Crimsann

Happy seriously belated New Year, just checking in because I had a free minute and wanted to say "hi"...it's been weird doing this round without any forum activity either here or in the official ongoing threads. It's been a decent round for me though, very smooth start with little or no side effects at all which really surprised me because I was coming off my longest time being off W30 since my first ever. I've done modestly well with breakfasts and eating all three meals, my usual problem areas, and I've kept up my daily workout activity. I passed Day 365 earlier this month which doesn't seem possible. Three weeks in and I'm seeing most of the usual early results, stable moods, clearer and less dry skin, pants buttoning up much easier. Energy levels are still on the low side but I do believe that's largely weather related...the cold has been exceptionally brutal here this winter. Not much snow so far, but weeks straight with the temps not climbing above freezing and that's unusual for us. I'm trying not to complain because it is the snow/ice that I detest the most but the cold snap was starting to wear everyone thin. Full disclosure...I won't be able to call this a true W30, I tasted a spoonful of tea syrup for a punch recipe I needed to make for work. Ironically at the time I thought I was staying compliant by tasting it before I added the simple syrup or the ginger ale...but I forgot that the frozen lemonade concentrate in the tea syrup part did have sugar in it even if the tea/mint/peach nectar were all compliant. At this point in my W30 journey that just wasn't a big deal to me, but I acknowledge it was a slip! I did get someone else to taste the final version then because I didn't trust my own taste buds on whether or not it was too sweet but at least I was confident that it was drinkable. I will be completing the thirty days and then the first week of February before cupcake duties call again. I won't have a full 30-days free of that again until June when I'm totally done and I'm already planning an anniversary W30 then since June was my first ever a few years ago and it's still one of my favorite times of year to go clean. Hope you are all well...miss our chats...but I'm also finding I'm stronger and more confident each round and I owe so much of that to this group.

I'm so excited for your move Nancy! My other friend who was in a similar co-hab situation just moved into a new place last month and it's been fun hearing about how nice it is to have her own space again. I'm crazy jealous about that heated parking. Can I come stay until...like...April? Gearing up for a January round, my plan is to stay on until at least April and then make a longer term plan from there. I'm not heading into it with the 365 mentality I had this year which totally didn't work out for me but that is in the back of my mind. This time around though I can start with at least a full 30-days completely 100% W30 before I have to start deciding how to do a modified plan. (Since we didn't start the cupcake project until March last year I have a few make up people to do in February but that's mostly over now.) I still think I had a solid list, I just had a less than perfect time to start and it made such a huge difference. It really highlighted for me the benefit of a full 30 days to reset. An elf (my sister) and a sleepy kitty (my youngest niece in a winter coat with ears) just dropped off a coffee as a surprise. I will miss those coffee's...but I'm looking to make some positive changes in 2018! ....and a black coffee is just as warm thank goodness.

Me! Sort of...in the still around category. I was actually thinking about posting the very night you did @vozelle but didn't get around to it. It's been a tough week or so for a lot of reasons. My friend is dealing with something right now that would probably put me straight into a mental breakdown. I'm not even involved directly, but being close to it indirectly is enough to freak me out about every five minutes. I'm usually pretty chill, but I can tell that being off my game eating wise is making this feel more extreme than it would have. I also had to turn down a rather interesting opportunity that came my way, and while I know I'm making the right choice, I'm again kind of sad about knowing two parts of my life are not that compatible anymore. Earlier this year, mostly on a whim and with no thought that anything would ever come of it, I signed up to be a recipe tester for a very cool food blog. A few weeks ago, they sent me the contract and the non-disclosure agreement I would need to sign to be accepted. Wah! It would mean testing and reviewing one of their recipes at least every two weeks though and while some of them may be compliant it's not like I would get to tweak them and taste testing certainly isn't optional. If I'm going to be serious about next year, there is of course no way I could sign on for that. And I'm sad, but not sad. I've had time lately to experience me on and off of a healthier eating plan and I know which me I prefer...I'm just having a hard time coming to terms with me as that kind of cook when I've spent years thinking of myself as a rather different kind entirely. It's not that I don't realize there aren't lots of things to explore and experiment with in a more Paleo kitchen, it's just funny how I feel far more limited in cooking than I actually do in eating. Maybe I will find my way to a balance at some point, I will definitely keep trying, but I know what I need to concentrate on right now. So that being said, still planning on going back full steam in January and trying to cut back now to make that less stressful but with full realization of the holidays. I don't know if I'm going to say out loud that I'm thinking about that "full year" thing again only with a better kick off, but it's on my mind. Maybe it's better if I let that evolve on it's own instead of staring down the tunnel. And I've been in this funk all week, so rather than drone on about it, I'm going to stop here for now...just wanted to say you guys are rarely far from my mind. Also, I so wish they would outlaw the bags here...I would be right there with you on that bag collection if we had something similar. It's harder to go cold turkey with plastic bagging when they are as ubiquitous as sugar though. LOL! I'm still planning to try. I look like the worst offender right now . Before our last work bake sale, I had a raffle to get people to bring them in so we had some to use and I got WAAAY more than I anticipated. I brought the rest home to recycle but haven't got them dropped off yet. It's probably what got me thinking about this as a goal. Stay safe, stay healthy everyone...I'm sure I will check in again before next year but have a wonderful holiday season. And get your tushes back here for January.

As promised, sporadic check-in! I think I'm always sort of inspired the day a W30 email comes (or the day I get to open and read it, which is not always the same day!) I'm in a slightly better place than last month, I have made meal plans for the work weeks now through the end of the year. They are not all W30, but I wanted to ease back in that direction by getting back on the "prep the meal, eat the meal" train. I decided to focus on the work week because packing is so much easier than scrambling for lunch no matter what I pack, and the freedom on the weekends is going to make the holiday season a bit less stressful since I don't have time for a full reset before. Not perfect, maybe not even entirely my ideal...but something. And an interesting thing happened...I went into it with no specific intention regarding what type of meals, other than that they be primarily whole foods and something I cooked rather than packaged and processed to death. When I got to the end of the year I realized only two weeks were actually not W30. It gave me an odd little sense of hope, as far off course as I have felt for large parts of this year, I have made some real changes that are sticking. When I sit down to list out a dozen or so quick, easy, tasty, doable meals...they are predominantly W30 meals without me having to wrack my brain for them. Even the two recipes that are not compliant are rather close, one is easily adapted in fact though I do prefer the non-compliant version given the choice...and the other one only contains one thing that is not on my extended allowed list. The list I came up with as my long term food list. So there is that. I am also pleased to report that my attempt to pre-start my New Year Resolution of keeping a short diary as daily as possible has been going well. I picked the app Momento as something to try, and even though I don't fully utilize it's features (I sure wish it would sync with Apple's activity tracker and track my daily workout stats!) I am finding it to be a good solution for me. It's handy on my phone, I can add pictures right out of my email, text messages, or my phone's camera...and the reminders in the morning about "what did you dream?" and "how was your day?" usually do prompt me to jot down a line or two. I'm working really hard on not caring what I say, it doesn't need to be earthshattering news, profound, amusing, or even particularly interesting...some of that will come with time and habit...so it's more important to me to just encapsulate the day even if it's just a "feels like Monday" I have also decided on my "real" resolution for the first of the year...I want to go a year without using any of those plastic bags that are so ubiquitous. Easy enough to avoid in grocery stores where it's pretty common practice to whip out a reusable bag now (just not common enough in my life yet), though it's going to be a bit trickier at the mall maybe. Then again, what is life without a challenge and a few less shopping sprees probably wouldn't hurt me none. Anyone out there have a "love it" style or brand of market bag? I'm try to do some research and experiment a bit with some different types to make that easier come January.

I think I speak for us all that Cynthia is now on the "must check in again list"! My sister is down there near you right now, though far enough inland that she hasn't been in any of it so far...not sure what traveling home will be like but I think she flies out of Dallas maybe. Is that near Fort Worth? I'm horrible at geography but I think "near" is somewhat relative in Texas anyway right?! She had to do a two week orientation for her CRNA program and that meant leaving the babies which is killing her. She hasn't been away from her girls overnight yet and jumping straight into two weeks of it was pretty bad. I think I would be the same way, canoeing my way back up the street if I had to in order to check in on things. Stay safe!!!!

I'm happy to check in, and I do secretly hope we all still will on occasion...I refuse to say goodbye, so there. We have all taken some different forks in the road though so it's understandable that the group would be a bit disconnected on what we share. As for me, it's been a crazy summer...how is it that even being down to just one job, the drama has doubled? I won't go into a lot of detail because the details don't really matter and I do think one of the reasons it is hitting me harder is because in the past I always had a very clear second option when things started to get nasty. It's not as if that's not still true, I have contacts enough to land on my feet, and I'm not really being threatened myself anyway in what is going on but the atmosphere is pretty toxic right now and it's frustrating me. Not a good time to be totally off my eating game and it's shown. You will remember me not being a stress eater but a stress starver? That's still true, but when I do eat...and it isn't coffee...it's definitely not salad. So I'm still floundering a bit and trying to get myself shored up. I've pretty much decided not to renew my cupcake contract, lol...that just isn't helping at all and this summer, during the worst of it, even I lost my interest in baking and that's saying something. Interestingly enough it's not that I have such a hard time resisting eating them, it's just doing them week after week after week these last few months when so many of the birthdays were clustered together...I simply can't face doing anything else in the kitchen or making one more run to the grocery and THAT I had not predicted or accounted for. So it's not that I'm face first in cake, but not cooking for myself then that is the problem. Overall it has been fun, and I know they have been absolutely enjoyed and appreciated but it just doesn't fit with how I want to spend my time. They are trying to talk me into a once a month option for next year but I'm not sure I want to take on even that. I still really want to do a full year on my plan and that means taking time for myself. I still feel like what I had mapped out is where I want to head, but I also know without a doubt that I have to start with some kind of 100% reset first. Not doing that sunk me before I even started. I also have some opportunities to do a Whole30 this fall/winter starting mid November...maybe taking a break for two weeks around Christmas and then picking up again in January...and I think I'm going to take advantage of that. I also have a mini plan for September which is mostly just a combination of getting back to eating three times a day, better hydration, and stepping up my workout just a little bit. I also want to lay out some menus for the two weeks I will be off in October when I have a chance to do a bit more in the way of a cook up. I want to take that time to make some really good meals and savor the season. So much still to come this year, it's hard to believe it's as far gone as it is. On the upside, despite my food woes, workout wise I'm still plowing through...I finished up early this morning so I would have the rest of the day "off" and that marked Day 224 straight on meeting my Move goal. Unfortunately, I still sort of hate doing it. The difference is, I'm not letting that stop me. I will say though, without question, eating poorly has had an impact. I meet my goal, but I'm rarely really pushing myself to exceed it. I think as long as I don't throw in the towel, I can still climb back out of this. For one thing, seeing how even working out every day is not keeping my belt loose is again a real wakeup call about how I need a holistic solution. I think the triangle for me is Exercise/Whole Foods/Stress Management. I know what to do, I know how to do it, I know it works...it's just clearing away the obstacles again and getting started. I do a lot better continuing something than just getting it going sometimes. Which it's funny that I say that because for some reason all week I've been thinking about New Year resolutions...oh come ooooonnnn guys, it's me of course I'm thinking about January plans in September you know this by now. I think one of them I'm just going to start today. That way, come the first of the year, I will only have to resolve to keep doing it. LOL! See, just talking to you guys still inspires me. I'm off to go toss laundry in the dryer and start a diary.

Hey guys sorry for my long absence, we had a new employee start and I've been in training mode for weeks. What I do isn't super complicated, exactly, it just involves a trillion variables so trying to train someone completely from the outside sort of saps all my attention. In a nutshell? My workout plan is going rock solid, just passed Day 175 earlier this week. My food plan is in complete shambles. Sigh. I sort of know where things veered off, and while I still think my plan was solid it obviously needs more attention. I want to do a full reboot W30, but with the cupcake project there is no good time now until October. I think I mentioned before that the cupcakes are sort of clustered together, I have one per week now until the end of September! After which, I have only three total for about a six month stretch. So I'm going to work on getting my act back together, but I know it's going to be more of a struggle than it should be. I'm still determined to do a year long stretch, but I'm going to have to restart that clock and I'm not sure when. I don't want to just say January because that leaves too long a gap where my head would say "woohoo, no plan!" It may end up being January, but I need some better structure now. Part of where I stumbled was lack of meal plans, something I'm usually pretty good at, but I think that's always been where my brain turned when I was doing those mindless tasks each day...and without those moments in my day every Friday crept up on me and I was hitting the grocery like a lost soul. No real excuse, heaven knows I know what should go in my cart, but I've never been that good at putting it together on the fly. And I don't love crowds. So get me in the grocery with no list and I will grab whatever is in a free aisle and bolt for the door. I also realized that while this time last year, a "do the closest you can" on a restaurant menu when you need to eat out with friends/family would have been a rare exception because I hardly ever went out to eat with friends or family....but that was mostly due to working so much. With more free time, I found that I was using that exception nearly every weekend and sometimes more than once and that was a lot further off plan that I had anticipated which then left me in a fog going into the next week. Compounding interest. So I've got some input for myself anyway. Sadly, staying on track with exercise has only helped me stay out of deep water weight wise, just more proof it really isn't enough on it's own. And the worse food makes me feel the less I push myself. I may meet my goal, but I'm hardly killing it. I haven't thrown in the towel on it though, despite being rather inspired to do just that lately. Anyone else kind of curious to go back a year now and see what they were up to in July 2016?! Kind of fun to think of us having over a year of history now. I only haven't read mine because I know I was gearing up to go on vacation which won't be happening this year. LOL! No sense rubbing my own nose in it.

So I discovered a down side to doing yoga outside. Well, two down sides if you also count my mother surreptitiously taking photographs and sharing them with her friends as "cute!", which what am I two still?!? The other down side happened on Sunday. This is my ideal day for outdoor yoga because most of my neighbors are out for the day and I can be assured of a little more privacy than usual. I was in a position that had my head on roughly the same plane as my feet, not quite upside down but as near to it as I get at this point, when all of a sudden my Apple watch started doing it's little vibrate thing but in an odd series of three thumps repeated three times. That isn't any kind of alert I am aware of, so without breaking the pose I was in, I twisted my wrist around just enough to read the face of the watch and to my horror.....it was dialing 911 for me. O.M.G And of course my phone was clear over on the patio, plus I'm standing with my head on the ground, so by the time I got myself off my face and across the lawn the call had just started to connect as I slammed down the hang up button. I was not quick enough though because sure enough several seconds later my phone is ringing and it doesn't take three guesses to figure out who it is. So I'm standing there trying to get my headphones disconnected and my phone unpaired from them since they don't have a mic and I can't respond to the operators question about "what is the nature of your emergency"...finally I get through to her and babble something about "my watch dialed you while I was working out" but I'm totally out of breath and maybe somewhat lacking in credibility? My best guess is, this wasn't the first time it had happened because she actually accepted that my watch could dial emergency services, and we parted on reasonably friendly terms. Some quick research later, because let's be honest...the Zen Zone was GONE at that point...I discovered that there is a feature where if you press the side stem in for long enough it will assume it's an SOS and connect to your phone and dial 911 which is actually sort of cool. Well, would be cool if I thought for a second that in a true emergency I would remember this detail in time to use it. Needless to say I disabled that feature promptly. I suppose this now means I can be mugged with impunity as I no longer have that handy ability to call for back up. This is the price I must pay for a good workout. I'm pretty sure I'm still flaming with embarrassment, but at least there was an explanation and it wasn't like my first fear which was that my watch somehow sensed I was going to need an EMT any moment there based on my breathing and/or heart rate.

@NancyW Did you find anything on the no-cook meals? I ended up doing my version of that for lunches this week since it was a short week anyway. Basically tuna salad, a fruit salad, and (though I realize these are now illegal on a W30) some "compliant" potato chips. It's something I rotate in every now and then, I don't really like tuna salad...but I can and will eat it...and it's an easy way to swap to fish as a protein source on occasion. I'm also okay with having chips this way, given they are all compliant ingredients, because it has the built in portion control of being packed...I can't just reach for more even if the temptation hits. Moved the balsamic chicken and broccoli salad idea to the coming weeks menu plan instead. I am in a sort of weird rut with chicken though, not that it doesn't sound good...but that nothing else sounds good. I'm kind of okay with doing the same few things for my evening meal, easy and tasty is all I care about that point in the day and even if I have "all the eats to choose from" I tend to do the same couple things so this isn't any different than my pre-Whole30 style just with different dishes. Still I want to keep some variety coming in so I need to get a bit more creative there. I have a feeling it's going to be bacon/eggs/spinach though...it's a tasty rut to be in I guess. I like this meal because I can cook it all on my electric griddle. I start with a pile of pre-cooked potatoes in shreds on one side since they will take the longest to cook and then two strips of bacon on the other side. I move the bacon around a little when I flip it and add two hands full of spinach where the bacon was so the greens cook down/wilt in the bacon grease. Slide the potatoes onto my plate, top with the spinach, then crack two eggs and let that go until just cooked with a runny yolk still...pile them on top of the spinach and I'm good to go. Quick enough I could do this in the morning too if it weren't for the still insurmountable "getting out of bed on time" deal. I'm really hoping to get to a better place with mornings. I can feel it starting to happen now but that's partly this time of year as much as anything. I'm hitting a natural wake up point of just before 7:00, the problem is I don't actually have to get up until 8:00 and without anything making me do so I mostly just fall back to sleep and by 8:00 it's torture getting up. Maybe if I were just a bit more aware at 7:00, enough to rationalize this all with myself like I can now...or if I could ever really wake up hungry enough to want to get out of bed...sigh. Progress there too though, I'm often very hungry by lunchtime rather than just stopping because it's time to. Did yoga outside for the first time this past weekend...felt like the troll exiting the cave. Of course, despite using sunscreen, I also got a tinge of sunburn too so it does recall to me why I stay in my cave most of the time. I'm going to step that up to doing it outdoors over the weekends to start with, probably to the vast entertainment of my neighbors. It's a good way to get in some of that sun exposure I actually need. In my dream world I would start every morning that way, but even when I was on vacation and had nowhere to go I found I didn't enjoy working out in the morning. It felt like it took twice as long and made me seriously impatient rather than unwinding me so I don't think that is the answer for me even if it sounds nice. Nothing much new to report, I didn't do a weigh in this week...actually just forgot to but again I'm trying to keep my focus on the NSV's right now because I know the scale is going to be behind the times on reporting actual progress. I hit Day 135 on my workout streak so still going strong there, clothes are fitting better maybe not 100% back to my lowest size but I no longer have to pick and choose so much between my pants as they are all viable options, LOL! Skin is clearing more again, starting to notice my cheekbones...that's a weird one guys, but for some reason even small ticks up or down I still notice in my face first. Energy is up I'm sure only because I DON'T notice it. I tend not to clue into when I have energy but really notice it when I don't.

@misslindy Yup, it's definitely time for our annual trade-off of summer. I looked at the forecast for the week this morning and thought "finally, that's more like it!" I wish we could both have nice weather all the time though. Happy to hear you found something that helped budge the scales. When I'm on the plan I do usually lose though each time it gets a bit slower as I get closer to my perfect weight and I'm trying to stay patient with that. Only about one month in to doing this for a solid year so I can keep my expectations low for awhile yet. But I know if I got to April of next year and felt like I hadn't made any progress on the weight front I would be really frustrated. Early days I'm keeping my eyes on NSV's for now. Last night I had one of those with yoga, in one of the positions achieving the full pose would have my forehead touching my knee and I sort of bumped my head for a second and realized that for the first time I had enough flexibility to bend that far. I'm really trying to work in as many days doing the full workout, cardio+yoga but without making that one of the rules. I don't want to burn out on it just when I'm getting some real progress. That also lets me take a day of down time when I've already met my Move goal just by being more active than days when I sit all morning. So far, so good. On the other hand, I had this thought last night. I wear a sports bra to do yoga these days so things stay where they should, but more and more I think I may have to keep doing yoga just to be able to keeping getting in and out of one. This may be the definition of a vicious circle? Lunch this week is a struggle. I was so excited about that pork roast recipe and it ended up being colossally blah. I can't for the life of me figure out how! All that flavor in the marinade where did it go?!? It's totally edible, just almost entirely tasteless. Can't win them all I guess. I'm going to do another batch of balsamic chicken for next week I think, I haven't made that since my first Whole30 so I hope it's as good as I remembered. I might try a version of broccoli salad with it. You can tell I'm not in love with this week's menu when I have next weeks all worked out and it's barely Tuesday. My niece bought her first bike this week. Yes, bought it herself out of her piggy bank, mostly in ones and with ever so much pride. I did a double-take when I saw the picture though. Her bike helmet has a tiara on it. The neighborhood is so not ready for this. But it did have Tt looking for a bike too, after all I can't let her hit the trails alone! Let's hope it really is true what they say about riding a bike. Not sure how long I could claim I was only using training wheels in solidarity.

@vozelle I don't want to go as far as to say I envy you because that would just be sort of ridiculous given what all you've gone through to treat this but I can totally see the silver lining in having to spend so much time being conscious of what you eat. It's sort of what I'm hoping to accomplish by setting myself the year long challenge with what I hope are some reasonable modifications. Hoping it forces me even further out of my comfort zone to try and discover more real food options. I know the more recipes I have starred in my notes that I really want to make again...not just things I could live on...the more likely I am to be eating the way I want to eat on the routine rather than it being some exception. And for all it's ups and downs I do want something like this as my "ever after" diet. Working on my meal plan for next week, I'm pulling out one of those recipes from the Instagram feed I mentioned a few weeks ago. This one is a pretty simple roast pork loin, done in a slow cooker which is my favorite lazy cookup day option...but with some interesting flavors: cilantro, orange juice, coriander, lime. I'm thinking I will see what I come up with and either do some zoodles or some spaghetti squash "noodles" under it. This week I've been doing another chicken salad, prepped similar to the peanut chicken I did last week but with a chimichurri sauce instead. I also tried a homemade ranch dressing recipe that was compliant but this was kind of never going to be a win I think. The problem is, I make a killer ranch dressing....like people lick plates it's so good...and my version takes buttermilk. I got excited because this version called for adding a little vinegar to coconut milk and the common sub for real buttermilk is milk with vinegar so I thought this might make a really close approximation....and it's okay, but it's definitely not as good as the original. I will probably make the compliant version again over the next year and tweak the proportions around, but I suspect that down the road that might be one of my "it's worth it" uses for real dairy. My plan for next week contains all compliant ingredients this time, but my breakfast recipe will be using some of them in a non-compliant blueberry muffin sort of way. I feel like so far, four weeks in planning wise at least, I've got a decent balance going of being on my plan without letting the exceptions drown out the Whole30 core.

Now one of these trips Nancy, we are going to have to plan a meet-up you know. It kills me to think of you drifting so close and not being able to say "hi!" Maybe if I promise to bring the entertainment in the form of my two nieces? LOL! On the zoodles, what I did this time was sprinkle salt on each pile of them when I got to the end of a zucchini so I knew the whole container was well salted, then covered them with paper towel and waited probably half an hour. This timing wasn't intentional, I just had other things to prepare and it took me that long to get back to them. The towel was soaked and I strained out a good bit of water, pressing lightly into a colander. It was interesting because they looked wilted compared to the crisp hard "noodles" I usually have. They almost looked cooked, which could make sense since there are cooking techniques where you do use salt alone to "cook" something. I did warm up some olive oil and sort of tossed them a few times on each side then before packaging them up in individual glass containers with some meatballs and sauce for lunches. I don't know if it was all that method or partly because the sauce I used cooked down with the meatballs so that there wasn't a lot left. Each meatball had a visible coating of sauce and there was maybe one large serving spoon of sauce besides so the combination of drier noodles and less extra sauce? Mmm, it was so good though. My week 1 was a tad shaky, I found out mid-week that one of the things I was eating wasn't as compliant as I had thought. Just a silly mistake on my part, I had read something about that brand being compliant but has misread which item and didn't double-check by reading the label when I bought them because at the time I was not doing Whole30. It was only when I went to open the second bag about Wednesday night that I realized. I think all things considered this is something I would be okay with having in my Food Freedom plan and I didn't get all the way to 10 on my allowed exceptions list so I added them. Sort of covering my backside after the fact for sure, but I seemed to do just fine with them all week. No signs of a horrible headache or a desire to maim everyone around me, so again a pretty seamless bounce back though of course my menu wasn't 100% compliant. I did notice some fatigue most days, crashed earlier at night than usual and slept deeply. I also backed off my workouts just a bit, not enough to break my streak but I only did the cardio AND yoga maybe twice all week. Towards the end of the week I also added a small side salad at dinner because I found one of the newer Tessemae's dressings at my local grocery and wanted to try it. It contains honey which is on my allowed list as long as it's in either a sauce, condiment, or dressing and is used sparingly and not routinely. It was nice for a change of pace from so many savory dressings lately but all in all I found it too sweet and not that satisfying. I may try it again another time maybe to make something like a traditional broccoli salad, but I found I prefer the more herbal dressings at this point. I am using honey again this week, as well as a no sugar added peanut butter. I tried another version of that Peanut Chicken Salad I think I mentioned a few weeks ago. Fingers crossed I like it better than the last version. I think I will though unless the flavors change a lot as it melds. Those are the only two non-compliant items on menu though, everything else toes the line. I ended up with a pet fish this week, which is partly why I haven't checked in sooner...I've been in full stress/research mode. It was a sort of accidental acquirement and I wasn't prepared to take on tending anything finicky which it apparently can be. It's a betta which are about equal parts hardy and diva from what I've read so far, few things that can be agreed upon either which tells me they vary some. I named him Siam Spade since I learned the fish originated in Thailand, which does sort of beg the question why they are also called Japanese Fighting Fish but I haven't run across the answer to that yet. I did get him moved into a home last night and after close monitoring I think it's going to suit. He seems energetic enough and curious about everything which seem like good signs. We took the girls to an aquarium store yesterday and on the advice of one of the posts I had read I got a Ghost Shrimp to keep him company but more importantly to help keep the tank clean. The girls batted eyelashes at their Mom and sweet talked her into getting them a small tank for a few pink Tetra's. Luckily their father approved of this and actually wants to go back because he was left out with no fish of his own to name. I can only imagine what will go with Posie (my sisters choice), Sassy (the best we can figure out from Maddie who is only talking a little so far) and....wait for it...Pinky Pie Balloon (named, you won't be surprised to hear, by Eliana the older niece.) I also bought a piece of rock while I was there, just an interesting shape with some holes and such out of a bin of rock. I got home and setup the tank, made sure the water that I had been warming in the room all day was the right temp, got all the decorations and plants in place and the pump humming along and had no more than introduced the shrimp who was scooting along happily when I noticed a tiny movement on the rock. OMG. Snails. First one which was sort of cute, though how it had lived through who knows how long of a dry spell I don't know, but then more. At last count I had six. This lead to a moral dilemma. The thing is, a snail or two or maybe three can help keep the tank clean and they were tiny things....but the wrong combination of snails with amorous intentions on each other and you can very quickly wind up with more snails than water. In the end I did the evil thing and divested myself of all but one of them. So we will see. Alas the shrimp did not survive his first day. I actually don't know what happened. Siam is inordinately curious and had been seen sneaking close to take a peek but I hadn't caught any territorial or aggressive moves. It is possible he acts up behind my back though. He has a rather pronounced air of innocence at times for a fish. It's also possible that the shrimp got ahold of some of his food. I didn't realize at the time that it contains some copper sulfate and copper is a problem for the shrimp. If that's the case it would have happened eventually because part of his function was to clean up after things. I may give it a week or so, read up some more on potential betta companions and foods that would work for both and try again. I have also caught him nose to shell with the snail, again no sign of nibbling, just intense scrutiny and I think he would do with some sort of play mate if I can find something he won't threaten. And that was my week. P.S. Huge hurrah for some measurable results there @C_Cezeaux very inspirational. Here is to another solid week!

Anyone else seem to be missing the email alerts of a new post here again? Just curious. I want to give a shout out to Mel Joulwan's Pesto Meatballs, not sure what I did differently before but while I liked them the first time I made them...I'm swooning over them this time. Well, okay, let's me honest I do know a few things I did different this time. I used Paul Newman's Tomato Basil sauce, which is actually compliant even though I'm not 100% W30 right now myself. At first I was kind of worried because a jar of that didn't fill up my electric skillet the way the sauce ingredients in the recipe had and I worried these were going to turn out dry. Far from it. The texture is incredible. I let the zoodles sweat more than I have before too and I don't know if that made a difference or if just being less "watery" meant they reheat with more flavor or what... Great start though, to have both of my made ahead meals really hit the spot this week. I won't get into my personal hurdle with canned salmon, leave it that I like it once it's made up but getting it made takes a Herculean effort on my part with not letting the fish smell or the visuals of the skin and bones get to me. I added a lot of chopped orange bell pepper and red onion and some of the green goddess dressing I make as well as a bit of mayo and wrapped it up in a crisp romaine leaf. My local grocery has started carrying a really convenient package of large mostly flat romaine lettuce leaves that are so perfect for this kind of use without wasting anything. I'm further in on reading Food Freedom as well and it strikes me that I probably should have planned for an initial 30-days of going by the book. This isn't really going to be possible without putting off the rest of my plan though and I'm not going to do that. @C_Cezeaux who required posting the wretched pictures in a public forum?! I'm horrified at the thought of doing that myself so huge props to you. I did get off my lazy tush the other night and got a number from the scales that actually sort of shocked me (in a bad way, the pants test hadn't give up enough warning signs so I'm hoping that was a fluke number but wrote it down anyway) and took some pictures that didn't really make me happy either. I will be glad I had them at the end though I'm sure. I just today had an invite to join a co-worker for spinning class which is a lot more like exercise than I try to get into but I'm considering it. Possibly with the same area of the brain that said committing to doing this for 365 was a smart idea.

@C_Cezeaux Oh, thanks for the reminder. I really need to do the pics and weigh in today too, maybe when I finally drag myself off the couch to go pack the lunch I made earlier. I am totally in sync with you right now. One of the things I wanted to talk about, but couldn't get the words, was that I have now passed the 100 day mark on doing some kind of workout every day. I started that back in January? February? I've sort of lost track I guess. I've gone through one (mostly) Whole30 and two months of complete abandon, but never lost the workout. The thing is, it really hammered home for me that I simply can't do one or the other. I can keep up the workout streak for months, but when my eating suffers I know I hold back. I may make my goal, but I'm not really pushing myself because the energy isn't there. On the flip side, at this point in my dieting adventure...I can eat a pristine Whole30 and still not see the kind of changes I want to see because losing weight doesn't translate directly into gaining tone. Most of my life I've wanted the magic bullet to be anything BUT working out or eating right. Maybe in the last three years or so I've wanted it to be EITHER working out or eating right because either one of them was hard enough. And yet what I'm staring at is...the only times I've felt like I was making a real difference in myself is when there were some elements of both going on. Can I get a chorus of "dang it!!?!" So one of my rules for this 365 day challenge is that I have to keep making that Move goal every single day. I know of several different ways to accomplish it, everything from yoga to a marathon shopping day...and I've done it when I was tired, when I was sick, and when I was on vacation...so short of breaking a leg, I've little wiggle room. I've also sort of hit that moment when breaking the streak now means getting a new record would take a loooong time. If I manage to keep it going for the entire 365, I will be here a year from now and will be just about a month away from hitting a 500 day streak. I like that. Because it means even if I happen to need to eat an entire loaf of bread in 366 days...I will still have some motivation to keep the workout thing going until my sanity returns. And I do think that these two things feed off each other. The better I eat, the more energy I have to Move...and the more I Move the more I don't want to ruin all that effort by eating poorly. So a few little snags in getting ready today, I still haven't finished reading Food Freedom and I'm probably not as prepared as I was even for my first Whole30...I do have some of those same nerves though. Underlying them is the certain knowledge that of course I can do this even if it feels sort of daunting right now. I've made up a batch of Mel Joulwan's Pesto Chicken Meatballs (though for some reason I always opt for turkey) and some Zoodles for lunches this week, and I've got the stuff to make up some lettuce wraps with salmon salad for dinners. I have a few more recipes bookmarked to try in the coming weeks that are new to me...not sure if any of you follow Whole30 on Instagram but the gal who was sharing recipes this past week had some amazing ones and also offered a free e-book version that included all of them. I highly recommend looking that up. No real offense to that thread, but I've sometimes felt like all the recipes boil down to the same four ingredients just photographed from a different angle, but this week it's either my perspective or it all seemed much more unique. If you signed up for the e-book she also sent some emails about video courses on being successful and one of them included 5 recipes for sauces to go with steak which were also really interesting and 5 things to do with chicken. I also got some sort of fun inspiration from the Starbucks unicorn frapp that was in the news a week or so ago. Yes, I didn't see that coming either and no, I didn't try one. Mostly because they neglected to put coffee anywhere near it so how magical could it have been? One of my friends went to try one though and the barista talked her into trying something she called a dragon frapp instead. Basically it was a green tea frapp with some of the mango powder on it. Mango powder still sounds kind of gross but I'm working out a way to make that with compliant ingredients instead, green tea and frozen mango and the one toasted coconut almond milk I like....something along those lines. I have made up a list of a few food items I'm using that are not compliant, but I do want to keep about 98% of what I eat entirely in the bounds for this year. I know too well how blurring the lines is a long walk off a short pier. I've done this kind of balancing act before though and it's been a good fit, allowing me to be more creative with food but without reintroducing much of anything. Thrilled to see a few faces around tonight, so glad to not be feeling alone setting off on this. It feels like I'm not the only one feeling a fresh surge of energy to make some positive changes. So no looking back ladies, some great feelings to come if we can slug through the next two weeks!!!

Back from my time off, slipped past the milestone birthday, and it's time to really ink in the rules for my next challenge. I actually think I'm ready to go there, but I still want to finish Food Freedom before I make it official. Just in case that changes anything for me. It's pretty liberal, more so than I thought it would be when I first toyed with this idea but I'm working really hard on keeping W30 ideals but also thinking about what I want my long-term food choices to look like and in context with some other lifestyle changes. This is going to be a super short check-in because my brain is just scattered today and while I sort of know what I want to say...it's not coming together. I hope to be back again before next Monday to maybe share what I've settled on. I do love that May 1 is a Monday so I'm going to be starting out with that symmetry. I've got my first week meal plan pretty well laid out and ironically it doesn't include much of anything that wouldn't be compliant. I thought about doing a strict first 30 days but that's not really the spirit of what this year long challenge is for me. Still a good clean first week will be a nice fresh start and I'm looking forward to getting back to fresh food...or maybe that's just because it's lunch time.