Done??

I am writing this post on the morning of day 32 (apparently I'm not ready to stop counting my days in relation to the Whole 30 yet... if this conditions persists for much longer I'll seek help... promise).  I have to say, Day 31 was obviously a little over indulgent (and AWESOME) but now that I'm "done" with the program I feel a little lost.  But first, let me back up.

On day 30 I decided to try out the recipes in the back of the book It Starts With Food for their "fancy pants" meal.  The purpose of the recipes was to show you that you can have a fancy dinner party and still comply with Whole 30.  I wasn't quite ready to debut fancy cooking on an entire dinner party, but I knew I could convince my friend Susan to eat with me (she will be starting her own Whole 30 on July 7... there Susan, its in writing on the internet now, so it must be true!).  

Anyway the meal was: Baked Salmon with hazelnut butter, green beans with a fig balsamic vinaigrette, roasted squash and garlic puree.  Dessert was poached pears with raspberry cream and toasted almonds.  If you want the recipes, well, you'll have to buy the book them won't you???  I promise I looked for them on their website and would have linked them if I had found them.  But since I love the book and the program I don't want to rip them off by retyping the recipes from the book here.  But here are some pictures to inspire you.

First, I got the butternut squash and garlic in the oven to roast.  The recipe told me to take the papery outside off of an entire head of garlic and wrap it in aluminum foil.  I was doubtful about how I was going to get the garlic out the clove later on... but it just squeezed right out like toothpaste. 

Next up was the hazelnut butter. Yup, I chopped hazelnuts by hand.  And then mixed them with A CUP of clarified butter.  Some other stuff was in there too (garlic, thyme).  After mixing everything, you wrapped it in saran wrap in a log shape (mine was a little flatter than most logs...) and put it in the fridge to cool.

I didn't take any other pictures of the preparations because I was in a zone.  I literally spent 3 hours prepping for this dinner the morning of.  I made the squash puree, hazelnut butter, and the vinaigrette for the green beans.  I also poached the pears, which was a weird experience.  I put 2 in of lemon rind, 10 peppercorns and vanilla extract in Boiling water with pealed pears for 30 min.  Seemed like a weird combination to me, but the finished product was DELICIOUS.  Anyway, because I had done so much prep work, when it came time to actually make dinner, all I had to do was pop the salmon in the over with some butter, salt and pepper.  While that was baking, I boiled green beans and then tossed them with the fig vinaigrette (by the way... figs look weird.  I stared at them in the grocery store for about 5 minutes because I couldn't believe this weird shaped thing was going to turn into something delicious).

And here is the finished product:

See those white chunks on top of the salmon?  THAT'S ALL BUTTER.  Delicious, hazelnut butter.  The butter melted and left hazelnuts on top of the salmon.  I don't generally like fish and this was delicious.  Everything was.  I want to make more of the roasted squash, like today. 

After dinner (and a detour to target to buy beach chairs) I made the raspberry cream with balsamic vinegar, raspberries, and coconut milk.  Put that in the bottom of a shallow bowl and then put the pear and toasted almonds on top.

And yes, it did taste as good as it looks.

I will definitely be making this meal for some holiday/event/ Tuesday in the future.  It was labor intensive, but worth it. 

Alright, so that was my "last meal" on Whole 30.  The next morning I went a little crazy and went to Chick-fil-A for breakfast.  Chicken minis and a Chicken egg and cheese bagel are just as delicious as I remember. 

For lunch I had a chicken sausage, leftover squash and green beans.  With a girl scout cookie on the side.  Lunch was late, so dinner was cashews and almonds with a clementine while I was at work.

When I got home from Boordy last night I had a half a glass of wine, a square of Dove mint dark chocolate and 2 Oreos.

What was interesting was that even while I was eating the cookies my brain was like "Eh, its ok I guess."  The other part of my brain was like "hey, jerk, you're supposed to love this treat so that I have an excuse to eat a third one."  I almost didn't even eat the second one.  I just didn't want it.  What a sad world to live in when you don't want to eat and Oreo!!!!  I know, I know, that was one of the goals of Whole 30, but I still want to eat stuff like this as a treat every now and then... or maybe I don't??  So confusing!

Don't worry, the wine was delicious.  While I don't plan to go overboard, wine is definitely a part of my diet again. 

*Side note- the rest of the chocolate bar is getting thrown out.  It has blue and yellow food dye in it.  The Oreo may have three different types of sugar, but at least there is no dye. 

For those of you interested here are some results I saw on Whole 30:

- Unintended weight loss.  I LOST 10 LBS.  No calorie counting, did not increase my work outs.  Just followed the Whole 30.  I also lost 3 inches off my waist, 2 inches from my hips, and 3 inches off my belly. 

- Drinking less coffee.  Today I didn't even have any, I had tea instead.  In the past three weeks, I don't think I've finished my coffee any day.  I end up dumping about a 1/4 of it out. 

- Consistent energy all day.  No afternoon slump. And this is without my normal amount of coffee (see above).

- Not needing to hit snooze a million times when the alarm goes off.  This is only based on like a week because after that school was over and I didn't need to set an alarm.  But even when we were in NY the week school got out, I woke up at about 7:30 am every day and was wide awake and ready to go.

- Almost no snacking between meals.  Sometimes I'll have a piece of fruit of handful of nuts, but for the most part I haven't been hungry between meals at all (because my meals have protein and fat in stead of carbs so I am full until the next meal).

- Lower blood pressure.  My blood pressure went from about 130/90 (this is on blood pressure medication) to an average of about 110/70 (also on medication).

- Falling asleep quicker.  I also stopped watching TV before bed... so that probably has a lot to do with this one. 

- I'm happier.  This could be a placebo effect (or maybe its because I'm sleeping better, have more energy and am not hungry all the time).  Knowing that I am putting quality, whole foods into my body instead of crap really is satisfying.

- Almost no cravings.  Even as I was eating the Oreos last night, I didn't want them.  

- Sounds cliche, but Whole 30 really has changed my relationship with food.  I am appreciating tastes that I probably never noticed before, I am enjoying the process of making food.  Most of all though, I enjoy that I am in control.  I am not succumbing to cravings or mindless eating just because (if you're a teacher, you know that the teacher's lounge is the WORST place for mindless eating.  There is always leftover cake in the staff lounge.  ALWAYS.)

Moving Forward

So, now what?  I have a busy couple weeks ahead of me.  Tonight is a birthday party and wine tasting with friends.  Tomorrow I am going to the O's game for an all you can eat/ all you can drink JMU alumni event (No, you didn't miss anything, I didn't go to JMU.  Friends of ours are going and got us tickets).  Sunday I leave for the beach for a few days.  Shortly after that Tom and I are going to Peru for a 4 day hike up to Machu Pichu.  I plan to stay on Whole 30 as much as possible.  I am not going to go to the game tomorrow and eat only cookies and pulled pork with BBQ sauce on a potato roll.  I will probably still have the pulled pork, but I'll take it off the roll.  I'll swap the cookie for a salad instead.  I won't promise not to eat crab fries during the game though.  This is Maryland baseball after all. 

What I'm Aiming For

• No added sugar.  With the exception of occasional baking, I don't see any reason to bring added sugar back into my house.  
• Stick with spaghetti squash and mashed cauliflower instead of pasta and mashed potatoes, most of the time.  
• Limit bread.  This one sucks because I have a $300 bread maker sitting in my basement that I used to use twice a week.  But I feel so much better without all the carbs in bread, so why add them back into my diet?
• Limit other products with flour- pancakes, muffins, biscuits.  Every now and then is OK, but not a lot. 
• There will be cheese.  I love cheese.  But I'm not going back to cow's milk to drink or put in coffee.  Almond milk and coconut milk are good for me.
• There will also be wine.  In moderation.  
• Eat more fat.  From avocado, nuts, olive oil.  I definitely was not eating this much fat before Whole 30.  I plan to continue incorporating fat into every meal.
• No more peanut butter.  My heart rate sped up just typing this.  Its a little sad.  I used to eat peanut butter every day.  But I don't miss it.  Almond butter is delicious.  So again, why add something back to my diet that I don't miss?

 I am going to do another round of Whole 30 in September to keep me on track at the beginning of the school year (which usually involves stress eating and a lot of wine).  I am also going to reintroduce foods one at a time (instead of having grains and dairy all in one delicious breakfast sandwich) so that I can actually see if grains and dairy are negatively effecting (or is it affecting?) me at all. Stay tuned.