Dairy Day

Let's be honest, I've been so so so excited for this day! Dairy was definitely a staple in my daily diet pre-Whole30. I would have yogurt for breakfast and ice cream has always been my favorite dessert. So removing it from my diet was really difficult. After this long it seems so easy to not have cheese or milk, and I don't even have any butter in the house! But I was really ready to tackle this day and see what the results would be!

I started off with my go-to from pre-Whole30, plain greek yogurt (with just a little bit of honey :/ ) and because it's absolutely FREEZING today some decaf coffee.

It was comforting to have this as my breakfast again, but just like my oatmeal on non-gluten grains day, it didn't keep me full as long as eggs do. There's definitely something to be said for high protein breakfasts, and they really can't be beat as far as getting me from breakfast to lunch. This is a huge quality that I look for in breakfasts because my days are often too busy to eat while I'm working so needing to eat lunch early or count on time for snacks isn't a great quality. Eggs definitely get boring, but it seems as if I might have to work them into my daily routine from here on out. I also know that I'm a little different when it comes to my breakfast needs and preferences. I've always been one of those people that could easily skip breakfast with just a cup of coffee to tide me over until lunch time. I don't wake up hungry like a lot of people, I prefer to be up for a while before I'm hungry enough to want to eat which doesn't work out super well during the work week. But it's not great to skip breakfast. I've heard a lot that if you eat breakfast then you find that you're hungry more quickly and therefore feel like you're eating more throughout the day. This seems like a terrible thing especially if you're attempting to lose weight. Our rationale often tells us that if we just don't eat then surely we'll lose weight. But that's not really true. If we aren't feeding our bodies the nutrients they need, they won't lose weight because they will want to store all the fat they can because our bodies stress out when they think that we're starving. So by eating in the morning we kick start our metabolism which then tells our bodies that it's okay to start burning calories off as we work because it knows that it's been given nutrients. So if we then feed that hungry with good healthy options our bodies will continue to burn off the good foods and let go of excess weight (as long as it's burning more calories than it's taking in). That's where you have to be careful, it's all about portion control. It's okay to eat more often because you're hungry, but probably not huge meals.

But I digress haha

So I was hungry earlier than usual today, but luckily because of the crazy snow flurries today I had a break and could eat my lunch a little earlier.

I had some leftover pork carnitas over a salad with some chipotle ranch and CHEESE! It was pretty good actually :)

I was so excited for dinner tonight! My afternoon was crazily packed with kiddos and I was just counting down the hours until I could get home to cook :)

I made buffalo chicken with cheese and ranch mashed potatoes.

I made Whole30 approved buffalo sauce, but the cheese was dairy enough I thought. Plus I had even better stuff planned for after dinner!!!

ICE CREAM!!!!!!!!!!!!! Just simple vanilla, I didn't want to go crazy as I was already adding sugar and vanilla both of which I hadn't had in a month haha Every spoonful was pretty heavenly :)

Dairy day was everything I imagined it would be really. Now I just have to wait and see if I feel any differently as I go back to Whole30 for the next two days. I haven't noticed anything today, no fatigue or digestive issues or headaches. So fingers crossed this will be exactly like the others.

<3 ME