Lazy Days

When I was younger Thursday's used to be my favorite day of the week. I don't know why. Good things tended to happen to me on Thursday I guess, I just liked the feel of the word, something weird little me felt. But, I'll tell you, at this point in my life Friday's are pretty sweet. I don't work a lot ok Friday's so they're often days full of busy adult-like things that my crazy work schedule doesn't allow during the other days of the week. Like making it to the post office before they close, or getting my hair cut. Today I did work a little, but I still had plenty of time for some glorious laziness, which I definitely don't indulge enough in!
I started off by mixing my breakfast up just a little bit:

A scrambled egg, a bit of leftover sausage I made for the egg muffins, an apple, and just a smidge of delicious orange juice! I unfortunately then had to run to see a few kiddo's but then I was back for lunch and had some time to be a little creative :)

I threw some onions, bell pepper, and zucchini in a skillet to brown a little. Seasoned half a chicken breast with ginger, garlic, chili powder, salt and pepper and threw that in too. When it was all browned a bit I added some liquid aminos, red pepper flakes, more ginger, and just a tiny splash of orange juice. Let that simmer for a bit and voilà! Stir fry :) and it was delicious!!!
Made even better by my favorite lunch partner, dooleydog.

My afternoon off also gave me time to prep for tonight's dinner. I have a recipe for Cuban Mojo Pork that I've used before and is whole30 compliant and so yummy. Boyfriend really likes it too :) he's been a real champ so far dealing with this crazy thing we've embarked on and I want to get to make him yummy things that he enjoys along with making him eat whatever other "healthy" stuff I throw at him haha I served it with some roasted potatoes that I spiced with garlic, smoked paprika, chili powder, and salt and pepper. It was nice to have a quick family dinner before we ran out for a little fun at the movies (which really means we got there and the movie we were going to see was sold out, so we just saw Star Wars again haha)

I also got to be a little crafty today and made a little countdown sign for our house.

A little inspiration if you will! I'm not really feeling like the time is dragging by or really looking forward to the end so far. Would I like some ice cream? Absolutely! But I've also been pretty good without it so far.
Amazing how your body knows what it needs and what it doesn't sometimes ;)

<3 ME

Juice!

I can't begin to tell you how depressed I am about already not wanting to eat eggs for breakfast! I distinctly remember eating a scrambled egg every single morning for breakfast my senior year of high school, I don't know why I've become so high maintenance in my adulthood to require a different meal for breakfast now haha I literally convinced myself that I wasn't hungry until around 11 this morning because I just didn't want to eat these silly egg muffins. Of course I ate them anyway because I've already made them and wasted all the money on their ingredients. The true hero of breakfast though was this beauty:

Just a little 100% juice. It was a beautiful thing!

I got a little creative with my lunch today as well.

 

Sautéed a few onions and green bell peppers along with some chicken. Topped it with salsa and it's basically like fajitas.
I'm definitely not eating as many snacks this late in the week. My celery and mixed nuts were just not appealing so I didn't eat them. I had an apple with lunch and one with dinner and I didn't really feel hungry in between.

Now dinner... For all my beautiful planning a day like today was bound to happen. My meal plan dictated that I make some Mojo flavored pork tenderloin tonight. We have rehearsal tonight and that can cook in the crock pot while I'm at work. Except: I didn't get any pork at the store this weekend because it was more expensive than I wanted to pay and I wanted to see if Aldi had it cheaper... Only I forgot to run by there earlier this week. So I woke up this morning with no pork to start cooking. Well, lucky for me I had a TON of cancellations at work this afternoon so I thought, PERFECT! Ran to the store, sure enough the pork was cheaper, and ran home to throw it in the crock pot with hopefully long enough to cook. I pull out the ingredients mix up the sauce that goes over it only to realize I'm supposed to marinate it for at least several hours-overnight.... Well, there goes that plan. So survival mode! I've got to have a dinner that I can throw into containers, hot, in less than 15 minutes after I get home so that I can take dinner for me, Roomie, and Boyfriend to the theatre. And j have an hour to execute it before I have to be back at work. I feel like I'm on an episode of Iron Chef or something, just give me my secret ingredients! Well, we had some leftover pasta sauce from the zucchini noodles and I had leftover ground turkey that I was going to use for meatballs tomorrow night. That'll do! I throw together some meatballs with the ground turkey, an egg, garlic/Italian seasoning/salt/pepper and cook them off really quickly. I throw some potatoes in the oven to bake them and figure Roomie and I can eat the sauce and meatballs on top of the potatoes kind of like chili. Now, there's enough sauce and meatballs to share with Boyfriend and I have some leftover macaroni noodles from the Mac and cheese feast we had the day before Whole30 began. Guys, it turned out perfect! It was rushed and crazed and there's nothing like eating out of Tupperware outside, but it was so yummy and SUPER filling!! Crisis averted :)

So the pork is marinating for tomorrow and all in all its been a good day. I hate the idea of eggs still, but I'll come up with some solutions. Maybe just a better variety of flavors or better seasoning in general for the egg muffins. I have a different breakfast planned for the weekend which I'm looking forward to :) and I woke up without a headache today!!! I can make it through this guys ;)

<3 ME

10% and Loading

So day 3 equals 10% of the Whole 30 completed!!! a somewhat comforting thought

Not so comforting... I'm totally over eggs already, ugh! I woke up this morning knowing that I had my egg muffins waiting on me, and all I could think about is how much I'd rather have a big glass of juice. Of course we didn't have any compliant juice in the house because who would've been able to predict such a craving?! I mean, I sucked it up and ate the eggs because I made them already and I'm not going to let the precious only food that I can eat go to waste! The star of breakfast this morning was definitely my apple though!

 

I also reverted back to water this morning. The decaf yesterday just wasn't worth the effort for now, maybe next week I'll feel differently. My persistent nagging headache just laughs at the measly effort the decaf puts forth.

 

I don't know what it is about this week that means that everyone and their brother has to bring in sweet treats to work, but it's definitely making things tough. This plate sat in front of me for most of my meeting this afternoon:

I was pretty happy with my lunch today though, and even remembered to take a picture for you guys!!!

 

I just cooked a chicken breast with some spices on it in a pan and then roasted some potatoes in the oven with some grapeseed oil, garlic, salt, pepper, and dill. I just needed some potatoes in my life today and if I'm allowed them then I'm going to eat them!

 

Dinner wasn't my highlight of the day like it normally is, but I guess you can't win them all.

 

 

I roasted a few more potatoes which were sadly a little dry because I made them over at Boyfriend's house and I was unaware that they didn't have any oil that was compliant. (silly of me to assume obviously) so I topped them with a bit of salsa. Then I adapted a recipe that we love, Greek Turkey burgers, to be whole30 compliant. It's ground turkey with dill, salt, pepper, fresh garlic, and sundried tomatoes mixed together into patties. We usually add some feta cheese to the mix and make tzatziki sauce to top them with. Obviously I omitted the feta :( I made some tzatziki with an avocado instead of greek yogurt. It tasted okay, but I just couldn't get past the texture (as some of you know textures of food is a big struggle for me) so I just left it off. They were still juicy and flavorful so that's good :) I think Boyfriend really missed his feta and bun haha but as per our agreement of him being supportive, he just told me they tasted good ;) that man's a keeper I tell you!

 

Luckily despite all the temptations that surround me, I haven't slipped yet, or really even come close. The cravings that I'm having for food (such as sugar) I just feed with compliant foods like fruit or potatoes. I'm assuming as my body continues to let go of the need for some of those foods that I'll crave more of the salty/savory foods again and decrease the amount of fruit I'm needing. I'm not a big fruit person as it is, I've always much preferred vegetables, so it's a strange shift for me to be eating so much fruit. I definitely didn't prepare well enough for that this week. I bought more vegetables, so next week I'll definitely add a bit more variety to my fruits to give myself some better options and quantities and omit some of the other snacks.

So far, I'm really proud of Roomie, Biffel and myself. I know it's only 10% completed and there are tons of more challenges to come (like eating out at restaurants :/ ) but we've set up a good foundation and a good support group of people. It's been a great way to force myself to think about food how I need to think about food, and to make my body give up those things it's stuck on that are so unhealthy for it.

Stay tuned for day 4, maybe my headache will finally be gone haha

 

<3 ME



Sugar Monkey

Day 2, what what! I mean let's be serious.. I woke up with a KILLER headache that persisted the whole day through (thank you very much caffeine addiction haha), I tried and was not super impressed with my black decaf coffee, and I was definitely craving some sugar today. BUT I survived, I did not eat any sugar haha, and I know that today I will be stronger because of it.

So first things first: BREAKFAST! I added a little salsa to my eggs today, just something a bit different right. I also tried my hat with some decaf coffee from Sprouts. It was alright, but I'm not super eager to try it again. I think mostly I was really craving it because my body thought the caffeine would make this headache go away, but when it didn't I was over it haha Maybe next week when I've completed these withdrawals it will be comforting again (fingers crossed!)

I also officially suck at taking lunch pictures, because I forgot again today haha I just had some leftover lettuce wraps from dinner last night. I also supplemented with a banana and some celery and cashew butter.
As my day progressed, my headache was definitely annoying, and my body was jonesing for some sugar. My afternoon nut mix snack was yummy, but not cutting it. I just wanted fruit!!

 

 

The real MVP of the day though, was my Peppermint oil! Nothing makes this headache go away like this stuff. Just a bit on the back of my neck and temples and I felt so much better.

 

 

Dinner time was a bit of an adventure. I went off without a recipe (which is my favorite way to cook) I love to have an inspiration and just make it happen how I want. So I started making some pasta sauce. I didn't change my normal sauce recipe, you just have to be careful with your canned tomato products that they don't contain any sugar or other preservatives that aren't Whole30 approved. I used some crushed tomatoes and tomato sauce with some garlic, onion, chili powder, salt and pepper, and Italian seasoning. I also added some ground turkey.

Then some zucchini noodles! They have some commercial products that will turn the zucchini into noodles for you, but I just ran mine through my mandolin and then sliced them into thinner slices with a knife. I put all the slices in a colander, salted them and let them sit for 15-30 minutes to let some water leech out of them, then dried them really well in some paper towels. I sautéed the zucchini and then topped with some sauce. It was pretty tasty :)

 





So I'm only 2 days into this thing. My patience is definitely a little thin thanks to the lack of caffeine and sugar haha but we'll press on. Only 28 more days to go right?! Here's hoping day 3 is sans headache and plus a little more patience haha
<3 ME

And So It Begins

So Day 1!
It started off a little tougher than I thought because Boyfriend isn't feeling well today, so that re-arranged a few things. And the lack of my habitual coffee making this morning was pretty sad...
I started with my egg muffins that I prepared yesterday. Here's the recipe I used  Paleo Egg Muffins. Lesson from this first batch: definitely use more spices/seasonings than I think I need! I put salt and pepper and garlic powder in them but they could use a TON more!

I had a banana somewhere during my morning haha and then I had a "taco" salad for lunch that was just a half a chicken breast that I sautéed and some salsa (I forgot to take a picture :/ maybe tomorrow I'll do better!) I also had some celery with some cashew butter.
I found an already made nut mix at the store with cashews, almonds, and pistachios that were dry roasted. I had a serving of those for an afternoon snack.

Now, tonight was a rehearsal night so I mixed together ingredients lettuce wraps in the crock pot last night and plugged it in before I left for work this morning. I came home to a yummy dinner that I scarfed down before I fled the house. I was able to pack a bit up and bring to Roomie at the theater which was really nice! And it turned out pretty yummy I think :)

I also had an apple with some leftover cashew butter from lunch as a snack during rehearsal.

So overall, thehe worst part of the day: definitely no caffeine haha I've walked past a few cookies and even gum was a bit tough, but for the most part I was full and fine. I'm a bit foggy with the slightest edge of a headache because I haven't had any caffeine yet today. I can tell tomorrow is going to be super rough on that front :/
I've also had a lot more questions today than I anticipated :) hopefully this journey will be good to bring light to healthy eating for the good of our bodies more than just for weight loss. I am optimistic today and excited about such great changes!


Tune in for day 2, hopefully it won't be a reverse attitude haha

<3 ME

Whole 30, what?

Believe it or not I'm picking up my blogging habit once again after such a long break! 2015 brought a ton of changes in my life and I'm hoping 2016 will bring even more!
Like most everyone else in the world I'm aiming to start off the new year on a healthier foot and so I've enlisted the help of some of my friends to embark on the journey of Whole30 (dun dun DUUUUUUNNNNNN!!!!)
So for those of you who don't know here's what Whole30 is:

Established by Dallas Hartwig and Melissa Hartwig (of Whole9) in April 2009, the Whole30® is our original nutritional program designed to change your life in 30 days. Think of it as a short-term nutritional reset, designed to help you put an end to unhealthy cravings and habits, restore a healthy metabolism, heal your digestive tract, and balance your immune system.

So that means you have to cut certain food groups (sugar, grains, dairy, alcohol, and legumes) out of your diet. This allows your body to rid itself of any of the negative effects those foods might be having on you and "reset." Following the 30 days, you systematically re-introduce those forbidden food groups into your diet in a way that allows you to see exactly what effect each type of food has on your body. What if you've had a good sensitivity to dairy or gluten or soy that you've never known about? This could be the answer to your chronic fatigue or digestive issues or problem skin. It also gives a completely new and personal meaning to eating healthy. Maybe it's dairy that's keeping you from losing weight, and not all the carbs. This program gives you the opportunity to find out.

So that's a little bit about why I (and my crazy friend and my work biffel) decided to embark on the Whole30 journey starting January 4. Why January 4 and not the 1st? Are we just slackers? Maybe, but it also gave me a whole weekend to grocery shop, plan, and enjoy a few final glasses/bottles of wine haha

Everything I've read about being successful with Whole30 involved planning and preparation. Well cue the music because, these are a few of my favorite things! So I began by creating a Pinterest board, of course, and compiling some recipes that looked doable. A big wrench in this whole thing is that roomie and I are going to be in a production of Fiddler on the Roof which opens the second week of our plan. This means that we will have late night rehearsals every night of week 2 and several nights of week one as well as three weekends of performances throughout the month. So my challenge was that I would need to have either really quick dinners I could prepare for rehearsal nights or extra money to pay someone to figure that out for me. (Obviously my solution wasn't the one with extra money) I found, instead, several recipes that involved a crock pot, PERFECT! I could start it in the morning before I left for work and have it ready before rehearsal. Now the true test will be, can I survive on snacks to get me through rehearsal before I eat dinner (probably not) or can I make it home from work in time to eat/transport dinner to the theatre for roomie to eat as well, because she can't make it home before rehearsal and we usually just meet up at the theatre. The first week will be a test of this plan, so I'll let you know how that works out... So I went ahead and planned meals for the entire month, plugging in different recipes from my board being sure to put in crock pot ones on the nights we have rehearsal scheduled. Why did I do it for the whole month and not just week by week? Because honestly, having some experience with meal planning, I know that if I slip up and don't meal plan for the next week (which happens a lot, I'm a busy gal haha) then the first few days of the next week are pretty thrown together and that is prime time for a Whole30 slip up! If I don't have Whole30 approved options when I'm suddenly hungry, then I'm in a world of hurt... So meal plan I did: every breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snack! Now, I'm sure that the plan will alter, especially when I see how many leftovers we have from each dinner, we might be skipping dinners and pushing them to the next week, I'll keep you updated ;) I also went ahead and wrote out my shopping lists for each week based on the ingredients I needed for each of the meals I had planned. I'm sure these will alter from week to week depending on what we run out of and what we don't, or if we push meals around, but at least that work is already done. Editing is always easier than creating the first draft (at least it is for me).

Now here's another wrench in our plan: boyfriend and biffel's husband refuse to embark on this journey with us. (Surprise surprise) so I'm sure the foods they choose to eat (or drink) in front of us our going to be pretty tempting. I had a long talk with boyfriend about how I thought he could support me while we're doing this tho, and he seems agreeable to help me succeed as much as he can, as long as I let him eat pizza once in a while haha (hopefully not in front of me though!)

 So how did I prepare?

Step 1: Meal Plan
Here's my plan for Week 1:

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Breakfast	egg muffins	egg muffins	egg muffins	egg muffins	egg muffins	egg potato bacon casserole	casserole
Snack	banana	banana	banana	banana	banana	banana	banana
Lunch	taco salad	taco salad	taco salad	taco salad	taco salad	leftovers	leftovers
Snack	nuts/almond butter/celery	nuts/almond butter/celery	nuts/almond butter/celery	nuts/almond butter/celery	nuts/almond butter/celery	nuts/almond butter/celery	nuts/almond butter/celery
Dinner	lettuce wraps	zucchini pasta	turkey burgers/zucchini	pork tenderloin	meatballs with pasta and zucchini noodles	buffalo chicken with potatoes	chili

 

Step 2: Shop!

With the crazy amount of produce we would need for this plan, I did my shopping for veggies and fruits at an Asian Market. I find the produce there to be pretty good quality and a lot cheaper.





The beautiful produce section, which is pretty much where I live now :)


Goodbye sweet sweet wine section... never fear we will meet again soon!

Step 3: PREP!
Roomie and I measured out our snack allowances for the week, fruits and nuts so we can just grab and go each night when packing for the next day.
I also made these egg muffins for my breakfasts each day


I used some sausage that I made from ground pork and spices because I just couldn't find any premade sausage that didn't have any added sugars or other preservatives that were on the "no-no" list. I also through in some bell peppers and salt and pepper. Whisked it all together and baked them in the oven at 350 for 20-25 minutes in a muffin tin. The lifesaver of it all though, were these beauties...

Silicone muffin liners. They pop right out of these without sticking and your pan is instantly clean! No added oil needed. Seriously, invest in them if you're going to try these!

So tomorrow is day 1. I can't say that I'm not both excited and nervous. Honestly the hardest part is going to be giving up the caffeine. Coffee is technically allowed on Whole30, but only if you drink it without cream and sugar obviously. So I was going to dive right in with just drinking black coffee. When I had the realization that this entire program is about giving up our addictions to foods, and since caffeine is clearly my biggest food addiction, shouldn't I give that up as well? The answer I came up with was a very sad and reluctant "yes". So unfortunately I know that this first week is going to be pretty rough for me, but it's going to be great in the long run right? Yeah just keep telling me that I'm right ;)


Okay so, don't worry I'll keep the updates coming, because I'm definitely going to need to vent and complain and cheer for every bit of these 30 days to make it through.

Feel free to jump on the bandwagon with us! Crazy loves company right ;)

<3 ME



40

Oh y'all...
I stand (well sit) before you humbled and ashamed. I cannot believe it has been so long since my last blog post and there are no excuses for it. Simply poor time management, but I have arisen from the grave. Of course now is not the time to speak of resurrections, that will be in 40 days ;)
So I'll catch you up on my life a bit first:
Christmas! was simply fantastic, as it always is. Time with family and friends, beautiful lights and decorations, fun parties, thoughtful gifts, and tons and tons of food!

I missed my Ninny terribly during this season of joy and love. She thrived during the holidays. Always the hostess, she would fill her house to the brim with people and food and love. Here's hoping I can end up even a tenth of the woman that she was.

Then I welcomed in a brand new year, 2014! We celebrated here in the south with the only way we knew how, the biggest traffic jam EVER (otherwise known as snowpocalypse 2014)

 

 

Dooleydog wasn't exactly the biggest fan of the snow, thank goodness she lives in the south, but she did enjoy it more once she discovered she could eat it!

 

Now we enter the period of time in the south, where the weather vacillates between Christmas and Almost Summer. Don't get me wrong, it's weather like this that makes me love living in the south more than anything, but I'm starting to wish it would make up it's mind. 70 degrees on the weekend and 40 degrees during the week is wrecking havoc to my wardrobe haha

 

But I'll enjoy every day we have that doesn't bring any more snow and ice!

Even my chalkboard is hopeful for the spring-time weather this month! Maybe if we are thankful enough for it, then it will stick around for a while!

 

 

With spring (or almost summer here in the south), comes so many wonderful things: warmer weather, sunshine, flowers, birds, baseball. And a pretty important season: Lent.

 

Celebrating Lent is definitely a hit or miss practice with a lot of Christians today, and is quickly being shoved only on "those catholics".

 

Let's start with the basics first and work our way from there. What is Lent?

 

The Lenten season is the 40 day period leading up to Christ's crucifixion on the cross and resurrection celebration of Easter. It is the time that coincides with Christ's fasting in the desert for 40 days and being tempted by the devil. He went to the desert to fast to prepare to be sacrificed on the cross for our sins. In remembrance of that, we are called to fast from something ourselves. To truly sacrifice so that we may grow closer to God and remove any worldly barriers that keep us from developing a more intimate relationship with Him or from living our daily lives according to His guidance.

 

So, why do I observe Lent if I'm not catholic?

 

I believe Lent is an important holiday for those of us that follow Christ. Daily we give thanks to Him for His great sacrifice in dying for our sins. We might not curse, or drink, or we might abstain from sexual relationships until we are married. But what do we truly do in our daily lives that enable us to have a close and committed relationship with the being that not only saved our lives, but ensured us eternal lives? I know most all of my "Christian" friends struggle to carve out time in our busy, jam-packed, 21st century lives to spend even 5 minutes in prayer or Bible study. We barely make it to church on Sunday, and look down as we quickly pass the offering plate without contributing. Committing to an additional night for a small group? Forget it.

But then what are we really doing with all of our time? Facebook? Pinterest? Twitter? YouTube? TV?

Now don't get me wrong, I don't think that my God is going to stop everyone at the gates of heaven and ask them for their attendance record from Sunday School, but I do know that if we don't come to a place of truly knowing God then we are not truly saved. If our commitment to Christ is true, then we won't change our actions because we are "supposed to", but because we are compelled to because we are driven by the Holy Spirit that has arisen within us. I don't think being a true follower of Christ is about how often you show up in church, but by how deep and personal your relationship with the Father is. This isn't a holiday designed to get you in to a church, but designed to foster a personal relationship that YOU build with God.

That being said, please let me also admit that I am fully addicted to Pinterest and spend my fair share of time on the internet or watching television just like everyone else. But, I also know that most of the things that I encounter on the internet are not things that inspire me back to Christ. My surroundings are so inundated with worldly values that it's hard to separate out the justification of normalcy from the truth of God's calling.

What better time to shuffle through all the excess and start fresh and new in our faith and not just in our diet or work out plans. Pick one thing, just one small little thing and give it to God for 40 days. Share in the smallest amount of His suffering and see what He can teach you. See what He can do with even 5 minutes a day. Commit to parking in the furthest parking space away from your office and every day while you walk the extra 100 feet in to the building, pray. Prepare your heart for the day. Turn your music off in your car and while you drive listen to God.

Our God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and He can do amazing things with the smallest materials. Just for 40 days, what have you got to lose? Think of everything that you could gain.

 

 

 

I'll be with you every step of the way, I promise!!!!

 

 

And if you're still not sure, pray about it! Observe it any way you feel led, but just think about it. I'm praying for y'all, as always. And I'm so thankful to have each and every one of you in my life!

 

 

<3 ME