WOO HOO!! I've finished Week 1 of the Whole30 challenge successfully. I've lost 4 lbs...not that I've really been wanting to keep track, but at work we weigh in weekly for our Biggest Loser Contest that my company has put together to motivate associates towards a healthy lifestyle. So I may or may not have done cartwheels in the HR office when I weighed in and saw that I lost weight already. I've received a few questions regarding my photo's of meals I've prepared that I've posted on Facebook. So, I'll give you a list of what I ate this week, and if you have further questions, I'll gather my step by step instructions.
Day 1: Breakfast I had 2 hard boiled with grapes and coffee - black.
I had some cashews for a snack with an apple and for Lunch I made a mixed greens salad with chia seeds, grape tomatoes, carrots and raw broccoli and dressed it with a little olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Dinner, I made a ginger chicken breast stuffed with dates and apples with a a side of ginger carrots.
Day 2: Breakfast I had 1 hard boiled egg with some grapes and coffee -black. I had some cashews for a snack with a pear. Lunch consisted the leftovers of my ginger-date-apple stuffed chicken and carrots, had a banana before going to Vinyasa Yoga and then made for dinner a 3 egg omelet with garlic, zucchini, and fresh tomatoes.
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| 3 Egg Omelet |
Day 3: Breakfast consisted of coffee - black, and didn't have time for much of anything else, so I went straight to a snack. I had an apple with some cashews. For lunch I had pot roast that I had made the day before in the crockpot which Eddie ate while I was at Yoga. Leftover's are key in this challenge or I'd be really sick and tired of salad. For Dinner I made what I called Orange Chicken with steamed broccoli and sweet potatoes. I'll have to share that recipe with you soon...especially the sweet potatoes. Yum.
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| Orange Chicken with Sweet Potatoes |
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| Pot roast |
Day 4: Breakfast was two sunny side up eggs with leftover a couple slices of leftover sweet potatoes. Lunch I had a salad like on day1, and for dinner....LEFTOVERS. More pot roast.
Day 5: as you can see, Eggs are in breakfast almost daily...and nothing different for this Friday, 2 sunny side up eggs again, with another leftover sweet potato. Lunch, I can't remember what I had, but it wasn't anything new, it was leftovers...either the pot roast or another salad..pretty sure it was a salad because I was saving room to go out to dinner with some friends. I scouted the menu earlier to be prepared when I got to the restaurant. I ordered an ice tea - unsweetened with a lemon wedge, a shrimp cocktail without the cocktail sauce, and a scallop with sautéed garlic-spinach dressed with balsamic glaze and some strawberries. It was yummy, but I'm wondering if there was something in there that I shouldn't have eaten because I had heartburn later that night. But after dinner I went home and made myself a little dessert. Banana slice, blueberries, raspberries and some walnuts. So delicious for my sweets cravings.
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| Qdoba Salad |
Saturday morning was my day 6. I had 2 sunny side up eggs with some sweet potato slices. For lunch, Eddie was in the mood for Mexican so we went to Qdoba Mexican Grill. I ordered there taco salad, without the tortilla bowl shell, no dressing. It was lettuce, steak, their fresh tomato salsa and I had them add their grilled veggies of zucchini and summer squash. It was very tasty. Dinner was a beef patty that I added a little sea salt and balsamic to on a bed of mixed greens and fresh tomatoes. I have to say that unfortunately, was my least favorite meal.
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| Beef Ribs |
Day 7: Breakfast was two eggs sunny side up with some fresh cherries and two cups of coffee-black. Lunch I sautéed some beef ribs in garlic and olive and oil. Eddie and I ran out and did some errands and he wanted to swing by Starbucks, so from another fellow Whole30'er I saw that she was making daily almond milk latte's. So I ordered that, but Starbucks doesn't carry almond milk. And I currently can't have soy milk either on the Whole30 so I settled for their new brew, a tall Blonde. Sounds like I ordered a beer, huh?
When we got home I was starving again, so I snacked on two of these things I found in the grocery store yesterday. They are dates rolled in coconut flakes and almonds. To me, they tasted like a donut. OMG! They are so good. Have you ever seen these before? They kind of look like little chocolates, but I assure you, all the labeled ingredients are Whole30 approved.
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| Ingredients for sauce |
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| Spaghetti Squash with Paleo Meatballs |
So now I bring you to my favorite meal of the week. I LOVE Italian food, so I was excited to find this week a
Paleo Meatball recipe that I could use for "Pasta Sunday". I followed the directions almost exactly but left out the onion since I was putting them in my homemade sauce, and I also used a grass-fed beef, veal and pork combo for the meat. The sauce I made I found CENTO canned "Fresh ripe tomatoes written on the ingredients of the can and nothing else. I was so excited to find this. Almost everything canned now a days has some extra preservative or additive, but not this one. So after sauteing onions, carrots, and some leftover zucchini from my omelet the other day, I browned my meatballs in the same pan. Once browned, I added the canned tomatoes and some sea salt and let it all simmer for most of the afternoon. When dinner time rolled around, I baked a spaghetti squash for me, and some fettuccine for Eddie and we had pasta Sunday dinner. This was by far, my favorite meal of the week. And guess what? I have LOTS of leftovers. :)
