Out for Dinner
Today is Day 11. (We’ll it was Day 11…since I’m going to bed shortly.) After 9 days of not eating out, we decided it was time to try it again. But that doesn’t mean we won’t stick with our Whole30 plan. We called ahead to Outback steakhouse and talked to the manager – they said no problem. So we went – and I will say Outback wins a gold medal for service. We told our waitress we weren’t eating sugar, butter, bread, etc…so she didn’t bring the bread to start, didn’t offer us dessert, went to the kitchen to check on what is in their 17 spice blend – and they weren’t 100% sure so she offered an alternative! We both had a filet mignon with some steamed veggies on the side. Whole30 plan intact!
Another awesome recipe Angie tried out from NomNomPaleo was this: (Yum!, and I’m using her pic as I forgot to take one of ours. All the credit for the pic goes to her – check out her site!):
Sleep has been an issue the past few nights – I’m tired, but just not able to fall asleep right away. This is unusual since I’m still working out, and have been sleeping very well prior to these few nights. I’m hoping that tonight will end the bad streak. I did "Fran” as my workout today (21-15-9 reps each of Thrusters / Pullups). It’s a shorter workout but it’s the most brutal on my breathing / lungs of any workout I’ve ever done. I didn’t set a PR but I haven’t been as focused on conditioning lately so wasn’t surprised.
I did “break” one rule of the Whole30 program (but not like when I caught Angie trying to eat her Split Pea soup for lunch one day – it’s a legume, but in all fairness it was an accident as you can have snap peas) – but it has nothing to do with food intake. You aren’t supposed to get on the scale – which is great advice since you should be focused on your eating habits, how it makes you feel, etc…but I’m a “data tracker” for things like this and wanted to have a few data points, so decided to get on the scale this morning after 10 days of Whole30. My scale weight is also not one of those things that really affects me like it can for others. I knew I had lost weight as my clothes were fitting looser than normal, but I was pretty surprised to find that I had lost 10lbs in 10 days. Wow. Clean eating FTW! I’ll check again at Day 20 and Day 30. If I had to guess, I think I’ll probably be down another 10lbs by the end. The nice part is that I’m not losing any strength or conditioning as I’ve lifted several PRs in major lifts this last week.
Tomorrow we are actually off to Denver to attend the Whole9 nutrition workshop. I’ll post a summary here in a day or two as well as how our meal at the renowned Ted’s Montana Steakhouse goes after our workshop! Hopefully their service can compare to Outback.
Meals for the past 4 days:
Day 8:
Breakfast: Hamburger with spice rub, tomato, bell peppers, ½ avocado, fish oil
Lunch: Hamburger with spice rub, snap peas, carrots/onions, ½ avocado, smoked salmon wrapped cantaloupe
Dinner: Spicy shrimp, Asparagus, Yummy salad, macadamia nuts, raspberries
Day 9
Breakfast: 4 eggs with mushrooms, bell pepper, ½ avocado, fish oil
Lunch: Hamburger with spice rub, spicy shrimp, snap peas, carrots, ½ avocado, a few raspberries/blackberries
Post Workout: 3 hardboiled eggs, yam, a few raspberries
Dinner: Outback Steakhouse: 8 oz. filet (salt and pepper only), steamed broccoli, steamed mixed veggies, macadamia nuts, raspberries
Day 10:
Breakfast: 4 eggs with bell peppers, tomato, macadamia nuts, fish oil
Lunch: Hamburger/Pork/Tomato cupcake, large salad with almond slivers, raspberries, almonds
Dinner: Hamburger/Pork/Tomato cupcakes in marinara, prosciutto wrapped asparagus, large salad, raspberries, macadamia nuts
Day 11:
Breakfast: 4 eggs, tomato, bell peppers, macadamia nuts
Lunch: hamburger with mushrooms, snap peas, ½ avocado, a few raspberries/blackberries
Pre Workout: One hard boiled egg, a few cashews
Post Workout: Yam
Dinner: Pulled pork roast, Brussels sprouts, large salad (with almonds), a few raspberries
One week down
Today is Day 8 and the sugar cravings are definitely lessening. I don’t have the cravings after each meal like I used to and when I do, it’s a bit less. That’s not to say I still don’t want to eat a few things with sugar. I definitely miss BBQ sauce. I made a spice rub to put on burgers from a Paleo cookbook. It was okay, but I then started looking up other rubs – it turns out a lot of them add sugar or brown sugar, especially the more BBQ style rubs. Day 6 looked like this:
Breakfast: 4 eggs with mushrooms, bell peppers, ½ avocado, fish oil
Post Workout: 2 Hardboiled egg whites
Lunch: Fish taco salad with cabbage, salsa, guacamole, and sauce. Brussels sprouts.
Snack: Chicken with salsa (1/2 serving), blackberries, carrots, macadamia nuts
Dinner: Halibut (with sauce from tacos), Cauliflower, Brussels Sprouts, blackberries, macadamia nuts
Squats in the gym felt a little harder – some of this is to be expected as my body shifts from being a sugar-holic back to operating like it was designed to perform. Day 7 meals:
Breakfast: 3 eggs with mushrooms, bell pepper, ½ avocado, fish oil
Post Workout: 1 cup steamed yams
Lunch: Hamburger with spice rub, cauliflower, carrots, ½ avocado, raspberries
Dinner: Boneless Beef short ribs, Carrots/Onions, Broccoli, ½ avocado, smoked salmon wrapped cantaloupe
There’s the wonderful meal Angie made for dinner last night!
My workout in the gym today was meant to be short (at least for the intense part). I decided to redo a common “baseline” workout that many CrossFit’s use for newcomers. My previous PR was 4:36 seconds. I don’t do the workout very often but the 4:30 mark is a milestone time to achieve. I PR’d alright. By TWO seconds. 4:34. Are you serious? I didn’t look at the clock the whole time during the workout, and when I finished the last pull up and looked to see my time, I’m pretty sure the neighbors heard my rage. :) To cool off, I went for a nice 2 mile run – surprisingly I’m not nearly as sore today from the run as I thought I’d be. I haven’t run in a while and usually the first one that’s a couple miles elicits some soreness. All in all a good couple days. The only bad news was that I slept very poorly last night…good thing today is a rest day!
The best thing about the last few days (and Angie even commented on this last night too) is that I feel awake / alert all day. I’m not dreary or tired after I eat lunch or in the afternoon. I’m awake when I get up and while my body feels tired from working out, my mind is still going 100% until bed time. Definitely love this!!!
Not really related, but there’s a fire in the mountains about 20 miles NW of Fort Collins – here’s a picture from the end of our street. And yeah, that’s all smoke pouring up into the atmosphere. Not good.
Days 3-5
Yep, I’m still alive. No beer, cookies, ice cream or sugar for 5 days and still surviving. If you don’t think your body craves sugar or carbs, cut them completely out of your diet for a week and then we’ll talk.
Sleep is often underestimated for health and that sucked for me because on Day 2 evening, my sleep didn’t go well. I wasn’t feeling well – something was causing a bit of stress and anxiety but I’m not sure what. That led to a tired start to Day 3:
Breakfast: 4 eggs scrambled with ½ container of mushrooms, 1 tomato, fish oil
Lunch: Chicken breast with Old Bay, green beans, carrots, a few raspberries and blackberries, ½ avocado, a few almonds
Snack: Hamburger with Tomato Sauce, ½ Avocado, a few raspberries, carrots
Dinner: Steak with Peppers and Onions, Carrots, a few raspberries and blackberries, ½ avocado, a few macadamia nuts
My legs were cramping a bit as evening rolled around (something that is generally associated when I have alcohol or a lot of sugar before bedtime – you know say a pint of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream). However, I foam rolled a while, and slept a good 10 hours! Waking and feeling rested, a bit hungry and ready to go is a great feeling. Here’s Day 4 topped off by a great dinner:
Breakfast: 4 eggs scrambled with ½ container of mushrooms, 1 tomato, fish oil
Lunch: Steak with peppers and onions, carrots, a few raspberries, ½ avocado
Supper: Butter Chicken, Cauliflower, Spinach, a few raspberries, macadamia nuts
Throughout Day 4 I definitely had a sugar fix for a Mary’s monster cookie. They are local to Fort Collins and oh so good. A beer wouldn’t have hurt either. Those are really the only two things I find myself craving at this point. On to Day 5:
Breakfast: Chicken with salsa, carrots, 1 green pepper, macadamia nuts, fish oil
Lunch: Butter chicken, cauliflower, carrots, 1 avocado, raspberries
Dinner: Fish Tacos (Cod) in lettuce with guacamole, salsa, cabbage, sauce (lime, coconut milk, etc.)
I tried having something besides eggs for breakfast. It was leftover chicken breast I had cooked for lunch on Day 3 and it was pretty good for breakfast. We went hiking today and there was quite a long time between breakfast and lunch but while I felt a little hungry I wasn’t starving – good sign that my body is adjusting to burn fat as energy – which it’s designed to do but all that insulin from the sugar, etc. prevents it from happening well. The hardest part was driving home and not stopping to relax and have a beer or eat at one of our favorite restaurants.
BUT, dinner easily made up for this – the tacos had awesome flavor. Food like this makes you not miss eating a “regular” taco with a shell and a bunch of sauces with sugar and other junk in it (check your labels – you’ll be surprised what’s in your salsa – ours was fresh with all natural ingredients!).
Day 1 and 2 Recap
Here’s a quick recap of my Day 1 and 2 from the Whole30 program as well on some comments on how I felt, cravings, etc. Here’s Day 1:
Breakfast: 4 eggs scrambled with ½ container of mushrooms, 1.5 bell peppers, ½ Avocado, Fish Oil
Post Workout (PWO): 2 hard boiled eggs, ½ yam microwaved with drizzled olive oil
Lunch: Pork Chop, Zucchini Squash, Asparagus, Avocado
Snack: ½ pork chop, carrots, apple, macadamia nuts
Dinner: Shrimp with Old Bay Seasoning, Spinach, Snap Peas, Raspberries (1/2 container), Macadamia nuts
Breakfast was good – I felt very full and even got a little chill/sweat going on from having so much food. I’m normally used to having a protein shake and then working out, so my body is definitely adjusting. The PWO snack was good but I definitely need to throw the yams in a pan for a few minutes to get a little better taste.
Overall, Day 1 was a good day. I felt really tired in the afternoon but that could have been from a tough workout the day before, a bike ride today, and not sleeping well last night. At 11pm I was definitely ready for bed. While I was very full after breakfast but as the day progressed my hunger grew. I was pretty hungry after dinner and probably should have had more veggies (especially spinach since it’s takes so much of it to have any calories add up). I’m definitely having cravings (as expected) – some are even associated with events. You remember that college lecture room you always fell asleep in (Physics 221 for me) – well, that’s because you essentially trained your body to fall asleep there. So I sat down to play a little XBOX (Trials Evolution of course) before dinner and immediately wanted a beer. (I blame Mike Bucher for this completely. :) ) During the day I also found myself thinking about sugary items quite frequently. I’ve been through this before, but that doesn’t make it any easier. Overall, for the first day, it was a great success – I ate great tasting food and for the most part was content. On to Day 2:
Breakfast: 4 eggs scrambled with ½ container of mushrooms, almost 1 bell pepper (mixed), ½ Avocado, Fish Oil
PWO: Leftover shrimp, yam
Lunch: 3 hard boiled eggs, a few raspberries, carrots, bell peppers (mixed), macadamia nuts
Snack: 2 hard boiled eggs, carrots, ½ avocado
Dinner: Hamburger meatballs, green beans, asparagus, ½ avocado
Again, it was a good day. I ate a few more eggs than I had planned on, but I was rushed for lunch as we had an appointment to pick out tile, carpet, etc. for the new house. There was a candy jar at the place we went and it was calling my name, but I resisted. When we left the appointment, it was a beautiful hot day out and it certainly seemed like grabbing a cold beer to celebrate finishing our house choices would be nice…or perhaps a Monster cookie from Mary’s cookies (yum!). Did it happen? Nope. In about 10-14 days, these cravings should mostly be gone…I can’t wait.
Whole30 Day 1
For the first time in my life (since those wonderful high school sport’s practices), I’ve been working out consistently for over 2 years straight. This is almost solely due to finding CrossFit and loving every minute of it since. However, my diet has always been up and down depending on how strict I was, what the scale said, and how hectic life was at the moment. No matter how much I can lift, how fast I can run, it will always be hindered by poor diet choices. Time for change.
Today is Day 1. I’m doing the Whole30 program to get back on track and re-program my body and brain for eating for the long term. This isn’t a 30 day program where you eat healthy for 30 days and then on Day 31 gorge on ice cream and all the other sugary crap I love to eat. It’s designed to change the way you eat and allow you to see what your food choices do to your body. It should rid me of my sugar cravings (which I typically have after every meal since we always had dessert growing up), as well as help get rid of other processed foods, chemicals, etc. that aren’t doing my body any good.
The “rules” are simple (and Paleo) – eat real food. Start with a protein, add a bunch of veggies, and some good fat (avocado, olive oil, etc.). Have a few pieces of fruit during the day. No alcohol, no sugar of any kind, no grains, no legumes, no dairy, and no white potatoes. I know – that sounds like a lot of things to cut out, and I’ve already found that reading labels is quite interesting – there’s a lot of junk in your food that you may not know is there and is likely impacting your body in a negative way.
At the end of the 30 days, you can re-introduce things to your diet slowly to see how they affect the way you feel, the way you train, etc. The goal isn’t to never eat those things on the “No” list above again, but to train your body to make better food choices. Eating the snack in the break room because it’s there is just a bad habit. Having one of Angie’s world famous chocolate chip cookies once and a while is something I’m not willing to give up permanently.
So to kick it off, here’s what I had for breakfast this morning. Yep, that’s a lot of food, but when you don’t eat the processed food which is high in calories and low in nutrients, you get to eat more good stuff to fill the calorie void!
Follow Us
Categories
Friends
