Day 18

Seriously, the "second 15" is flying by. It probably helps that the first three days of it was a three-day weekend. And as we all know from experience, a short four day work week will also fly by and that, my friends, leaves us with just EIGHT days.

Not really. Once we are done with the 30, on the 31st we get to have beans. So my first two days back at work will still be Whole30. And then through the rest of the reintroduction there's nearly two full weeks. But that's ok! I'm 100% sure I have never stuck to any "diet" 100% for 30 days straight. This one...this one is truly NOT a diet. Instead it's a reintroduction to REAL food. Food our bodies are built to make use of by actually digesting them and extracting the vitamins, minerals, and actual nutrients, not stuff made in a lab somewhere.

Today I have eaten a handful of dates and had some of my coveted 100% apple/cranberry "soda" (sparkling juice). It's a few minutes until 5pm.

I ran up to the grocery store, let me rephrase that, I DROVE up to the grocery store, because I needed light tasting olive oil. I went to the Walmart Neighborhood Market (which I hate, but I didn't want it to take an hour going into Publix). I, of course, forgot my list. It was a short list. I remembered 3 of the 4 things on it. I spent $51. I needed light tasting olive oil, a yellow pepper, unsweetened applesauce (which I forgot), and balsamic vinegar. What I bought was, a large container of the olive oil (because the regular size jar is enough to make 2 batches of mayo and nothing else), paper plates, coconut oil spray (yay soy free and compliant!), balsamic vinegar, another bottle of my sparkling juice (nearly 1/2 what I paid for it at Publix), two bottles of 100% cranberry juice, foil, freezer bags, regular bags, unsweetened coconut flakes, a big bag of slivered almonds...I should never go shopping unsupervised. That said, we were out of gallon size bags.

So when I got home, I whipped up the balsamic herb marinade and threw a bag of boneless, skinless chicken thighs in it (in a gallon bag) and tossed it in the fridge to thaw and marinate overnight. I tossed six large chicken breasts in the crock pot with some homemade stock to cook up for my chicken salad and then I made a batch of Zingy Ginger Dressing. I'm already 100% sure I will not love it like I love Kobe's. LOL I'm sure theirs has sugar in it.

Dinner ended up being another one of those thrown together things. I found a pound of ground beef in the freezer so I dropped that in a skillet with some pink Himalayan sea salt and then hit up Google for something to do with it. I had a few Yukon gold potatoes left so I went with this recipe - minus the cheese.

Ground Beef Egg and Potato Skillet and then I sauteed the rest of a bag of green beans with a little clarified butter. Honestly, it looks kinda gross, but it tastes ok. If I make it again I would scramble the eggs and then add toss them with the already cooked ground beef and potatoes. I would actually fry up the potatoes nice and crispy too. So yeah, basically I would use the ingredients and then do my own thing. It was a starting point.