Breakfast 

Egg bake from Day 2
Blueberries
Coffee with Coconut Milk

Lunch
Napa cabbage slaw with snap peas, avocado and Carrot Ginger Dressing - dressing adapted from this recipe (no miso, subbed olive oil, added coconut aminos)
Tuna with mustard

Snack
Starbucks Americano (2 shots of espresso and water)

Dinner - night out with the girls
"Chips" & Salsa (raw zucchini slices brought from home, and  checked to see if the salsa contained sugar)

Shrimp cocktail (just the boiled shrimp)
Sliced avocados


Thoughts and notes:
Made it through a night with the girls without having a margarita or wine. If I can do that, I can do anything!
Also, I realized two things: (1) It made me realize how much I have wonderful friends who support me. Although they lovingly teased me a little for being "that girl" who brings her own crudite to dinner, they didn't roll their eyes when I asked the waitress a million questions about ingredients and I didn't feel like I was a wet blanket on their fun. (2) I can have just as much fun without having a margarita, and coming home not tired felt great... which is good because I had a lot of food prepping to do for the next day. Ha!

Day 2

Breakfast 
Egg bake made with: eggs, Aidell's chicken apple sausage, broccoli, coconut milk, coconut oil (adapted from this recipe)
Black coffee with a tsp of coconut milk. Yum!

Lunch
Salad with leftover grilled chicken and balsamic vinegar
Assorted crudite
Trail Mix - Hazlenut, macadamias and coconut chips
1/2 of a banana

Snack
Organic honeycrisp apple

Dinner
Veggie Spaghetti - Squash/Zucchini "noodles" made with my favorite kitchen gadget ever sauteed in coco oil, homemade tomato sauce (from fresh tomatoes!), ground turkey.
Slice of cantaloupe.

Thoughts and notes:
Wondering how my carb/protein/fat ratios are looking. I can't get away from the mindset that the fat in the eggs PLUS all the fat in the avocado or nuts or oil is going to make me well... FAT.

The egg bake was awesome, but I am feeling guilty about the Aidell's sausage since it has dried apples. Don't want to start veering towards SWYPO. Next time I am going to make it with the "Well Fed" beef sausage recipe.

Day 1

Breakfast 
Roasted butternut squash topped with a "crumble" of macadamia nuts, cinnamon, and coconut shreds.
1 hard-boiled egg
2 sips of black coffee - Blech!

Snack
Hot tea (much better)

Lunch
Salad with carrot shreds, grass-fed ground beef  "taco" seasoned with tomatoes and chili powder.
1/4 avocado.
Apple

Snack
1 hard-boiled egg

Dinner
Chicken breasts on our new grill!
Salad with almond-butter dressing
Grilled asparagusfew days
A few chunks of watermelon

Thoughts and notes:
After dinner I spent a lot of time getting things ready for tomorrow's meals, and the next few days' breakfasts. Hoping I'll spend less time at the kitchen!

Day 0

Meals:
Breakfast - PBJ
Lunch - Diet Coke
Dinner - Fries, Dark Chocolate & 1.5 glasses of Shiraz

Thoughts:
See you tomorrow veggies!

Background

Taking the whole 30 Challenge. Here's a little background info.

 What this is about:

Perseverance – June 2009 was the last time I trained for and completed a triathlon. Since then, a wedding, a house, and 2 kids happened and magically I don't have time to devote to that kind of training. I am lucky to get in a few 30 minute runs or a quick trip to the gym. Not to say that I won't ever train for something long-term again, but I just can't right now. 

However, I think it is vital that as human beings we challenge ourselves to replenish our bank of perseverance and self-discipline. Push ourselves beyond what we are capable of... sometimes for no good reason at all. Just because we can. If we can push ourselves "just because we can," then we build up a tolerance for those times we need to suck it up for a good reason.

Getting leaner and stronger - Hopefully more meat and veggies and less wine and cheese, will mean more muscles, more pushups, and less jiggle. 

Energy and Mood - A little more pep in the step never hurt anyone, right?

Experimentation – I want to get out of my comfort zone. Right now I have a handful of Paleo and clean eating meals. But to keep this up, I’m going to need to expand beyond salad and grilled chicken for lunch.

What this is NOT about:

Weight loss - I am satisfied with the numbers on the scale right now, so I won't be tracking my weight gain/loss too closely. On the flip side, if I came out on the other end of this 30 days looking like Gisele, you won’t hear me complaining.

Changing to a paleo, or carb-free, or gluten-free diet for good. I am a firm believer that any food, beverage, or food group can be OK in moderation. And life is food. So do not judge when you see me sipping a margarita at the end of May. Cutting those out completely, was never the point of this.

What I think will be doable:

Cooking and food prep - I plan for, shop, prepare, pack and present 90% of what all four members of my household family put in their faceholes for every meal of every day and about 60% of that is pretty clean eating. That part is not so new. Maybe that will help?

What I think will be hard:

The other 10% - I love our Friday nights out to eat, or grabbing subway on a night Greg is working.

No booze.

Screwing up - If you read the description of the Whole 30, they talk about not taking one teensy weensy little cheat the whole 30 days. My whole life is one teensy weensy cheat!! A little smidge of dark chocolate here, a few chips and queso there. All those little teensies add up, and I think they'll be hard to cut out.

Travel - I have a work trip coming up, and I know it will be hard to stick to my plan while on the go.