grateful for change

Dinner on Day 15

2011-03-16T16:10:00.001-04:00

2 days ago was the half way point of my first whole 30. To my knowledge, I'm still 100% clean! We even took a quick beach trip to look at houses for a Fall week long trip. Taking all our food with us, I was completely satisfied... well, okay, I would have loved to stop for french fries and beer, but that's what the September trip will be for!

Above was my dinner 2 nights ago. You can't really see my yummy grassfed beef burger under that pile o' guac and tomato, but it was there and it was awesome! The lady made me some sweet potato fries with coconut oil that totally rocked the casbah! I slept happy that night.

dinner time! finally

2011-03-08T21:36:00.001-05:00

Wow. Dinner after 9pm; doesn't happen like that very often. But it was well worth the wait - tilapia fish cakes with an awesome horseradish/homemade mayo dipping sauce and a big green leaf salad!

mid-afternoon snack

2011-03-08T21:33:00.001-05:00

I found myself super hungry before the end of my work day (after unpictured breakfast - asparagus and egg - and lunch - left overs from last night, with a shit ton of kale added when I reheated!) and had to have a snack. I settled on a couple dates dipped in almond butter. Super yums! 40

love this sight!

2011-03-08T21:32:00.001-05:00

Shopping is so enjoyable when I look down and see so many fresh fruits and veggies ready to go home with me! And of course the pasture raised eggs to the side! :)

i love thai food!

2011-03-07T20:55:00.002-05:00

I managed to recreate one of my favorite dishes without any soy sauce or sugar - and it was absolutely wonderful and satisfying!

beastly WOD!

2011-03-07T11:21:00.001-05:00

I did my post work out sweet tater soup as usual. But man I was smoked. 1 hour post wod I cooked up these chicken apple sausages, then scrambled some eggs in the yummy fat/flavor they left behind and added a generous portion of steamed asparagus. Only ate one of the sausages though - they are so rich, I can only take some much in one sitting.

waiting in line for the oven

2011-03-07T07:28:00.001-05:00

My phone took a bath last week... in my gym bag... with water from a faulty water bottle. After a few days in a can of dry black beans, all is well and it's back to normal. But I totally got out of the habit of taking my food photos. Gonna try to pick that back up today!

Last night, dinner involved an awesome salad with homemade dressing, which utilized the homemade mayo that I made earlier in the day (eggs, lemon juice, olive oil), 2 "clean" chicken sausages from the Whole Foods, and the roasted veggies (cauliflower and red cabbage) that you see above, waiting their turn in the oven. (the lady was making french fries first... i resisted 100%... I also resisted beignets earlier in the day at brunch... it was hard, very very hard. not something I want to have to do on a daily basis. But I am proud of myself for not breaking the Whole 30).

lunch + snack

2011-03-02T17:46:00.001-05:00

Another salad for lunch - but I'm really not getting sick of 'em yet.But at an average of $7 a pop, my wallet might get sick of them and make me starting thinking ahead a little bit more! Today I added a skewer of dill shrimp from the WFM chef's case. It was all quite tasty. The dressing was a homemade concoction of avocado, lemon, water and crushed red pepper! Very tasty! And of course I had myself an apple w/ coconut butter as a snack a little later on.

pre & post workout foods

2011-03-02T09:58:00.002-05:00

So maybe I'm lying and this is not THE egg I ate pre-workout. And maybe it's the egg that I'll eat FRIDAY morning pre-workout. But I finally got a picture of a freakin' egg on here! And my sweet potato soup made from FRESH SWEET POTATOES that my sweet lady friend cooked for me while I was at my WOD. And I will probably eat that banana on my way to work, so I threw it in the picture (taken by the sweet beth bakke, by the way) for good measure. It will be eaten at some point today, no doubts.

The WOD this morning was really fun. I did ring dip negatives (some with Ashley's assistance) while the guys worked on something that looked more like muscle up negatives. Muscle downs? :) Then the METCON looked like this:

50 KB Swings (I did 25#, RX would have been 35#)

50 Box Jumps (I did step ups to a 20" box cuz my knee was killing me on box jumps yesterday)

1000 m row

50 Abmat Situps

50 Double Unders (I ended up doing 150 singles cuz I just can't quite master the doubles yet)

Time was 14:24, I think.

Totally forgot to photograph my breakfast though... it was the other half of a 2 serving crustless quiche. Honestly, I could have eaten the whole thing if it had been available.

YUM!!!

2011-03-01T21:22:00.001-05:00

Mushrooms excite me! I love them! Throw in some boneless, skinless chicken thighs and some yummy sauteed dinosaur kale and you've got one happy eater! Dino chow at it's best! Totally satisfied and ready to wind down for the night.

fig cake

2011-03-01T16:14:00.001-05:00

This my friends, is a piece of "fig cake." The only ingredients are figs and almonds. It's "technically" Whole 30 compliant, but not something I want to be eating every day because there's a lot of sugar content in those dried figs. So, I noshed a little after lunch on a piece today, but I don't plan on making a habit out of it. Plus I'm pretty sure I wasn't still hungry after lunch, but rather my brain wanted to be satiated with "dessert." I have to kick my butt off the dessert-thinking-train. We do not NEED dessert. Damn it.

Lunch was here

2011-03-01T16:02:00.000-05:00

Oops. I dove right in, forgetting about this whole photo food log thing. It was a beautiful salad with some unsalted roast turkey, loads of veggies (including beets - why you're seeing pink) with olive oil, vinegar and nutritional yeast atop.

Breakfast in the car

2011-03-01T14:21:00.001-05:00

My car is in the shop today. So, my lady friend graciously drove me to work. And let me eat my breakfast in her car. Her car that we endearingly refer to as RONDASTA. It's true.

I sauteed a fun assortment of veggies: red cabbage, kale, swiss chard, broccoli. Then I fried two eggs just to my liking... well, maybe slightly past the doneness of my liking, but it was still perfectly likable and super tasty!

Now I'm starting to think about lunch. Better hit the floor and see what's cooking!

Post-Workout Snack

2011-03-01T11:53:00.001-05:00

Today's workout was just strength work. Starting with Snatches, then on to Deadlifts and finishing off with Max Height Box Jumps - my knee was way funny today, was 3 inches shy of my previous PR when the landing pain was more than I was willing to tolerate.

Soooo.... I forgot to photograph my pre-work egg, again. Imagine a green speckled farm fresh egg... boiled. It's in my belly. Then I just had this banana post-workout - not opitmal, but since I'm not completely exhausted from MetCon, I think it's adequate.

Dinner: Chicken, Cabbage, Guac, Tomatoes & Olives

2011-02-28T21:05:00.001-05:00

Thank god I had that snack earlier! Didn't know I'd be eating dinner quite so late. I basically scavenged through the kitchen to pull this together quickly - with the left over guacamole from this afternoon I went for another southwestern flavored meal - sauteed some purple cabbage with chipotle seasonings, added a chicken patty from the freezer, the rest of that tomato from earlier, and a side of olives. Was it fabulous? Eh. It got the job done. I'm not hungry now. :) I am sleepy though! Bed time soon.

A snack, already?

2011-02-28T14:44:00.001-05:00

Seems the WOD this morning, even though it felt pretty light, is really burning up the fuel today! Ready for a snack already!

What you see here is a nice cold apple from the fridge and a jar of homemade coconut butter (god, i love that recipe!). I like to heat my coconut butter up until it's more of a dip than a spread. Plus the contrast between cold apple and hot "coconut sauce" is just heavenly. I just dipped and enjoyed!

Lunch: crustless, cheeseless quiche, carrots, tomatoes and guac

2011-02-28T12:20:00.001-05:00

This quiche is an amazing recipe that my sweet lady has perfected over the last few months. She of course makes hers in a nice whole wheat crust; I make mine in muffin tins, or as in the picture above, small pyrex dishes (2 servings per dish). I heated up half a pyrex quiche, sliced some tomato, made up some easy guacamole (just avocados, lemon juice & salsa) and threw in some baby carrots for good measure. Full and ready to head over to the old house and do the final round of last minute cleanups before turning the keys in tonight.

post workout soup

2011-02-28T10:58:00.002-05:00

canned sweet potato puree, 1/2 lemon, herbamare seasoning

This is my ritualistic post-workout recovery soup. According to a coach at Crossfit, Ashley, and the folks behind Whole 30, sweet potatoes are excellent recovery food. I'm not sure about the science behind it, but I do know that when I first started Crossfit WODs I really crashed after my workouts. I could barely keep my eyes open by the end of an 8 hours shift at work when I had worked out that morning. Now that I chug some sweet potato soup as well as a couple liters of water immediately after my workouts, I have much more energy and stamina throughout the day.

So, here's my first picture, and even though I forgot to take a picture of my pre-workout boiled egg (use your imagination) I am starting my Whole 30 today! TODAY IS THE DAY! Here it goes, y'all...

note to self

2011-02-21T18:52:00.000-05:00

(Most likely these notes are truly just to myself - but if you've found yourself eying these notes by accident on your way to a far more interesting blog... consider them notes to you too).

My lunch would have qualified for Whole 30 today, except there wasn't a single salad dressing offered on the Whole Foods salad bar that fit the bill. They all either had icky canola oil, dumb sweeteners, or dairy.

So, note to self: be prepared to make in advance and pack said made-in-advance salad dressings, even on days when the Whole Foods salad bar is on the menu for lunch.

Not yet.

2011-02-21T12:19:00.000-05:00

Morning number two waking up in the new digs and I LOVE the house! The sun shines in the bedroom window in a beautiful meet-the-day-with-a-smile kind of way (for those of us who like to greet the day with sunlight in the morning). The space is huge and the lady and I have found it quite pleasant to spend time in the same house without hearing every keystroke of each others keyboards and we're even able to listen to our own music on opposite ends of the house without sound interference! Very cool.

What's not cool is that our kitchen is still a CRAZY. C.r.A.z.Y disaster. I was able to pull together a grain-free and dairy-free breakfast this morning but legumes made an appearance as I finished off the remaining leftovers from Cosmic. I'm not certain, but I don't think there's a single vegetable in this house yet.

We've unpacked 5 or 6 kitchen boxes but there are still 8 or 9 to go (????? don't ask.). So, cooking is still a challenge. I've got a few more hours before my closing shift at the store tonight, so I hope to knock out a few more of those boxes. And I'll pick up some veggies at the store so that maybe tomorrow I'll be closer on my way to an actual beginning to my first real Whole 30. Complete with pictures as promised.

welcome back, amy

2011-02-15T20:04:00.000-05:00

Why thank you, Amy!

It's been four years or so since the day, or night, rather, that I pushed the delete button and erased the years of words I had deposited here on this site (I was pretty scared of the change that night). I really didn't think I'd ever be back here, writing again. But here I am. Go figure. Things change.

So, here at first I'll be posting a LOT about food. I have reached a tipping point where I have to make some serious changes in my diet in order to accomplish some of my most important goals. You see, I turn 30 4 months from tomorrow. I have set two majors goals: pay off my student loans & be in the best shape of my life. That first one, eh, that might have to be a "pay off my student loans before I turn 31 goal" because the last few months have been filled with unexpected expenses. And those student loans, as nice as it would be to be rid of them - they are like a .2% interest rate - not losing a lot of money on them. So, let's get 'em by 31. :)

The 2nd goal - it's going to happen! I'm going to my gym 3 to 4 times a week - and it's no normal gym. It's Crossfit. They are kicking my ass into shape. But in order to maximize these crazy intense workouts, I'm going to attempt DO a full "Whole 30" starting as soon as I get moved into my new house and the kitchen is up and running (by mid next week, March 1 at the absolute latest). I just read this article and it sounded perfectly logical, so that's what I'm going to do. When I start the Whole 30, I'm gonna take a picture of every single thing I eat, if it's going in my mouth, it's gonna have a photo shoot first. And then I'm going to bore the internets with pictures of my food! :)

So, let me get moved into my new sweet little house, and I'll be back to show you what I'm eating and talk about my workouts and other random things that pop up.

It's good to be back. Facing the change with a smile and good words.