How'd it go? - whole30 week one

I've completed my first week and i'm feeling pretty good. I'm really proud of myself for completing the first week and I've seen some results. I weighed myself (even though you're not supposed to) and I've lost 4 pounds this week! That is major for me! I don't lose weight quickly as a general rule so, four pounds in one week is crazy!

I am also very proud of how well I did when eating out. I will say that I had no issues and thought it was super easy during the week until I went out to eat this weekend.  That was when I struggled. However, my husband was very encouraging and helpful and we managed to both stick to it! You can check out what I ate for the week below and also download my meal plan from week one here.

What I ate

 Monday
For breakfast I had sausage, sweet potato and apple hash with an egg on top and coconut chai tea. (It was only one egg but had two yolks.)
My husband made it heart shaped. Isn't he sweet!

For lunch I had a mustardy kale and sweet potato salad with bacon and an apple with a la croix pineapple strawberry sparkling water. It was a delicious salad and the apple helped cope with the absence of sugar.

I had a coconut cream pie larabar for a snack. (I eat lunch at 10:55 so a snack is a necessity.)

For dinner we had paleo pad thai using spaghetti squash for the noodles. It was so freakin' good! ( You can tell Derek enjoyed it.) And, we had enough leftover for our lunch the next day!

I ended my day with a cup of chocolate hazelnut tea! It's caffeine free and a delicious treat that is whole 30 friendly and calorie free!

Wednesday
Breakfast was a repeat today of sausage sweet potato hash with an egg and a cup of tazo zen tea. It was just as good as Monday and took very little work after Sunday night since we cooked the hash and portioned it out that night. All we had to do this morning was cook some eggs.

Lunch was left over carnitas tacos. I enjoyed them just as much as last night. They are delicious!

For dinner we had creamy sausage and kale soup and went ahead and made the knock-off chikfila nuggets too. (We started marinating them on Sunday so they needed to be dealt with.) I was not a huge fan of the soup. It was a little too sweet for me but OMG those nuggets are the bomb! Soooooo yummy! Who'd of thought that pickle juice and paprika are the secret to fantastic and healthy nuggets!

Friday
Breakfast was the hash for the final time. Still delicious. 

Lunch was another repeat. We had the sweet potato and bacon kale salad with mustardy dressing. I also had an apple. 

Dinner was paleo alfredo. I was really excited about this but I shouldn't have been. It was so garlicy (is that a word?) that my mouth was burning and I felt a little high. I actually googled "Can you get high from too much garlic?" and the answer was kinda.  I found this post that discusses various scientific studies on garlic and they found that it can cause a feeling of euphoria in high amounts. Crazy right? Well, I guess if you did some major manipulation to this recipe you could make it palatable but, as is, not good. We did not keep the leftovers. I will say that the zucchini noodles would have been good in some other sauce so that is a win I guess. I also snapped a pretty sexy photo of Derek spiralizing the zucchini.

I was still hungry and couldn't get the taste of garlic out of my mouth so I ended up snacking on a larabar, macadamia nuts and root chips. The taste was still there.

Sunday

I planned a Galentine's day brunch for my friends and cooked some amazingly delicious stuff that was also really easy! I made bacon wrapped egg and asparagus cups, chocolate mousse and fruit salad (I just tossed some apple, strawberries, blackberries and raspberries in a bowl with little orange and lemon juice and a sprinkle of cinnamon) with the optional mimosa. (I used sparkling water instead of champagne.) Let me tell you, those egg cups were soooooooooo good! You need to make them like yesterday! They were ridiculously easy and very satisfying. 

Lunch was another difficult decision. We met Derek's parents for his Dad's birthday and to pick up the kids at a Mexican restaurant. Derek and I held strong and ordered mixed fajita minus everything but the side of lettuce and added guacamole. I also brought our leftover jicama "shells" from the pork carnitas. It worked really well and we both left satisfied. We were also able to turn down the birthday cake!

Dinner was something we had skipped from an earlier night, easy Thai chicken and cauliflower rice. It was so good! After the alfredo debacle, Derek had declared that he was done with cauliflower for awhile (it was a cauliflower based sauce) but this changed his mind. It was really easy to make as all you do is "rice" the cauliflower with a grater and then fry it in coconut oil. It had a really nice nutty flavor and the texture was perfect. The Thai chicken also had a lovely flavor and all of the elements I love in Thai food. Two thumbs up!

Tuesday
Breakfast was a grain free banana nut muffin (I was so eager to eat it that I took a bite before my photo. Oops!) and two small hard boiled eggs with tazo zen tea. The entire time I as eating the muffin I was in awe that it contained NO grains or added sugars/sweeteners! It was so. darn. good.

Lunch was leftover paleo pad thai and a la croix pineapple strawberry soda. The pad thai was just as delicious as the night before!

For a snack I had an apple and a handful of whole 30 compliant root veggie chips and more sparkling water.

For dinner we had slow roasted carnitas with jicama taco shells topped with avocado and lime. They were divine! Seriously, I don't think I ever want to eat tacos with a tortilla ever again. The jicama added a nice crunch with a hint of spicy sweetness. So yummy!

​I ended my night with a cup of cocoa mint mate tea and another delicious banana nut muffin.

Thursday
Breakfast was another repeat of the banana nut muffin and boiled eggs with zen tea.

Lunch was leftover soup and nuggets. The nuggets were still amazing but I did have to force my way through the soup. Derek said he thought the soup was super good both times so, you might like it. To each his own.

Dinner was supposed to be nuggets (we jumped the gun on that one) so we had to substitute with something. I went with our Saturday breakfast plan (I knew we wouldn't have the kids on Saturday and thought they'd enjoy the pancakes.) The banana pancakes were almost too sweet for me but the kids did enjoy them. I decided I was too lazy to do anything special with the strawberries like the recipe stated so I just cut them up and placed them on top of the coconut cream. The coconut cream was pretty ok. The kids were not a fan and had real whipped cream. Obviously they enjoyed it.

Saturday

This is where things started to get difficult. It was Valentine's Day weekend so we sent the kids to Grandma's and planned our Valentine's for Saturday. Our go to breakfast is Starbucks. Their double smoked bacon and cheddar is amaze-balls. But, not only is that out of the question but so is my usual toffee nut latte. So, we chose to go to our other favorite spot, a local coffee house that we knew would be more cooperative with a picky order. Derek did depart from the whole 30 train a bit and ordered their special of the day, huevos rancheros. It included two tortillas, hash browns and sour cream. Although, he didn't eat the sour cream. However, he did end up ordering two! I stayed strong and had three over medium eggs, bacon and a bowl of fruit with a pot of mint tea. It was good but it was pretty difficult to skip out on their special and I felt a teensy bit hungry when we left as I was craving some toast.

Then we headed to our first movie of the day, Hail Caesar. But, we made a stop at starbucks for coffee. I ended up ordering a tall pike place with steamed coconut milk! I was really excited but leary of the flavor. It was delicious and I stayed on whole30! In fact, it was a little too delicious. So, I decided to do a little research on the contents of their so-called single origin coconut milk. Here is what I found. It contains sugar and all sorts of other fillers! Bummer! So, even though I tried I did not stay on the wagon like I intended but, it wasn't my fault!

After the movie we were ready for lunch and headed to our favorite sushi spot. But a 30 minute wait was not in our plans so we headed to another sushi place nearby. The traffic was terrible and we were both getting grumpy. When we finally pulled up to the second restaurant we found that they had just closed until 5. So, we ended up heading far from the busy mall and theater area and went to ANOTHER sushi place downtown in the hopes that all of the Valentine's day craziness would not be there as it is more of a nightlife spot. We were right! It was basically a ghost town and we managed to stay on whole30 with seaweed salad, onion soup and sashimi for two. 

Then we headed to our next movie, Deadpool. It was also really good! We left and went to the grocery store to buy our groceries for the next week as well as a quick trip to Target for a few necessities and I squeezed in a visit to Forever21. Hehe. By the time we got home it was 9:30 and we had to put the groceries away as well as clean up the mess that was paleo alfredo. (I was lazy and didn't clean it up Friday night.) So, by the time we were done it was 11pm. I ended up eating a few root chips and drank some water but skipped a real dinner. Not the best but I wasn't really hungry so it was what it was.

I hope this has inspired you to take the whole30 challenge or to at least try some of the amazing recipes! We are heading into week two now and have even more deliciousness in store as long as I can resist the desire for dairy! I'm definitely feeling the loss of my beloved cheese!