Whole30 Day 3

So the plan was to take pictures of all the meals I eat during this whole30, but due to bad lightening and iphone pictures I gave up on that today. I still did fine though, just pretty much ate the same stuff as I did yesterday. Stir fry with 2 eggs, chicken and leftover roasted curried cauliflower for breakfast/lunch. A big bowl of chili for dinner and then I snacked (a bit too much) on almonds.

I had a great run this evening, thats the only great thing about Saint Louis getting colder. Ran 6.4 miles (10.5 km). This weekend I am going to visit my former host family in Pennsylvania so I will not be doing any picture taking of food this weekend. Will however still update on the food front. Then I am definitely finding a camera next week, something with a flash would definitely do wonders...

Whole30 Day 2

So today was definitely not a great day, felt somewhat sick all day, which was hopefully just lack of sleep. But I survived, and hopefully tomorrow will be better. Anyhow I am way to tired to do a longer post so here are the meals for the day:

Lunch was a stir fry of two eggs, leftover danish meatballs, and roasted curried cauliflower topped with sliced almonds. I apologize for the general lousiness of the pictures on the blog posts, I am working on finding a decent camera instead of using my iphone.

After I got home from work I had a home made larabar, which I unfortunately didn't get a picture of, but I will definitely be making that again since it is so easy and way cheaper than the original one. I was hoping that the sugar from this would make me feel better but unfortunately that never happened.

Dinner was a big bowl of "clean out the fridge" chili, which is basically just my regular recipe for chili, mixed with whatever greens I need to get rid of.

Not a very inspirational day, but hey sometimes you have to eat to live and not live to eat... Until tomorrow...

Chili

So I love recipes where you have your base, and then you just add whatever you have in the fridge at the moment. This recipe for chili is one of them. I got the base recipe from paleoplan, and then I just adjusted it to fit me. I am not good with the spice chili, so I only the spiciness from the salsa. If you have mexican blod in you veins, add some extra chili, either in powdered form or diced.

Chili

• 1 Tbs coconut oil
• 1 medium yellow onion, diced
• 3 stalks celery, diced
• 2 cloves garlic, sliced
• 1 lb ground meat
• 2 tsp ground cumin
• 2 tsp thyme
• 1 (12 oz) jar salsa
• 1 (8 oz) can diced tomatoes
• Salt & Pebber

In a large pot, heat up the coconut oil and add the garlic, onions and celery, and sauté until the onions become glassy. Add the ground meat and spices and saute until the meat is no longer red. Add the salsa and tomatoes and let the whole thing simmer for 1 hour. In the version on the picture I have added some yellow peppers that needed to be eaten before getting all wrinkly.

Serve alone or on top of spaghetti squash, zucchini pasta, or cauliflower mash.

Whole30 Day 1

So this is day one of the whole 30 challenge. Yesterday I went grocery shopping, and got as many greens and meats as my very limited space in the fridge could hold. I gave my roommates the few things that I had that was not on the menu, which included the processed meat I have used as an easy snack, and the last few cans of diet coke (going to be tough to quit that one). My beloved protein powder is now hidden away on the top shelf, and if my roommates didn't consider me a crazy dane before they definitely do now.

My general belief with regards to meals, is that you should eat when you are hungry. Do I practice what I preach? I wish, but sometimes the snack attack feeling wins in the hunger games. Anyhow since going paleo/primal I have eased up on the 6 meals a day routine that I used to be a slave to. I used to be a firm believer in the "I will die of starvation before i get to work if I do not eat breakfast" mantra, but I have actually found out that on the days when I only work out once in the afternoon, I am really not that hungry in the morning. So now I get 15 minutes of sleep extra - win win.

So the first meal of the day was lunch. "Frikadeller" (danish meatballs) with pineapple salsa and roasted green beans, which was my leftovers from yesterday dinner. The pineapple salsa is just grilled pinaples mixed with red peppers and tomatoes, tossed with balsamic vinegar and olive oil...Yum.

The Danish meatballs are probably one of the most common dishes served in Denmark, and they taste just as great warms, as they do cold. This makes them a perfect alternative to the lunch meat I had to give away. Also ground pork is really cheap in the states which just makes it even better!

Frikadeller:

1 lb ground pork

1 medium onion, chopped.

1 egg

2 tbs almond flour

Salt and pepper

Mix all the ingredients together, season with salt and pepper. Use the spoon to make small meatballs, and fry them in coconut oil or ghee in a pan until they are cooked all the way through. The recipe can be varied by using different spices, adding parmesan or feta to the mix, or maybe some finely shredded carrots. Definitely very good. My afternoon snack was a small handfull of nuts, to complement my coffee.

After work I had a LaraBar and a two small meat balls, and then I went for a 7.5 mile run. The LaraBars are allowed since they are all natural, but they are pretty high in sugar from all the dried fruit, so I am limiting them to pre/post workout, and only one a day.

They work great as a pre workout snack on the days where I really haven't eaten since lunch since they give a quick burst of energy and take the edge of any hunger I might be feeling. I definitely have to try and make them myself.

After my run I ate a big sweet potato while I prepared my dinner. I made a big batch of burgers, fried up some squash, mushrooms and red peppers with thyme and oregano, and as a second side dish, I made a batch of NomNomPaleo's curried roasted cauliflower. I used to never like cauliflower that much, and now it is by far the vegetable I use the most.

Curried Roasted Cauliflower:

1 head of cauliflower

Olive oil

Curry

Salt & Pebber

Preheat the oven to 400F. Cut the cauliflower into small florets, toss them with a generous amount of olive oil and curry and spread them out onto a ovenproof dish. Cover the dish in aluminium wrap and bake them for 15 minutes, remove the wrap and bake them another 15-20 mintes until they start looking a little black around the corners.

Hmmm lets give it another go...

So I have been absent for more than 6 months, so this blog definitely needs a round of CPR...
Well I didn't fall of the face of the earth, just fell into sort of a funk from a writing perspective...

So in order to get back on track a small update is in order... I have been on and of Paleo lately due to a new living situation. Yes I am living in the land of plenty at the moment, and am having a bit of a difficult time trying to stay away from two delightful gentlemen - Ben & Jerry... But I really need to move past this bad boy face in my life, and on to the healthy Boys next door... So in order to do that I have decided to do a 30 day whole 30 challenge, which among other things will mean starting to take pictures of my meals again. These 30 days I will take pictures of all my meals no matter how boring they might be...
As far as the triathlon goes, I got injured - no surprise there - but after a month of somewhat rest, and pretty decent eating, I was down 10 pounds and back on track, so what better to do than to decide to compete in a triathlon (in a bit of a blurred state...plenty of cosmos were to blame). I could have gone with the short distance, but a few of my guy friends were doing that, so had to do better... Anyhow long story short, I ended up doing the half ironman, even though I had not done as much training, as my OCD would have liked me to do. It was FANTASTIC, and I was so psyched afterwards, so despite no alcohol or other good excuses I went and signed up for the full next year... So now I need to get real about that as well...

So this is the challenge, no biggie right???

Anyhow, I am happy to be back, and I will do great...So I'll be back tomorrow with a bunch of pictures and a status update!!! Oh and someone send me this cartoon, and it made me laugh so hard, so Im sharing it with the world...