A Healthy Lifestyle

I thought I would give an update on my "weightloss Journey". I guess that's really what it is, right? Since I talked about it to the whole world, I'll give an update.

I have lost 15 lbs so far. Yay! And 5 inches around my stomach. And everywhere else ranges from 1/2 inch - 3 inches. No, I did not finish or start another whole30. HOWEVER, that being said, I'm really grateful I did my "half" whole30 because it has helped me develop a better relationship with food - thus aiding in my healthier lifestyle.

Before I started trying to eat better, I was exercising - 6 days a week - for the entire month of January and I didn't lose a single pound. Talk about frustrating. Then I did my whole14 in February and realized that I wasn't really eating "healthy". I thought we were. We didn't go out to eat much, and we never drank soda, but we did get pizza once a week and that was it. That's a lot better than other people, right? And we had veggies with every dinner (I included corn in that - it's not really a veggie).  But that was usually the only time I had a vegetable during my day. My meals usually consisted of this:  Pancakes, or 2 eggs with 2 pcs of toast for breakfast. Or sometimes waffles, french toast. Either way, carb dense breakfast. And for lunch I would have quesadillas, or a PB&J, or something easy, like leftovers, but......Carb dense. And then for dinner we would have something like Spaghetti and breadsticks with canned veggies, or sometimes steamed broccoli. But again, a carb dense meal, or sometimes even a fat dense meal because we used cheese a lot! Not spaghetti all the time, enchiladas, meatloaf, homemade pizza, etc. But carbs usually took up most of our plate.

So ya, I now know that eating that many carbs in a day are not good for me, because I don't burn off all the energy that is packed in those carbs, which means those extra carbs were being stored as fat. Long story short, I eat a TON more vegetables and fruit, only 2-3 servings of carbs a day, still drink a ton of water. I'm grateful that I've never been a soda drinker, or juice for that matter. I just love water. Always have. And I hardly ever eat dairy. I don't drink milk, and I don't cook dinners that have dairy in them anymore. We don't really eat pasta anymore. Although we have had it 3 times since February. My kids don't really care for pasta anyway, weird, right? Our dinners consist of broth based soups, or vegetable soups, we eat meat and vegetables and we throw rice in there every once and a while so the kids have something to fill up on. Jonas and Alexis eat more fruit and vegetables now, which is great. I still buy ramen noodles, corn dogs or chicken nuggets for them or crackers, yogurt, cheese sticks, etc. Not all at once, but every once and a while.

And I mainly do clean eating now. Oatmeal, or eggs with 1 pc of toast for breakfast. Or banana pancakes (they are pretty good). Wraps, salad (I ate it for 2 1/2 months straight, so I'm kind of sick of salad now) or 1/2 sandwich for lunch with veggies and fruit. And my snacks always have a vegetable or fruit in them now. It's small meals every few hours. It's taken me a several months to get my eating right, but I feel so much better and I'm consistently losing weight now.  As long as I don't give into my downfall, or eat a ton of carbs or fat foods (like cheese, I used to eat a TON of it) - like going out to eat. And we don't get pizza once a week anymore. Maybe twice a month now. And I only eat 2 pieces. I can tell my stomach is shrinking. I used to be able to eat 4. I make homemade pizza a lot more now. I make it with wheat flour and we use turkey pepperoni (less fat) and I don't put very much cheese on mine.

What is my downfall? Sugar. I love it, I crave it almost every night after dinner. A lot of times I have to forget about it and distract myself, and a lot of times I give in and get a candybar from the store or whatever. I used to never be a sugar lover. I would prefer a bag of cheetos over sugar, but now I really think I'm addicted. I don't want to give it up completely because that would work for a time and then when I'd start eating it again, I'd gain it all back. So I'm trying to only eat it twice a week, in moderation. Trying. It's a work in progress.

And I still work out every day for an hour - except Sundays. Those are my rest days. I don't go to a gym, I don't have money or time for that, but I do at home workouts via youtube. I workout in the morning while my kids watch their morning cartoons. Well, Alexis just plays and makes a huge mess, or sometimes crawls in and out of my legs, but it's all good. I have 3 favorite youtube channels that are amazing for working out.

3) My third favorite is XHIT. Good, short workouts that get my heart pumping and build muscle. The "trainers" on it are fun to watch.
2) My second favorite is Fitness Blender. They aren't as entertaining to watch, kind of boring, because of no music, but I like them a little bit better than XHIT because they have a HUGE variety of workouts. Kickboxing to strength to cardio, etc. Tons of stuff and it's a really good workout. Heart pumping and sweating.
1) My all time favorite youtube channel is Blogilates. Cassey Ho is the fitness instructor and she does mainly pilates moves. So it doesn't require weights, or even shoes for that matter. Just your own weight and gravity and a yoga mat. And it kicks my trash every single time! I get sore muscles every week from doing her workouts. Plus she makes a calendar with what videos to do each day so you don't plateau, and it's hard! She has fat burning cardio videos as well that she incorporates into her calendar.  But all her videos range anywhere from 5-20 minutes long. I've never done one longer than 20 minutes. She's super entertaining and cute and bubbly and has a fun attitude and personality. I'm kind of obsessed with her! Ha ha. So much that I bought her book, and I follow some of her meal plans for clean eating. I cannot say enough good things about her. She was also rated the #2 most influential social healthmaker. Who was the first? Jillean Michaels.

I always knew working out was important and I had a desire to lose weight, but I felt like I could never find what was right for me. I have finally found it. I hate doing the same workout every single day. It gets boring. And I hate doing the same workout video for longer than 20 minutes - that's why workout videos never worked for me. And riding my exercise bike everyday never worked for me. I have lots of workout videos that just sit on the shelf because they are too long! But give me a workout that is 5-10 min long, I can do 6 of them just fine! I never get bored.

My goal was to lose 30 pounds by the end of June. I might not be exactly 30, but if I do sugar in moderation, I think I could get close to it. And then I want to lose 30 more by the end of the year. We'll see.

Anyways, there you go. I'm not looking for a lose weight quick diet, but a healthy lifestyle. So I may not be losing 5 pounds a week, but I am losing at least 1-2 every week. Some weeks I gain because I eat sugar or whatever, so it takes another week to get back to where I was, but it's a work in progress. A healthy lifestyle. :)

I'll do a before and after once I get to a 30 pound weight loss, but for now (since I can't do a post without pictures) here is a pic of me with Alexis. :) And guess who took it? Jonas did! He asked the other day if he could take a picture, and I was going to say no, but then I thought, maybe he could do it. And he did. I help him, and teach him how to look through the viewfinder and how to frame the picture, etc. It's cute and he loves it. :) Maybe I'll get more pictures of me now.

Jinxed Words

This is something I've been wanting to write about, well, ever since I had Alexis and she was the worst baby ever.

I don't know if any of you out there have experienced this, but I swear this happens to me ALL THE TIME!

I'm not a superstitious person, never have been, but this whole "jinxed words" thing I'm about to explain just might make me superstitious. Ha ha!

I'll throw in some random pictures from the past few weeks for fun :)

When Alexis was going through her colicky stage, and I would update you - the world - about her, I would write what was happening with her and if she was doing better, etc. For example I would say "Alexis is sleeping better," or "Alexis isn't crying as much at night", etc. Stuff like that. And 80-90% of the time I would JINX myself and my child would do the exact OPPOSITE of what I had written.  Starting the very next day.

I swear, it's like she knew what I was writing and thought "let's give mom some fun and see if we can switch things up". Like it was her little joke. Oh dear! I bet she was laughing in her crib at night after her little crying fits.



Although at times it was good because if I wrote something awful she was doing, then she would do the opposite and it would be a good thing. But it mainly happened when I'd write good things, and she started doing the opposite of good.

And the same thing would go for Jonas! It was crazy!

Well, it is still happening. I don't know if I should write these things or not, because they might stop and do the opposite, but I have to prove my point! And I'm also not superstitious. This is just how life is. :)

Jonas has started wiping his own bum. Literally after I wrote about him putting  up a fight about it, I told him he has to do it or he can't go to preschool. And now he's started doing it. Thank goodness!

And Alexis has become a picky eater and won't eat "anything" like I said before. And her "tantrums that only last 15 seconds max" have now started lasting upwards to 10 minutes. Kicking and screaming. And she gets so angry she'll bang her head against the ground. What in the world little Girl? Seriously though, the next day her tantrums were not lasting 15 seconds anymore like I had written.



Sheesh, maybe I should just write all the bad things they are doing and hope they'll do the opposite. Jonas keeps waking up at 6am every morning - maybe he'll stop now. Ha ha!



So I'm kind of joking when I'm writing all that, but seriously, I need to stop jinxing myself. :) I love my kids so much and their spunk and, ummm, their change of behavior is an exciting part of parenthood. :)

Has anyone else ever experienced this?

Easter at my parent's house. The lastest pic we have as a family

4 years old

Jonas turned 4 this past week. It's so weird to think that next year - 2016 - he's going to kindergarten. AH! It's going by so fast.

He was SO excited for his birthday. We talked about it for months before it actually happened. I didn't do a party this year. He doesn't need a crazy party each year. But we just had a small one with grandparents. And I took some pictures of him really quick on his big day. :)

He was so excited to have party hats at his party. So cute!

He LOVES to go cross eyed. He thinks it's so funny. He says "There's two mommies".

Some things I want to remember about him this past year:

He still loves curious George. He'll watch it all the time, and then find something new, and then continue watching it later. He loves George! Currently, he is obsessed with "Nightmare before Christmas". He does this thing where he gets obsessed with something, wears it out completely, and then is sick of it and drops it. He did it with Jake and the Neverland Pirates, with Megamind (his first EVER favorite movie). But, oddly enough, he has never done it with Curious George. He loves him. :) 

Potty training was a nightmare with him because he is so DEFIANT and STUBBORN!!! Love him to death, but holy cow he gave me a run for my money this past year. He's a pro now with going potty - it only took 4 times. And for a few months after, he would pee in his underwear every. single. time he went potty. Not enough to get everywhere, but enough that he changed his underwear every time he went potty. I didn't know what to do. I figured he wasn't receiving that sign to go potty clearly enough. I told myself I would give him until he's 4 and then if it was still happening I would do something about it. Well, a couple months passed, and then one day, he went potty and he was DRY! And it kept happening and happening. Now he's a champ and he hasn't peed the bed since, I don't know, January? Now I just have to teach him to wipe his own butt. He's been defiant about that when I've tried and I just don't want him to digress, so I'm waiting on that. 

He's a quick learner! I've been singing the articles of faith to him (because they are learning it in primary) and he's memorized 5 articles of faith already since January. He's smart. However, he HATES coloring or anything to do with writing, drawing, holding a pencil in his hand. That makes me a little nervous for when preschool starts next year. He has no interest in writing his ABC's. He likes to learn about them, when I've gone over them with him, but when I have him practice writing them, he does NOT want to do it.  

He loves to play with his cousins. I'm pretty sure they are his best friends. Whenever he plays with them for long periods of time, he comes back learning new words. Lately, his new word is "apparently. It's so funny, he'll say "apparently she is cranky" (referring to Alexis), or "apparently I need a bath" or whatever he feels like saying. . Ha ha! So funny. I love it. :) he's said other words, but I can't remember.

We went to comic con, and Jonas was so excited to see Spider man there. Even though Jonas doesn't really watch Spider man that often, he loves him. Him and batman - hence the shirt. 

He LOVES guns and swords. He has probably 5 guns and he plays with all of them. Same with swords. He has 4 and he plays with all of them. We could get him more, and he would love it. He loves to pretend there are "bad guys" coming and we hide from them, or we shoot them, or whatever.

He loves to pretend. He's not one to play with lots of toys at once. He plays with one, maybe two, and makes up this whole pretend world with that one toy. It's so fun to watch. 

I try to slip in the pictures with my kids as much as I can.

 I think Jonas had a rough time with Alexis at first because of two reasons. 1) he wasn't used to sharing my attention and 2) he never really got to bond with her at the beginning because she was always crying.

However, now, he loves her and interacts with her and makes her laugh and he's concerned about her. He's relatively  nice to her, and sometimes he shows his love to her and hugs her and is so soft with her and it's ADORABLE! I love this picture. I sat Alexis down so I could take a picture of her hair (I used my flat iron to curl it out) and he came and sat down next to her and just loved her. Awwwww :) 

And she loves him so much. Any chance she gets to kiss him, or hug him she does it - if he lets her. 

Anyways, I can't think of more, but I love him so much. Hopefully this next year he won't be so defiant and that tantrums won't be so bad. My old neighbor said once to me "I hate to tell you, but it doesn't go away until they are 5". But I can be hopeful, right?

15 Months

Fifteen months and she's all grown up. :) She's not my baby anymore. She's a big girl that is learning to talk, climbs everywhere, eats with a fork and spoon (with assistance), and has an opinion on clothes, what she wants to do, etc. Very girly!

I absolutely love age 1! I really think it is my favorite. Her "tantrums" are miniscule. They only last about 15 seconds at the max, whereas age 3 last up to 30-45 minutes. Ah! I love that she is learning everything. She learns probably 1 new thing a day, whether it's a word, an action, something physical - like climbing - or just repeating something I do or say. It's so fun!

Alexis can say (in her own way that only Clint and I understand mostly), "thank you (day doo)", "please (ees)", dada, mom, Jonas (us), hi, I love you,  eye, moo, I did it, no (this is a big one, she says it all the time, especially when she is talking to herself) and other words I can't remember. Plus, she'll say anything else I ask her to repeat as long as she feels like it. It may not sound exactly like the word, but at least she gets the correct syllables in.

She weighs 19.84 lbs. She's only gained half a pound in the past 3 months, so the doctor said I need to track her calories and then he gave me a packet on how to add more calories without adding more food. She can eat a ton! She can eat 2 pieces of pizza and a breadstick. She's eaten a whole happy meal before, not that this happens often. But she does like fruit and veggies and those don't have a ton of calories. So my goal is to have her gain 1 pound by the next visit. She's in the 70% for height though. Remember how she used to be so incredibly chunky? Ha ha. Now she is in the 9% for weight. Go figure. :)

She's my little climber. One day I was showering and she was in my room. When I got out, I called her name and she was babbling, having fun, but wasn't coming to me when she normally does. I go into my room and she is on my bed so proud of herself. And then she had to show me how she did it. :) And she climbs on the couch as well. We went to the library one day and it has a kid area and she was climbing on the tables and letters. She loves to climb, so I have to watch her.

She loves her brother. She tries to hug him and cuddle with him, but he doesn't really like it all the time. :) They chase each other around and get along pretty well, considering that he used to be very rude to her and push her and take her toys away.

She has a bazillion teeth. I swear she has been constantly teething with no breaks since her first tooth came in. She has about 12 teeth with some of them not 100% poked through yet (the molars).

She's still not the best sleeper. She wakes up anywhere from 1-3 times a night. She just needs her binky put back in, or a drink, or just comfort knowing that I'm there and then goes right back to sleep. It kills me sometimes, but what do you do? She naps once a day around 2-2  1/2 hours. And goes to bed at 7. 

She is completely attached to her "B" things - Binky and blankets. The thin flannel ones. We bring both everywhere we go. I don't know how we're going to get rid of that binky. The blanket is fine, but the binky has to go soon, right? It's like she needs it because she is teething all the time!

She eats almost anything, including peanuts, apples with the skin, carrots, popcorn. She pushes everything to her teeth in the front and chews it. She plays games - we hide things and say "where did it go" and then we find it. It's usually behind her back, or she dropped it.

She can be sassy, adorable, crazy, goofy all at once. She's darling and I'm so happy she is part of our family.

And now for the picture overload for the past several months. :) Enjoy!

Playing peekaboo

Her "girly" excited face. So adorable!

This was in january

She is a daddy's girl through and through!

Her hair is long enough to put in a "ponytail" and pigtails.

Playing at McDonalds

She insisted on feeding herself.

 

She loves necklaces - mine specifically - so I made her one out of yarn and beads and she loves it!

 

Where did it go?

There it is! And yes, that is crayon on her face. Apparently it tastes good. Ha ha!

Whole 30 Pros & Cons

I just thought I'd like to write the pros and cons of doing a whole30.

I'll start with the cons, because I'm sure that list is shorter than the pros.

CONS

1. It's expensive - I've already delved into this, but it is. Buying lots of meat, fruits and vegetables is expensive. And they suggested you get organic, pastured beef, etc. Ya right. that is even more expensive. 

2. A lot of prep - because you're making your own food all the time, plus chopping up mounds of veggies every day, and making your own mayo, bbq sauce, etc. it takes a lot of time. I felt like I was constantly thinking about food. What I was going to shop for the next week, what I was making for each meal, making sure I had lettuce washed, veggies chopped, etc.

3. Because of all that prep, the Dishes are insane! - I'm pretty sure I did dishes at least twice every day. If I didn't, they would get stacked up and I can't handle cooking when the dishes I need are dirty and dishes covering the counters. Lots of doing dishes. But it did get me in the habit!

4. It's hard. There's a lot of restrictions. I didn't realize how dependent my body was on sugar. And I don't eat cookies and cake and doughnuts on a regular basis. Instead I eat bread, which turns into sugar, and syrup and jelly and honey, etc. But there were plenty of nights I had to just preoccupy myself because I was craving sugar. Plus there is sugar in everything! Even mayo. No wonder we all love sugar so much. They put it in food that you wouldn't think has sugar in it. I still crave sugar, but I can say no to it.

PROS

1. I felt amazing. I never felt bloated or gross or that heavy feeling you get when you eat too much food. I don't think it was possible to overeat when eating like whole30 suggests because you get "nutritionally" full and the hormone that says you have all the nutrition you need gets triggered. Whereas when you eat lots of bread, you keep eating because that hormone never gets triggered. Bread, pasta, sugar, etc doesn't have all the "nutrition" that your body needs, so that hormone never gets triggered, hence the overeating empty calories. Interesting. I seriously felt full after each meal, but not a bloated "my stomach is so full I might barf" full. 

2. Restrictions - I actually like that it restricts you from eating certain foods. I'm one of those people that say "I'll just eat one" and then one turns into two, etc. It's so hard to just say I'll have one. But if I say none at all, then I don't get the taste on my mouth, I don't crave more than one. And it's easier to say no to people because you aren't eating it at all. 

3. I kind of have digestive issues - or something. My stomach just couldn't handle what I ate, I guess. I figured that's just how it was always going to be, but when I did whole30, my stomach issues were completely gone. And lots of people have had improvement with pain, Crohn's disease, allergies, even ADD issues from doing whole30. At least that's what their testimonials said in the book. Pretty cool! And they'll stay gone as long as I stick to whole30 as closely as possible.

4. Weight loss. They say not to weigh yourself for the 30 days, but I did anyway. I've lost 8 pounds in a little over 2 weeks. I'm also exercising on top of that, but that's awesome! I couldn't get the scale to budge when I was exercising alone, so whole30 definitely helped to get the scale moving down.

5. Resetting the body/mind. I think any diet would probably do this. Whole30 helped me to reevaluate what I was eating, what was making me feel gross, what I don't have to have. I don't have to eat dairy. I already knew that from being dairy free with Alexis, but I don't have to have ranch or sour cream or milk - ever. Alexis doesn't like milk anyways, and Jonas doesn't care about it either. As long as we get our calcium through other foods, which there are, or take a calcium chew for the kids, we're good. And I also realized I ate WAY too many carbs - like grains and bread. Just having a super low carb diet helps immensely with losing weight - and the no sugar. And I can say no to sugar. :)

6. Fruit tastes better. Because you aren't eating sugar (no honey, sugar, stevia, sugar substitute, agave, etc) fruit tastes so good! I actually crave apples! And when I want something sweet, I want fruit. Apples never sounded good to me before. They are so good - and so sweet and juicy! And vegetables taste better too. But that might be because I'm preparing them differently than just plain ol steaming them.

7. Whole30 made me try new recipes. I love trying new recipes anyways, but there's a ton of recipes out there that are good and healthy and don't have sugar in them, or heavy cream or dairy. Many different ways to prepare chicken, and seriously, I have found some very tasty ways to season ground beef (or ground turkey, in our case). Paprika and cinnamon together? SO GOOD! Who would have thought?

I'm pretty sure there are other pros, but those are what I can think of right now. I love whole30. I think it works, and it is healthy. I mean a diet that says you have to eat fruits and veggies and no sugar has got to be good, right? Ya, the whole no grains, or no dairy is a little much, but they do it to see if your body reacts harshly to it. You're supposed to reintroduce the foods at the end of 30 days, one at a time to see if your body reacts to dairy, or gluten, etc. But I didn't quite get there. Oh well. I feel good doing whole30, so I'll just keep trying to do the rules as closely as possible as much as I can, and only make exceptions for SPECIAL occasions.

Whole 30 Catch up

I've been busy - actually I really haven't. I've just really been into Gilmore Girls lately. I love that show! I've seen it probably 5 times now. It's so funny and witty! So that's what I've been doing in my "spare" time.

So I'll just catch up on the whole30 stuff. Just assume that I have the same breakfasts/lunches. Eggs, salsa, chicken salad, etc.

Dinners:

One night I made Cilantro lime chicken lettuce wraps. It was really good! The kids were also being whiney, so I didn't take a picture, but it was tasty. However, I also made cauliflower rice. I'm pretty sure you've seen that on pinterest - maybe. Well don't make it! It was so awful! I think it might have ruined cauliflower for me for a while. I also wasted a whole head of cauliflower. So annoying!

This is called Sweet potato Hash:

This was so good! I used sweet potatoes, the rest of the butternut squash I didn't use for the soup, and it has peppers and beef. With an egg on top. It was seriously so good! We've been loving the sweet potatoes lately. They were on sale at Walmart for .75 a pound! Good deal. But this dish was seasoned with paprika cinnamon. 1/8 tsp each. I never would have put those two together, but it was so good! The recipe is in the "It Starts with Food" book. So yummy!

You basically get the idea of what whole30 is. I want to do one more post, the pros and cons of it, and then I want to stop. I'll still continue following whole30 as much as my finances will let me. But I will let you know how it goes when 30 days is officially up. I know I'm not doing it EXACTLY how it says, but you do what you can do. I'm still eating way healthier than I ever used to.

Whole 30 - Day 9

First off, can I just say thank you to everyone, Sabrina, Nova, Jessica, mom, dad, Natalie, for making encouraging comments and the help? It really helps me to stay motivated. Thank you!

Breakfast: Scrambled eggs with salsa over lettuce (I totally love this meal! I feel like I could eat it everyday. And I just might. Ha!)

Lunch: Chicken Salad

Dinner: Butternut Squash Soup

I made this last year sometime, but Clint said he wished there were chunks in it. So I added bacon, carrots and celery. However, the soup already has carrots, celery onions, I added peppers, in it. Very tasty!

Technically bacon isn't whole30 approved, unless you buy the certain whole30 bacon who knows where. Probably some whole food store. But this bacon was already in my freezer, and it's turkey bacon, so less fat and cholesterol. But I probably won't buy bacon anymore until the 30 days is up. Or at least I won't buy bacon as often as I used to.

Jonas and Alexis didn't like this soup. But we did. Can't win every meal with the kids. It was that way when I wasn't doing whole30 either. Jonas went to bed without dinner. He said he wasn't hungry the whole night, and Alexis ate a pb&J and banana.

Also - Clint basically has stopped with the whole30 stuff. He'll still eat a healthy lunch and dinner, but if he wants sugar, he eats it. He never really had a desire to do it in the first place. He was just doing it to support me, but he doesn't like being told what he can and can't eat. And that's fine. If you don't have a desire to do something, then it won't be done.

So he made no bake cookies this night. And I caved! I ate a few. And can I just tell you I won't be doing that again! My body hated it. My stomach hurt and I felt so gross. That feeling was enough to let me know that what I am doing is good. That this whole30 stuff is good. I really feel so much better eating healthy. So all in all, it was a good learning experience to show that I need to keep on going with the whole30 thing. All the time, not just for 30 days. I will make exceptions for SPECIAL occasions, but eating no bake cookies on a random night is not special. That's what I learned about that little endeavor.

Whole 30 - Day 8

Breakfast:  Eggs over lettuce with salsa. I took a picture!

This is so good. I crave salsa, so this fulfills that craving. I also canned this salsa last fall. So I know it doesn't have sugar in it. I think it's safe to assume that there is probably sugar in store bought salsa. Seriously, there is sugar in everything! I looked at some chicken broth labels and every single one had sugar in it. In chicken broth! I made my own.

Lunch: Chicken lettuce wrap. This was our idea to "hopefully" make things cheaper this week for food. I bought a whole chicken, cooked it in the crockpot, and by doing that I got 3 quarts of chicken broth (from the water covering the chicken) and I also used that chicken for our lunches for the week so I didn't have to cook chicken for our lunches. I think ultimately it did save us money, because I didn't have to buy chicken broth for our soups I"m making this week, and it made it easier because I didn't have to cook chicken for our lunches.

The reason, I think, why I spent too much on groceries this week was because i bought stuff to make our own bbq sauce, which will last a long time now that I have all that and I can make multiple batches, plus I think I spent too much on fruit.  And I also did buy ground turkey and a whole chicken where as the week before I didn't.

Anyways, Dinner: Salad, Grilled chicken, and sweet potato fries.

This was a big hit! Jonas loved the chicken and the fries. And Alexis even ate the chicken! And she devoured the fries. I also made the BBQ sauce and it was pretty good. Clint wasn't a huge fan because it has apple cider vinegar in it (he doesn't like vinegar that much), but I liked it. Plus, no sugar. So win win. :)

When I eat whole30 foods, I feel good after I eat. I don't feel heavy or bloated or gross, like I did when I was eating dairy and sugar induced foods. I do miss bread - a lot. But I'm going to be eating that next week - sparingly - to save on groceries. But I think having grains in small quantities isn't going to kill me. :)

Whole 30 - Day 7

Breakfast: Scrambled eggs over lettuce with salsa on top. Really good! I didn't take a pic though.

Lunch: Lettuce chicken wraps with an apple

Dinner: Sweet potato chili - absolutely amazing!

This chili is full of nutrients, plus I added in carrots and celery. The recipe doesn't have those in there. It has a TON of veggies - peppers, onions, tomatoes, carrots, celery, sweet potatoes. And no beans. :) I love chili, but normal chili does really bad things to me and makes my stomach hurt. This chili does not do that. It is so good! The recipe for this can be found here.

I think I have officially decided what I want to do after this week is over regarding whole30 and the finances of it. I like having more vegetables in my diet, and I like having a protein with veggies because I feel like the protein makes my feel full until my next meal.

I will continue eating protein and veggies for every meal. HOWEVER, I will not "fill up my plate" with veggies like they recommend, because it's too expensive. The fact that I'll have veggies with every meal is way more than I ever used to eat. And I will not eat as much meat as they say I should have. I'll most likely still have 3 eggs for breakfast. Eggs aren't that expensive. But when I am done eating my meal, if I still feel hungry I will eat a small portion of carbs, like toast or rice. But have 1 serving of it. Only 1 piece of toast, or 1/2 c rice, or something along those lines. They say if you're still hungry you need to eat more protein at your meals, but we can't afford to eat more protein so I'll slip a little whole wheat carb in there.  And everything else eliminated by whole30, like dairy, legumes (however I'm going to start eating peanut butter), sugar (I will have honey occasionally), I won't eat. But I will start buying mayo again. Making your own is actually more expensive than buying it. It might be more healthy to make your own, but it's also more expensive because the olive oil in it is the same price as buying a jar of mayo, and it makes less than a store bought jar.  I'm looking into making a different dressing instead of ranch for my salads.

Also, I've really liked planning my meals and shopping for each week as opposed to the two weeks what I used to do. So I decided I'll spend $60 each week. 15 for veggies, 10 for fruit, 20 for meat, and then 15 on filler things like bread, stuff for the kids, coconut milk, etc. I'm hoping that will help. That should be doable for just a week. We'll see. Plus I'm not buying ramen noodles or packaged foods anymore, so that should free up a little room.  I'll let you know how this plan goes. It's still mostly following the whole30 guidelines.

Oh, and no snacking in between meals, unless it's fruit or something healthy, and no eating after dinner is over.

Whole 30 - Day 6

Breakfast: eggs/spinach

Lunch: Chicken salad

Dinner: Mashed potatoes, carrots and chicken.

I know they say to go sparingly on the white potatoes, but today was really hard for me. I didn't get good sleep (when will Alexis start sleeping better?) and therefore was tired and emotional. So I CRAVED everything. I wanted cheese, tortillas, jelly, maple syrup and pancakes, etc. etc. etc. Everything I couldn't have. For me, this dinner was comfort food. So I had more mashed potatoes than carrots. It was tasty, but I still stuck to the whole30 rules and didn't cave. I wanted to so badly! I wanted to make gravy, but I didn't because it has flour in it to thicken it. I even went to my nieces bday party and I didn't have cake or anything. Clint did. I think he's fed up with the whole30 diet, but I don't care. I'm doing this for me.

However, I think we can only do this for one more week and then we have to tone it down. I went shopping on Saturday for next week's meals, and I spent $80. And I know I'm going to run out of eggs and lettuce this next week, too. I can't afford to spend $80 a week on food (I was also getting food for Jonas & Alexis since they don't eat exactly like I have been). I don't know if I'm just not doing it right or what, but I think after this week we'll readjust. We're going to talk about it and see what we can do to eat/live healthier and still stick to some of these rules but without breaking bank. I'll write more about that later.