Whole 30 - Day 1

First off, when I went grocery shopping I had to remind myself that I was shopping for the week. I tend to buy more stuff so it will last longer than a week. But produce usually doesn't last longer than a week. I bought 4 different types of fruit, 4 different types of vegetables, and some other stuff. I already had chicken and beef in the freezer, so I didn't worry about protein this shopping trip.

Yesterday was the first day of my whole30, and I felt great! It was pretty easy (I'm used to cooking dinner, trying new recipes and preparing meals, etc.), and I loved it. I actually felt full (nutritionally full, not "I'm going to barf" full) in between each meal, which they say you're supposed to as long as you eat enough, and I only ate 3 meals. They say not to eat snacks because as long as you eat enough protein, fat, and vegetables  in each meal (fruit is considered optional), it should trigger the hormone that says you're full and it will also trigger the glycogen hormone that grabs your fat storage and pulls from that to give you energy in between meals.

Every time you eat you're supposed to have 1-2 palm sized proteins. I try to only go for one, because that's the minimum. You're not allowed to eat less than the minimum requirement.  You should have the rest of your plate filled with vegetables and then have a fat (which is about 1-2 T) in there as well. Like when you cook the meat or eggs, use olive oil or coconut oil to cook it in, and technically I could have added more fat to my eggs. I don't know what, but I could. They also say if you get hungry in between meals, actual hunger not craving hunger, then you need to eat more protein or fat. Fruit is optional, but fruit is a handful. These are just the bare minimums, so you're allowed to have more, you just need to find what is appropriate for your body.

Here is my breakfast:

It is 3 eggs with onions, peppers and spinach cooked in it, scrambled. Blueberries and oranges. It kept me full for 4-5 hours when I had my lunch. But I think this is actually too much fruit. I didn't realize that until I read that part in the book about how much fruit.


 Lunch:

 I grilled chicken in some olive oil the night before so Clint could also eat this at work for lunch. And then a salad with spinach, carrots, peppers and homemade ranch that is whole30 compliant. I even made my own mayo, which is an olive oil based mayo so no dairy, and then you use that mayo to make your ranch so it's dairy free. It was actually pretty good. Not as sweet, but that's because there is sugar in ranch, and sugar in mayo - I think. The ranch makes a great sauce to dip chicken in. Notice I didn't have fruit because it's optional. Plus this huge salad kept me full all the way till dinner.


So I actually almost forgot to take a picture, so I actually had 2 more peppers on there and a couple more pieces of chicken.

This is citrus chicken. It's baked in an orange juice with orange zest and parsley. It was really good. I thought I had made a ton of vegetables, I baked carrots and peppers (it filled the whole baking dish) in the oven with clarified butter, or ghee on them and salt and pepper. Check out that butter link. It explains what you do to butter to get rid of the milk proteins, or something like that so you can use it as a cooking fat that is healthy.  But when I dished all the vegetables out on everyone's plates it didn't fill the plate completely, so I added salad. I'm still getting used to the whole how much vegetables to cook. It's a LOT! Especially because I'm making enough for all 4 of us to eat. All the lettuce I bought we pretty much used up in a day and a half so I sent Clint to the store to buy more salad and vegetables for the rest of the week.

There you have it. Nothing too complicated, but I kind of stressed a little because I was worried that I didn't have enough food for the kids to eat. I don't expect them to eat the same as me. It's hard to shop for us and kids because we are eating different things. Hence my meal planning. My kids won't eat salad or peppers, so I had to make sure to have things that they would eat as well.