Whole 30 Observations Day 57

Day 57.  February 29, 2016.

STEP FOUR: LIFE AFTER YOUR WHOLE30

4:15 AM.  Alarm.  2 cups of black coffee.

5:45 AM.  Breakfast.  2 slices of US Wellness bacon, butternut squash and white sweet potato ground beef hash, and a scramble consisting of this weeks veggie choice – summer squash, zucchini red and green bell peppers and mushrooms scrambled with a half cup of AllWhites egg whites topped with a little bee pollen, and half an avocado.

10:00 AM.  Carrots and celery.

11:30 AM.  Lunch.  Another great salad topped with 1/2 an avocado and a nice grilled chicken breast, oil and vinegar dressing:

3:30 PM.  Snack.  A double shot of espresso, apple slices, and home made beef jerky:

Whole30 Observation:  We’re pretty much embracing the Whole30 Learning Tool, Not A Lifestyle.  We’re going to make as many good choices as we possibly can, starting with a Whole 30 approach or a Paleo approach to clean eating as best as we can.  Yes, we will occasionally go “off-program”, but again, it’s the Whole30 and not the Whole365.

6:00 PM.  Dinner.  Ethiopian Beef Stew, Lentils, Jasmine Rice and Injera.  Legumes and non-gluten grains.  Lentils / legumes are not a problem, as far as Jane and I are concerned.  Jasmine Rice and Enjira (Teff flour) are non-gluten grains.  Problem for me.  Although I will be observing the effects of the rice glycemic index and load on me, I’m wondering what’s in store with the Teff kicker?  Our first time trying Teff flour, by the way.  I thought it was pretty good!

9:00 PM.  Time for bed.

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Whole 30 Observations Day 56

Day 56.  February 28, 2016.

STEP FOUR: LIFE AFTER YOUR WHOLE30

5:30 AM.  Alarm.  Awake.  1 cup of black coffee.  My  turn to drop the kid off at work.

Whole30 Observation:  I feel fine this morning.  No payback from Friday’s shenanigans, or the off-program choice I made last night.

6:00 AM.  Simulate 7.0 earthquake to get the boy out of bed.

6:05 AM.  Informed by Jane (earthquake must have woke her up) that barista boy has a 6:30 AM start time, and not 7:00 AM.  D’oh!  Shake and Bake…Out the door we go.

7:00 AM.  Breakfast.  US Wellness bacon, 3 over easy eggs, and fried potatoes.  I topped the potatoes with a zucchini, mushrooms and yellow squash medley, after the picture, as well as the little dose of bee pollen that I’ve been having.

I made myself a giant mug of green tea.  Today’s tea is brought to you by World Market and is called Wulu Loose Leaf Green Tea.  This is some good tea!

12:30.  Snack time.  I wasn’t sure if I wanted lunch or not, so I had an apple of the Honey Crisp variety, some home made beef jerky, and a cappuccino with almond milk.

The jerky on the left is the latest batch of ground beef jerky.  We used 93/7 this time, and I cut the amount of spices in half for a more tolerable level of heat.

We’re starting to get this jerky thing dialed in.  Again, the Nesco dehydrator has already paid for itself!

Whole30 Observation:  When we were out shopping yesterday, we (again*) looked for dried fruit with no sugar added, and couldn’t find any.  We also looked at all of the different jerky and meat snack products, and couldn’t find any that didn’t contain any sugar, or variation thereof, along with not containing the many other ingredients we don’t want.  And here’s another eye-opener – figure spending just over a dollar per ounce for the finished product when you buy manufactured non-compliant jerky.  We’re getting roughly 50% net yield per pound of beef making jerky at home using flank or top round, and even when using lean ground beef.  I know we’re not using $8/lb meat to make jerky, and call me crazy, but I’m guessing the big meat snack companies, who are buying their cuts by the truckload, aren’t spending that much per pound either!

*Albert Einstein (and many others) get credit for defining insanity as “Doing the same thing over and over, but expecting different results”

4:30 PM.  Dinner.  Too late for lunch, I guess.  We had Thai turkey meatballs over cauliflower rice.  This dish is super tasty and remains on of my favorites:

Whole30 Observation:  I’m probably going to be hungry again in a couple of hours.  I’ll deal with it.

OK, I’ll finish and publish this early today/tonight.  We have a couple of things we’re planning on watching tonight without interruptions!  I’m not talking about the Academy Awards, and if you’re into that, cool.  The main thing we’re watching is the east coast feed of The Walking Dead. yay!

9:00 PM.  That’s what time I’m going to try to be in bed.  Monday tomorrow.

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Whole 30 Observations Day 55

Day 55.  February 27, 2016.

STEP FOUR: LIFE AFTER YOUR WHOLE30

6:30 AM.  Awake.  2 cups of black coffee.

7:30 AM.  Breakfast.  I woke up pretty hungry.  I cooked 4 slices of US Wellness Meats bacon, 2 small yellow potatoes diced up and cooked in the rendered fat, more of those veggies that I was talking about all week – the yellow squash, zucchini, red and green bell peppers and mushrooms, all scrambled together with 1 real egg and  1 eggbeaters cup.  Good stuff!

Whole30 Observation:  Call me crazy, but it seems that whenever I go “Off Program”, I wake up more hungry and/or I get hungry sooner and with more aggression, for lack of a better term, than when I stay “Fully Compliant”.  I’ve mentioned this before, that typically I have NO appetite when I wake up in the morning, and for years I’ve had to be up and doing something for a couple of hours before I wanted to eat.  This morning, since I had a lot of extracurricular stuff to eat yesterday, I woke up starving!

12:00 PM.  Lunch.  A couple Aidells Chicken and Apple sausages with the last of the yellow squash veggie mix.  Had a big glass of 1/4 cranberry juice and 3/4 soda water to go with it.  I also sprinkled the meal with bee pollen after I took the picture.

Whole30 Observation:  Jane and I were talking this afternoon about how the Aidells sausages and Applegate hotdogs and a bunch of other natural/organic/unprocessed/no sugar added meats tasted really funny or bad or whatever when we first tried them.  But now, were used to them and wonder what the regular ‘over the counter’ stuff is going to taste like when we try it again.

Did our usual running around today making different stops to get different food items.  Back at WinCo today, they had the $2.00 12-packs of Canada Dry All Natural Sparkling Seltzer Waters in all the flavors.  So we got those stacked up.

5:00 PM.  Dinner.  Chili served over Applegate hot dogs and fried potatoes.

Pretty darn tasty.

Dessert.  I had a cup of black coffee and I ate my Reese’s heart that Jane gave me on Valentines Day.

Whole30 Observation:  Total off-program observation.  When you haven’t had a Reese’s peanut butter cup or whichever shape you prefer – Christmas Tree, Heart, Easter Bunny, whatever – in a very long time, you don’t realize or remember how rich these things are or how sweet they are.  I’m freakin’ dyin’ here…  I wonder how this is going to affect me tomorrow, my little off-program adventure?

10:30.  Bed.

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Whole 30 Observations Day 54

Day 54.  February 26, 2016.

STEP FOUR: LIFE AFTER YOUR WHOLE30

4:15 AM.  Awake just a few minutes before the alarm.  2 cups of black coffee.

5:45 AM.  Breakfast.  I’m on a roll – the same breakfast 5 days in a row!  I don’t mind, because 1. It’s really good and 2. We (Jane) did all the cook-up last weekend, so we’re (I am) putting it to good use.  Description in case you missed it: breakfast scramble with breakfast sausage and a pile of veggies – yellow squash, zucchini, red and green bell peppers and mushrooms, scrambled with 1 real egg and  1 eggbeaters cup, all topped with pico de gallo.  I had half an avocado on the side.  I forgot to eat my  bee pollen this morning, so I’ll have to have some this afternoon or evening.

Check out the dehydrated kiwi @ 1 o’clock by my coffee cup.  I made a travel mug full of green tea to take with this morning.

Whole30 Observation:  I’m starting to question – again – the whole white rice thing.  I had white rice with my albondigas last night, and today, again, 10:00 AM, I’m starving!  And I did have a nice, fulfilling breakfast this morning.  I’m no rocket surgeon, but I’m making the conclusion that if I’m having white rice, I better plan on having snacks at the ready the following morning.  Oh, and to make matters worse, Losers Lunch (I’m buying.  I have to pay-up on  bet that I lost) got moved to noon instead of 11:00 AM.  grrrrr.

12:00 PM. Lunch.  Finally.  Dickey’s BBQ.  I’ll fees up when I mess up, that’s for sure.  So here it is – Brisket, Polish sausage, and jalapeño beans, chased down with an unsweetened iced tea.  Oh, I also ate a few waffle iron fries:

I also ate the onion and pickles, but I didn’t eat the bread.  All in all it was pretty good, and I don’t feel any guilt whatsoever because I have been really good as far as the Whole30 program goes.

2:30.  Snack.  Sort of.  Stopped in at Sambalatte in Boca Park for a cup.  I had a flat white.  No picture.  Sorry.  It looked really nice, though…

4:30 PM.  Snack V2.  A double shot of espresso guanabara, a nice red apple, and some home made beef jerky:

The espresso is a new bag of beans I got for my birthday, but I need to get the grind dialed in so I can get that nice crema on top.  It tasted really good!

7:30 PM.  Dinner.  Kind of late, but I got side-tracked reading a book, Jane is looking after our friends little girl for a couple of hours, and our son is at yet another school event.  Friday night in Vegas, baby!  So I had an encore performance of dinner from Wednesday – Cracklin’ Chicken, roasted potatoes and green beans:

I cut up the potatoes so they would reheat faster, and went with Italian green beans.  That’s some good chicken!

Whole30 Observation:  I should be back to clean eating tomorrow.

10:00 PM.  Bed.  It’s Friday night.  Vegas, baby!

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Whole 30 Observations Day 53

Day 53.  February 25, 2016.

STEP FOUR: LIFE AFTER YOUR WHOLE30

4:15 AM.  Alarm.  2 cups of black coffee.

5:45 AM.  Breakfast.  Looks like I’m on the same breakfast 4 days in a row this week – another delicious breakfast scramble with breakfast sausage and a pile of veggies – yellow squash, zucchini, red and green bell peppers and mushrooms, the scrambled part is a real egg and an eggbeaters cup, and half an avocado.  I put my  bee pollen  on top of the avocado (after I took the picture).  The eggs were topped with pico de gallo:

I made a travel mug full of Green Jasmine tea from Positively Tea Co.. I got a pound of this tea for Christmas, and I’ve been working my way through it.  One major thing I’ve noticed is that since I’ve been on this white tea kick for a while, which is really mild, the Jasmine tea tastes really “Jasmine-y”.

11:00 AM.  Lunch.  A nice garden salad with half an avocado and a chicken breast, with oil and vinegar dressing.  Tasty as always:

Whole30 Observation:  Feeling a lot better today compared to yesterday when I had the sudden and aggressive hunger before lunch, which I blame on the white rice from the night before.  Something I thought about today, and I haven’t commented on this in a while, is the way I used to “hit the wall” every afternoon around 2:00 PM or so – sleepy, lethargic, unmotivated, wanting a nap, whatever.  Since doing the Whole30 and eating clean, this whole ‘behavior’ has all but disappeared.

4:00 PM.  Snack time!  I have this giant apple cut into slices, home made beef jerky (pieces from the new batch are on the right) and a cappuccino made with a double shot and 6 ounces of steamed almond milk.  I got a bag of JBC Twisted 3.0 Espresso for Christmas, and I will definitely buy this coffee again.  Or, better yet, have somebody buy it for me again!  I’m reaching the last of it, so I better put that on my list.

That’s odd…the plate staging didn’t look like that when I took the picture…

6:30 PM.  Dinner.  Albondigas V2.  Good stuff!  Sometimes I can’t call them leftovers.  I have to call them “Encores” or “Command Performances”.  I call this soup delicious!

Whole30 Observation:  I’ll be going off-program at lunch time tomorrow.  I have to settle-up on a wager that I painfully lost back in December, and it’s going to cost me Money, Pride, and Calories.  I’ve asked Jane to look over the menu at Dickey’s BBQ and see if there are any fairly non-destructive options to be had.  She says that I’m on my own on this one.  So I got that going for me, which is nice.  So remember kids, NEVER bet on NFL Divisional Rivals when they both suck and there’s nothing on the line.

9:00 PM.  Bed is the next order of business.

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Whole 30 Observations Day 52

Day 52.  February 24, 2016.

STEP FOUR: LIFE AFTER YOUR WHOLE30

4:15 AM.  Alarm.  2 cups of black coffee.

5:45 AM.  Breakfast.  As with Monday and Tuesday, I had a breakfast scramble with compliant breakfast sausage and tons of veggies – yellow squash, zucchini, red and green bell peppers and mushrooms, scrambled in with 1 real egg and 1 eggbeaters cup, and half an avocado.  The eggs were topped with pico de gallo:

Today I started adding some local bee pollen to my morning repertoire.  I’m using Annsley Naturals Southwest 100% Raw Local Desert Pollen. I threw it on top of my eggs at breakfast.  The stuff tastes really interesting, but not in a bad way.  I’m trying this approach, along with Bragg’s Apple Cider Vinegar,  to see if the sinuses want to stop acting up.  I had a sinus infection last summer.  First one I’ve had in easily 20 years.  Since I went through that round of antibiotics, it seems like I’m more congested and get more headaches than ever.  So I’d rather look at other means to see if that helps before reaching for some sort of pill.

Another jumbo mug of white tea for the road.

11:00 AM.  Lunch.  A tasty green salad topped with half an avocado and a baked chicken breast, home made oil and vinegar dressing:

Whole30 Observation:  At 11:00 AM it hit me from out of nowhere how hungry I was!  So since I’m at my desk, I decided to do a little reading-up on white rice, simple carbs, complex carbs and the glycemic index, as well as a little refresher on fiber.  Do I blame the white rice from last night for the sudden onslaught of hunger today?  Maybe…

4:00 PM.  Snacks.  A big latté.  That’s a double shot of espresso and steamed almond milk.  I also hade 2 kinds of home made beef jerky and apple slices.

Whole30 Observation:   Today so far looks a lot like yesterday!  I just spoke with Jane, and it’s not albondigas tonight, instead it will be Cracklin’ Chicken.  So I guess it won’t be Groundhog Day after all.

6:00 PM.  Dinner.  Cracklin’ Chicken (Pinterest, Nom Nom Paleo, Michelle Tam), green beans and roasted red potatoes.  Another hit.  I could probably eat a plate of these thighs by themselves.  But we know that wouldn’t be right.

Whole30 Observation:  Today is Day 52 of Whole 30 and Clean Eating.  It’s also the first time I used the word Paleo in my blog.  Our promise to Melissa and Dallas is that we will try our best to never go into the “Paleo Pop-Tarts” zone.  If you don’t get this reference, go back to the Whole30 Rules and re-read the bullet about “Do not try to re-create baked goods, junk foods, or treats with “approved” ingredients.”

9:00 PM.  Time for bed.  Up early (as usual) tomorrow.

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Whole 30 Observations Day 51

Day 51.  February 23, 2016.

STEP FOUR: LIFE AFTER YOUR WHOLE30

4:15 AM. Alarm.  Let’s get this party started.  2 cups of black coffee.

5:45 AM.  Breakfast.  I had another good scramble with some compliant breakfast sausage and veggies, same as yesterday – yellow squash, zucchini, red and green bell peppers and mushrooms, scrambled in with 1 Eggbeaters cup and 1 real egg; and half an avocado.

1:00 PM.  Lunch.  That’s right, I said 1 PM.  !  I had a nice green salad with avocado and a can of tuna with home made mayonnaise and pico de gallo, and some plantain chips.  Again with the plantain chips, it’s 100% about portion control.

Whole30 Observation:  The funny thing about getting lunch later than usual is that I wasn’t losing my mind because of hunger.  Now granted, when I did finally sit down to eat my lunch, I went through it like some kind of savage, but I wasn’t all hangry like I would be normally if I was late for a feeding.

4:00 PM.  Home.  Snack time.  2 kinds of home made beef jerky, apple slices, and a latté made with a double shot of espresso and steamed almond milk.

Whole30 Observation:  So here I go again about the Nesco dehydrator.  The jerky on the left is made with 95/5 ground beef, spiced up with cayenne, white pepper, garlic powder and onion powder.  This was our first batch, and it was smokin’ hot!  Nice to have the apple slices with this.

Fun Latté Fact:  If you steam it ’til it screams and blow enough air into it, almond milk will froth!

6:30 PM.  Dinner.  Home made albondigas!  A family favorite. AND we served it over long grain white rice:

Whole30 Observation:  That’s the first rice I’ve had since Day 34 during Step 2 when I reintroduced non-gluten grains.  Jane is doing the “Slow My Roll” reintroduction, and she can not honestly remember when the last time was that she ate white rice, or any rice for that matter!

9:00 PM.  Bed time.  That’s my goal.

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Whole 30 Observations Day 50

Day 50.  February 22, 2016.

STEP FOUR: LIFE AFTER YOUR WHOLE30

Whole30 Observation:  Day 50 of Clean Eating.  That’s right, 50 DAYS!!!  There are a couple days where we went a little rogue (Day 42 and Day 45), but we’ve pretty much stayed on track with eating clean since completing the Whole30 and Reintroduction.  yay!

4:00 AM.  Awake before the alarm.  2 cups of black coffee.

5:45 AM.  Breakfast.  I went with a really good scramble with some US Wellness ground breakfast sausage plus tons of veggies – yellow squash, zucchini, green bell pepper, red bell pepper and mushrooms, mixed with 1 Eggbeaters cup and 1 real egg, and I also had half an avocado, but you can barely tell that from the pic (@top of plate):

I made a nice big travel mug of white tea to take to work, and I could have done with 2 or even more mugs of tea this morning.  I’m pretty thirsty.

11:00 AM.  Lunch.  A nice garden salad with avocado, a side of tuna with some pico de gallo mixed in, and some plantain chips for a little crunch:

I had a handful of errands to run this afternoon, so I was happy to have carrots and celery to munch on as I made my various appearances.

3:30 PM.  Back at the homestead.  I was lucky that traffic was light and my last stop was only 3 blocks from the house, so now it’s snack time!  OK, so I did this last week and I’m doing it again today – apple slices, home made beef jerky and a latte:

I said it before and I’ll say it again:  The combination sounds weird, but it’s actually really tasty.  We all know how sweet and salty work well one after another, right?  So, a piece of sweet apple followed by a sip of bitter latte (double shot of espresso and steamed almond milk) then a piece of apple followed by a shred of salty and spicy beef jerky followed by a piece of sweet apple…you get the drill.

Whole30 Observation:  Food dehydrator.  Get one.

We got one made by Nesco and couldn’t be happier with it.  Here’s a couple of reasons why we/you need a dehydrator.  Need may be too strong of a word.  Here are some reasons why it’s nice to have a dehydrator:

1.  Beef jerky (or any other jerky):  Compact protein, doesn’t need refrigeration, great snack, takes a while to eat.  Can you find any in the stores that don’t contain sugar or a bunch of polyunpronounceables?  Plus, you can make it as hot or mild as you like for a lot less money than buying it.

2.  Dried fruit.  Enough said.  Who knew this was an issue before starting the Whole30 or any other program?  SUGAR is always the second ingredient.  Tired of reading labels and ready to give up?  Yep! Us, too!  Our trail mix snacks are a whole lot more interesting with the addition of fruit.  We’ve dried mangos and papayas so far, and we have 10 kiwis set up for the next batch.  We also added Cacao Nibs to the trail mix, so bonus!

6:00 PM.  Dinner.  Chili-topped baked potato.  I really like these, so we went for it again!  Jane’s chili is the best:

9:00 PM.  Targeted bed time.

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Whole 30 Observations Day 49

Day 49.  February 21, 2016.

STEP FOUR: LIFE AFTER YOUR WHOLE30

6:00 AM. Bandit, our Golden Retriever, is spooning with me (I’m the big spoon), but is also insisting that he is entitled to half the bed.  Moggy, our gray stripey tomcat, is spooning with my head (Moggy’s the big spoon) and showing-off his 4 Michelin Star biscuit making skills on my cheek.  So I just lie there, wishing I could at least dream of what it would be like to sleep late on a Sunday…2 cups of black coffee and local morning news.

7:30 AM.  Breakfast.  1 medium diced potato + 2 Aidells Chicken & Apple sausages + 3 eggs scrambled=

Switching from coffee to tea with a giant mug of organic white tea to sip on the rest of the morning.

Whole30 Observation:  Aside from having my sleep cut drastically short, I feel fine this morning.  No sign of yesterdays headache.  Also, I viewed the pollen count for our area, and it’s pretty high. 9th worse in the US today, so that explains some of the symptoms.

12:00 PM.  Lunch.  Tuna with pico de gallo, plantain chips and pistachios.  Sounds funny but it was really tasty.

6:00 PM.  Dinner.  Tandoori chicken thighs with curry cauliflower rice.  Awesome!

Whole30 Observation:  We stayed totally compliant again today!

9:00 PM.  Targeted bed time.

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Whole 30 Observations Day 48

Day 48.  February 20, 2016.

STEP FOUR: LIFE AFTER YOUR WHOLE30

5:30 AM.  Jane’s alarm.  Have to roust the boy and get him to work.  Back to sleep for me.

6:45 AM.  Awake, but not willingly.  We have another school function this morning.  Jeez, weren’t we just there?  Great concert last night, by the way.  Straight into the shower.

Whole30 Observation:  Headache time again.  What the heck?  I had maybe 2 ounces of beans with my chili last night, and I’m sure Wednesday nights wine and dessert could not be causing this.  grrrrrr…  So am I expected to re-live Days 2-3: The Hangover every time I have sugar?!?!

7:15 AM.  Dressed.  Breakfast.  3/4 cup black coffee with my ground beef hash scramble (3 eggs)

Made myself a big ol’ mug of organic white tea to take with me to school.  Jane opted for coffee.

Whole30 Observation:  Got to school and headed into our first meeting room.  Snack table with at least 3 dozen donuts, a dozen boxes of granola bars, a giant coffee pot, and bananas. Yay bananas!  I can just walk past that stuff now, the donuts I mean.  I’m not saying I don’t want them, but I can walk past them without a thought of diving in.

Whole30 Observation:  I’m not sure what time my headache went away.

11:30 AM.  School gig is done, so time to do some grocery shopping.

12:30 PM.  Post-Grocery-Shopping-Back-In-The-Car-Driving-Home-Snack time.  Couldn’t last until we made it home, so we picked up Lärabars.  We both had coconut cream pie.  Not bad.  We also picked up a bag of pistachios and water for the drive home.

1:30 PM.  Back from shopping, groceries have been put away, done getting sidetracked with everything, time for some lunch.  Aidells Chicken & Apple sausages with celery and carrots.  Pretty tasty!

4:00 PM.  Snack time.  Cappuccino.  Double shot of espresso + 6 oz almond milk.  Also had some beef jerky with it.  I was too busy spilling and cleaning up the coffee (like 3 times) that I forgot to put the beef jerky in the picture.

6:30 PM.  Dinner.  Broiled Cod, potatoes, and green beans.  Delicious!

Whole30 Observation: So, let’s talk about reading labels and things we never knew, like shopping for seafood and trying to find some that doesn’t contain any STP / STPP.  It’s as frustrating as looking for bacon without added sugar!

Whole30 Observation: If you get a chance, check out the “Fed Up” movie.  We watched it on Netflix, but there’s other resources available.  If you take just one thing away from this documentary, know that you are doing the right thing my eliminating sugar and other additives from your life (as best you can), as well as ditching the processed foods.  Get the kids to watch it, too.

9:00 PM.  Bed.  Long day yesterday, not enough sleep, and up too early this morning.

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