, too. It’s super yummy!

Day 5 (Saturday, January 10, 2015):

Breakfast: 2 eggs, over easy, on sweet potato hash. I finally tried the Sweet Potato Hash recipe from Nom Nom Paleo and I’m kicking myself for not having tried it sooner! I loved it, my husband thought it was ‘freaking awesome’, and it turned out perfect!  Alongside the hash and eggs, I had a few pieces of Whole30-compliant bacon and a cup of black coffee.

* A note about the bacon: It is EXTREMELY hard to find bacon in the supermarket that is Whole30-compliant and without any added sugar or nitrates/nitrites. The only one I have found that is available in a few supermarkets by me is Pederson’s Natural Farms Uncured, No Sugar, Hickory Smoked Bacon. It’s awesome! And unlike the other ‘healthy’ bacon I’ve seen in the store, you actually get a decent amount in the package (There’s one brand in particular (Applegate) that includes only about 6 slices of bacon in their (Sunday Bacon) package yet still charges an arm and a leg for it. Umm, no thanks!). It is the only one I’ve seen that is approved by the Whole30 founders that is available in supermarkets. Check out their blog posting on bacon here for more information.

Lunch: BBQ at Chicken Comers in Columbus, Georgia. Real smoked BBQ found in a hole-in-the-wall off the beaten path. So you know it’s awesome! In my experience, BBQ restaurants can be a great choice for eating out while on your Whole30 because you can almost always get smoked meat without any added sauce and can usually find one or two vegetables that meet your needs, too. In this case, I got their chipped pork plate, which was just chipped pork without any sauce. I asked for no bread and I got their mild mustard sauce on the side. I asked if their sauce had any sugar in it and they said no. We’ve had it before and it tastes like it’s just vinegar, mustard, and maybe paprika. It’s not sweet at all. In this case, I’m trusting that the cook was telling the truth! I had 5-6 french fries before I decided the risk of not knowing if they had gluten on them or what kind of oil they were fried in was too great and was making me feel too guilty. There is a part in the Whole30 book that talks about eating out and how, while you should be diligent in making sure that your food choices line up with the program requirements, there are going to be times where you are going to have to eat foods prepared with vegetable oils, especially when eating out, and that’s okay, so long as you make the best choices around those other foods. So I think I did okay.

Snack: Inka Plantain Chips & almonds (at Hockey Game…see below.)

Dinner: We were all hungry after the hockey game so we went through the Wendy’s drive-thru on the way back to the hotel. I got a plain chicken breast (from the Ultimate Grilled Chicken Sandwich, ordered plain, and without the bread), a side salad with no dressing or croutons, and an unsweet tea. This is a perfect on-the-go meal! I take the chicken breast, chop it up and put it on top of the salad. No dressing required!

Day 6 (Sunday, January 11, 2015):

Breakfast: We went down to the hotel breakfast bar and after surveying my options, I chose 2 hard-boiled eggs, 1/2 a banana, about 3T of walnuts (from the oatmeal area), 1 blueberry (also from the oatmeal area; only had 1 because it tasted icky!), and black coffee.

Lunch: We had lunch at Country’s BBQ in Columbus, Georgia. This place is known for its ‘southern’ cooking so I had a little bit harder time finding menu items I could eat, but it was possible! I had a ‘conglomerate plate’ which was pulled pork, sliced beef, and 2 ribs, all without any added sauce, accompanied by a super large plain baked sweet potato, and a few bites of their collard greens. I was stuffed afterwards!

Dinner: We were late getting back home and I didn’t feel like cooking that night so we stopped at Cracker Barrel on the way home. I’m starting to see a pattern here….my family loves BBQ and country cooking! Well, we are in the South, after all! At Cracker Barrel, I went with my old standby meal: Grilled chicken tenderloins, collard greens, a side salad without any dressing, and a plain baked sweet potato. My husband got the blackberry cobbler and ate it in front of me…slowly. He has no shame. 😉

How Preplanning Saved Me From Devouring Columbus

If there was one thing I would tell anyone who was starting their Whole30 journey, it would be to plan ahead as much as possible! I really think it makes a huge difference in how successful you are on the program. I know, for me, the fact that I wasn’t prepared the first few days of this second Whole30 really hindered my food choices and made it so much harder than it had to be. Thankfully, I got my butt in gear and stocked up and am doing good now!

Planning ahead means doing as much research ahead of time as you can. If you know you’ll be eating out, google the restaurants in the area and find one that has a lot of Whole30-compliant options. If the restaurant choice isn’t up to you, find out what restaurant you’re headed to and google it to see if you can peruse the menu beforehand.

Make sure you have snack options available when you are going out, especially to events where you know you’ll be surrounded by unhealthy food choices. I carried Inka Plantain Chips and a bag of Trader Joe’s almonds with me in my purse to the hockey game so I wouldn’t be tempted to get one of the snacks at the arena. I’ve also bought a bag of hard-boiled eggs at the grocery store and kept those in the hotel mini fridge when we’re on vacation so I’ve got something to eat when I’m craving something little to snack on. I also almost always have a Larabar in my car for when a craving strikes and I’m out running errands.

Bottom line: Plan ahead for success! Cliché as that sounds, it does help!

Happy Planning!
~ Jenn

Whole30, Day 3 and 4 (and Jambalaya Recipe)

Hello everyone! I hope you’re all doing well.

I wanted to give you a quick rundown of my meals for Day 3 and 4 of my Whole30. I also have a recipe for the Jambalaya I made tonight for dinner. Enjoy!

Day 3

Breakfast: 3 scrambled eggs with a side of sauteed spinach and about 7-8 black olives. I also had a cup of black coffee.

Lunch: Applegate Roast Beef, 2 Claussen pickle spears, a handful of black olives and a few cashews. I was running errands and grabbed this weird mixture of things at home in between errands.

Snack: I stopped at Sprouts to stock up on things and while I was there, I saw they had EPIC bars on sale. I’ve tried the Bison, bacon and cranberry bar before; it’s like a big thick bar of beef jerky with a hint of sweetness from the cranberries. To be honest, I have to admit it was a bit weird and I ended up only eating about half of it, but it wasn’t bad. So when I saw they were on sale, I decided to try the Turkey, Almond, and Cranberry flavor. Again, it tasted like a big slab of jerky, but it had a unique flavor to it. I only ate about 1/4 of it. I won’t be trying it again. Have any of you tried these before? If so, what did you think?

Dinner: Homemade salmon croquettes, paired with sauteed bok choy. These are super yummy! I’ll post the recipe for the salmon croquettes soon, once I have pictures and detailed instructions (well, as detailed as my recipes get! 😉 ). And sauteed bok choy is one of the easiest veggies to prepare and is always yummy!

Later that night: Freeze-dried mango from Trader Joe’s. The only ingredient is mango! It’s slightly sweet, so it satisfies me after a meal. However, the point of Whole30 is to eat enough during the meal so as not to be hungry afterwards. And I’m pretty sure ‘desserts’ are frowned upon, so I need to work on my snacking, no matter if it’s during the day or in the evenings. One of the biggest things I discovered during my first Whole30 is that my Sugar Dragon, that voice in my head that urges me on a regular basis to consume sugary things, is always alert and always present. By cutting out all sugar from your diet, it does get quiet, but trust me, it’s there! Just waiting for you to be vulnerable…like when you see the remains of the Key Lime Pie leftover from your husband’s birthday dinner in the fridge and it says ‘just one teeny slice won’t kill you! You’re only on Day 4 of your Whole30 so even though you’d have to start over, it wouldn’t be that far!’  Bad Dragon! (If you’re beginning to question my sanity…read ‘It Starts with Food’, the Whole30 program book. It introduces your Sugar Dragon. It wasn’t my idea!)

Day 4

Breakfast: 3 scrambled eggs, with 2 cups of black coffee

Lunch: Applegate Turkey Bologna (love this! New fav! One of the few deli meats without carrageenan, MSG or nitrates/nitrites!); a handful of black olives, a Claussen pickle spear and a handful of Trader Joe’s Olive Oil Kettle Chips

Snack: Inka Chips Sweet Plantain Chips

Dinner: Jambalaya! Super easy! Just throw and go! Recipe is below. 🙂

Jambalaya

Ingredients:

1 package of Bilinski’s Cajun Andouille Chicken Sausage
10-20 fresh whole okra
2 green bell peppers
1 medium yellow onion
2 cans of diced tomatoes
1 T of minced garlic
1 small can of green chiles (check label to make sure it’s Whole30-compliant)
1 bag of frozen uncooked, peeled and deveined *shrimp (please see note below instructions if you’re using fresh shrimp)
1-2 cartons of Whole30-compliant chicken broth
Salt and Pepper to taste
Approximately 1 T of smoked paprika (or red pepper if you have that instead, though that would make it spicer!)
1T of garlic powder
1T of onion powder
Dash of Tony’s Cajun Seasoning

Instructions:

1. Slice up the entire package of sausage and the okra. Add to a large pot.

2. Cube the two green bell peppers. Add to the pot.

3. Dice up the onion. Add to the pot.

4. Open the two cans of diced tomatoes and the one can of green chiles and add to the pot. Do not drain any of the cans first!

5. Add one of the cartons of chicken broth to your pot to start. You want to have a lot of liquid in the pot because some of it will cook down during the cooking process, and the rest will be awesome-tasting broth!

6. Stir everything together. To the pot, add the minced garlic, the paprika, the salt and pepper, the garlic powder, the onion powder, and the Tony’s Cajun Seasoning. Stir again. Turn burner to Medium/High to get it boiling.

7. Once pot reaches a boil, turn down the burner to Medium/Low so it has a high simmer. The length of time you let your pot simmer is determined by how much time you have before you’re ready to serve it, honestly. The longer you let it simmer, the more the flavors will meld together and the broth will slightly thicken (from the okra goo, I’m sure!) I let mine simmer for about an hour before I’m ready to serve it. Just be sure to stir it throughout your cooking time so it doesn’t burn on the bottom and so the flavors have a better chance to meld together! Add additional chicken broth as you’re going along, as well, to make sure you’ve got enough liquid to cover everything. I kept enough liquid in my pot to make a stew-like consistency, but if you like less liquid in yours, that’s fine! Just have enough to ensure nothing burns!

8. About 15 minutes before you’re ready to finish the dish, throw in the frozen shrimp* and stir. When the shrimp turn pink, they’re done!

9. After the veggies are tender, the shrimp is cooked, flavors are dancing together, and it’s seasoned to your liking, it’s ready to serve! True Jambalaya has rice in it, but since rice isn’t on the Whole30 plan, I just had my Jambalaya in a bowl, more like a soup. However, I did make some rice for the Hubby and he enjoyed his Jambalaya over that. 🙂

* If you use fresh shrimp, you would probably only want to cook them maybe 5-10 minutes in the pot before you’re serving it. Nothing ruins a dish faster, in my opinion, than tough shrimp!

Happy cooking!

~ Jenn

P.S. – One thing I noticed while I was typing up my meals for the past two days is that with the exception of dinner, I am seriously lacking in veggies! It really boils down to me not being prepared earlier in the week and having nothing on hand. That, and it’s hard for me to get a lot of veggies at breakfast time. I’m usually half-asleep and not motivated to make a lot more than scrambled eggs! I need to search for make-ahead Whole30 breakfast items. Do you have any suggestions?

How My Trip to Costco Turned Sad… (Chicken drama!)

Today, I learned something about one of my favorite things to purchase at Costco and it’s made me a bit sad, I don’t mind saying. As you may (or may not) know, I’m in the beginning days of my second Whole30, so my label-reading skills have recently ramped up! With so many ingredients on the ‘avoid’ list, you have to be extra diligent and look at EVERYTHING. So when I was at Costco today, about to grab one of their infamous rotisserie chickens, I decided to take a gander at the ingredients list. I LOVE these chickens. Not only are they mutant-sized, but they just taste awesome and are almost half the price of the rotisserie chickens at our local grocery stores.

Well! Clearly, I have not paid enough attention to all ingredients listed in the past, because there on the label in black and white was listed the ingredient ‘carrageenan’. Upon reading this, my heart sank a bit because I realized that I will not be eating any more rotisserie chicken from Costco during my entire Whole30 and quite possibly ever again.

Carra Who?

According to Wikipedia, carrageenan is a “family of linear sulphated polysaccharides that are extracted from red edible seaweeds. They are widely used in the food industry, for their gelling, thickening, and stabilizing properties. Their main application is in dairy and meat products, due to their strong binding to food proteins.” It has no nutritional benefit whatsoever. It is prohibited on the Whole30 program. It is very disruptive to the digestive system, “triggering an immune response similar to that your body has when invaded by pathogens like Salmonella.”  For someone like me with digestive problems like IBS, I don’t need to knowingly ingest something known to cause inflammation in your gut.

Recommended Reading

Katie over at Wellness Mama has done an excellent article on carrageenan, its uses, and the research on the inflammatory damage it causes.

Dr. Sarah Ballantyne, the Paleo Mom, presents reasons to avoid carrageenan (along with many other ingredients) and an in-depth look at the science to back it up, in her article ‘Is it Paleo? Guar Gum, Xanthan Gum and Lecithin, Oh My!’

For a list of foods, both conventional and organic, that contain carrageenan, check out this list from the Cornucopia Institute.

Final Thoughts

While the top half of this posting is riddled with dramatic effect, the drama ends there. You can make up your own mind about whether or not to include carrageenan in your diet (unless you’re doing a Whole30), but I would ask you to at least read up on the research out there and decide for yourself if digesting it is worth it to you. As with all major health issues, there are always several sides to the story and the truth somewhere in the middle. For me, though, I will be avoiding it and all foods that contain it, as part of a concentrated effort to exclude any and all inflammation-producing foods from my diet. And if that means no more Costco rotisserie chicken (or any grocery-store rotisserie chicken), then so be it. I can make a pretty damn tasty chicken on my own at home, completely carrageenan-free!

Now enough with the drama, ya’ll, before I get the ol’ southern vapors! 😉
– Jenn

Happy New Year!

Hello everyone! Happy 2015!!

I realize this is a tad late but it has been a busy time in our household! The holidays flew by! I can’t believe Thanksgiving and Christmas are over, all of the decorations and lights are packed up and out of sight, and our routine is slowly starting to establish itself again. It seems like just yesterday I was searching for the Holly XM station in my car so I could listen to Christmas music 24/7!

So here we are in 2015 and as I stated in recent posts, I would be doing my second Whole30 in January after we got through the holidays, celebrated our wedding anniversary, got back from vacation, and celebrated my husband’s birthday. So, my second Whole30 started yesterday on January 6th! Which makes today Day 2! Have you decided to do your first Whole30? Or are you starting another Whole30 like me? If so, I’d love to hear from you about how you’re doing!!

If you’ve never done a Whole30 before, I highly recommend you check it out for yourself. You can do that at the official Whole30 website. It’s free, it’s common sense, and it truly is life-changing! You owe it to yourself to at least check out the website and read about the program rules. Yes, there are rules. Everything has rules. You’ll be fine.

Poundage Aboundage!

Okay so it’s time for some honesty here! I ate without abandon during Christmas and really all the way through to the morning of January 6th when my Whole30 started. Am I proud of it? Absolutely not. Am I going to beat myself up over it? Absolutely not. I tried to maintain a sort of 80/20 rule, with 80% of my day consisting of meals sticking to Whole30 principles and 20% being pure junk, and for the most part, that worked. But not always.

And so because of my holiday scarfing, I now have six pounds added back to my frame. This isn’t terrible, but it’s a backward slide away from my goal. And if not recognized, it could quickly become ten, twenty or thirty pounds. The funny thing is, the whole experience taught me a lot about myself. I learned that I have no control when it comes to food! In almost every situation where I was putting junk into my mouth, I was simultaneously thinking ‘I can not wait until I start my next Whole30 so I won’t be allowed to eat this crap anymore!’ I am betting therapists would have a field day with me on that one!

But for me, this is why the Whole30 really works, over all the other weight loss /healthy eating programs I’ve tried. I need to be told ‘You can NOT eat that’. I need to be reigned in. I don’t need freedom and the ability to ‘choose whatever you want so long as you eat within your points.’ I love having a set of defined rules set out clearly for me on what I can and can not put into my body, no matter how strict those rules may seem. And most of all, I just really love eating whole food. After several days of eating out on vacation for our anniversary this past week, my husband actually said ‘I would love it if you’d make your almond chicken and as much broccoli as you can find when we get home.’ I was proud. 🙂

Day One

Nothing too exciting to report on Day One. For breakfast, I had scrambled eggs paired with leftover steamed broccoli and sauteed yellow squash with onions. I took a picture of my plate to show you, but it looked like two globs of yellow goo and a big blob of green goo, so I decided not to show you. However, it was rather tasty and was Whole30-compliant so all is good. Lunch was leftover almond chicken fingers drizzled with yellow mustard, with a side of Trader Joe’s Olive Oil Kettle Potato Chips and a Claussen pickle. Dinner was the best meal: Hamburger steaks, sauteed in coconut oil, and smothered with mushrooms and sliced onions; green beans; and, cubed and oven-roasted sweet potatoes. It was amazingly yummy! One of my favorite Whole30 meals. To drink throughout the day, I had hot herbal tea, unsweet iced tea, and water.

If you’re on a Whole30, how did your first day go?

Day Two – A Lesson in Preparedness, or rather a lack thereof…

So today is Day 2. I was not prepared for Day 2. And by that, I mean I have no eggs or veggies in the house. At all. Well, except for one sweet potato and a bag of spinach that may or may not be any good now. So this is my advice to all who are on a Whole30: PREPARE AHEAD OF TIME! Go to the store to stock up on Whole30-compliant foods and make sure you’ve got your meals covered. Because when you’re not prepared, THAT is when you reach for things that may fall just outside the lines of where you want to be. Thankfully, for me, I had a Cashew Cookie Larabar in the pantry that is Whole30-compliant so that was breakfast, along with black coffee with a few spoonfuls of coconut milk in it. However, this isn’t a great breakfast so I’ll be leaving shortly to go to Costco to stock up on my essentials: eggs, meat and veggies. I plan on having a future post on what I consider the best Whole30 items to get at Costco, so look for that!

Future Plans

Because this is my second Whole30, and I had such great results on my first one, I plan to document my journey on my blog and hopefully inspire and educate anyone who may be on their first one, going through their repeat ones, or just interested in what it’s all about. When you’re new to the program, it can seem impossible, especially in the first few weeks. So I know, for me, any information and personal accounts I could get my hands on helped me through it. So I hope you will find it interesting, inspiring and informative as well!

Happy New Year!

– Jenn

A Pocketful of Thanks with a side of Pancakes

Hello everyone!

I hope you’re all doing well. It’s been a while since I’ve posted, so I wanted to catch up! Below are a few updates and random thoughts rumbling around my head this morning.

I would first like to say Happy Thanksgiving! It’s right around the corner, and I hope you have a wonderful holiday spent with family and friends.

For as long as I can remember, my family has gathered at one of the ‘elder’s houses’ for Thanksgiving dinner. (For the record, the ‘elders’ are my three aunts and my Mom, and they call themselves that in jest..that’s not the younger members of the family making fun of them!) When everyone’s gathered together, we usually have around 15-20 people, so it’s a lot of fun, and a lot of work to cook and prepare that big of a feast. So this year, the ‘elders’ decided that we’d have Thanksgiving dinner at a fancy schmancy country club. Because nothing says home and family like a buffet at a resort. (Kidding! Honest, Mom, I’m super excited about it!) What’s cool about it, though, is that I was able to get a copy of the buffet menu beforehand! Which is great because it’s given me the chance to look it over and make decisions beforehand about what I want to eat from the vast selection of salads, meats, and sides. So now I have a game plan to help me navigate my choices, and this will hopefully help me stay on track this holiday. This isn’t to say that I won’t cave and have a small piece of pumpkin pie, but unlike past years, it will be an informed decision, a choice I’ve made knowing my options. And it is the holidays, so if I make the choice to have the pie, then that’s okay! Hey, I’m still navigating this healthy eating thing. Perfection isn’t the goal. It’s learning to be healthy. And Rome wasn’t built in a day!

It’s been a while since I’ve updated you on the results of my new healthy eating lifestyle, so here goes. As of today, I’ve lost a total of 42 pounds, which is awesome. However my weight loss has slowed down dramatically and some of my stomach distress is starting to pop back up. I’m not entirely sure why, except just to think that this is a journey, with bumps and curves along the way, and I’m still figuring stuff out and learning what works and doesn’t work as I go along. I do know that I’ve allowed some sugar to creep back into my diet, as well as a few bouts of stress eating! I could try and rationalize the sugar choices by saying it was ‘healthy’ unrefined sugar because it was from honey or maple syrup (both of which are Paleo approved), but that’s just an excuse. There was one instance that a bite-size Halloween Butterfinger crossed my lips and there’s nothing ‘unrefined’ about that. Those almond butter cookies I posted about? Yea, I ate more than my fair share of those one night after having a rough parenting moment with my daughter. Clearly, stress eating is still an issue! So I am confessing all this to say to you, and myself, that my issues with food are not yet resolved, and because of this, I have decided to do another Whole30. This shouldn’t be a huge surprise to those in the Whole30 community. Most people do multiple Whole30s. In fact, a lot of Whole30s actually turn into Whole90s or Whole180s. Again I say, this is a journey. And a learning process. I’m excited about starting a new Whole30! I’ve not strayed too far from the original plan, with a few exceptions (see above), so hopefully it won’t be too hard the second time around. Because Christmas, New Years, and my Wedding Anniversary are right around the corner, I’ve decided to wait until after those events have passed. Fortunately New Years and my Anniversary are on the same day (awww!), so I’m not putting it off for long. But I just feel that if I tried to do it now, knowing major holiday events are happening soon, I’d be setting myself up to fail. Besides, it’ll be a good way to start the New Year! My hope is that by doing another Whole30, it will reset my body again, ridding itself of any further inflammation, and getting it back to a happy, healthy, calm state.

I have a recommendation for you pancake lovers out there! It can be difficult to make paleo-friendly pancakes that cook, taste, and look like regular gluten-filled pancakes. I tried a few different recipes and didn’t really like how they turned out, either because they tasted uber-banana-y or they just looked strange and unappetizing. So I am happy to report that I’ve found a recipe that not only looks like regular pancakes, but cooks up and tastes like regular pancakes!!! And even though it does contain a banana in the ingredients, you don’t taste it! So here is the recipe: Easy Peasy Pancakes. I encourage you to try them! They’re super yummy!

Happy Thanksgiving!

~ Jenn

Paleo Books for 99¢!!

Hello!

There is a very cool sale going on right now on this new-to-me website called Buck Books. There are several Paleo books on sale now for 99¢, or $1.99 if it’s a larger download. They come straight from Amazon. Below are the available titles:

• The Primal Blueprint
• Paleo Girl
• The Paleo Solution
• The Paleo Manifesto
• Sexy by Nature
• Everyday Paleo
• The Paleo Kitchen
• The Ancestral Table
• Beyond Bacon
• Easy Paleo Gelatin Treats
• Gather: The Art of Paleo Entertaining
• Decadent Paleo Desserts
• The Paleo Sweet Tooth
• The Modern No-Nonsense Guide to Paleo
• Cracking the Paleo Diet Code

As of this writing, there are only 13 hours and 28 minutes left in the sale, so hurry!

There are two ways to get to these sales:

1. Sign up for Buck Books’ Flash Sale emails. These emails alert you to when they have 99-cent flash sales and events.
2. If you’re interested in one of the books from the list above in particular, go to Amazon and search just for that book title and purchase the Kindle version. This seems to be the easiest way, but without Buck Books,  you won’t know of any future flash sales.

Buck Books

I am brand new to this website. I found it from a link on Facebook that announced the Paleo book sale. After a little investigating, it looks like this site mines Amazon for 99-cent Kindle books and then puts them together in categories, like Paleo, to create what they call a ‘flash sale’. You have to give your email address in order to sign up on their website to receive their flash book sale alerts, which contain a picture of each book in the sale, a link to purchase it, as well as a countdown timer for the time remaining on the sale. It’s an interesting concept and could be a great way to purchase Kindle books; they’ve essentially done the work for you, in terms of scouring Amazon for the deals. It just depends on your level of interest in their sale books and your love of Kindle books. I should point out that I am entirely new to Buck Books and my opinion of their service is based on one email alert I’ve received so far, so I’m not sure if they’re always Kindle books, but be aware that all of the Paleo books for 99-cents and $1.99 in this particular sale are. I would definitely recommend checking it out. I myself purchased The Paleo Solution. 🙂

Happy Reading!

– Jenn

RECIPE: 3-Ingredient Almond Butter Cookies

As a child, one of my favorite cookies was the homemade peanut butter cookies that my Mom made. I can still remember the hash marks that topped each cookie, made by the indentations of her fork during the baking process. Later in life, I realized how impossibly easy these cookies are to make. The traditional recipe for 3-ingredient peanut butter cookies calls for 1 cup of peanut butter, 1 cup of white sugar, and 1 egg. Knowing what I know now about the dangers of white sugar and the icky oils and fats in traditional peanut butter, I decided to try my hand at making over this recipe into something more ‘paleo-friendly.’

In case you’re interested, these are in no way Whole30 compliant. But it is free of gluten and dairy, assuming you make it as is. These cookies come out a bit darker than the originals, and are not quite as sweet (probably because you’re not using sugar-laden peanut butter), but they’re crunchy, nutty, and sweet enough! With the holidays right around the corner, these would be good to take to cookie exchanges, office parties, or potlucks. Please make these an occasional treat; they’re easy to make, but that doesn’t mean you need to make them every day! Remember, even though it’s paleo-friendly, it’s still a cookie! 🙂

So here you go! I hope you enjoy them as much as I do!

Recipe: 3-Ingredient Almond Butter Cookies

Ingredients:

• 1 Cup of Almond Butter *I used Trader Joe’s Crunchy Almond Butter – Salted.*
• 1 Cup of Coconut Sugar *I used Madhava Organic Coconut Sugar. This was actually the first time I’ve used coconut sugar and I got great results. I did a bit of research beforehand and the ratio of coconut sugar to white sugar is 1:1 from what I found online. If you know differently, please let me know!*
• 1 Large Egg

Almond butter, coconut sugar, and 1 egg. How simple is that?

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. To a large bowl, add all of the ingredients.
3. Mix together well with a large spoon or spatula until well blended.
4. Use either a cookie scoop or a tablespoon to drop cookies about 2 inches apart onto a greased or lined baking sheet. *I personally line my baking sheets with foil and then grease them with coconut oil, but if you have a Silpat or want to use Pam, go for it! Whatever works for you!*
5. Take a fork and make crisscross marks across each cookie, slightly flattening it. *I found that these cookies don’t spread a whole lot from the dropped shape they start out with, so just be aware of that. That’s why the crisscrossing and the flattening of the cookie with the fork is an important step. If you’re wanting these to be perfectly round and pretty, they won’t be. Well, at least, mine weren’t.*
6. Bake your cookies at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes. I would suggest checking them after 10 minutes. If they’re not done, put them back in for another 2-3 minutes and recheck. *They will be dark brown (from the almond butter and the brown coconut sugar), but you don’t want to burn them. So that’s why I recommend checking every 2-3 minutes. Plus, my own oven desperately needs to be leveled (Honey!), so I have a hot spot in one of the corners that makes it cook unevenly, so I check and recheck things all the time. Or it could be Cooking OCD. Either way, bottom line: Don’t burn them!*

Happy Baking!

~ Jenn