Monthly Archives: February 2018

Uncategorized, Whole30 Journey

Tostones!

Exercise: CrossFit
Food: Over-easy Eggs with Sweet Potatoes and Bacon, Turkey Burger with Tostones, Pork Sausage with Sauteed Veg and MORE Tostones

tostones

I promise there’s a burger in there somewhere. And TOSTONES!

You CAN teach an old dog new tricks. This round has been a little like auto-pilot at times. I don’t have to read labels as much since I’m buying the same brands/items regularly now. And I have a few go-to recipes that I’ve memorized (and/or I feel confident about the flavors I’m trying to achieve that I’m not too worried about doing it exactly the same way each time). But, of course, the downside is that can lead to a little bit of food boredom. Enter Tostones.

I’d seen them mentioned a few times in the Whole30 Facebook group, but I didn’t really feel compelled to make them. Then, today I was at Whole Foods and I noticed some ripe plantains and thought “I should do something with those.” I searched “plantains” in the group and I was assaulted by all the raves about Tostones once again. So I fired up the air fryer, sliced up those plantains, and got down to business. The first batch turned out pretty well. I had them with a turkey burger, some guacamole, and Vanderpump Rules on the DVR. I made them again for dinner to impress my man and this batch was a little more crispy. Next time, I’ll probably experiment with some spices (this time I just salted them). Crazy!

I did CrossFit workouts Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and I succeeded in making every part of my body sore. It’s been while since I’ve felt this taxed by workouts, but it feels good too because I know it’s a result of working hard. Monday was the biggest challenge. The workout called for doing toes-to-bar in sets of 21-18-15-12-9. Toes-to-bar is when you hang from a pullup bar and, as the name suggests, you lift your toes to touch the bar. I hadn’t tried one in forever but I decided I was going to go for it. Well, it took me forrrrreevvvverrrrrr but once I realized I could do them, I was determined to do them all. I ripped a callus at some point too! It gives me street cred.

So…takeaways from these last few days: who knew a little plantain could serve up such mealtime realness?; no pain, no gain; wait- Stassi isn’t even 30 yet?

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Uncategorized, Whole30 Journey

I Dream of Jeans

Exercise: CrossFit, Full Body Convulsions After a Bird Flew into My Window and Died
Food: Same ol’ Breakfast Scramble, Bunless Turkey Burger, Egg Roll in a Bowl, Lara Bars

I like clothes. And I like shopping. As my weight and fitness have fluctuated, it’s been hard to break out of a wardrobe rut. I mentioned in my last post that I just bought some new yoga pants. And I have, indeed, already worn them way too much. So yesterday, I resisted the urge to put them on again, and instead wore jeans. We had a little bit of a busy day, but at some point, we’d been home for awhile and I was taking out the trash and it occurred to me: I hadn’t changed out of my jeans yet! Pre-Whole30, I would have probably changed as soon as I got home. It feels great to be more comfortable in my clothes again, so much so that I’m not thinking about them. I’m really looking forward to doing some serious shopping in a few months if I keep this progress up (which I fully intend to do. Duh.) Just don’t remind me about the boxes of smaller clothes I’m hoarding somewhere.

So this recent clothing epiphany did lead to one “cheat” on the Whole30. I weighed myself. You’re not supposed to weigh yourself while on a round (a round just refers to the 30 days. So technically I’m on round 2 right now since we’re being 100% compliant this month). The reason is because weight can fluctuate so much, depending on so many things and a “bad” number could be discouraging. But I knew my tummy felt a little smaller. And sure enough, I’m down 2.5lbs since February 1. So that’s 9.5 since the start of January. Soooooo close to 10! It just confirmed to me that I’m still on track. I’m going to try my hardest not to weigh again until the end of this round.

Otherwise, I’m just an Olympics-watching fool! It’s great timing; seeing all these tight bodies in sleek suits is hella motivating (as they’d say out here on the West Coast). I may be 37, but I think I could still qualify in the luge. Or maybe short track speed skating which is mostly just pushing other bitches out of the way, right? Maybe this time next month I’ll get me one of those body suits.

So…takeaways from these days: rock those Mom jeans like no one is watching; this Whole30 shit really does work; find an excuse to buy a body-suit

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Uncategorized, Whole30 Journey

Slow n’ Steady Progress

Food: Scrambled Eggs and Sweet Potatoes, Green Salad with Veggies and Tunafish, Tri-Tip with Potatoes and Asparagus
Exercise: Barbell Club and Crossfit

eggplant

My first foray into Eggplant on the Whole30! I served it over some mixed-squash noodles.

Our second(ish) round of the Whole30 is moving right along. Today puts us at day 7, and though we haven’t had most of the withdrawal symptoms as the first round, both Biff and I feel a little hungover today. I swear, we each only had one Kombucha last night! I’m sure there’s a little bit of detox going on. I’ve also been really hungry today in between meals, which had subsided pretty early in round 1. Hm!

But we’re still seeing lots of progress. Yesterday, I bought myself a sassy pair of mom yoga pants (very tasteful ones- no sheerness and no camel toe!) and I comfortably fit into a size smaller than before. I will now wear them everyday. The gym is where I tend to see the most progress, mostly because we have measurable results daily. Both last night at Barbell Club and today at CrossFit I PR’ed some lifts. And our workout today had lots of running. While I was still pokey, I was proud that I didn’t need to stop and walk while running 1200m and then 800m (with pull-ups, push-ups and squats in between). I actually felt lighter while running. Is that a thing? My pull-ups felt easier too. I use a resistance band to “help” and a few weeks ago I was able to reduce the strength of the band (so I needed less help). Today I used that same, new band and I felt like I could even go down another step. Whoop whoop! Less body weight and increased strength make Melissa a happy gal!

So…takeaways from today: try pull-ups again soon; don’t impulse buy yoga pants, take the time to try them on and then find out the ones you like the most are the most expensive; you can be hungover without drinking! Fun.

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Uncategorized, Whole30 Journey

Super Bowl30

Exercise: Folding laundry
Food: Over-easy Eggs with Bacon and Sauteed Spinach, Tri-tip Steak with Potatoes and Mixed Veggies, Air Fryer Wings and Sweet Potato Fries

It’s Super Bowl Sunday, featuring my beloved Pats. Ok, I’m more of a fair-weather fan, but a lot of people I love love the Pats and that’s good enough for me. Being married to a wonderful cook, Super Bowl Sunday is usually filled with a lot of snacks. In year’s past, we would have small parties and serve dishes that represent the cities in the game. But this year we decided to lay low and keep it Whole30.

I’ve become so used to NOT snacking, that I really didn’t miss chips and dips and all of that. It’s like I’ve been reprogrammed. Ah! But we did make our meals a little festive: Biff smoked some Tri-tip (which I got on sale so I bought a ton of it. Tri-tip for days!) which we had as a late lunch, just as the game was starting. And then I made some wings in the air fryer for dinner. Wings aren’t always my favorite thing to eat, physically. There is simply no way to eat one without looking like a caveman. And I can never gauge how much I’ve eaten. But it was fun to have a “traditional” game day food and they turned out pretty decent. I also bought a bunch of those so we will be certainly eating wings again soon.

Tomorrow it’s back to the gym, finally! Looks like we’re working on overhead squats which we haven’t done for awhile so I’m looking forward to seeing some progress there. My thighs are ready.

So…takeaways from today: all you need is an air fryer and some kombucha to be festive; it’s ok to look like a caveman in the privacy of your own home; the surest way to get a kid to stop watching his iPad is to sit down to watch something YOU actually want to watch on TV.

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Uncategorized, Whole30 Journey

Starting Over

Exercise: Volunteering in a Kindergarten classroom for 1.25 hours
Food: Fried Eggs with Spinach, Onions, and Sweet Potato Fries, Leftover Chili, Bacon-wrapped Chicken Breast with Asparagus, and Potatoes

chili

Here we go again. Let’s do this.

Yesterday marked our official restart of the Whole30. So that makes today day two but also day 32? Since we didn’t stray too much from the plan while we were gone, I’m assuming we won’t have most of the typical withdrawal symptoms people feel when they’re first starting. Good! I’m still sleeping like a log, which definitely wasn’t the case the first days of last month. My skin is having a moment right now though, which is a little discouraging, but I’m wondering if that was caused by the wine? Or being on a nasty airplane? Or that my cat might have slept on my pillow the whole time I was gone and I haven’t washed the cover since we’ve been back?

I’m also battling a little cold or something. I was hoping to workout, but I decided to conserve my energy since today was my day to volunteer in my son’s classroom. I’m so glad I did. Those children were having some feelings today! Perhaps they were hangry? I haven’t been to the gym for over a week now, and tomorrow I won’t be able to make it unless I go to barbell club and rush to my son’s baseball team meeting right after. This is one of those moments where you ask yourself what kind of first impression you want to make on people.

For breakfast, my husband took pity on my sneezy self and made fried eggs with some spinach, onions, peppers and sweet potato fries. We had a side of chipotle mayo for our fries as our serving of healthy fat.

Lunch was easy- I heated up some chili my sweet, sweet friend left for us when we returned from our trip. Seriously, how nice is that? She went to the trouble to make Whole30 compliant chili and had it waiting on our counter in a crockpot. Seriously.

And Biff took on dinner too. He wrapped some chicken breasts in bacon and served them with asparagus and potatoes. Very nice.

So…takeaways from today: starting over is easy if you never really stopped; sneezing will make your husband cook for you; true friends will scoop your cats’ poops and make you dinner.

 

 

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Uncategorized, Whole30 Journey

Days 25-30

Exercise: All the crap that comes with flying cross-country
Food: So many things

I mentioned in previous post that my Aunt passed away and we were preparing to fly across the country for her services and to be with family. So these last few days of our Whole30 journey, that’s where we were (hence this post lumping all of those days together). I didn’t want our diet restrictions to be a distraction and they certainly weren’t my focus during this last week. But I’m happy to report, we were able to stay mostly compliant faily easily. When we went out to eat, we chose the meals that seemed the most Whole30ish, but we did not go to great lengths to make substitutions. For example, I’m pretty sure there was butter in a couple of the side dishes. But at the risk of sounding totally smug, I wasn’t even tempted by a lot of junky stuff. Part of it was that I think my habits have changed, and part of it was being afraid of the wrath of my digestive track if I were to suddenly reintroduce a bunch of stuff. Ain’t nobody got time for that.

But there was one temptation that proved too great: wine. I had some wine. And Biff had some beer. So we did knowingly go off plan. I don’t regret it, it felt right to have a few glasses with my mom. My Aunt loved to enjoy a good glass of wine or a cocktail, and toasting her with club soda just wouldn’t do. I can’t really say how it affected me; I definitely noticed a negative change in my skin that seemed to pop up the next day. But between stress, possibly eating some non-complaint stuff, and the cold ass weather, who knows what, if anything, was to blame.

So we’re restarting, officially. Woo woo! Another month of this crazy train. I’m excited because (drumroll) we’ve both seen great results from this first go around. I lost about 7 pounds and Biff lost 8. I’ve had a ton of non-scale victories (as they’re called) too: better skin, more restful sleep, easier time falling asleep (I even slept on the plane yesterday, that never happens), feeling more motivated, improved cooking skills, elimination of unhealthy eating habits (mostly eating all the snacks after dinner), better awareness of ingredients, improved workouts, and better understanding about how food really fuels my body.

My brother and sister-in-law are coming to visit in March and so we plan to keep to the Whole30 100% until then. I’ll keep posting frequent updates- starting right back at day 1. Onward and upward!

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