Whole30 - Days 11-13 - Highs and Lows

I think I'm getting the hang of this thing. I actually like the format of these posts too... It's a lot easier to use this as more of a little diary. Since food is SUCH a big part of our lives, this eating plan obviously carries through to what I do day to day not even considering that what we eat affects how we feel.

Day 11

Day 11 is supposed to be a carry over of Day 10 problems. However, I woke up feeling great. I got a good night sleep and had lots of water to finally get over my run hang over. I woke up early and went to an amazing yoga class that a friend suggested. 

After that, we decided to go to the beach. The weather was so nice (and terrible for running) that it would be perfect for a beach day. We'd been wanting to take Harley to a dog friendly beach so it was perfect.

I even got my little puppy to come swimming with me in the ocean. She didn't love it though. She's a little too short and the waves took her out. I'm going to try again next time but make sure she doesn't get any more stray waves to the face.

Also, it's just been really nice finding alcohol-free activities to do. The "no drinking" rule made it hard to want to go out the first week so I've really had fun trying to find other things to do that don't need alcohol to be enjoyable.

For dinner, I wanted something that would be filling but easy so I did another one pan dish. I cooked some chicken and pancetta with a bunch broccoli, basil, spinach, tomatoes, and spaghetti squash to be a pasta-like dish. It is the kind of thing that makes me really miss cheese though. I've done similar dishes and they are usually like half cheese. I've been replacing cheese with spice but red pepper flakes don't come close to a handful of Parmesan.  

Day 12

I'm getting to a point where I am really excited about trying all the recipes I have lined up. I've had so much fun looking up some new paleo recipes and shopping for them that it's hard to figure out what to have on what day. Two things that I was really excited for were burgers with sweet potato slices as the buns and using the ground kangaroo meat I found. So why not combine the ideas?

I shaped the ground kangaroo into burger patties and used the recipe in the Whole30 book for basic burgers - just salt, pepper, and garlic powder - and then baked them. The sweet potato buns were so easy. Just slice a thick, peeled, sweet potato and cook it in coconut oil. I also made a bacon, jalapeno mayo. I have a jalapeno plant that gave it's first tiny fruit on day 12 so I thought I would use it. I diced it up and mixed it with a little mayo and some bacon fat. It tasted AMAZING. Post Whole30 I think I'm going to add it to some sriracha and then it would be perfect.

I'm glad I had the mayo because the burgers were a little dry. Kangaroo is a very lean meat and there was no binder so they turned out super dry. I think next time I would add some oil and cook them for 2/3 the time. Otherwise, the burger idea  was great and side salad meant we still got extra veggies!

That night was book club. Book club was held at a restaurant that does not have a lot of Whole30 options. The few things that work are really expensive and everything else is fried. I decided to get some oysters just so I was ordering something but then went home to make dinner.

Since it was late, I wanted something easy. I had salmon in the fridge so that would work. Salmon is one of the easiest things to make. I cut off the skin, seasoned it with salt, garlic, and pepper, and then sprinkled it with some dill. Lastly, I put globs of ghee all over and then stuck it in the oven for twenty minutes. 

While that was baking, I chopped up the rest of my sweet potato. I was just going to saute that but then I figured I could use as many veggies as possible. I had half a zucchini and half a bell pepper so I cut those up and then added some tomatoes. It's so easy to throw veggies into a frying pan with a little oil, it's crazy that people don't eat more of them.

I also received the best package ever! While at the Padres game last week, there was an excess of Cholula hot sauce advertising. It 1) reminded me how much I love Cholula and 2) taught me there are different flavors. Lucky for me, there's the Amazon app on my phone and I was able to order a sample pack instantly. I'm excited to try these out! So far I've stuck with my tried & true original. The Chipotle and Chili Lime have a little sugar so I'll probably wait on those to be true to Whole30. The Chili Garlic will probably be awesome on shrimp and pork so I'll be sure to try it soon!

Day 13

For day 13, I wanted to play around with leftovers. I love one pan meals where I slowly add in ingredients depending on how long they take to cook. I had leftover meat from my kangaroo burgers so I decided to cook it with some potatoes, kale, and tomatoes. It was great and I had it for breakfast and lunch.

But... I don't think I ate enough. Later in the day I was feeling really tired. I thought that I was past the energy drain so it was one of three things - I wasn't past it, I didn't get enough food energy, I haven't been sleeping enough. 

I really think it was the last two. I've been making dinner later and later each day and that means going to sleep later. It's been hard to get 7 hours which isn't great for training. I really need to make sure I'm more prepared for meals so I can go to sleep at a reasonable time and get the rest I need to power my workouts. 

Summary

Thinking of dishes to cook is getting to be really easy and fun. I have so many resources between my cookbooks, instagram, Pinterest, and blogs that I'm not only not worried about having enough ideas, I'm certain that I'll get to a point where I have more things to make than days left in the challenge - which means an easier time sticking with it after the fact.

I struggle more with making the time to cook every meal and have regular meal times. In general, I'm pretty bad about breakfast. I usually don't think about it until like 11 and then it's almost lunch and my whole day of eating is thrown off. Sometimes I'll have a late lunch at like 4 which means late dinner and then I don't get enough sleep. Sometimes I'll skip lunch which means not enough food intake. I need to figure out how to get myself onto a better eating schedule so that I'm feeding myself enough often enough. I think that will help with the occaisionally feelings of fatigue I get. I don't think it's the program that's wrong, I think I'm doing it wrong. The next few days, I want to work on that.