Thai Larb: Easy to make and delicious to eat!

By Takeaway, via Wikimedia Commons

If you're like me, you'll try almost anything once. The first time I ever ate Thai food, I immediately fell in love. Thai food has complex flavors but is actually very easy to make. Unfortunately, thai food normally includes noodles or rice or some kind of sweetener which makes it off-limits during the #whole30, and makes me a sad panda. That is, until I discovered larb.

Traditionally, larb (pronounced 'lop') includes rice powder and sugar or other sweetener, but its very easy to tweak for the whole30 and delicious to eat!

Ingredients

2 tablespoons coconut oil

1 pound ground meat (beef, chicken or pork - your choice)

1 tablespoon coconut aminos

2 tablespoons red curry paste (or more if you like it H-O-T)

1/2 cup scallions, finely sliced

2 teaspoons fish sauce (more or less to taste)

1 lime (cut into halves)

8 - 10 iceburg lettuce or cabbage leaves

2-3 tablespoons cilantro, finely chopped

Veggies for garnish: shredded carrots, cabbage, sliced cucumbers

Directions

• Heat the coconut oil in a skillet on medium heat for 30 - 45 seconds until it becomes liquid and starts to shimmer.
• Add the curry paste, and toast for 1-2 minutes until the oil starts to separate from the chili.
• Add your ground meat and cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally
• Add the fish sauce and coconut aminos to the pan and continue cooking the meat until it is cooked through completely
• Once the meat is done, reduce the heat, add the scallions, and cook for 1-2 minutes more.
• Turn off the heat, and squeeze the juice of half of the lime onto the mixture and the cilantro, stir.
• That's it! Serve in the lettuce leaf or cabbage leaf "cups," garnish with lime slices and additional veggies.

This can be eaten warm or cold, and makes great next-day lunch leftovers!

In case of emergency: 3 steps to help you on your whole30 journey

Part of planning to succeed is also part of planning for those times when you are close to, or actually fail. The important part is that you pick up the pieces and keep on going, without giving up or giving in. This post is going to be about some solutions that may help you avoid a cheat when you're stuck in a hard place!

Step 1: Always have a plan

If you plan ahead, its a lot harder to get stuck somewhere you don't know where to go. You can't make the excuse "I'll just go out to eat," if you packed your lunch ahead of time. As with all diets, and especially with the whole30, planning is ESSENTIAL. The whole30 book, It Starts with Food has a lot of great information about meal planning and what to do to prevent screw ups. You don't have to purchase the book (everything you need to know is available on their website for free!) but it is a very helpful resource if you plan on doing the whole30 repeatedly or for a long period of time. If anything, it will educate you about why the whole30 works and what it is actually doing inside your body.

Meal Planning

Meal planning will help you stay organized, and get a better grasp of what you are eating every day. This, in turn, will prevent you from worrying about "What am I going to eat!?" and should help give you the motivation to say no to tempting side-trips or office snacks. If you have a nice salad or chicken dish waiting for you in the fridge, its much easier to say "I brought my lunch today, maybe another time." It will be hard at the start, but once you have done it successfully a couple of times, it becomes second nature.
There are some really great tools out there for meal planning, but personally I use my stash of cookbooks and Google Docs.

First, peruse your cookbooks (or recipe resource of choice) for stuff that looks appetizing for the week to come. Then, earmark enough recipes to fill in your normal meals. For my husband and I, we usually cook dinner 5-6 nights a week, and I eat the leftovers for lunch at work. Obviously, your cooking requirement may go up on the whole30 as you aren't going out to eat as often, or at all, so keep that in mind.

Make a grid with the necessary days of the week and number of meals you need to plan (don't forget to include snacks and additional things if you have kids in the house!) Save this as a template before you start adding any recipes for the upcoming week, so you'll always have an easy method to make a new meal plan.

Now, start filling in recipes that sound good. As you do so, make a note of the ingredients you'll need to buy to make the recipe happen. You might want to come up with some sort of indication that an ingredient is a staple ingredient that you'll need frequently (such as almond flour, coconut aminos, or fish sauce,) versus something that is going to be used up entirely by this recipe.

An important side-note here: keep leftovers in mind. The first time that I did the whole30 I was absolutely SWAMPED with leftovers, so much so, that the last week that's all I chose to eat. Make sure you leave gaps for potential leftovers, or at least have a storage plan!

Now, go shopping and start cooking! It really is that simple :)

Emergency OK Foods

The whole30 is designed to change your relationship with food for the better, and part of that is stopping the habit of mindless eating. However, you do have to acknowledge that life happens, and sometimes that means that it doesn't go to plan. Perhaps you accidentally left your lunch sitting on the kitchen counter when you left for work, or you found that the lettuce you bought had gone bad before you got to use it all up. Regardless, life never goes to plan, so plan for those times when it goes to hell.  Whole9 has a list of "what you can and cannot eat" during the whole30, so make sure that when you plan emergency snacks you keep this list in mind.

Some great (mostly) non-perishable (or at least, don't need refrigeration for a period of time) ideas to keep around:

• Whole Fresh fruit, such as apples, oranges, or bananas. Keep in mind you should limit fruit intake at least to begin with, so that you can get used to lower sugar in your diet.
• Veggies, such as carrots, snap peas, green beans, or celery. These will last several hours without refrigeration so they're great to bring along for mid-morning snacks instead of springing for those Donuts that Jeff brought in this morning! Also great in salads!
• Roasted almonds and other non-peanut nuts - these have a great shelf life and come in many different varieties and flavors (just make sure you read the labels!)
• Jerky - but read your labels (or make your own)
• Larabars (or other food bars) - as stated in the list above, these should be truly emergency foods. They are high in sugar, and nutritionally equal to a candy bar. For example, a snickers bar has 250 calories, while a larabar has 230. Both have almost 20 grams of sugar. One may be natural, but your body really doesn't know the difference. I would suggest keeping a few in an office drawer or in your pantry, but don't rely on them on a regular basis.

Step 2: Don't be afraid of messing up, or starting over

This is something I personally need to learn to do better. Frequently, I will screw up and eat something (either on purpose or on accident) and then constantly guilt-trip myself for the rest of the day. Inevitably this will lead to more no-no foods, more guilt, and then I've fallen way off the wagon and I'm feeling very down on myself. You don't have to follow in these footsteps!

First, realize that to err is human. You are probably going to inadvertently eat something you shouldn't. You're going to be faced with tough decisions in social situations where everyone is eating the donuts, except for you. You might cave to this pressure. The important thing is how you act once that is over and done with. There is no use regretting what you've done and feeling guilty; you can only move on and do better next time. As long as you learn something and try not to make the same mistake twice, you'll do well!

The whole30 by-the-book states that if you screw up, you start over. On paper, this means its day 29 and you accidentally eat a peanut, you're back on day 1. In practice, its not quite so simple. The point is that you make mindful decisions about what you put in your body. I'm not saying that you should plan cheats, or rationalize your way into eating a cupcake, but if the benefit of eating a bad food outweighs the benefits of not eating a bad food, you're probably going to eat it. It's all situational, and in the end if you decide to start over, its up to you. The whole point of the whole30 is that you become aware of the decisions you make with food and why you make them.

Step 3: One day at a time

If you're anything like me, you look at something like this as a great opportunity. You want to figure out exactly how to do it the right way so you succeed. You might start at the whole9 site, but pretty soon you'll figure out there's a lot of other resources out there talking about this program (and thank you for using this resource!) Don't get overwhelmed. As much as you will want to read everything you can about the program, don't overload yourself; you might start to feel like you're sinking into a sea of complex recipes, guidelines, rules, and regulations.

BREATHE!

The important thing is that you take this endeavor one day at a time. This is about the journey, not the end result. You will learn something new every day: be that a recipe, something about yourself or your habits, or something else. You will learn something, I guarantee it! Enjoy it :)

Reward yourself with something that isn't food

Many of us are here because food is a good thing; too good a thing in our lives. It's important to celebrate your successes with something that isn't food, which will help change your relationship with yourself and food at the same time. Make a list of things that you can use as rewards along your journey when you reach a point of success. This could include a massage, a manicure or pedicure, a day off of work, your significant other cooking dinner for you, sleeping in, or any other sort of thing you can think of!

I hope these steps will help you on your journey. Today is Day 1 for me!

What helps you succeed with your #whole30?

Get ready for Round 2!

I plan on beginning the #whole30 again in July, because its my last chance to actually do something with myself this year before my 30th birthday. Here are some cookbooks and kitchen tools that I have found personally useful for cooking, especially during the whole30! I hope that these posts will help you, as well!

Cookbooks

There are several GREAT cookbooks that will really help you get through the whole30 with flying colors, and which made last year's attempt so much more fun and easy to complete. I highly suggest both Well Fed and Well Fed 2, which are designed to compliment the whole30 directly. Additionally, several Paleo cookbooks can serve as an inspiration to get something started, though you'll need to double check the ingredients you use carefully. In general, though, its great for getting some ideas and keeping mealtime exciting and fresh. I highly suggest Paleo Comfort Foods and Practical Paleo as well!

Specialized Ingredients

Since you will be cooking most of your food from scratch, you'll need compliant ingredients. I've found the best way to pick up some of the more specialized ingredients is from Amazon (cheaper, easier, and you can schedule deliveries with Subscribe and Save!)

Coconut oil is great for high heat cooking, baking, and its AWESOME as a natural skin moisturizer in the winter time.

Ghee is clarified butter; a staple in Indian cooking. If you like Indian Butter chicken, you've definitely had Ghee. Ghee is easy to make on your own and fills your house with a warm buttery aroma too! If you don't have the time to make it or aren't sure how, you can always purchase it. It lasts a very long time without refrigeration as well!

I was very sad when I realized a primary ingredient in most fish sauce is sugar! That means it's right out for the whole30 duration. Unfortunately it's a vital ingredient in thai curry, which I love to make! Red Boat brand Fish Sauce doesn't add any sugar, so its whole30 and paleo friendly! Plus, its delicious.

Soy sauce is also a no-no during the whole30, but you will still be able to make delicious asian-inspired cuisine (I totally encourage you to check out the egg-foo-yung recipe in Well Fed) with Coconut Aminos. When used in recipes it is completely indistinguishable from soy sauce!

If you regularly make the sunshine sauce (and why wouldn't you, because its DELICIOUS!?) you'll need both Sunflower seed butter as well as coconut milk. Both of these you can get inexpensively and in bulk from Amazon!

Most importantly, Native Forest organic brand of coconut milk has NO ADDED SUGAR, and they only use organic guar gum instead of carageenan or other thickeners.
When picking sunflower (or other nut butters) most will have added sugar, so you have to read the labels carefully! Once Again Organic Sunflower Butter is compliant and adds just a bit of sea salt to the ground nuts.

Useful Tools

Mandoline Slicer - As long as I remember, my mother has owned a V-slicer that she got when my parents were stationed in Germany. Borner is still based in Germany and they still make these high quality slicers! Be forewarned these things are SHARP! But, they're the best way to get uniform slices of vegetables, cheeses, pretty much anything. Just remember to use the guard at all times, or else you will lose a fingertip!

Julienne Slicer - I've seen numerous different methods to create veggie "noodles" including spiralizers and julienne peelers. These are great for salads, and zucchini noodles as a replacement for pasta! Since I already own the Borner slicer mentioned above, this was second nature to buy the Borner Julienne Slicer since it uses the guard that comes with the mandoline slicer. Keep in mind that the guard is sold seperately, though!

Garlic Press - Spices are super important in any dish, but doubly so in the whole30 because you really get to appreciate the natural flavors of everything you cook with. After all, you're not drenching everything in artificial flavors or sugary sauces. A Garlic press makes quick work of chopping garlic, and I would argue is one of the most important tools in any cook's kitchen!

New Year, No Progress, New Beginnings

So, its been almost a year since my great success with the #whole30 in July 2013. I lost 13 pounds and felt great, and then I very promptly ate them all back on again.

Even though I joined a weight loss competition at work in January, that only served to discourage me since all the men lost so much weight so quickly (I was the only woman participating.) Yes, that's stupid, but that's how it works.

So its been a year, and I'm right back where I was last year, though my running has improved a little, which I can be proud of. I don't want to think of how much better I'd be doing if I weren't so stupid and lacked self-control.

Food Waste - A Story of Excess

Given that we are very picky about what we eat, I felt that this was an important topic to cover. Since I started the #whole30, I have been planning my meals and what I am cooking almost religiously. In turn I have noticed a couple of things.

One, I'm inundated with leftovers. This means I am cooking too much food, and as the weeks have progressed this has gotten better. For example, as part of week 3 I didn't even go shopping. I crossed half the recipes off my week and simply consumed leftovers or what was still in the fridge / pantry.

In general because I have my shopping list made up in advance, which is planned on what I am cooking, I am purchasing less food as well. Overall this means less wasted food!

I urge everyone to be mindful of what you are using and what you are throwing away. Here are some tips:

• Save everything! Even trim cuts of meat and the ends of carrots and celery can be stored in the freezer for use for broth making. Save your chicken carcasses and bones from all other animals. It's good for you and the environment!
• Start a compost pile: If you don't want to make broth, all your organic waste can at least be used to make compost. This doesn't help with the problem of throwing it out, but it ensures that you can at least use it for a productive use after it has turned into healthy soil. This in turn will help you grow your own food and purchase less!
• Use a meal plan and shopping list. There's nothing worse than coming home from the store and putting everything away, only to realize that there's still nothing you want to eat (or you don't have the right ingredients). Going back to the store wastes both time and gas, not to mention the food you are ignoring will still go bad. Instead of shopping randomly, make a meal plan for the week and follow it. Derive your shopping list from the recipes you choose. Know what is in your pantry and fridge so that you don't purchase too much of one ingredient (unless its very shelf stable).
• PLAN FOR LEFTOVERS (THERE WILL BE LEFTOVERS). Most importantly, know how to properly store and then actually eat the leftovers, otherwise they go to waste. Either adjust your cooking so that you don't have leftovers or plan accordingly and have a "leftover day" each week so that the food is not wasted.
• Some of the biggest issues with our food system is the mass production of food that we will never use. Instead of fueling the corporate farm, you can shop locally. Seek out local farmers markets and farmers and buy direct. This way you know what you are getting as far as quality, you have a choice of organic, etc. You are helping a local business, as well as ensuring that you put money into humane animal husbandry (if you choose to consume meat) and eco-friendly farming practices. 

I hope that these tips help you out!

Weekend Whole30 Set it and Forget It!

If you're anything like me, weekends are your time to relax, get away from work and spend some quality time with your friends and family. The last thing I want to be doing is slaving over the stove for dinner. And, money being what it is, eating out isn't always the best idea (especially if you're trying to control what you eat!) So for these reasons, I love my crockpot!
Firstly, you can make the meal in advance, and you know when it will be done. Painless!
Second, it makes your house smell amazing while it's cooking.
And thirdly, it has an awesome ability to turn even the hardest cuts of meat into juicy, tender, flaky, delicious morsels!

This weekend, my crockpot was full of pot roast!

By Janine, via Wikimedia Commons

Whole 30 Pot Roast

Adapted from a Recipe in Paleo Comfort Foods and Inspired by "I breathe, I'm hungry"

You will need:

• 2-3 pound beef roast (most recipes suggest a Chuck Roast, but I chose an Arm Roast because of the beautiful marrow bone in the middle of the one I got from the farmer).
• 2 tbsp coconut oil
• 2-3 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 large onion, roughly chopped
• 5-6 stalks of celery, chopped
• 2-3 carrots, chopped
• 2 cups of beef broth
• Seasonings, such as salt, pepper, thyme

Chop the veggies!
Season the roast with salt and pepper on both sides.

Heat coconut oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat, and saute the garlic until just fragrant.
Add roast, and sear on all sides (about 2-3 minutes per side, depending on the size of the roast and your pan).

Remove roast from heat and place in the bottom of your crockpot.
The combination of onions, carrots, and celery is called mirepoix, and it's a staple in french (and almost all) cooking. It will give a great savory flavor to your roast and the liquid as it cooks! Add the mirepoix on top of the roast, and add your liquid.

Set your crockpot on low for 8 hours or high for 5 hours, and you will end up with a delicious roast that looks like this:

 LET IT REST FOR AT LEAST 30 MINUTES BEFORE CARVING!!!

Serve! I chose to serve mine with leftover burger dressing and a failed attempt at paleo mayo (which made a great lemon vinaigrette instead).

Now, however, is the best part: THE MARROW BONE. If you've never had bone marrow, it is delicious and great on toast. Obviously on Paleo or the Whole30, toast is right out, so just eat it with a spoon and enjoy its decadence. 

By Marecheth Ho'eElohuth, via Wikimedia Commons

 A local restaurant serves this as an appetizer with pickles and olives, for $10! This whole roast cost us about $8, and we get the marrow bone to boot! Awesome!

Enjoy!

Happy Fourth of July!

Just a quick post for the holiday weekend. Day 3 kicked me in the pants but I didn't relent. I have felt terrible since yesterday morning, sort of like that fevery feeling but I don't have a fever! I'm putting it up to my body complaining about the lack of diet coke. I'm still drinking coffee but clearly not enough to make it happy!

We had a great fourth of July with our friends and I stayed 99.999% compliant. The only thing was that I had one sweet potato wedge that had some melted butter on it. Oh well. The cucumber watermelon salad that I made was delicious, and our grass fed burgers were amazing. Our friends really enjoyed them!

I stayed strong and didn't drink even though everyone else did, good for me.

Unfortunately this morning I figured I would try to get out of my funk by running. It was a lot hotter than I had anticipated, and after getting half way through my routine I had to stop, which meant walking all the way home. Overall, a 30 minute workout turned into an hour long trek which was not fun!

I think the issue is that I'm just not eating enough? It's a delicate balance trying to eat well but not eat when you aren't hungry and I've always had issues with that. If I eat at "lunch time" simply because its lunch time, it sets a bad precedent if I'm not actually hungry, but people look at you oddly if you skip breakfast and eat lunch at 3 in the afternoon, I think.

What do you think: eat on a schedule even if I'm not hungry or risk not eating enough by eating when I'm hungry (even if its at weird times)?