Exercise: Barbell Club
Food: Scrambled Eggs with Spinach, Sausage, Onion, Potatoes and Avocado, Leftover Bolognese with Carrot Noodles, Chicken Breast with Onions, Peppers, and Sweet Potato “Nachos”

Chicken and Sweet Potato “Nachos.” I’d say my dishes are looking slightly more appealing.

Well well well. Here we are at the halfway mark in my Whole30. It’s all downhill from here! It’s usually in days 16-18 that people will experience what’s called “Tiger Blood.” That describes a surge of energy, mental clarity, and general bad ass-ery. I thought I was feeling that a little bit yesterday but a friend who has been through the plan before says you’ll definitely know if it has arrived. I’m a little scared to wake up tomorrow.

One of the things I’m starting to grasp at this stage are all the “little” rules of the Whole30. These are the kind of rules that address more of the mental/emotional part of eating. So they can seem a little willy-nilly. For example: pancakes. Most of the ingredients in regular pancakes are not permitted on the Whole30 anyway (I guess..I don’t really know how to make pancakes. Pretty sure you need milk.) so regular pancakes are out. But you can make fake pancakes that fool no one using compliant stuff like bananas and cinnamon and mushing it all up and doing something else with it. Well, that’s a no-no too. The theory is that you’re fooling your brain, you’re feeding that “need” for pancakes. I get it. Kinda. I was a little confused yesterday when someone posted in the Whole30 FB group about his sweet potato nachos. Everyone was oooh-ing and awing and I’m like “why aren’t they telling this dude he’s a failure and needs to start over?” An admin eventually chimed in and said this was allowed because it was just sweet potato– he hadn’t combined other ingredients to mimic a chip. I’m still a little fuzzy on that one, but I figured if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em and you bet your ass I made those with dinner.

I felt great at Barbell Club tonight. We didn’t go too crazy heavy with anything, but I was sweating like crazy. Release those toxins!

For breakfast I made scrambled eggs and spinach, sausage, onions and peppers. I reheated some potatoes I made yesterday but they were a little blah. I was also trying to help my son finish his homework so I wasn’t really savoring my meal anyway.

Lunch was the rest of the Bolognese sauce from the other night. I served over some Trader Joe’s carrot noodles, of which my husband is still not a big fan. I had a pretty eventful morning of going to the dump, so I needed something quick and easy.

And for dinner I baked some chicken breasts in the oven with peppers and onions. I made the sweet potato nachos just by making thin slices and roasting them in the oven for about 25 minutes. I topped with chipotle mayo, avocado, and salsa. Ole!

So…takeaways from today: I’m awaiting my Tiger Blood; pancakes aren’t allowed but nachos are; carrot noodles hit the spot after a cathartic trip to the dump.