whole30: resources

After writing about my first Whole30 experience last week I had a lot of questions about what I ate, where I got my information, how anyone could survive thirty whole days without chocolate, etc., etc. Today is as good a day as any to share all my Whole30 deep, dark secrets! A.K.A. to share all my resources with you. Because I have no secrets after writing out that novel post last week.

Also because I blog promised to share my resources and what kind of blogger would I be if I went back on a blog promise? A bad blogger. Yay, alliteration!

Books and Blogs

• Whole30 cookbook - So many good recipes, so many good tidbits, so many good Whole30 life hacks. I flipped through this book weekly like it was my job.
• It Starts With Food - Everyone suggested reading this before starting Whole30. It explains every who, what, when, where, and why of the program. Spoiler alert: I never read it (insert hands over face monkey emoji) and I survived; however, most people I know that have read it have had nothing but positive oh-my-gosh-this-blew-my-mind things to say. 
• Inspiralized blog - I fell in love with noodles and I'm never looking back. 
• Anne's Whole30 resources post from Anne in Residence - You'll notice I have a lot of the same recipes and what not from Anne's post. That is because I went back to her post at least once a week to get ideas slash affirmation that I could make it through the 30 days. 
• The Whole30 website - Thank the whole food gods for this website. They have a blog, a forum (where you can go and ask: wait, why can't I have corn again?!), and my personal favorite was the Can I have...? guide. I wish I was exaggerating when I say I was on this guide's page at least once a day. And my once I mean thrice. Ish.

Recipes

Breakfast:

• Baked Sweet Potato Hash With Eggs
• Zucchini and Sweet Potato Latkes 
• Onion Cup Eggs - with Whole30 compliant bacon, of course. 
• Eggs Baked in Avocado
• Egg Muffins
• Frittatas. Omeletes. Fried eggs. Poached eggs. Scrambled eggs. Veggie scrambled eggs. And for when you just can't stand the thought of one more bleeping' egg...
• Egg-Free Paleo Breakfast Bowls 

Lunch/Dinner:

• Pesto meatballs - I ate so many meatballs in thirty days that I am currently waiting for my meatball trophy. 
• Zoodles Shrimp Scampi
• Zoodles with Scallops and Bacon
• Oven Fajitas
• Butternut Squash and Sweet Potato Soup - important notice***-SO GOOD
• Chicken Thighs with Peppery Pesto
• Moroccan-Spiced Spaghetti Squash
• Broccoli slaw (we threw in broccoli, carrots, almonds, cashews, onions, raisins and made this mayo for it).

Sides:

• Cauliflower Rice
• Cauliflower Mash - we used coconut milk instead of butter
• Cauliflower Hummus
• Spiralized Sweet Potato Fries

Other recipe-less things of which we ate a lot:

• Frittatas. Omeletes. Fried eggs. Poached eggs. Scrambled eggs. Eggs. Eggs. Eggs.
• Burrito bowls - throw in a ton of veggies and meat and voila!
• Zoodles with just about any no-added sugar sauce and any and all veggies and meat
• Roasted Sweet Potatoes
• Roasted Eggplant
• More Meatballs - using chopped mushrooms instead of breadcrumbs 

Anne has a great list of pre-made products that you should check out.

 Some of my favorites include:

• Tessamae's dressings and sauces - Balsamic is/was my jam. I still pour it on all of the food. 
• Almond butter - I was not a fan of Trader Joe's creamy almond butter. Justin's worked better for my snobby taste buds. 
• Sparkling Water - flavored (like La Croix) or not (like any regular soda water), delicious. 
• Larabars - Compliant flavors found here
• Nut mixes - I actually found making my own cashew and raisin mix was my favorite, but Trader Joe's has some good mixes. 
• Jicama tortillas - found at our HEB and uh-mazing for Taco Tuesdays. 

And there ya have it. Everything (ish) that went into my belly the month of September. Now, who else is way too hungry at 8am after reading this? Time for food! How about eggs...? ;)

on finishing Whole30

And the culprit of the stench was...a head of rotten broccoli. 

^^ That totally caught your eye and made you overly excited to read more, right? Oh, it didn't? Weird.

You see, I used to have the worst eating habits. Super picky plus stubborn plus unwilling to try new things--that all equaled me. As a joke, one year I was given a head of broccoli as a present. Hardy har har har and all that, but I kind of forgot about the broccoli in the bag. Not too long afterwards our entire den started to smell terrible. Horrible. We couldn't figure out what in the world was creating such a horrible stank. Spoiler alert: it wasn't dog farts (or human farts), it was the old, nasty broccoli.

Promise this was many, many moons ago and not 24, 25, or 26-year old Emily.

Many moons ago Emily also lurved some peanut butter. 26-year old Emily still does. 

Fast forward to the present--I eat broccoli. I eat cauliflower mash. I eat sweet potatoes, peas, eggplant, and mushrooms. I eat fruit. I eat meats. I do not eat green beans. How I got to this place of eating such strange foods as eggplant (sorry, it's weird) is a story for another day. Today we are going to talk about...

Whole30

The pilates studio (where I now work!) (check it out! Pure Body Studio! Represent and all that) recently did a challenge called Pure30. It was 30 days of living, breathing, eating Whole30 in addition to working out at the pilates studio 5 days a week, and working out at home 1 day a week. Phew. Wore me out just typing that all out again. 

I did it! I actually factually completed the entire challenge. No dairy, no alcohol, no added sugars, no grains, no exercise excuses, and no fuss (okay...maybe I did fuss juuuuust a little somewhere around days 8-20ish...but then you realize you're eating delicious food and it's all good). It's taken me some time off of it to decide what my true feelings were/are, but today felt like a good day to finally word vom out all my Whole30 thinkings. Lucky. You. 

Apparently I didn't take any pictures of my real meals for the past thirty day...

Sidebar: Just some background, people rave about this program. R-a-v-e. The testimonials are pretty inspiring if you ever have hours to waste on medical and physical victories of Whole30-ers. They call these NSV or, for you noobs, non-scale victories (I literally Googled NSV when I started this program because what?). Things like clearer skin, better sleep, no bloat, healed injuries, vanishing allergies, no chronic pain, and better overall control of cravings just to name a few. 

Drumroll please...

...

I did not get any of that from this program.

Wanh wanh. 

I, Emily, am immune to Whole30. Do not tell me I cut out my wine and bread and cheese for 30 days for NOTHING?!

^^that's a joke, but literally what was going through my head some of the time. 

At first, this was all a pretty big bummer for me. Where was my angelic, baby butt's soft skin?! (I literally had a new zit every few days). Where was my lean, mean, bloat-be-gone-cuz-I-eat-clean stomach?! Why did I sometimes still really think chocolate just sounded like the bomb.com?!

However, now that I've had some time to let everything sink in (and let a glass of wine sink down my belly), I am finally able really to recognize and acknowledge the main thing I gained from these 30 days.

Whole30 was a vacation for my brain. 

Biggest and greatest, first and foremost, forever and always pro. I was afraid that denying myself foods would turn up a side of my brain that did not need to be around, but that did not happen. For years I have gone through extremely disordered eating. I have gone from not thinking twice about how I eat, to overanalyzing and big time controlling my eating, to losing way too much weight, to binge eating, to just in general not taking great care of my body. While I am much healthier now, it's something that never really goes away. There's always the voice in my head telling me I shouldn't have eaten that, or did you really not read the calories?!, and so-on and so-forth with the no good thoughts. Thirty straight days of knowing I was only putting in wholesome and good-for-you food in my body was huge. I could go to bed without extreme guilt. I could go out with friends without dreading all the bad choices I just knew I would make. It was literally a vacation for my disordered eating brain and I really enjoyed that vaca. 

I also am thoroughly enjoying my handful of chocolate and my glass of wine on this side of the challenge, so life is funny and chocolate is yummy. 

Other big pros:

Cooked more.

Tried so many delicious recipes.

Had more meals sitting together at the real table and not the coffee table.

Realized that cauliflower rice is delicious and zoodles are just as fun as they sound.

Practiced my true housewife skills and washed 1000 dishes a day (oh wait, pro or con?)

Discovered that the world does keep spinning even if you don't get an after-dinner dessert. Shocking.
Spiralized the cuh-rap out of some vegetables and realized how amazing it is. 

Felt stronger from good food, good fuel, and good workouts. 

All in all I am glad I finished it. So what that really means is I'm glad I did it in a group because without the support of the Pure30 community, I probably would have quit. And then been mad at myself for quitting. And then talked about that a lot and pondered about starting over again. And then Freddie would have left me so...yay for finishing! 

Special thanks to:

-Pure Body for creating the challenge.

-Pure30-ers for posting delicious recipes on the Facebook group for me to steal.

-Freddie for cooking and experimenting with all sorts of Whole30 recipes.

-and to Ryan and Rachel for bringing back all the delicious wine from Spain and letting me have some on Day 32. Hallelujah. 

I'd be happy to answer (or attempt to answer) any questions you have about Whole30, my experience, or why chocolate is made of crack! Ask away. The blog mic is yours. I'll try to do a post next week with resources and recipes that worked/helped me during the thirty days of rockstar status.