Happy Friday! Hope you have all had a safe, warm, and wonderful week. I am closing in on the end of a round of Whole30 and thought I would share some of my favorite recipes and foods.
I made these turkey pesto meatballs, and our whole family liked them! I paired them with compliant sauce (all natural and no added sugar) I found at Costco. I also served mine over spaghetti squash, and had a generous side salad.
This butternut squash and sweet potato soup was my favorite the first time I did Whole30 (November of 2013), and it was once again a favorite.
And I pretty much believe you can throw anything on a salad- I am fond of grapes, mango, dates, and apples to add sweetness. For protein I used eggs, ahi tuna, and chicken. (I don’t eat beef or pork, so those options were off the table). Every salad was seasoned with salt and sprinkled with olive oil…. I started doing that with the first round of whole30 a year and a half ago, and found I love it. I rarely use actual salad dressings now.
This salad was made with lots of veggies, a hard boiled egg, and mango. And it’s colorful and pretty to look at, which is always a plus!
Some major changes for me…. The last time I did this the only thing I cheated with was coffee…. I continued my use of splenda and milk in my coffee. This time, I quit using splenda and I used only a splash of coconut milk at first, and then just started drinking my coffee black. While I miss my milk and sweetener, I have discovered just how toxic splenda was for me…. without going into too many details I will just tell you that my stomach is a lot happier without splenda near it. I will go back to adding a tiny bit of milk in my coffee and use either real organic sugar, honey, or organic maple syrup to sweeten my coffee once this is over. But I am so thankful to be rid of splenda in my life.
I have been so lucky to have a great small supportive facebook group during this adventure, and we’ve all been there for each other… moaned about missing wine, having to make our kids pancakes and brownies, hitting a wall…. and so much more. At the times where I felt like I wanted to cheat, just have one bite, or one glass of wine, I thought about my friends in my group and I didn’t want to let them down, and more importantly, I didn’t want to let myself down. We also started a pinterest board where we could share some of the Whole30 recipes we found. You can check it out here.
And I know all of you want to know….. did I lose weight? Well to be honest I didn’t weigh myself at any time. Our scale’s battery is dead and I took that as my scale saying to me, “nah, girl, you don’t need to know right now…. ” so I just skipped it from day 1. And I didn’t worry about my weight because I wasn’t doing Whole30 for that reason…. I was doing it to feel better and to clean up my act. That being said, my jeans that I could barely button at the beginning are now fitting perfectly.
Our last day is Tuesday, Feb 3. I have a wine bottle ready and waiting. I will drink to that!
Happy weekend!
