It takes 21 days to break a habit, right? Twenty one days into my Whole30 and I’d say that’s what I’ve noticed this week. My biggest bad eating habit, snacking, is almost a distant memory. It’s so strange that while I used to eat a morning snack with my kids, snack during meal prep, snack in the afternoon with the kids and snack before bed, my desire to snack is completely gone.
I used to think about food from the end of one meal to the start of the next, but now food isn’t anywhere in my thoughts. I’m eating much bigger meals that I am used to, especially lunch, so I am completely satisfied after a meal and just hungry enough for the next meal when it comes around.
I’ve had a small snack three or four times so far in three weeks and that was usually when we were out of the house and pushed back a regular meal time. I hope this change is a lasting effect of Whole30 for me, but only time will tell.
Looking back at my pictures of my Whole30 meals so far, I realize that I am such a boring eater. I wish I was more adventurous! Getting varied protein sources is such a challenge for me. I don’t eat pork except bacon (I know, that makes no sense), I only like ground beef and I am picky about fish so that leaves me with chicken and eggs most of the time. I’m hoping to get more creative during my last week. For now, here’s the photos of what I ate this week.
Day 15 started with plain scrambled eggs on a bed of spinach and a green smoothie. We make our smoothies by filling our Vitamin blender with greens, adding a frozen banana, 1/2 cup of frozen fruit and 1 cup of flax milk. I only drink a half pint of smoothie so I’m not getting too much sugar, even if it’s all natural from the fruit.
A friend asked me how my eggs look so fluffy and bright. The secret is to buy good quality pastured eggs and use a lot of butter! I usually make four eggs for my kids and myself for breakfast and I use about two tablespoons of butter to cook them in my cast iron pan.
Lunch was leftovers and dinner was chicken chowder (from page 336 of the Whole30 cookbook). The chicken chowder was good, but a little exotic tasting due to the coconut milk. My kids don’t really like sweet potatoes so this was a hard sell.
Whole30 has forced me to think outside of the box for breakfast. I just can’t eat eggs all day every day, so chicken chowder for breakfast it was. A loaded baked potato for lunch felt like an amazing guilty pleasure and almost sinful. For dinner, I adapted our favorite fish cakes (recipe from the 100 Days of Real Food cookbook) by using homemade mayonnaise and almond meal and they turned out delicious.
Day 17 was pretty boring with a veggie scramble and leftovers on the menu. We had dinner out at a fantastic Mexican restaurant and thought it was ridiculously overpriced, I was totally satisfied with my grilled chicken and salad while my family scarfed down six bowls of tortilla chips.
I never, ever thought I would want to eat salad for breakfast. But I did, and it was good! We love butternut squash soup and I wasn’t sure how this dairy free version would turn out (recipe from page 266 of the Whole30 book), but it was delicious. It’s naturally sweet which makes it a kid friendly soup, too. This simple stir fry made with frozen veggies and coconut aminos turned out yummy and was a great quick meal to throw together.
Day 19 was mostly leftovers, but still a satisfying day. I’m not feeling the dread about eating that I was last week and for the most part, I’m enjoying my meals again.
I woke up on this Monday morning knowing that it was my cleaning day and before I cleaned all the toilets, I wanted to treat myself to something special. I fed the kids some quick waffles and took a little extra time to make my favorite breakfast potatoes, asparagus with brown clarified butter sauce, an egg and topped it with some sun dried tomatoes and almonds. It was heavenly.
Dinner was a beef enchilada bake from Just Jessie B. and it was so good to eat some Mexican food! This recipe uses cauliflower rice and a homemade enchilada sauce topped with eggs before it bakes to create a crust that almost fooled my family into thinking it was cheese.
I closed out the week with more leftovers. I never really ate leftovers before, but I’m finding that to keep my sanity and not be in the kitchen 24 hours a day, I have to. I ate dinner out and had a blah salad. I normally would have treated myself to a donut or brownie after a blah meal, but even though it didn’t taste amazing, I was satisfied and didn’t need to eat anything else for the day.
Overall, it was a great week. I’m feeling good, eating good food and feel like I’m building some healthy habits. I didn’t weight myself this week, so I’m interested to see what the scale says at the end of my Whole30. I don’t feel like I’ve lost much more, but I’ve had a few people tell me my face looks thinner. I wish I lost thigh fat before face fat, but I guess you have to start somewhere!
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