Whole30, day 4, with kids and the sugar dragon

Today has been a hard day. We have 2 sick kids so my husband and I didn't get much sleep last night. My 2 year old is still fighting a lot and very hungry and grumpy. My 4 year old is a rock star and eating pretty much what we put in front of him. My 6 year old is sick and grumpy, but she has eaten pretty well today.

My husband and I have both stuck to the plan so far.  It's hard to keep our fluids in us though drinking only water.  We are used to drinking sugar free iced tea, or crystal light- so are the kids. That stuff is really not good for you and kind of outweighs the benefit of drinking the water. So we finally let the kids have apple juice to ensure they are drinking enough. 1/3 apple juice to 2/3 water though.  We are being adults and drinking our water.

My head really hurts today. It must be the lack of caffeine and sugar. Not fun. I'm a grump today. Thankfully my husband is being a rock star and helping out a lot.

We will continue this and are already trying to think of ways to make it easier for a family with little kids to do Whole30 with 2 full time working parents. Anyone that has written otherwise that this is easy with kids or that there are tons that thier kids eat is full of it!

Meals that the kids loved today:
Almond flour pancakes with applesauce
Homemade meatloaf with homemade ketchup
Chicken with homemade ranch dressing
Pumpkin muffins they call "cupcakes" that aren't sweet at all. I think they just miss bread.

There HAS to be some whole30 approved pre-made ketchup, ranch, etc.  We just don't have the time to just keep making this stuff over and over each week on top of all the meals.

I'm going to stick this out. I'm 10% done. We still have a fridge full of veggies and meat to be made, but I am tired. I am tired of cooking so much and not eating sugar. I would imagine that my sugar dragon comes in the form of cute cupcakes. Hard to ignore. Cute. Yummy.......

Whole30, with kids, day 3

I'm not sure I can call today a success for my kids as my 2 youngest went to bed screaming for "snack". However, there were many great successes of the day and I'll take what I can get.

My baby of 2 years refused to eat dinner, aside from the grapes. No chicken with ranch dip. No sweet potato fries. No green beans with bacon. Nada.  Instead he went upstairs and put himself in bed, for a good 1/2 hour, on protest. Ah, so be it. However, he ate and ate and ate breakfast this morning as he pulled this "no dinner" trick the night before as well.  It was a delicious butternut squash and coconut milk bake that was fantastic. He actually ate 3 helpings of it! We'll be making more of this; however, I'll make sure to puree the squash more so there aren't any chunks left in it which he hated. He also wasn't a fan of the crushed pecans on top. I'm guessing he'll load up on breakfast tomorrow again.

My 4 year old ate 95% of his dinner but got down to play and right before bed wanted the steak that I had offered him that he refused, so he could play with his dinosaurs.  Thus I don't see this as a huge failure as he would have probably done this no matter what dinner we fed him as he can't sit still long enough to get full. He did clear almost all his plate so over all that is a success.

My 6 year old is sick with pink eye so ate about 1/2 her dinner. I figure that is pretty good since she's just not feeling well. She was not a fan of the sweet potato fries that I made, but used to love the frozen ones we cooked from a bag. I think those had more oil on them.

My day was a huge success in my book.  My 4 year old woke up at 5:45 with a bloody nose and I didn't go  back to sleep so I was up early. I ate a good breakfast around 7:30 of an omelet with lots of veggies and bacon. I tried my coffee with coconut milk--- no go. I actually went without my coffee (I'm a starbucks faithful goldcard carrier). Plus we had a yummy squash bake so I wasn't even hungry for lunch, AT ALL, until 12:30.  Usually I'm ready for a snack around 10:30ish or ready for lunch by 11:30.  I ate leftover acorn squash/pork/apple yumminess from the previous night's dinner and was full.  The big success factor for me is that there were 3-4 chances for me to eat free yummy cookies at work and I was able to not grab them and instead grab a green apple. I never do that. I'm the first to grab one and justify 2 somehow like "I'll save that for later" and end up eating them on the way back to my desk. 

Then around 2:30 I started eating my apple, more out of habit than the fact that I was hungry. I'm used to my 2pm slump and "need" for a snack. I ate a few bites and ended up throwing it away b/c I just wasn't hungry.  WHAT? This is awesome.  I started getting hungry around 5:30 so I had a hand full of macadamia nuts and cashews. Then worked on dinner. By the time I ate our wonderful dinner of Fillet Mignon with horse radish salsa, green beans and bacon, sweet potato fries I was ready to eat. I ate my dinner and am so pleasantly full I didn't even miss dessert, at all! 

It's 9:15pm and I'm exhausted from being up early with the kiddos, but I made it through day 3 with no slip ups. Even in the face of the cookie monster!  YEAH ME:)

I bet my 2 year old will love breakfast tomorrow. We are having more of that squash bake, and making almond flour pancakes with fruit and bacon. 

Then again, hunger is the best seasoning.

Whole 30, with kids, day 2

March 10th, 2013
I woke up at 6:45 and was actually awake. I felt pretty good but laid in bed for a bit.

Breakfast: scrambled eggs, salsa, avocado, bell peppers, and sliced turkey meat.
Kids: orange juice, bananas, sliced meat and lot of crying over taking one bite of yellow bell pepper.

Lunch: whatever we could grab. Chicken, nuts, carrots, etc. We were a little busy running around and didn't really sit down for a good lunch. We should have b/c we both were a little grumpy.
Kids: chicken I had grilled on Sat, which they didn't eat w/out dip. cucumbers, which they love. Water. And lots of complaining.....

This is getting fun. Especially our 2 year old. He'll eat when he gets really hungry, but "snack" is getting really old. that is his code word for goldfish or cheezeits. I didn't realize how our 2 year old was surviving on those so much!

Then it was the afternoon of preparing dinner and breakfast for the next day. We decided on a butter nut squash bake for Monday's breakfast... so I wanted to get it done on Sunday night for an easy Monday morning rush of getting ready and out the door.  This is a weird looking squash that I have never cooked.


The dinner I was cooking was spaghetti squash with homemade red pasta sauce and meatballs.  The sauce/meatballs was a mess! It was a pain to cook and the meatballs didn't stay meatballs... so it ended up being meat sauce, but it tasted pretty good.  Again the kiddos fought us tooth and nail. I bribed them with fruit and pumpkin muffins I had made earlier that they called "cupcakes".  My 4 year old was the champion and ate the most and tried everything.... yeah! My 6 year old has pink eye, doesn't feel good, ate a few bites of veggies and went to bed.

Josh also finally made the ranch dressing, on the 3rd attempt! You have to use extra light olive oil and add in the oil really really really slowly while mixing. It takes forever! However, I am proud to say that we FINALLY have a dip our kids will eat their chicken with.... Hallelujah! Success #3.

My 2 year old... "snack? Mama snack? Dad snack?" AUGH! We bribed. We begged. We left him alone. Nothing worked. He did not like the meal. So he sat down for a quick bite right before bed of rocket fuel and apple slices.  He won't eat the nuts plain, but he will eat them chopped up in this rocket fuel stuff. Whatever works!

Day 2 ending... my head really hurts. Not sure if this is a headache from the pressure change we have in the air, or my body getting really mad at the lack of caffeine and sugar. You can have caffeine, but my morning coffee without cream and sugar isn't that appealing.

Last note? Squashing up yummy strawberries and adding them to water to try and make it more appealing is not a good idea. Strawberries have too many seeds that float and taste weird. I agree with my 2 year old on this one "Yuck".

p.s. I'll tell you how the butternut squash bake turned out tomorrow, it's for breakfast.

Whole 30, with kids, day 1

Ok, so it starts with food. If you haven't read my previous post about Whole30 this will not make much sense.

God bless my husband for embarking on this adventure with me. We have 3 little kids ages 6, 4, and 2 so I was very nervous about doing this; however, doing it as a family is the only way I will be successful.  

Josh and I have like to eat healthy. We eat whole wheat, raw veggies, fruit and meat.  We like our ice cream, yogurt and cheese for cedilla's too!

However, after reading "It starts with food" I realized how much of what we eat, and feed our kids, really do affect us.  Sorry to all those crazy people that I've called "whole grain and nuts" in the past.... apparently there is actually a lot to eating that way:)

I ordered 2 cookbooks: Everyday paleo, and Well Fed. Then Josh and I spent 3 hours pouring over them to create our first week plan of meals. It was very very overwhelming and frustrating. I have to admit we were very short with each other as we anticipated all the things we would NOT be eating come the morrow......

March 9th, 2013

So, 7:30am on a very snowy Saturday morning off I go to the grocery store. after getting around 5 hours of sleep with our kiddos being sick and not sleeping well.

I spent 1.5 hours at King Soopers, our normal store, trying to get as much as I could from the place I knew. I skipped the frozen food, dairy and pretty much 1/2 of the store we usually buy a lot from. My cart was full and I spent our regular grocery bill for the week, and I was only 1/2 done!

While I was gone, Josh was busy cleaning out our pantry and fridge of anything "non-whole30" approved. A lot got thrown away and some stored downstairs.

Next I went to Whole Foods. I have never shopped in there before. That is where those "crazy nutty" people shop that have lots of money. I swear they have organic and all natural EVERYTHING!

Anyways, the store clerks were amazingly helpful and very very nice. In fact, so where the other shoppers.  It took me almost 2 hours to complete my list, but I did have to ask a lot of questions like what is the difference between all natural and organic ground beef. (All natural is the range free, meat where cows live like cows should and no hormones added. Organic means the cows ate only organic certified food, plus all the other stuff). I found out what Coconut amino's is. I wasn't sure if it was a seed, flour, oil or where to find it. It actually looks like soy sauce a bit.

So this shopping trip was double what we normally spend in a week. YIKES!!!!!!!  However, to be fair I did have to buy a lot of basics like Almond flour, coconut flour, etc that will last the whole 30 days.  However, it was QUITE the shock!

I used the rule of thumb from the book. Buy all natural meats/eggs/etc. Then buy organic veggies and fruits that you'll eat the skin of. If you are going to peel it, then just buy regular produce.  That helped save me some, but not enough to erase the sticker shock of my bill.

Breathe. This is for your health. Breathe. It will taste great!

Finally home after being gone 4 hours and shopping at 2 stores I was tired; however, all those groceries had to be put away.... with many little hands "helping" and waiting for their lunch.  They love chicken nuggets, carrots, ranch to dip in, apples and milk. Hm..... they got lunch meat, apple slices, celery with sunflower butter on them (raved about in the books) and water.

My 2 year old ate the apples. My 4 year old ate the meat and apples. My 6 year old at the meat. All of them hated the celery with sunflower butter on it. At $7 a jar I was not happy. Especially after the books I read said "A great alternative. You won't notice the difference". Yeah right.  I had to agree with my kids it was kind of gross. Now I'm wondering what I can use that for instead.....

Then I spent hours in the kitchen storing all the fresh veggies and fruit and meat. I was so proud of myself after looking in our pantry and fridge to see such color of fresh stuff!  My kids, were not so impressed to find their goldfish and cheezeits gone.

Next I started trying to make some things to get us through the week. I made Kale chips. I had never heard of kale, let alone cooked with it. They were super easy to cook, and I think they are awesome!  They crumple like a fallen leaf, melt in your mouth like cotton candy, taste like a thin chip.....and are super healthy. I was impressed.

Then I tried making sweet potato chips. You have to fry these in coconut oil (which is very hard like a brittle lard.... but tasty). I tried one batch. FAILURE! So then I decide to put the rest in the oven and bake them. FAILURE! So.... I chopped up the rest of my peeled potatoes to make french fries later. I wonder how those will turn out?

Next I moved onto making homemade Ranch for the kiddos. HORRIBLE FAILURE!!!! and smart me tried to make a double batch right off to save time.  There went all my olive oil.  You HAVE to use extra light olive oil and add the oil into the mixture really slow....

Onto cooking dinner. Josh made a wonderful acorn squash stuffed with a ground pork/pear/pecan hash. It was so wonderful! Success #1.  This kids didn't eat this at all. They are starting to get hungry. And grumpy. And grumpy.........

I also made "rocket fuel" that is basically cut up nuts mixed with dates (sticky mudders to cut up!) egg whites and baked. The kids survived on that for dinner, at about 5 minutes till bedtime when they were starving.

Day 1 is done. All I can say is that the shopping was a nightmare b/c of buying crazy stuff I have never heard of, but I am so pleasantly full and ready to be on day 2.

What the heck is Whole30?

My family and I have started on a new and crazy adventure, thanks to my girlfriend from college Pam. I saw a few posts here and there about how many days into this "whole30" she was and her accomplishments.  One post caught my eye as it talked about energy and the "sugar dragon".  So I started reading online. The most I could tell is that this was close to Paleo, whatever that was, and was a new fad diet.  However, being overweight, and not losing any weight in months- I was intrigued. I decided to order the book and at least read about it.



This new fad diet looked like meat, veggies, and fruit. I can do that.  No glueten. Hm.... ok. I'm game for that too. I'm not a big bread person anyways. No beans. Hm....ok I guess. No dairy. What??  I love my yogurt. Cream in my coffee and cheese. Yup. No dairy. Yikes! 

But after reading the whole book, in 1 sitting, I was ready to jump in. As they say in the book, what are you waiting for? Start now!

The basics of this 30 day plan is to reset your hormones and brain to work the way they should in relation to food.  So much of what we eat actually prevents us from losing that belly fat, falling asleep, or feeling full and not wanting those snacks at 10pm at night.

It goes back to the basics of food and is similar, but a little more strict, than the Paleo way of eating. Also known as the caveman, since you eat like they did. Veggies, fruit and all natural meat without hormones. you do eat fat too! Good fats from nuts and things like avacados. Sounds........slightly weird right?

The biggest clencher for me is that 95% of the people that have done this for 30 days without cheating have slept better, woken up with energy in the morning instead of in that "fog", had less aches/pains, less headaches, etc etc etc.  Oh yeah, and the average weight loss is between 6 adn 15 lbs.

Let's face it. 30 days for a chance to jump start my weight loss (again.....)? I'm all for it.  Not having the sugar cravings, and waking up with energy are a big bonus though.

So after I read the book, I convinced my husband to do it with me. It says you need a support group. I hope to get some people at work to do it as well, but we'll see.

 

My New Project

My job to 99% of my friends and family is a mystery.  I do something that has to do something with selling stuff that's somewhat related to cell phones or computers.

My job is to create awareness/buzz on our products to help Agilent sell more stuff.  The stuff we sell tests anything electronic: cell phones, computers, tvs, etc.  Your cell phone calls the correct person you dial b/c of my equipment. Your USB stick copies information from your computer correctly because of my equipment.  You can "save" information because of my equipment.

This past Monday my company launched a website, through a media house, promoting digital items.  This site is centered around the largest trade show where we showcase my equipment: DesignCon. It has over 5,000 attendees over 4 days and we gEEk it up:)

This site is sponsored by Agilent, and I'm the lead from my company working on this site and putting our content there. It's an all consuming project, and I still have my day job, but it's fun.

Check it out- and see what I can help pull off and do for "outbound marketing".

www.designconcommunity.com

The Shamree Tornado

We are in our last fiscal month of the year at Agilent and busily planning for the next. I'm trying to spend money before it's gone, and decide how to spend next years money- so I know what to ask for. I'm trying to ensure I meet my Q4 goals of webhits and name captures while planning how to increase that by 30% for next year (a lofty goal). In the middle of all these crazy things I feel a sense of peace, a calmness.  I feel like I am in the eye of the tornado and creating a lot of buzz around me.

I'm planning on a new poster. I'm going to do a crossword puzzle poster, no wait! I'm going to do an I Spy collage poster, no wait! I'm going to just put information and images on it.....
Yes my mind changes directions that quickly, and I just run with it.
I love to try new things regardless of what's in my path--- I kind of just crunch right through.
It's craziness all around me with budgets and planning and changes, but in the middle of the tornado--- it's peaceful.

Fiscal Year 13, here I come- watch out!