Day 29/Begin Whole30

Welp, I've finally decided to take the plunge - a Whole 30 challenge.  Before you ask:

"Cut out all the psychologically unhealthy, hormone-unbalancing, gut-disrupting, inflammatory food groups for a full 30 days. Let your body heal and recover from whatever effects those foods may be causing. Push the “reset” button with your metabolism, systemic inflammation, and the downstream effects of the food choices you've been making. Learn once and for all how the foods you've been eating are actually affecting your day to day life, and your long term health"

Basically: whole foods for 30 days.  This is how most people begin with paleo, but I wasn't quite ready for such a drastic leap.  But for the next 30 days, I will not consume any unnecessary processed foods or added sweeteners or go out to eat even with "paleo-friendly" foods.  I want to spend the next 30 days understanding why my body does what it does.  I want to know what my stomach is sensitive to, and try and avoid it.  This is the only body I have!  I want to be nice to it.

Thankfully, this will end shortly before Normangee Easter shenanigans (for those of you don't know, my HUUUGE family gets together at every holiday and has the best food ever.  I'll still try and stay paleo, but I can at least dip into less paleo-friendly things after my Whole30.

Seriously.  Normangee food = the tits 

SO, BACK TO NOW FOOD. 

Saturday morning I decided to do something crazy - paleo baking

Ughhhhhhh it is serious witchcraft.  I found a recipe for ~*~the best paleo biscuits~*~ and they were.... well they were not the best.  I mean, they were the best I'd had so far, seeing as how I have never had any others.  So I guess it's kind of true.  Sort of.  

WHATEVER.  I only made them because we were making an egg dish with a ton of tomato juice and I wanted something to soak it up!  But these biscuits SUCKED hahaha.  They tasted like pecan sandies?  That part was kinda cool, but they were just very dry.  Crumbled up and soaked in tomato juice, they were tolerable.  I froze the rest for after the Whole30 if I wanted them but mehhh. 

But they look sexy, eh?

Well today was my first day of Whole30.  Honestly, it's not going to be a lot different than the last 30 days.  But this way I get to reset my entire system for a month, letting me try to add back certain types of food afterward (like dairy, etc.).  I'm excited to try gluten and see what effect it has on me.  I'm getting to the point that I'd rather just lie and tell people that I have celiac than tell them that I've chosen paleo.  It's kinda sad, honestly. 

So for breakfast: sweet potato hash with an egg blah blah been having that for nearly a week! haha.  Lunch: another adult lunchable.  With this little doodle of a dessert that I've fallen in love with

Just a medjool dated, pitted, and stuffed back with unsweetened coconut and an almond!  It was surprisingly tasty. 

And for dinner..... more fake rice! 

And Kevin has begun to feel under the weather, so egg drop soup with my homemade bone broth :) I'm excited to see if he feels any better soon.

And finally....... 

Homemade almond milk. 

I feel like this is literally every person's reaction to the shit they read on my blog, hahaha.  But if you don't like it, don't read it! 

Anyway, back to da almond milk.  It is surprisingly really, REALLY easy to make.  You just soak a cup of nuts 

 They'll swell up and it's kinda cool.

Then you just drain them and blend them with more water!  and strain out all the chunky almond bits.  Which by the way, the "chunky almond bits" (aka almond flour) ARE $9.99 PER POUND, ARE YOU JOKING?  So I'm keeping mine and dehydrating it in the oven to make almond meal out of this since it is more expensive than unicorn pee.

And I added some vanilla bean and dates (since I can't have honey - Whole30) and I was pleasantly surprised!  It tasted totally different than store-bought, but surprisingly great.  I'll probably do this every other week or so. 

Ta daaaaa!