Whole30 - Day 16

I am over the hump. It's the second half of the Whole30 challenge. Amazing how fast time flies! I don't feel deprived at all. There have been a couple of times where I felt super hungry, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. I've been thoroughly enjoying the foods I'm eating. I'm doing my best to make different dinners for the entire 30 days. Variety is the spice of life. It keeps one engaged too. 

Unfortunately, I didn't get a great night's sleep last night. When the 5:30am alarm went off, I was still feeling a bit tired. Luckily, I was able to sleep until 6am. I did my 100 squats, 100 sit-ups and 25 push-ups while watching the local news. I made a quick breakfast before getting dressed and heading out the door. 

Work ended up being extremely busy. Meetings, phone calls, projects. As I look back on the day, I feel it was quite productive. I accomplished a major task before I left for the day. I just have to compile some data into one spreadsheet and then I check that off the list. It feels great to check things off the to-do list. Even with work being so busy, I took a much-needed break to run outside. I thought it was going to be 50 degrees today, but it ended up hitting about 40 degrees by lunch time. 40 is still warm enough for running in shorts and a t-shirt, especially here in Colorado where the sun shines so strongly. That sun felt so amazing. I ran for 31 minutes and then went into the fitness room to cool down. I ended up running at 8.6 mph for a minute and then jogged at a 3% incline at 6 mph for 4 minutes and then walked for a couple minutes as a true cool down. Of course, I stretched a bit before going back to work. Stretching is so important. I don't do it enough, but I'm doing at least the bare minimum after my workouts. I am also incorporating weekly yoga into my routine. That means tomorrow is a yoga day! Yay! 

Breakfast: The rest of the Banana Nut Porridge with blueberries and a bowl of sliced strawberries. 

Snack: Before running, I ate half a Cashew Cookie Larabar.

Lunch: Leftover salmon and garlic-lemon broccoli. 

PM Snack: Banana, the rest of my banana muffin that I nibbled on yesterday and the second half of the Larabar. I was hungry after running. 

Dinner: Cauliflower "rice". Grass-fed ground beef with a diced onion and orange bell pepper. Roasted Brussels sprouts. Cashew "alfredo" sauce. Mix it all together on your plate. Delish! Lots of flavors and textures in this meal. I drank about a third of a bottle of Strawberry Kombucha.

I'm going to end on an observation over the past couple days: The news world has been awfully strange lately. Have you heard about the Manti Te'o girlfriend hoax? It's bizarre. Now today, Lance Armstrong is being brutally honest with Oprah in an interview about doping. This is really odd. What are your thoughts on Te'o and Lance? Do you think we'll be seeing Manti Te'o interviewing with Oprah next week? 

Whole30 - Day 8

I woke up to the 5:30am alarm (which is mostly for my husband) and still felt pretty tired. I feel like I haven't been sleeping well all week. I already made the decision last night that I would work out during my lunch hour, so I decided to sleep in an extra hour. That extra hour felt pretty wonderful. I'm a slow mover in the mornings. If I didn't have to work outside the home, I would probably wake up naturally around 7am everyday. That would be lovely. When do you wake up during the week? Weekends? 

Work was another crazy day. I tell you, it's never a dull day in payroll. I'm looking forward to a few weeks from now when year end has calmed down a bit. I did get the opportunity to run outside this afternoon. It felt amazing! I was still a little slower than normal, but felt fairly strong. There were moments when I thought my heart rate was going to spike, but I was able to keep it stable. I ran for 37 minutes on an out-and-back route into the State Park. It's a beautiful area. The prairie dogs were out in full force. There were a few Mallard ducks floating around the thawed water (creek/ponds). Since it was such a gorgeous January day for Colorado standards, there were numerous walkers, runners and cyclists out and about. Believe it or not, there was a mom walking a stroller and dog coming upon me as I took this photo. 

Breakfast: I tossed together 1/4 of a sweet potato (diced), 1 diced zucchini and the leftover half of the apple Dijon burger (crumbled) in a frying pan with a little olive oil. I cooked it for about 10 minutes (the sweet potato was still a bit undercooked, but I was running low on time). I threw in a couple eggs at the end and scrambled them up. 

Lunch: Leftover roasted cabbage, rutabaga hash browns and pulled pork. I anticipated that I'd be hungry after running, so I brought some blackberries to snack on. I neglected to take any photos of lunch, since it looks almost identical to last night's dinner (minus the egg). 

Dinner: Creamy cauliflower soup w/ gremolata and sugar-free bacon ends. I adapted a non-Paleo recipe from a magazine (not sure which one - I just have the torn out page). I'll post the recipe for the soup this weekend. The gremolata tasted a bit like crushed Ritz crackers. Yum! I made a simple salad with mixed greens, tomato and avocado with a basic lemon juice/olive oil/sea salt/pepper dressing. So good. I also drank a few sips of the Passionberry Bliss Kombucha I opened last night. 

Top left: Breakfast. Bottom: Soup w/ gremolata & bacon. Top right: Simple salad.

Hope you are all having a fabulous week! Congrats! We made it halfway through the workweek. Now, it's time for some much-needed sleep. Good night all and make tomorrow even better!