Treat yo' self!

Everyone treats themselves once in a while. Some people go out and buy a cute new dress. Some people fill up the bathtub to the brim with hot hot water and bubbles and soak for a while. Before my Whole30, I was the kind of person who treated themselves to food. A pint of Ben & Jerry's after a long week. A box of Cheez-its. A couple of pieces of Ghirardelli chocolate squares with the gooey caramel in the middle. Don't get me wrong, it's not that those things don't sound good to me anymore, but my Whole30 has completely changed my view on food, to the point that (I hope) it would take a serious blow to the head for me to go back to my old eating ways for more than just the rare special occasion.

But I am still the sort of person who believes in treating myself a little. Since the beginning of my Whole30, I've been working really hard on sticking to the program, and using the extra energy that I've gained to push myself in ways I haven't done in a long time. From big things like working out at least once a day, to little things like taking the stairs to the 4th floor kitchen in the building I work in to fill up my water bottle a couple times a day, I've been making some good changes. Kevin and I actually decided over the weekend that we're going to keep doing our walk/run in the morning before we get ready for work, and add a MaxT3 workout in the evening as well.

So this weekend, I treated myself a bit. Not with chocolate or Cheez-its, but in a much different way. I took myself for a much-needed hair cut at the local Beauty College - a hard deal to beat at $5. I treated myself by raiding the super-clearance rack at Sports Authority and scored a cute and comfortable pair of running shorts, and a super-breathable workout t-shirt. Kevin and I went shoe-shopping, and I picked up a great pair of minimalist running shoes that I'm excited to use for my morning runs in conjunction with a set of compression sleeves that I'm hoping will help combat my shin splints and help me recover faster from my runs.

What did you do to treat yourself this weekend?

Whole30 - Day 22

While I work this week on putting together some fun recipe and meal planning Whole30 posts, I thought I'd sit down for a minute tonight and reflect a little on my Whole30 so far.

It's hard to overstate how much my Whole30 so far has changed my view on food. I started out as the girl who thought she could never cut bread out of her diet - even for 30 days. At the beginning of my experience, I spent a little time on Pinterest looking up some motivational quotes. I wrote a bunch down, and have them posted around my office at work, and around the kitchen at home. I think the one that has had the biggest impact on me is this one:

It's just been so true for me, and I feel like this is really the heart of Whole30. Discipline is a huge factor when  you make a decision to dramatically change the way you eat. For me, it was a pretty big lesson because I have always been an emotional eater. I would comfort myself when I was stressed or sad by eating a cookie, or some bread, and thinking "I'm going through something - I deserve this". That was a huge idea to overcome. Once I decided to do my Whole30, that was going to be the end of me having a stressful day at work, eating something I shouldn't to 'comfort' myself, and then ending up feeling even worse. 

Sometimes what I want in the moment is a cookie. Or a big piece of crusty bread with a nice spreading of fresh Irish butter. But all it takes is that moment for me to stop, refocus myself, and think "this is not what I want most". What I want most is to be the healthiest version of myself. I have felt so incredible over the last 22 days, and I can't wait to see what the next few months bring. 

My Favorite Things About My Whole30 (So Far...)

1) I had a few (okay...a lot) of pants hanging in my closet that I kept hanging onto because I was hoping I'd fit into them again someday. 

2) My skin feels incredible! I should start by saying I've always tried to take very very good care of my skin (particularly my face), but cutting out processed foods, most carbs, and sugars has done amazing things for my skin and hair. 

3) Sticking with it! I've never considered myself a real stick-with-it kind of person, and I really did think that my Whole30 was just going to be hard. I had to laugh, though, when I read on the Whole30 site that eating differently isn't hard. Beating a heroin addiction is hard. I can say no to a cookie, because let's face it, there are people out there going through much tougher stuff than just cutting out bad foods. 

4) Learning. I haven't finished "It Starts With Food" yet, but I'm working on it. No pun intended, the book really gives you a lot to chew on. I was reading the chapter yesterday that talks about nut oils and how they can cause inflammatory issues with the digestive tract. It's really interesting stuff, and most of it is completely new (and fascinating) to me. 

5) Cooking! I have loved to cook for years, this has just put a new perspective on it. It's definitely taken more planning, but in some ways it's been a fun challenge. At home on a Saturday, and not sure what to make for lunch? How throwing some kale and canned crab meat into the frying pan with a little Sriracha and coconut oil?

6) So much energy! Cutting out all non-Whole30 compliant foods has dramatically increased my energy levels. I've added a FitBit Flex  to the mix, and it's really helped me get a sense of how I'm sleeping, how much activity I'm getting in during the day, and how my food intake balances out with my activity. 

7) Sleep. I can't remember the last time I've consistently slept this well! My FitBit has helped me get a sense of my sleep habits, which helps me make adjustments in my day-to-day activities. For example, I didn't get much exercise yesterday (I tracked it on my FitBit) and slept terribly last night (also tracked on my FitBit). With more exercise under my belt today, and healthy amounts of good food and plenty of water, I'm expecting a pretty awesome night's sleep tonight!

8) Enjoying food in different ways. I've been taking the advice of the Whole30 meal planning guide and trying hard to really appreciate the food that I'm eating. It's so easy to get caught up in the day-to-day, that it is actually really refreshing to take a minute to realize how delicious portobello mushrooms are when they are sliced and sauteed in clarified butter and balsamic vinegar! 

9) Hydration. It surprised me at first how thirsty I was in the first few days of my Whole30. I have been making a point to take in more water every day, and I think it's had a huge impact on how great I've been feeling. 

10) Attitude is everything. It's so true! I have felt so much more positive and upbeat since I started my Whole30. As someone who used to feel totally at the mercy of stress and anxiety, it's been so much different for the past 22 days. This has easily been the most surprising and awesome thing to come out of my experience!

So what do you think.....have you been thinking about starting your own Whole30? I'll be starting day 1 of my second Whole30 on September 1st! Join me!

A Whole30 Day...

I thought it might be fun today (on day 12) to give you a peek into my Whole30 day in pictures

5:30 a.m. 

The alarm goes off, and we get up to go for our morning walk. This has become one of my favorite things, and we've been doing it pretty consistently for a few months now. It's nice because it's morning, and Kevin and I get to have some time together before the day starts, and we get to give Ruby some exercise while that's happening. Multi-tasking before the sun even comes up? I love it! Obviously this picture can be used as evidence that I don't put a whole lot of thought into my morning walk ensemble. gray and black polka-dot socks with vintage-fabric-patterned Rocket Dog sneakers and workout capri pants? Not my most incredible look.

7:00 a.m. 

Coffee! I haven't always been a huge coffee drinker, but I've grown to enjoy a cup or two in the mornings. The funny thing is that since I've been doing Whole30, I really haven't felt the need for coffee. When my alarm goes off (and sometimes before it goes off), I'm wide awake and super alert and ready to take on the day. This alertness has pretty consistently lasted through the day until I lay down in bed, at which point I pretty much fall asleep immediately. But still. Coffee. I love my morning coffee. I could have coconut milk in my coffee and still be Whole30 compliant, but I like it just black!

9:00 a.m. 

Breakfast is key! I used to be a sort of casual breakfast eater. I was more of a breakfast snacker. On Whole30, though, I'm focusing on making sure I have three well-rounded meals per day. Breakfast on this particular day was sort of a sweet potato hash cooked in coconut oil topped with two fried eggs and a sprinkling of salt and pepper. I also had a few walnuts I ate after the eggs and hash (to make sure I had some healthy fat with my meal).

12:00 p.m. 

I love the simplicity of cooking Whole30 meals! This day's lunch was some tilapia cooked in coconut oil. I had eaten tilapia for dinner the night before, so I just tossed another fillet in the pan to cook for lunch the next day. I paired it up with a salad of chopped cucumber, tomato, and sliced sweet peppers. Afterwards I had a good tea-spoon sized amount of almond butter to make sure my healthy fat was in the mix! That fish was exactly as flaky and tasty as it looks in the picture....

7:00 p.m. 

I have to say, I remember being pretty excited about dinner on this particular night. I seasoned up a few little steaks and Kevin grilled them. I put some sliced mushrooms in a pan with some coconut oil and a little balsamic vinegar, seasoned the whole thing with some salt and pepper, and served the steak sliced up with the mushrooms on top and a fried egg (to make sure my meal had enough protein). I added a few fresh tomato slices, and a little bowl of some tasty whole olives (olives make a great 'fat' component to a meal!)

So there you have it, folks! A whole day of Whole30! When I first started writing this post, I thought I would include recipes for each meal, but everything is just so.....whole! I haven't been doing much mixing or fancy recipes. I've really enjoyed taking time to appreciate the simple good flavors of everything I cook. If you're thinking you might like to do your own Whole30, check here to get started!

Whole30: Week Two

Okay folks. I've officially finished my first week of Whole30, and I am feeling pretty great. This is going to be a pretty detailed recap, but it's worth it I promise! (especially if you're interested in maybe doing your own Whole30 someday)

I'm not gonna lie, it was a little challenging. I made the conscious choice to start last week partly because that was the first week of our Residence Life Resident Assistant training. Since I am a crazy emotional stress eater ("I'm having a stressful day, maybe I should sit at my desk for 5 minutes and eat a few fistfuls of Doritos while I contemplate my many failures") and training week is pretty much a tasty conga-line of awful food (donuts, bags of chips, cookies, fried things, soda, Jolly Ranchers, those tiny mini chocolate bars, etc.), I decided this would be an awesome opportunity to kick up my willpower. Even though I steered clear of temptation, there were a few times when I would have liked to throw a temper-tantrum and eat a few fistfuls of bread. 

So I was the crazy girl who brought a giant lunch cooler full of Whole30-approved food to the off-campus portion of training. I got a few interesting looks as I filled my plate with hard boiled eggs, avocado slices, home-made prosciutto chips, broccoli florets, and assorted nuts, but in the end I felt much better for it. I admit I did have a wistful moment as I glanced at the carrot cake a coworker brought to the table, but I quickly remembered the quote I had memorized for just such a moment: "Discipline is just choosing between what you want NOW, and what you want MOST". In that moment I wanted to jump on that carrot cake like a crazy spider monkey. What I want MOST is to be healthier, feel better, and ideally shed a few pounds in the process. 

The other hidden gem of the off-campus part of training is that I ended up staying in a room that was a pretty good distance from the dining and meeting area where we spent most of our time. Since I'm a pretty early riser (I usually wake up between 5:30 and 6:00), I would wake up, get ready, grab my laptop bag and walk what felt like about a mile to get to breakfast. I'm super thankful that happened - even though I wasn't home to take my morning walk with Kevin and Ruby, I was super glad to sneak in some quiet "me-time" in the midst of some pretty busy days, and get some exercise at the same time. 

To give you an idea of a typical Whole30 day for me, here's what I ate today: 

Breakfast: 

- Black coffee (oh man am I thankful you can have coffee on Whole30)

- Small tupperware container of berries (blackberries, blueberries, raspberries)

- Nitrite-free turkey-jerky

Snack: 

- Small handful of sweet potato chips (I'm not done reading "It Starts With Food" yet, but I've heard it suggests staying away from snacks. In this case I was feeling pretty hungry, and needed a little something)

Lunch: 

- Leftover roasted lamb shank from last night (yum!)

- Mashed sweet potato with coconut oil and salt and pepper

- Almonds

- LaCroix Lime (a great brand of sparkling water that I pretty much always have in the house - it also comes in plain, peach-pear, coconut, grapefruit, lemon, cran-raspberry, and mixed-berry. It's literally zero calories, no sugar, no sodium, so it's essentially just water with a little natural flavoring to make it more drink-able)

Dinner: 

- Tilapia filet and a few shrimp cooked in coconut oil

- A salad of chopped cucumber, tomato, and avocado with a little balsamic vinegar and salt and pepper

- LaCroix Peach-Pear

A super grainy cell phone picture of my dinner! Check out that avocado....who doesn't love it?

Tomorrow's meal plan:

Breakfast:
- Fried egg on top of sweet potato hash cooked in coconut oil
- Black coffee

Lunch:
- Leftover tilapia (cooked in coconut oil)
- Salad of chopped peppers, carrots, cucumbers, and avocado
- raw walnuts

Dinner:

- Grilled steak with salt and pepper
- Grilled zucchini
- Fresh sliced tomato (I just love summer tomato sliced and drizzled with a little bit of vinegar and salt and pepper!)

Apart from feeling pretty awesome, I also stepped on the scale last night and I've lost almost 5 pounds, which in and of itself is pretty exciting (it's only been a week!). I'm going to be keeping an eye on the Whole30 timeline so I can get a better idea of how my body will react as I go through the process. I find it interesting that it suggests that days 6-7 are titled "I just want a nap", since most of the weekend was spent trying to figure out why I was so dang tired. Days 8-15 are titled "Boundless energy! Now give me a d**n Twinkie".

If you're thinking about doing your own Whole30, I highly recommend it! Check out the website. There's also an awesome Shopping List and seasonal produce guide. You can even do Whole30 if you're a Vegetarian!

So....are any of you thinking about starting your own Whole30? If so, let me know! I'd love to keep up with your progress!

Whole30 Challenge

I've been struggling with my weight a lot for the past couple of years. I've never really talked about it on my blog, mostly because I think I've sort of been in denial about the whole thing.

You see, growing up I was a skinny kid. I was always thin, to the point that I remember that whenever I got sick, my grandmother would always take me out when I got better for a milkshake to get my weight back up a bit. I think I just always heard people tell me that I was probably always going to be thin like my mom, and that they envied my ability to just eat whatever I wanted without putting on a single pound.

Like most people, though, all of that eventually caught up with me in the past few years. I've always had a sweet tooth, and always really enjoyed food.

Ultimately I've been getting on the scale lately and realizing that I'm about 30 pounds heavier than I want to be. I decided recently that I was done. I need to make some pretty big changes. I thought back to the dozens of conversations my old co-worker Lindsay used to have in my office in the mornings, and looked up Whole30. She had talked about it many times, and it stuck with me.

The program seems pretty easy to follow. I'm starting with simple things. I went to the grocery store today armed with the Whole30 Shopping List. We picked up a handful of things - here's a sampling of my receipt:

- LaCroix sparking water - Peach Pear, Berry, and Coconut (this stuff is great - no sugar, no sodium, zero calories, etc.)
- sulfite-free turkey jerky
- coconut oil
- sweet potatoes (I only bought three - I just want to have them on hand to eat occasionally)
- cucumbers
- sulfite-free bacon
- omega-3 Organic eggs
- blueberries, blackberries, raspberries
- romaine lettuce
- peppers
- mushrooms
- tilapia
- salami and prosciutto
- pork belly (this was an exciting find - we just had a dish yesterday in Athens that was fried pork belly with deviled egg puree and greens and it was SO. GOOD. I might have to talk the Publix butcher into stocking this for me!)
- avocados

I started the day with a palmful of almonds and a big glass of water (I wasn't very hungry). Lunch was a few pieces of rolled up prosciutto and a salad of avocado, tomatoes, minced garlic, lime juice, and Tapatio hot sauce. Dinner is grilled chicken (Kevin makes excellent grilled chicken) and salad. So far I sort of have the desire to just eat every cookie I can get my hands on, but I don't feel too terrible overall!

I'm pretty excited to do Whole30 this month! I'm going to be sticking with the Whole30 shopping list, and using LoseIt.com to track my weight loss goals (as well as to keep my food journal). My goal is to reach my goal of losing 30 pounds by Christmas....time will tell whether I get there!

Cleaning House: Taking Back the Weekend

Fair warning: you are about to read a blog post about my house cleaning habits.

I am not a big fan of doing housework, but who is? It occurred to me last weekend that I really hate spending part of our weekends trying to keep up with housework.

So I started thinking about why I hate doing housework. What to do? A list to the rescue! I took a little time and put together a pretty comprehensive list of all the cleaning that needs to happen on a weekly basis, and all the things that need to happen monthly:

Weekly items are things like:

- wiping down the kitchen appliances
- dusting
- vacuuming
- combing the shedding hair off of the dog
- straightening up the office
- cleaning the bathroom mirror, faucets, countertops, etc.
- tidying up the bedroom and putting away clothes
- cleaning out the fridge

Monthly items are things like:

- bathing the dog and giving her the monthly dose of medicine
- cleaning the bedroom closet

I picked up a cute (and inexpensive!) 8.5x11 frame from the dollar store, and framed the list to hang in the kitchen. I grabbed a cheap dry-erase marker (that sits conveniently on top of the framed list) and it makes it really easy to keep track of what we've already done, and what else needs to be accomplished.

Here's our list! As you can see, most of our stuff is checked off just from the little bit of time we took to do it while dinner was cooking:

So what was the next thing I hated about housework? I realized I'm really not a big fan of doing it on the weekend. I mean, the weekend is for running fun errands, taking the dog to the park to run around, sleeping in, cooking, reading, and watching endless episodes of TV shows on Netflix. I could do without the tedious house stuff. My solution? Go into the weekend with an already-clean house! It's hard to sit around feeling guilty about the messy bits in the house if it's already clean. So for the next little while, I'm going to try to do our cleaning on Thursday nights. That should leave Friday nights, Saturday, and Sunday wide open for the more relaxing and fun parts of the weekend! This past week, I set aside about 20 minutes, and in our little townhouse, was able (with Kevin's help) to take care of almost everything on our weekly list.

And thanks to our super awesome Thursday night cleaning spree, I got to do some other (significantly more fun) things this weekend:

- go to the chiropractor
- eat some tasty sushi on the back porch while enjoying the sunshine
- start reading A Song of Ice and Fire
- soak in a nice hot bath. I added a half-dozen drops of rosemary essential oil to the water while it was running, and it made it smell heavenly
-cook a delicious dinner: top sirloin steaks with roasted broccoli rabe and sautéed shiitake mushrooms in a balsamic and caramelized shallot glaze, with a touch of goat cheese to make it creamy.
- take a couple nice (short - but nice) naps in the mid afternoon



So much more fun than cleaning....

Fancy Food

So as you know, I've been reading Kitchen Confidential and LOVING it. I'm also right in the middle of reading The Happiness Project. Both books have had me thinking about a lot of things.

One of the things that I get frustrated with myself about is my seeming inability to stick with a hobby for very long. A few years ago, it was making hand-beaded jewelry. That fizzled out and was replaced with sewing. I've kept up the sewing (partly because it's super practical - that super cute dress on the clearance rack at Target for $7 is an XL? Take it home, take it in, and now it's a medium!) but in general I tend to get into things and then lose interest.

One interest I've had pretty consistently for the past 8-10 years or so is food. Can food be a hobby? I guess so. Anyway, reading Kitchen Confidential has me really inspired to cook more creatively, and The Happiness Project sort of has me analyzing my life to figure out what things I could change to help me feel less stressed out and rushed all the time. So I had a bit of a revelation the other day. I like food, and cooking is just one of those every-day things that I have to do. So why not put a little more energy and enthusiasm into it? It started the other night when I was cooking dinner. I'd picked up a salmon fillet for Kevin, and a tilapia fillet for myself. While cooking it slowly in a hunk of Irish butter (worth it, trust me), and cooking some quinoa in chicken broth, I thought "what can I do to make this meal feel a little fancier?". I decided the presentation was lacking. I quickly grabbed a carton of grape tomatoes out of the fridge, and a few wooden skewers. I threw the tomatoes on the skewers, and roasted them over the open flame on the stove until the skin started to blister a little, and they started to sizzle. I pulled out a basting brush, and basted each skewer in a little bit of aged balsamic vinegar. Perfection. I took another minute or so plating the food so it looked pretty, and I have to say I was pretty happy with how everything came out.

Sad blurry iPhone picture of my buttery and flaky tilapia with some yummy quinoa, and those quick-roasted grape tomatoes in balsamic vinegar. 

Yesterday morning, I threw a pot roast into the slow cooker and then realized I was out of onion soup mix to toss in with it. I quickly forgot about it, and went about my day. When I got home, I found a perfectly cooked, but less-flavorful-than-usual pot roast. What to do? I grabbed my laptop and pulled up instructions for a basic red wine reduction, and pulled some fancy horseradish mustard from the fridge. I tossed some boiled baby carrots with some Irish butter and a little bit of dill weed. Again, like the night before, I took just a few more minutes plating the food, and I was really happy with how it came out. Just being a little bit creative with things I already had around the house, and taking a few minutes to make the food look as good as it tasted made a big difference.

Yummy slow-cooked pot roast with a red wine reduction, a sweet and spicy horseradish mustard, and a nice little bunch of baby carrots in butter and dill.