Here is my week 2 grocery haul. Not pictured is the ingredients in the crock pot for the carnitas pork I made. I bought more groceries than usual this week as I made an extra meal to freeze as I knew I wouldn't have much time for meal prep over Easter weekend.
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| As usual, my grocery haul contained a whole lot of vegetables and some fruit |
- Finding simple meals that come together quickly. While I do most of my meal prep on the weekend, I do occasionally throw together simple meals. One simple meal I've been enjoying lately is a sweet potato hash with onions and chicken apple sausage topped with an egg cooked over easy. It's delightful!
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| I know this is a BIG plate of food but the Whole30 program encourages you to eat bigger meals and minimize snacking in between. |
- Finding new Whole30-compliant snacks. Like I said about, Whole30 doesn't encourage snacking so I have really limited my snacks between meals. However, on days when I'm particularly hungry, I've been trying new snacks like the one below which is a banana with sunbutter (which I had to order online because I couldn't find one without sugar - even at Whole Foods!) and a grind of sea salt. The sunbutter I bought has no salt in it so I need that little grind of salt to add some flavor.
What's been the hardest:
- Program fatigue. The program has been going pretty well for me but I did have a night last week where I just felt tired of preparing Whole30 compliant meals. The meal that night felt pretty uninteresting, too, as I made roasted chicken breast and roasted cauliflower for Phil and I and it just sort of felt "meh," not to mention monochromatic. I guess nights like that are inevitable occasionally and luckily I've rarely felt bored with my meals.
- Easter temptation. Oh boy, this weekend was a bit challenging as there were so many Easter sweets and treats around me. Phil is not doing Whole30 so I've seen him eat ice cream and salted caramel chocolates and such but this weekend was especially tough since his mom had some Easter treat bags for us. But I stayed strong!
New recipes I've tried:
- Slow cooker sweet potato chili - I actually made this in a dutch oven on my stovetop as my crockpot was already in use. I was nervous that I wouldn't like this since it has cinnamon and cocoa powder in it but it was delicious! I'll definitely be making this on a regular basis going forward. I ended up freezing most of this and will have it for dinners this week.
- Crockpot mojo pork - This recipe wasn't actually new to me as I'd made it before, but it had been about 9 months since I made it so it felt new to me. It's such an easy recipe and the results are so delicious! I've been eating it with sweet potatoes and/or brussel sprouts this week.
How I feel:
- I definitely felt less tired than last week, thank goodness! Last week I felt like a zombie some days, so I am glad that feeling has passed.
- I do feel much less bloated/gassy (sorry, that's probably TMI!) than I normally would and I think my stomach is less noisy than it normally is. It's nice to see some positive things that are happening as a result of the program.
- Besides the day where I felt bored by my options, overall it still has not seemed ridiculously hard. Sure there are days when I struggle a bit and miss non-compliant foods but overall I still feel like I have a lot of options and I try to focus on what I can have.
- I've started to have dreams about food, which is common when you do Whole30 apparently. The 2 dreams I've had involved situations where I was somewhere where there was nothing that was Whole30 compliant so I wasn't able to eat.
Here's hoping the 2nd half of this program goes as well as the first half did!
15 comments:
Ha, I could totally see myself having those dreams! It makes sense as you are obviously thinking about food a lot when trying to prepare everything. That sweet potato hash looks AMAZING. Can you share the recipe for that?
Max eats sunbutter a lot because he can't have peanut butter at school. Now I'm going to have to try it on bananas ha ha. Though I'm sure his has some sugar since I got it at Trader Joes.
It's interesting that Whole 30 doesn't encourage snacking. Is that just because it's so hard to find healthy snack options? I just always though eating smaller things throughout the day was supposed to be better. It's definitely my style of eating, so I'll probably do it regardless but I've always been told it's a good thing ha ha
Happy Easter!
It's interesting that the program doesn't involve snacking since so many other programs encourage lots of little meals... One of the things I am actually trying to do myself is to limit snacking and eat larger meals because half the time my snacks end up being more calorie heavy than the actual meals! Of course, the snacks are usually not that unhealthy, but still, eating a whole Costco bag of dried mangoes is not really good for anyone! The problem is that snacks are little and they are easy to mindlessly put in your mouth without realizing what you are actually doing.
That sweet potato dish looks so good and I am going to try making it next weekend. It is tough to stay focused on a strict routine like that, but sounds like you are doing remarkably well! It is tough when other people are eating the things you can't which I experienced when I was on my diet and then again during Lent! That is when the temptation to sneak something is the worst!
I am happy to hear that you already feel some good results from the diet!
Interesting about the dream thing- not something I wouldn't have thought of! I love carnitas + crock pot meals so thanks for sharing that one with us. I'll have to add it to my list of new things to make and try one of these days :)
That's interesting that they don't encourage snacking. I started the 90 days no bread no sweets and we ended up also agreeing to no white carbs... potatoes are vegetables...
I'm seriously going to try and work this so that hopefully I can actually (maybe) lose weight. We'll see.
I like reading posts about different kinds of meal plans and things like this. I've heard so much about the Whole 30, but the no snacking thing, I think I'd have trouble with! Maybe you get used to it? What do they say about exercise? Maybe you already mentioned that, but I feel like with working out, you'd want to incorporate some healthy snacking before or after for some good fuel!
I think I remember Jillian Michaels talking about no-snacking as a general rule on her podcast. Something about how snacking slows our metabolism down? Or something? How we should eat three satisfying meals rather than five smaller ones to give us time to digest what we are eating....? I could be making all of this up. HA.
Sounds like week two was a great week for you, food dreams and all! I think the preparation of each meal would wear me down. I'm not used to cooking so much as it is!
I definitely stole your breakfast idea and had sweet potato hash with fresh sage and sausage this morning!
This is such good timing that you're doing it just before me! I am going to admit that I have a bit of a sweet tooth problem. Like a handful (or 3) of dark chocolate chips is a daily occurrence for me. So this program is going to be really good for me!!
I think I will dream about peanut butter....
Love the updates and glad you're feeling a little less tired this week! I don't think that hash looks like a large amount at all! I'm thinking I must eat a ton--ha :) It is funny how the monochromatic meal can totally throw it off sometimes, but glad that seems to be the only night. And I love sunbutter on banana---I definitely would miss the sugar in it though...I have a crazy sugar addiction. Looking forward to hearing more as the next two weeks go on!
Good for you, Lisa! Three cheers! I love the photo of your groceries, too. Half done means half (maybe less now!) to go! You can do it!
Are you allowed to eat frozen fruit and vegetables on the whole30 diet or does it have to be fresh? I'm thinking that it would be less expensive and easier to bulk buy if you could buy frozen.
I may have to try peanut butter on bananas cuz that sounds good. I'm also excited to get some sweet potatoes this week to make the hash again. I had an egg over hashbrowns this morning and it just wasn't as yummy.
This Whole30 plan sounds really interesting to me ... I might have to look more into it. I like the looks of the meals/ snacks you've been eating - super healthy indeed!
You rocked this program and made some really awesome looking meals too! I'm actually kind of glad you ended up doing it before me because now I can refer back to your blog and what you ate when I do it :)
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