Thursday, March 31, 2011

Whole 30 - COMPLETED

Whole 30 Results

Start weight: 230lbs
End weight: 217.5lbs
Start waist: 36"
End waist: 35"
Start Morning fasting glucose: 107
End Morning fasting glucose: 89
Start 1 hour postprandial: 140
End 1 hour postprandial: 96
Start 2 hour postprandial: 120
End 2 hour postprandial: 89

Before
After

















Before
After













Before
After














You can't really tell because the shirt covers the jeans, but those jeans used to sit right at my waist. Now I have to pull them about 3 inches above my belly button.








Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Whole 30 / Day 30

Wednesday
Breakfast
I had made beef jerky overnight in the dehydrator. The fatty strips I cut off the edges this morning were my breakfast. Very tasty, but ugly.



Lunch
Hamburger patty with cauliflower & broccoli.



Dinner: No picture. Went to the buffet with my parents. First plate: had prime rib, green beans, couple bites of cauliflower. Second plate: prime rib, green beans & blueberries. Dessert: Pineapple, blueberries, couple bits of cantaloupe & honeydew (not ripe). When I go back to the allergist for more testing, I'm having them test cantaloupe. I have some suspicions there.

Tomorrow I will be posting my results and the before & after pictures. And if I do say so myself, they're fairly impressive.

And now for some comic relief.

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Whole 30 / Day 29

Tuesday
Breakfast

Sun-dried tomato chicken sausage and leftover veggies.

Snack: Apple & almond butter








beeeefy


Lunch: Mock tender steak w/asparagus. I seasoned it with Herbs de Provence.







Dinner: Hamburger patties with sauteed spinach and mushrooms. Leftover mashed cauliflower on the side.








Had the allergist appointment today. Tested positive to chicken and possibly to coconut. The dr said he wasn't sure on the coconut. They had me draw some blood to do additional testing. I have another appointment a week from Monday. I'll be bringing in the coconut flakes, coconut cream, olive oil and dillweed for additional testing. 

Monday, March 28, 2011

Whole 30 / Day 28

Wow, time really flies when you're having fun. I can't believe there are only a couple more days left on the Whole 30.


Breakfast:
Eggs & bacon








Lunch: Chicken and veggie stir-fry.













Dinner: Leftover pork roast & veggies.

Sunday, March 27, 2011

Whole 30 / Day 27



Sunday



 Breakfast: leftover steak (didn't eat it all), bacon & yams.
 Another day with a big breakfast and no lunch.












 Dinner: Pork roast, leftover green beans & mashed cauliflower.




Snack later: Blackberries

Whole 30 / Day 26

Saturday
I decided on a large breakfast this morning since we were going to be out running around today.
Ham & eggs, bacon, & yams.

We had breakfast around 9am this morning. No snacks during the day.








Roast & veggies
We ended up eating dinner about 9 hours later at around 6-6:30pm, only because we wanted to finish eating before we babysat our niece at 7pm. I wasn't terribly hungry, but ended up eating everything. Later while we were babysitting, we snacked on grapes & nuts.

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Whole 30 / Day 25

Friday
Breakfast: None - I fasted
Dilled pork

Lunch: one bite of dilled pork. A little too much dill for me. Then I had another allergic reaction. I also had a half of a cup of coconut chai tea. I continued the fast until supper.

I get to see my allergist Tuesday afternoon for some testing. I have some suspicions, hopefully I can get  some answers.



Supper was rib-eye steak, sauteed green beans and fried yams (yellow & sweet). Later I had a handful of pistachios and a couple of dates. 

This was sooooo good.

Friday, March 25, 2011

Whole 30 / Day 24

Thursday


I had the same meal for breakfast & lunch.



Not pictured: had a small handful of nuts





Roasted chicken
Dinner was roasted chicken. Not pictured are a couple of Japanese sweet potato fries. I didn't particularly care for them.










Blackberries

Dessert

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Whole 30 / Day 23

Breakfast
omelet
I've missed ham.


Salad for lunch. Leftover coconut chicken with a homemade strawberry/pineapple dressing. Something with it gave me an allergic reaction though. My eyes swelled up terribly. I'm going to have to go see my allergist again.
Strawberry piña colada chicken salad




Dinner: leftover roast beef & meat loaf.

leftovers




 
I'm probably going to go meat and water for a few days and start adding things back in one at a time to see what I'm having issues with.




Whole 30 / Day 22

Tuesday
Breakfast
yummy
I got some non-sugared, uncured ham. It's very tasty.

So tasty, in fact, that I decided to have breakfast for lunch. Eggs w/ham, the last of the yam that I didn't like, and a giant strawberry.
lunch




I threw the leftover beef ribs back in the crock-pot this morning with a can of tomatoes and some diced onions. Seasoned it with chili, onion, and garlic powder and let it go all day.
beefy
All in all, it was a very tasty day. I went to bed early last night, I wasn't feeling great. It may have been caffeine withdrawal. I had hot chai tea w/coconut milk/cream all day and no coffee.

Monday, March 21, 2011

Coconut Milk/Cream, Homemade Beef Jerky & Yams

creamy goodness
Since starting this diet challenge, I have tried more varieties of coconut milk/cream than I knew existed. Out of all the varieties, the worst was the Kroger brand. It did not dissolve and did not taste that great. The other name brands, Thai Kitchen, etc were only ok. The one I like the best though is Aroy-D Coconut Cream.

 Once I run out of the canned stuff, this will be my purchase of choice. I love this stuff. And it is extremely cheap at the Asian food store. Score for me.



Next on the list of wonderful new experiences: Homemade Beef Jerky. Last summer, during garage sale season, I purchased a super cheap dehydrator. I think I paid $5 for it. I kept telling my husband I would get around to making beef jerky............. Uhmmmmmm, yeah. Almost a year later, I finally got around to it. It was a lot easier than I thought it would be.
 
beefy goodness



I swung by my local Fareway and requested a lean roast to be sliced to beef jerky thinness. I decided on a dry seasoning as this was my first time trying beef jerky at home. The beef initially weighed in at 2lbs 15 oz. After dehydrating, it was 13.5 oz. Waaahhhhhh??? I'm so not joking.



And last, but not least, yams. Yummy, yummy yams. I love starch. Starchy, starch, starch. Here it goes down, down into my belly......

Hawaii yam
I purchased three different yams from the Asian store. The first was labeled Hawaii yam. I had these for breakfast yesterday. I thought they were only ok.

Yellow yam

I had the one labeled yellow yam for supper last night. I thought this one was wonderful. Slightly sweet, wonderful flavor.

Japanese sweet potato

The last yam I picked up was labeled as a Japanese sweet potato. We haven't tried this one yet. It'll probably be tomorrow night. I will definitely be picking up more of the yellow yam. It will make a nice change from the normal sweet potatoes.

Whole 30 / Day 21

Breakfast
Coconut milk coffee

Lunch: Coconut chicken & roasted baby carrots
coconutty
I think I had an allergic reaction to the carrots though. I'm going to abstain for a couple of weeks and then trial it. Kind of makes me cranky though because the majority of my frozen mixed veggies have carrots in them.

Snack: couple pieces of bacon (not shown)

Dinner: Boneless beef ribs and sauteed sugar snap peas
Beefy goodness
Evening snack: Indian chai tea w/coconut cream.

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Whole 30 / Day 20

Sunday
Slept in today. It was lovely.
Breakfast
Sausage, eggs and yams
Snack/Lunch:
I made some dehydrated beef jerky today. I had the butcher freeze the roast and slice it very thin for me. Today I took it out of the package and trimmed the fat from the edges, seasoned it and put it in the dehydrator for the afternoon. The scraps were rendered in the oven on low for a few hours and that's what I had for a snack/lunch.



Meatloaf, green beans, & yams
Dinner was homemade meatloaf, green beans and yams. I know they look like potatoes, but they are actually yams. We went to the local asian store this weekend and picked up three different varieties. One pictured for breakfast and a different one for dinner. We haven't tried the third one yet.

It's pretty late now, so I'll give more details about them tomorrow.

Whole 30 / Day 19

Saturday
Breakfast
Sausage & eggs
Lunch
We were out running around all day and never stopped for lunch. I packed some cut apple, a banana, and this. I mostly ate the sweet potatoes and a couple apple slices.


Dinner
Hamburger & green beans






Dessert
berries

Friday, March 18, 2011

Whole 30 / Day 18

Too sleepy to say much. Here's today.
Breakfast:
egg, sausage, sweet potato
Lunch: Not pictured. I must have forgot. It was steak and sweet potatoes.

Snack:
coconut water






Dinner
steak hash and sweet potatoes

berries









Yep, that's right folks. I had sweet potatoes at every meal.

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Whole 30 / Day 17

Stuffed acorn squash
Breakfast: coconut milk coffee
Lunch: Sausage stuffed acorn squash. We started with the pork sausage recipe here. These are the modifications we made to the recipe:

Pork Breakfast Sausage
Ingredients:
1 lb ground pork
1 T onion flakes
1/4 tsp each cumin, black pepper, oregano
1/2 tsp each dried basil, thyme, and sage
1/2 tsp salt

It was very, very, very good. I actually stopped by the store after work to specifically pick up more ground pork so that I could have sausage for breakfast in the morning.

Well, with it being St Patrick's day and all, I've had part of a brisket brining for several days just so I could have corned beef today. No potatoes, though <sigh>. I started it in the crock-pot last night on low and left it there all day while I was at work. After I got home, I put it in a baking dish and put it in the oven to brown it up. We're having it with some sauerkraut, mixed veggies, green beans, and leftover sweet potatoes. 

I was trolling through some old posts on Weight Maven, when I saw this old post. OMG, I almost peed myself when I watched this. 


Another site, that I'm enjoying right now is The Perfect Health Diet. This is an interesting take on the paleo/traditional foods diet. One of the things that has really caught my attention was this post. After I  went low carb - then no carb, initially I felt great, but slowly started suffering from severely dry skin. After a few years, my eyes and throat among other body parts became more and more affected. I just figured that I had a  worsening thyroid problem, but now I'm wondering if I'd just keep my carbs too low for too long. Over the last couple of days, I've been implementing at least the portion of his recommendations on getting around 400 calories of just starchy carbs a day. My skin is still dry, but my eyes have gotten better. My throat is goes back and forth still. I have noticed that it's easier to cut my meat portion down when there is a starchy carb with the meal. I will be continuing with this experiment to see how I feel.


Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Whole 30 / Day 16

Strawberries
Forgot to take a pic of breakfast, but I didn't eat much of it. I made eggs for the hubby and had a couple of bites, but didn't want any more. I had some coconut milk coffee at home, but forgot to bring in more coconut milk for work, so I needed a snack today.

Pork loin, sweet potato w/cinnamon



Lunch was pork loin and mashed sweet potato with cinnamon. Very tasty. Thank you, Nettie.

Steak & sweet potatoes



Dinner was steak and more sweet potatoes. I went back for another piece of steak and potatoes. It was really good.



And finally, just because I wanted something sweet. Although, they  weren't terribly sweet, more tangy.
Raspberries
I've noticed on this diet that I'm repeating the same ingredients over and over for all of these meals. But if you asked me if it was boring eating the same food again and again, I would think you were crazy. Except for a couple of meals, I feel like every one of them was completely different. Once you mix and match the meat and veggies, a whole array of options open up as far as seasoning. Your only limits are your taste buds and your imagination.