Breakfast / Lunch / Dinner

Today is my official whole30 halfway point! I'll start by recapping what I ate today. 

Here is my new favourite summer breakfast, what I've been calling "paleo muesli". When I posted it previously, I referred to a link for the recipe my ratios are based on, but today I'll post the exact recipe I use to make two servings. 

Paleo Breakfast Muesli

two servings

4 tbsp chia seeds

1 tbsp hemp hearts

1 cup almond milk

splash (about 1/4 cup) coconut milk (the canned kind)

assorted fruit (this time I used orange, apple, nectarine, strawberry, and frozen raspberries)

mixed raw nuts (or any type of nuts)

shredded unsweetened coconut

Put the first four ingredients into a bowl and whisk. Pour evenly into two mason jars or resealable containers. Wait ten minutes or so for the mixture to begin to thicken, then top with the remaining ingredients. Place in the fridge overnight or until ready to eat. 

For lunch I packed a salad made from kale and spinach, topped with steak (leftover from last night), heirloom cherry tomatoes, Belgian endive, and some more of my purple bell pepper. Along with it, I had fruit salad with coconut milk and shredded coconut, and some mixed nuts. 

Finally, tonight's dinner was made from the exact same ingredients as yesterday's, but I threw everything into one skillet instead of cooking each component separately. Sometimes the best dinners are made when you just throw anything and everything into a skillet with some spices and let it cook. Tonight I had onion, peppers, mushroom, steak, and kale cooked in clarified butter. On the side I had a half sweet potato (cooked in the microwave) mashed with salt, pepper, nutmeg, cinnamon, and a splash of coconut milk. Forget sweet potato fries, I think this is my absolute favourite way of eating sweet potatoes.

Finally, my thoughts on two weeks of the whole30? Despite the frustrations I voiced earlier, I'm mostly enjoying the experience. I don't miss dairy as much as I thought I would...in fact I don't miss anything as much as I though I would (even my 90% chocolate!). I've also really enjoyed how creative it's forcing me to be in the kitchen. Before paleo/whole30, I had a few go-to dinners that I would rotate between and though they weren't particularly bad for me, they weren't doing me any favours (and they were getting a bit boring). Now I find myself excitedly looking at and trying new recipes and using ingredients I've never used before. The other biggest thing I've gained from doing this is that I have re-shaped my relationship to food. I rarely crave foods and if I do indulge in something less healthy, I'm able to savour it and move on, without feeling the need to eat until I'm sick. I'm enjoying food so much more, and I'm learning how what I eat affects not just my weight, but many other aspects of my day to day...and that's exciting.

Looking forward to coming home and cooking this for dinner was basically the only thing that got me through the day today. I have to say, this dinner made the long work day a little more bearable. Having a pint or a glass of wine would be the only modification I would make to this otherwise perfect meal. 

Here I have steak seasoned and fried in the skillet; a bit of grainy mustard; mushrooms, peppers, and onions sautéed in clarified butter; sautéed kale, and a half sweet potato cooked in the microwave and roughly mashed (peel on) with salt, pepper, red pepper flakes, and a splash of coconut milk (for added smoothness and richness). 

Well, that's all for now. Eleven hours from now I'll be back at work, so I'm going to enjoy what little is left of my evening. 

Breakfast & Lunch

This morning I had a quick breakfast, using the last of my breakfast sausages and a couple of eggs. Then, faced with a nearly empty fridge and still two workdays ahead, I had to run out to the grocery store. 

I had to pick up things that wouldn't take long to prepare so lunch today is meat free once again. Here I have a salad made from kale and spinach, topped with Belgian endive, heirloom cherry tomatoes, and some purple bell pepper. I haven't tasted it yet but I had to grab it at the store - I'm a sucker for oddly coloured vegetables (they also had white ones!). Along with my salad are some strawberries and almonds, and a few homemade Larabars to keep stashed at work (these ones are made with dates, cashews, shredded coconut, cinnamon, and cardamom).

Well, off to another work day!

Lunch & Dinner

I work late today, so I was able to eat lunch at home and had to pack dinner. Lunch here is simple, just the rest of my chili and a granny smith apple topped with cinnamon and nutmeg. 

For dinner, I packed a kale and spinach salad topped with lemon juice, olive oil, an egg, and the rest of my roasted veggies. I also have half of a microwaved sweet potato with salt, pepper, and clarified butter. For "dessert" I've got a handful of frozen raspberries with some unsweetened shredded coconut. There's no meat here, but this looks like it'll be a hearty, filling, and tasty dinner. Who needs meat when you've got coconut and sweet potato? (Well...that may not be true, but for this dinner anyway I'm not missing it). 

Breakfast

This morning I was going to make my same ol' scrambled eggs to go along with the rest of my breakfast sausages, but then I saw this post on Nom Nom Paleo and decided to do an omelette instead. After all, I had all the ingredients just waiting in my fridge and those mushrooms weren't going to eat themselves. Pictured below is the filling frying up. In the pan I've got some green onion, red pepper, mushroom, and about 1/3 of a microwaved sweet potato mashed up, along with a bit of clarified butter. Once this was all cooked, I moved it into a bowl while I cooked the eggs. I decided to be ambitious and try the Alton Brown/Good Eats method outlined here. I love this show so much. It combines great ingredients and both basic and advanced cooking with the how and why behind the foods we eat and methods used to cook them. The best part is, there are a tonne of episodes on youtube. 

Here's the finished product! It turned out great! Not overcooked, brown, or rubbery. It looks gigantic, but there's only two eggs here. I cooked it in clarified butter, filled it with the mix seen above, and topped it with a bit of salt, pepper, and oregano. Hearty, filling, and very tasty. 

A New Day

I didn't get a chance to update my meals from yesterday, so here they are. I had a very early morning breakfast of prosciutto and eggs. It's classic, tasty, quick to prepare and it kept me full for a solid six hours until I ate lunch at noon. 

Here's lunch. I had a small salad using the last of my mixed greens along with some strawberry and carrot. I had some more of my chili, some mango with raspberries and blueberries, and some cashews.

After work I found that I was feeling pretty tired as soon as I got in the door. It was warm and sunny in the afternoon and I didn't want to waste the day by melting into the couch as early as five pm, so I went for a bike ride instead. 20km against the wind (how did it know when to change direction?) and I not only woke myself up, I also worked up an appetite. Luckily, dinner only took a few minutes to throw together. I warmed up some of my roasted veggies and breakfast sausages while I sautéed some kale and spinach in clarified butter. I think this is my new favourite way to eat kale. The flavour of butter compliments it so well (not surprising, butter tastes awesome on anything) and the edges of the leaves get slightly crispy in the pan, which creates an awesome texture. I do try to shake up my leafy greens (I love rainbow chard, and ate a tonne of brussels sprouts when I first started paleo) but I'm all about kale right now. 

One last thing - I had no more cheats. I didn't even have the inclination to. It's like it never happened. The rest of my pie (I only had a few bites) is wrapped tight and in the freezer, waiting patiently to be enjoyed in a couple weeks. 

Cheat.

"The only way this will work is if you give it the full thirty days, no cheats, slips or “special occasions.” This isn’t Whole9 playing the tough guy. This is a FACT, born of education and experience. You need such a small amount of any of these inflammatory foods to break the healing cycle – one bite of pizza, one splash of milk in your coffee, one lick of the spoon mixing the batter within the 30 day period and you’ve broken the “reset” button. You must commit to the full program, exactly as written. Anything less and we make no claims as to your results, or the chances of your success. Anything less and you are selling yourself – and your potential results – short."

This is taken directly from the guidelines for the Whole30 from the Whole9life website. So guess what happened today? I ate something non-compliant with whole30. As I was coming home from work I ran into my boyfriend leaving our building, heading across the street to the weekly farmer's market. I decided to tag along. While it was a very small farmer's market, there was some great stuff on offer (a huge variety of organic, pasture raised meats, bright, fresh raspberries and strawberries, and free run organic chicken and quail eggs). Any of these things would have made a perfect whole30 choice, and I certainly plan to go back next week to pick some of these items up, but today I got a gorgeous, homemade strawberry-rhubarb pie. 

I'm going to back up a bit. Before starting paleo one of the biggest issues I had with food was self-control. I could buy a container of ice cream or pack of cookies and I would eat until I felt sick. Not a serving, not a bowl, but so much that I couldn't physically eat more (or I had eaten it all). I wasn't enjoying the food after a certain point and even though my brain was telling me to stop, something urged me on. Starting paleo gave me the ability to say "no" and to re-esablish my relationship with food. Whether it's sweet or savoury, I can control what and how much of something I eat and thanks to reading It Starts With Food I understand that I'm not alone in my unhealthy relationships with food. 

Now, back to the pie. It's just a tiny one (about 5" diameter) but that doesn't matter. It's still not whole30. So I have three options: one, I start over. Tomorrow. Tomorrow becomes my new day one and I carry on until July 11th on my new whole30. Two, I give up. I concede that whole30 is not for me and I go back to the less strict version of paleo I was on before. Call it a "whole11" and say it just wasn't for me. Or three, I carry on. Tomorrow is still day twelve and I keep cooking and eating healthfully until the end of the month. 

Well, I think I'm going for option 3. Part of me changing my relationship with food is letting go of the guilt that washes over me every time I eat something bad. Food should make me feel good, not guilty. Food should be savoured and enjoyed, not vilified and seen as a "cheat". I don't like that word and I'm done with feeling guilty. That little pie (nearly all of which is still wrapped up in my fridge) was not baked with the intentions of making someone unhappy. It was made by people who love what they do and take pride in what they make. I've decided to treat is as such. Maybe it's not the answer Dallas and Melissa Hartwig want to hear, but it's the answer for me.