Whole30 Week 2 - Fooooooooood

Food Prep Day shall be king around here! Holy cow did that save me SO MUCH TIME!  Of all of my food prep from last week, the only thing I have left is a bit of purple cabbage!  The eggs are all gone (as are the egg muffins), we finished the chicken by Thursday and the ground beef became the taco meat for the kids when we went out on Friday night.  I will be making food prep day a weekly thing around here for SURE! 

Day 8

Breakfast: 2 eggs cooked in the microwave (YUK, could NOT get these right!), leftover portobello mushroom cap with sausage & marinara

PWO: 2 HB egg whites

Lunch: Chicken breast, carrots, sugar snap peas, green peppers

Dinner: Steak, grilled asparagus, sauteed mushrooms, power greens with Tessamae's balsamic dressing.

One cup of coffee in the afternoon

(with coconut milk) and club soda/cranberry with dinner.

Workout: Jamie Eason LiveFit training, day 42: legs

Total Time: 55 min

Total Calories Burned: unknown - left my Garmin at home by accident

I have noticed that when it's lunchtime, I get HHHAANNNGRRRYYYY!!! Like, kids, don't talk to mama, she's about to chew your arm off!  All day long I am just fine, but RIGHT before meals, like while I'm prepping? SOooooo irritable! 

Day 9

Breakfast: Egg muffins (sausage, tomato, spinach), 1 c power greens, banana, coffee w/coconut milk

PWO: 3/4 small sweet potato, 1 HB egg white

Lunch: Steak, carrots, power greens, olives, carrots, tomatoes,  Tessamae's balsamic dressing, coffee w/coconut milk

Dinner: Jicama home fries, chicken, purple cabbage, apples, broccoli w/ Tessamae's Zesty Ranch dressing

Two cup of coffee in the afternoon (with coconut milk) 

Workout: Jamie Eason LiveFit training, day 43: Arms/Abs

Total Time: 95 min

Total Calories Burned: 599 calories

Day 10

Breakfast: Egg muffins (sausage, tomato, spinach), 1 c power greens, 1/2 small sweet potato, coffee w/coconut

milk

PWO: none

Lunch: Chicken breast, carrots, power greens, olives, 2/3 apple with almond

butter. 

Dinner: Hot plate - ground beef, cauliflower, mushrooms, and light coconut milk with curry powder. Served over spaghetti squash with a side of zucchini. 

Two cup of coffee in the afternoon (with coconut milk) 

It looks disgusting
but it was tasty!

Workout: Jamie Eason LiveFit training, day 44: Legs

Total Time: 55 min

Total Calories Burned: 385 calories

Day 11

Breakfast: Scrambled eggs with spinach, green peppers and mushrooms. 1/4 avocado, banana and coffee with

coconut milk.

Lunch: Chicken breast, olives, super greens, carrots and Tessamae's vinaigrette. 

Dinner: Balsamic chicken thighs - (OMG DELICIOUS), zoodles with mushrooms and roasted broccoli

One cup of tea at bedtime.

Workout: Jamie Eason Livefit Training Day 45: Chest/Abs/Cardio

Total Time: 1 hr 12 min

Total Calories Burned: 393 calories

DESPERATE for chocolate today. Went to workout instead. I think I made the right choice.

Day 12

Breakfast: Scrambled eggs, super greens, banana and coffee with coconut milk.

Lunch: Tuna lettuce wraps (tuna on lettuce with 1/2 avocado), 1/3 of a green pepper, egg white. 

Dinner: Chicken stir fry (the stir fry sauce from Well Fed minus rice vinegar - I have 2 bottles and both had sugar) with green beans, snow peas, onion, mushroom, broccoli & celery. Side of pineapple. 

One cup of coffee with coconut milk midday and one cup of tea at bedtime.

Workout: Jamie Eason Livefit Training Day 46: Shoulders

Total Time: 45 min

Total Calories Burned: unknown - left my Garmin at home again  

SO had to get out of my head today. Lots of outside time today helped.

Day 13

Breakfast: Scrambled eggs, super greens, 1/2 avocado, banana and coffee with coconut milk.

BOY did I need carbs today!

Lunch: HB egg, sweet potato, sugar snap peas, a few slices of green pepper

Dinner: Our first attempt eating at a restaurant! BOY was it a challenge! We wound up both getting grassfed ribeye steaks and we split veggie sides - sautéed spinach and green beans. We could have SWORN the spinach had butter, it was soooooo rich, but the server promised he had written dairy allergy on our tag. I wondered later if maybe there was some MSG or just a lot of salt because I had a slight headache. I did get a glass of club soda with lime. We will DEFINITELY be going back once we're done with this - bacon maple ice cream!? Yes please.

One cup of coffee with coconut milk midday and one cup of decaf after dinner with no coconut milk.

Workout: Jamie Eason Livefit Training Day 47: Legs

Total Time: 56 min

Total Calories Burned: 255 cals

We went to the Billy Joel concert Friday night. WOW to see him was amazing! And to think that "before," we would have eaten and drank at dinner, probably gotten a treat to eat during the concert and another drink. I will say, however, that being buzzed WITH everyone else is a lot less irritating that being sober around a bunch of complete drunks!! 

Day 14

Breakfast: Sweet potato & bacon hash, 3 eggs, 1 banana, coffee with coconut milk.

Lunch: Large salad with taco meat, plantain chips, tomatoes and a few olives. 

Dinner: Burger with lettuce, tomato & bacon. Sweet potato fries. Green beans.

Workout: Rest Day

Total Time:

Total Calories Burned:

Having a really rough few days. Getting discouraged. I haven't cheated (at least knowingly, but we've only eaten away from home once) and I'm STILL in the "what, my pants are TIGHTER?" phase. I feel so bloated and I am not thinning out as much as I expected.  I keep trying to reevaluate what I'm eating - too much protein, too much fat, not enough greens?  Too much fruit, although I have tried hard to keep it to 1-2 servings a day, usually lunch or earlier. 

We went out last night and I just kept thinking how EASY it would be to just order that glass of wine... have those potatoes on the side of my steak...  Nothing too awful but I don't feel like I'm accomplishing anything at this point - shouldn't I be feeling SOMETHING around day 14???   

My kids are CONSTANTLY hungry. I have told them they may eat unrestricted veggies - they want fruit.  They did, however, eat about 3 JUMBO carrots the other day as a snack. I know they are truly hungry if they will eat sugar snap peas, carrots, cucumbers or broccoli. If they ask for fruit (or my little guy, who still asks for crackers daily <3) I tell them to drink a big glass of water. It's working, but I'm always fearful I'm just not feeding them ENOUGH food... 

Anyhow. Long story short, feeling discouraged. Two more weeks will be rough if this continues.

Vacation, people!

Back from vacation!! I'll admit, vacation with two small kids isn't as relaxing as I'd hope, but the sun and sand was ahhhmazing!

It was, however, a LOT of indulging in food and alcohol!  I had my first (2) Moscow mules before we even left for the beach. 

Then we started with our "traditional" beach drink - Lime-a-ritas & Grand Marnier!

I did go for a run on Sunday morning. It was short-ish, just 3 miles, but the HUMIDITY! It was killer!!  I feel like I walked outside and started sweating! Decent time, though. 

We ate out a lot. I made decent decisions, for the most part. Especially after I ate Pizza Hut on Monday night. I won't even tell you how MUCH Pizza Hut I ate, because it was disgusting. Let's just say I ate enough that I laid in bed that night trying to figure out if it would be ok to make myself get sick just to get it OUT of my body!  After that night, I pledged to make wiser decisions. Not GREAT but I definitely didn't make that mistake again! Lots of fish and grilled chicken for the rest of the week.

Thursday I went out for a long run - 10 miles! It was a few rough first miles - I bartered with myself a lot. 

"Make it to two miles, then I'll turn around - giving me 4 miles" 

"Ok ok, go for 2.5"  

"if you can run 3, you might as well run 3.5" 

"well heck if you are feeling good enough to hit 3.5, you should definitely be able to make 4.5" 

And so on. I made it 5 miles out and turned around, coming back 5 miles. Not GREAT time, but I'm happy with it. 

I came home and weighed in that night (dumb move) at 168. The next morning, after lots of water, I was down to 164. My final September weigh in was 162.5. A GAIN again!! 

This definitely motivated me for a sprint!! 

I have a half marathon on Sunday so this week I am just trying to eat clean to get myself FEELING good when I run. It's been a ROUGH go the last few times. I can tell as soon as I start running when I haven't been fueling my body properly. I feel out of breath. Bulky. Clumsy. Slow. 

This week starts no caffeine/no alcohol. I am attempting to eat clean, at least 75% of the time.  So far so good. I turned to a run yesterday during stress (that run is in the next blog post!) instead of all.the.food. I am looking FORWARD to my run in the am, if only I can sleep through the night!

Tomorrow starts my next FitNut monthly challenge. I changed teams this time, to mix it up a little.  The physical challenge this month is burpees/planks/pushups. It should be interesting! I plan on doing a plank to fatigue tomorrow, then again at the end of the month to see how much progress I've made. 

And here's to the Fastest, Flattest half marathon this weekend!

Better than last year....

Today my little girl turned 5. FIVE, people. I have a FIVE year old!  It amazes me the road I've taken since she was born. 

• I am entirely unaware of what I weighed before I got pregnant. I was using fertility medications and had just plain old given up. 
• I was 210 lbs the night before she was born. 
• I lost weight, down to 160, and hit 160 the DAY I got my first positive pregnancy test with my son (my daughter was just shy of two years old)
• I went up to 210 lbs with that pregnancy -  And was STILL 199 when I came home from the hospital! 
• I weighed into my challenge this week at 159. 

Sometimes I just need to see those numbers are a reminder. So for the last year, I have bounced between around 150-162. I need to remember that even though I fluctuate, I haven't gone up, I haven't gone back to where I came from! My happy place seems to be around 152-154. I am hoping to get back there. We'll see if I can get lower if I start running faster and further!

I have a partner within the weight loss challenge that I am doing. It seems like the perfect match - her introduction was all about moderation.  PERFECT.  I (obviously) have a history with my "all or nothing" mentality! 

Today was one of the most hot/cold days I've had yet on my journey. If you recall, last year my daughter's birthday was an edible tragedy! Today, we started off with homemade poptarts (pie crust + cinnamon sugar or no sugar added preserves!).  

We headed out to Grant's Farm for the morning.  If you are unaware, Grant's Farm was the home of Ulysses S. Grant and (if I paid attention I would know how) but somehow it was acquired (married into the family maybe?) by the Anheuser Busch family.  They have spent 100 years accumulating animals on their 80 acre land and it is open to the public. It's a fun morning, the kids fed baby goats bottles of milk and threw corn to ducks. We saw an elephant show and our tram almost got charged by a bull.  The downside - all the food is crappy.  And they give you free beer "samples," which are truly cups of beer, probably 4-6 oz at a time.  So I had three of those over the course of our time there. I didn't want to eat the food, I couldn't bring myself to do it, so we shared a soft pretzel (2 for the 4 of us) and headed out of the park for lunch.

We went to one of our favorite local places, The Wolf Public House, for lunch. The food is amazing and the whole place is like Caribou Coffee and Panera had a baby.  Very rustic, very hip and awesome. This is from their website: . We support sustainable local family farmers raising animals kindly without the use of antibiotics or added hormones. We respect our environment and compost or recycle 95% of our waste.

So it makes me feel good about our choices to eat there.   Today I went out on a limb and tried a salmon BLT. It was ahhhhhmazing.  Absolutely amazing! And instead of potato chips, I got the veggie special of the day - a cold salad of zucchini, kalamata olives, feta in a vinaigrette. Delish! 

So, -2 for the beer, but +2 for my lunch choices, I think. Especially since I ordered an iced coffee with half and half instead of my usual Vietnamese coffee (coffee + sweetened condensed milk). 

We came home and I started making E's requested birthday dinner - Pizza. Now, I had the benefit of knowing what her birthday dessert was (which she didn't) so I wanted to balance my calories out. Instead of indulging in pizza (I make a whole wheat/corn flour pizza crust, so it's clean, but it's still carb-y and loaded with calories!) I made myself baby portobello mushroom caps with a tsp of pizza sauce, some mozzarella cheese and turkey pepperoni. BOY were they delicious! I tasted the pizza but I was quite happy with my dinner! +8 for me (the number of mushroom caps I ate! YUM!) 

What was dessert, you ask? 

Individual DQ cakes! 

I didn't finish mine. Which is another small victory. As recent as a month ago, you would have had to pry it from my clenched fist. Today, I ate half and was completely satisfied. So we put them back in the freezer to save as a treat for another day! 

All in all, even though I made some "bad" choices today, I feel like I did ok. I didn't get in a formal workout, but we did walk a lot at Grant's Farm and I did hit my 10,000 step goal, along with my 10 flights of stairs. 

So onto tomorrow. Just hoping to show SOME loss on the scale at my first weigh in on Monday, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it, I guess!