Category: Whole30

Day 2 has been easier so far – but I had a nightmare already about sabotaging myself by eating a cookie! Ridiculous, can’t even go 24 hours without sugar without dreaming about eating some. And I even had a banana yesterday.

Anyway, the left-over yams and chicken thigh made today a breeze. Must cook ahead.

My favorite part of the meal was yam-medallians, spiced with salt, pepper and paprika. Savory yam is my jam, and so simple I wonder why it wasn’t part of my staple diet before. And while I know I’ll get sick of chicken and yams, this is a wonderful reintroduction to real-food. I’ve been eating so decadently for what feels like forever, that I almost forgot how to cook and eat without butter.

Tonight, I plan to make shepherd’s pie, understanding full well that I shouldn’t be substituting a damn thing. But the reddit whole30 seems to be all about it, so I’m taking my queue from there. Also, shep pie is one of my favorite things to eat that I don’t eat that regularly.

Take-away-of-the-day: scrutinize labels. I went to make Yogi’s Nighttime tea and halted as soon as I ran across Stevia-Leaf. Things you wouldn’t think are bad, are in fact bad.

Trying to start the year off with a shift toward more conscious choices of food. Convenient food is great, but somewhere along the line I lost my way. Pizza and burgers, even though I don’t eat them every day, have become part of my normal habits. Eating sweets is no longer a special teat but an expectation. Whole30 boils down to one thing for me: get your ass in the kitchen and cook again. Sure, I can’t use butter, or cheese, but just making dinner from scratch I now have no excuse.

Day 1 has been a challenge, and it’s only half-over. We should have planned it better. Yesterday, I made hoppin’ john, as tradition dictates with butter, ham-hock, rice, and black-eyed peas. All to be avoided on Whole30. This tradition pushed the Whole30 back 1 day, but it felt fine. Hoppin’ John isn’t exactly unhealthy, and it’s a nice bridge between all the holiday food and New Years eve gluttony the night before.

My first order of business was to prepare breakfast for the upcoming work days. I decided on egg-muffin-bites with spinach, baby kale, bacon, and seasoned with rosemary salt and pepper. Why didn’t I read the label prior to attempting to cook it? I realized the bacon I picked up from Boar’s Head did indeed have 0 carbs and no sugar on the nutritional label, but the ingredients list revealed that it still was cured with sugar. I need to scrutinize the ingredient list. Research my purchases, and then buy with certainty. Breakfast was a bust. Generic eggs for breakfast it is. At least that’s easy. Perhaps I’ll add some avacado.

I just spent half of my lunch break wandering Whole Foods buffet area, and now realize that there’s a lot of whole foods, but they’re the type that might cause gastrointestinal issues, or something along those lines. Whole 30 ain’t no joke.

Tonight I plan to cook enough food for a couple of days. Cracklin’ Chicken thighs and Oven Roasted, crispy skin chicken thighs with yams and asparagus/broccolini. At least I know that’s delicious and will satisfy us for a couple of days….