Day Twelve!

BREAKFAST:  Fruit salad (raspberries, blueberries, strawberries)
LUNCH:  Almonds and a salad with no dressing
DINNER:  Fried eggs with spinach and guacamole

I forgot my lunch again today.  Arrrgh.

The bigger issue today was that I woke up with a pounding headache and absolutely no energy whatsoever.  It truly didn't help that there was someone outside my apartment revving their engine at shortly before 6AM, waking me up out of a dead sleep and leaving me wide awake and terrified that I was being attacked or something.  (I don't know what would be attacking me.  Some sort of car monster?  Who knows.)  But I could tell that I was a different tired than if I had just not gotten enough sleep.  When I got to work, my legs just did not want to climb the one flight of stairs that it took for me to get to my department.  Now, I might be out of shape, but I walk those stairs multiple times every day without getting winded, so this was downright ridiculous.

It didn't take very long to get to the bottom of what was going on, though.  After discussing with my mom, coworkers, and Whit and doing a little bit of digging, this isn't uncommon.  That much I knew, though -- I just didn't expect it when I was nearing the end of week two.  The issue was simple, though: I'm not getting enough good calories and fats.

As I thought about it more, it kind of hit me in the face with how much sense it made.  Whenever I've done diets before, they have always been about counting calories or points and I always hated that.  One of the thing that appealed to me most about the Whole30 challenge was that there wasn't any counting.  You ate until your full and that was that.  What I didn't think about was how I wasn't eating all of the crap I used to eat.  Eating pizza until your full still fills you with a lot of calories.  Eating stuffed green peppers that are stuffed with tomatoes and very lean burger means that there aren't as many calories and when you have them for three meals in a row without any nuts or other foods with good fat for energy, it kind of comes together.

I'm glad that I had a great support system that helped me figure this out.  After work I went to the grocery store and bought some avocados and sweet potatoes.  I'm not a big fan of the latter, but I'm thinking that I might make a kind of hash brown out of them or shred them up to add them into my egg muffins for next week, per some suggestions that I saw on the Whole9 and Whole30 forums.  Getting those good fats in early in the morning helps give a boost of energy.

So my fingers are crossed that I can get my energy levels back into shape soon!  One unfortunate side effect of being so tired has been that I've just been downright cranky and that's not cool.  I don't think I've taken it out on anyone, but I've been a bit whiny and no one wants to deal with that.  At least I can recognize it and try to suppress it, though!

Day Ten & Eleven!

DAY TEN
BREAKFAST:  2 egg muffins, strawberries
LUNCH:  Cucumber, tomato, black olive, and onion salad w/ balsamic vinegar
SNACK:  Carrots
DINNER:  Stuffed peppers

DAY ELEVEN
BREAKFAST:  2 egg muffins, raspberries and blueberries
LUNCH:  Leftover stuffed peppers
SNACK:  Carrots
DINNER:  And again... stuffed peppers because omgsogood

Once again, I forgot to blog last night.  In my defense, I sort of just got to the point where I couldn't look at my computer anymore and instead just passed out in my bed.  I've been very tired the past few days, even with my extended sleep over the weekend.  I'm not really sure what's going on, but I'm pretending it isn't happening.

Per the Whole30 timeline, days 10 and 11 are the days that people are more likely to give up with the challenge.  I'm glad to say that I did not.  The temptation was there, but I carried on.  During lunch today, a coworker asked what I was missing or craving the most.  The only thing that I can honestly say that I've been craving is cheese, which I knew was going to be the case.  I love cheese and I cook with it a lot, so not having it is kind of a bummer.  But just in this past little more than a week, my eyes have been opened to a lot of different dishes that I never would have thought about making before.  I always just ate sandwiches and pasta because it's what I had and I thought was easiest, but the recipes I've been making have required very little prep time.  As much as I love to cook, when I get home from work there are days where it is the last thing I want to do.  I was worried going into this that my being tired and not wanting to prepare meals would be my downfall in this, but between finding quick dishes to prepare and making things ahead of time it's worked out well.

But, I'm not even halfway through yet, so no patting on the back just yet!

sleepy beagle because i'm missing my oliver <3

Day Eight & Nine! happy weekend~

DAY EIGHT
BREAKFAST:  2 fried eggs with chili and spinach
LUNCH:  Chicken/Beef El Zarape w/ guacamole and pico de gallo from El Mezcal
DINNER:  Slow Cooker Kalua Pig (without the Hawaiian salt)

DAY NINE
BREAKFAST:  2 fried eggs with spinach and mushrooms
LUNCH:  2 fried eggs with spinach and mushrooms
SNACK:  Bowl of grapes
DINNER:  Leftover Kalua Pig and green beans

I completely forgot to blog yesterday -- oops.  I also almost forgot to blog today -- double oops!

I spent the evening getting my breakfast together for the week.  I made egg muffin cups with spinach, mushrooms, and ground turkey and I'm looking forward to them.  I love eggs and I like boiled eggs, but it will be nice to have a different kind of egg to shake things up.

All in all, the weekend was very mellow, which I liked.  My brother and I saw "The Lego Movie" on Saturday, which was great.  There were a ton of kids in the theater, which can normally irritate me, but they weren't particularly obnoxious.  The worst was when I saw "Hunger Games" for the first time and right behind us was a mother with her daughter that couldn't have been more than four-years-old.  When she wasn't asking questions loudly, she was crying at the scary scenes and... bah.  :P

For the first time in a long time, I actually slept in this morning.  I stayed up until around 1AM, which really isn't too late given that I usually stay up until midnight during the week as I don't get up until 8AM, and then slept until nearly 11AM.  It's very rare that I can sleep in past 9AM on weekends, but apparently I was rather tired today.  I've been feeling it all day as well, so I'm hoping that I'm just catching up on sleep that was missing from somewhere and I'm not getting sick.  Getting sick would be laaame.

My fingers are crossed that this week will be better than last week.  Positive thinking!

Day Seven - not-really-spaghetti

BREAKFAST:  Carrots
LUNCH:  A bowl of chili and three pieces of haddock (random or what?)
SNACK:  Blueberries
DINNER:  Spaghetti squash with spaghetti sauce (turkey burger, green peppers, onions, and mushrooms)

Spaghetti squash was a new and exciting experiment.  I've always liked most squash in general, but I've never had spaghetti squash before.  Given that my diet pre-Whole30 was 90% consisted of pasta, I was excited to give this a shot.  While I knew it wouldn't be exactly like spaghetti, I'm up for anything.

I was pleasantly surprised.  It definitely doesn't have the taste or texture of pasta, but it's close enough in the latter that I didn't mind it.  I found that it really doesn't have much of a taste at all, so I think that when I cook up my leftovers I might put the squash and the sauce in a pan and cook it up that way in hopes that the squash will soak up some of the flavor.  All in all, I can't complain.

Here's to trying new things!

[picture from here]

Day Six - the restaurant challenge

BREAKFAST:  Grapes and cashews
LUNCH:  Leftover chili
SNACK:  Carrots
DINNER:  Chicken/Beef El Zarape w/ guacamole and pico de gallo from El Mezcal

We were supposed to have crazy weather today and I suppose we actually did; it's late February in Wisconsin and it was raining with thunder and lightning near the end of my shift.  Because it is February in Wisconsin, all of that quickly froze and the world became a skating rink and we're supposed to be getting some snow, but all in all -- much better than the 8-10" that they were worried about yesterday.  (Although, I'll admit that I'd prefer snow over ice.  I'm much better at driving in snow.)

Today was my first challenge of going out to eat since starting Whole30.  All of my meals have otherwise been cooked at home, so I was a bit nervous about going to a restaurant and hope that I could find something to eat.  In the end, I was able to find something that tasted all kinds of amazing; I just had to order it with no beans, cheese, or rice.  (Naturally I forgot to ask for it to have no cheese at first and needed to ask them to make it again; I felt like the worst person ever and probably didn't leave a big enough tip.)  In the end, I think that the hardest part was not having two-for-one margaritas.  I've only had to do that once before when I was on a litany of antibiotics for bronchitis.  I made it through, though.  High fives.

All in all, I'm glad that I was able to find something that I liked, because A) it makes me a bit less wary about going to other restaurants and B) I would hate to have to give up Thursdays at El Mez, even if it's just for a few weeks.  The food is great, but the company is even better and it's the latter that I go for.  Okay, I go for the food, too.  :)

In other news, I am officially in the "omg so tired" stage of Whole30.  I felt it slightly yesterday, but today it's just been intense.  There were times I wanted nothing more than to just crawl under my desk and sleep there until 5:30, but managed to resist the urge.  Knowing that it's only temporary is what's getting me through the phase.  There's a light at the end of the tunnel, I just know it.

[picture from here]