Whole30-Week 3 Overview & What I Ate

For the past three weeks now I’ve been doing the whole30 diet (see here and here for week 1 and week 2 overviews). I’ve been feeling really high energy (especially in the mornings) but was surprised that this week I felt like I was in a funk, just not in a good mood and generally irritable. There was no rhyme or reason, but days 17-20 just sucked and I felt ‘down’. Luckily day 21 came around and I felt a resurgence of  energy like I had the experienced the prior two weeks, hopefully this continues, because the biggest thing I’ve noticed and enjoyed (yes I’m using the word ‘enjoyed’ in the same paragragh as ‘diet’) is the high energy levels, the waking up at 5 am ready to take on the day.

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Day 16
Today I woke up excited, excited because I’m more than halfway through the 30 days and am sticking to it, quite the feeling. In the evening I went to my friend Debbie’s house (Debbie is a fantastic cook – she inspired this and this salad and has the most adorable daughter) and she made kale, definitely going to be adding that to my repertoire!

• Breakfast: 2 eggs and 2 oranges squeezed into juice
• Lunch: turkey burger with a side of asparagus and 1/2 a baby potato
• Snack: apple pie Lärabar
• Dinner: steak with red peppers, potatoes and a side of kale (kale was sauteed with olive oil an onion and then just salt and pepper and a dash of chicken stock, so good! and recipe for the steak coming soon)
• Snack: bowl of mixed berries

Day 17
Unlike every single day ever, I did not set my alarm. I have never forgotten to set my alarm, never! And of course it was the one morning I had a class at the gym at 6am. Oops, luckily I had made lunches the night before and had set everything out so I was only 5 minutes late. The good news is that I’ve started adding some exercise into my routine. ALSO, tonight I went out to dinner with my sisters in law (every month we go to a different restaurant and do a ‘sibling dinner’). I was very nervous about how the whole thing was going to go, but it was great! The server was very acomodating and I ended up having a fantastic dinner. While everyone was sipping on cocktails (and I normally would have been too) I ordered a tea and was very pleasantly surprised by how full I was at the end of the meal!

• Breakfast: 1 banana and 1 apple pie Lärabar
• Lunch: turkey burger with a side of butternut squash and zucchini
• Snack: bowl of strawberries and 1/2 a cherry pie Lärabar
• Dinner: cabbage salad with apples, walnuts, and lamb bacon, and then rainbow trout (it had the whole head on and everything lol) over carrots

Day 18
Where has all the energy gone? For the past two days I’ve felt tired. It could have something to do with the fact I’ve been staying up a little later than normal..but still, all week I’ve just felt like I want to take a nap as soon as I get home from work, and I’ve been suuuuper cranky, Here’s to hoping it gets better?

• Breakfast: 1 egg, warmed up organic deli ham, 2 oranges squeezed into juice
• Lunch: Perfectly baked salmon and cauliflower rice
• Snack: 1 mango
• Dinner: Creamy cashew curry chicken with cauliflower rice (I also added a bag of frozen stir fry vegetables when I cooked this)

Day 19
TGIF! This week has just gone by reallllly slow, so I can’t wait for the weekend! I went to Trader Joes today for the first time and fell in love with the selection of amazing food and found fruit leather that I’m super excited to try!

• Breakfast: 2 eggs, 2 oranges squeezed into juice
• Snack: 1/2 apple pie Lärabar
• Lunch: leftover creamy cashew curry chicken with cauliflower rice
• Snack: 1 banana, plantain chips
• Dinner: chicken breast with stir fry vegetables, cooked in a dash of coconut aminos…it was a crazy Friday night, clearly
• Snack: raspberries and strawberries

Day 20
Today was Valentine’s day, yay! The day started out with a delicious breakfast hash made for me by my husband (recipe coming soon) but since it was a late breakfast and we watched movies all day we didn’t eat (all but a little snack) until dinner, which we cooked together.

• Breakfast: breakfast hash (potatoes, peppers, 2 eggs)
• Snack: plantain chips and Wholly guacamole
• Dinner: steak with mushrooms and a baked potato with ghee
• Dessert: coconut cream fruit tarts

Day 21
For the past three days I’ve been in a funk, just not feeling great and down right annoyed at everything. Luckily when I woke up this morning everything seemed back to normal, and I spent the majority of the day in the kitchen cooking and prepping for the week ahead. I made a delicious salmon and kale detox salad and then coconut cream date truffles (or energy bites, call them what you will, they’re suuuuper delicious), both those recipes will be up in the next week. I also clarified my own butter to make ghee, it was surprisingly easy, although time consuming.

• Breakfast: Two eggs scrambled with parsley, cooked in ghee
• Lunch: roasted salmon and kale detox salad (recipe coming soon)
• Snack: coconut date energy bites (dates with cashews coconut oil and rolled in coconut, recipe coming Friday for Five Ingredient Fridays)
• Dinner: baked potato and a large bowl of broccoli with clarified butter
• Snack: big bowl of strawberries and raspberries

Day 22
My husband and I went on a date night tonight, we went to a restaurant that was very accomodating (both restaurants I’ve been to have been farm-to-table) and I’m finding that the only menu item I can have is fish. Everything else is made or marinated in something containing dairy or sugar! The fish was phenomenal though, it had the crispiest of crispy skins, it was just cooked perfectly. After dinner we went to see a movie. Normally I would have gotten pop corn and snacks for the movie, but was totally fine without it (I did have a little fruit leather in my pocket that I ate about halfway through – I’m sneaky like that lol).

• Breakfast: 2 eggs with 2 oranges juiced
• Lunch: salmon and roasted vegetables (carrots, peppers, potatoes)
• Snack: 2 coconut date energy bites
• Dinner: seared sea bass over sweet potatoes and kale with pepitas on top with a side of broccoli salad with roasted almonds
• Snack: fruit leather

Day 23
Eek, I can hardly believe it, only 7 more days to go! I know I’m going to continue this in some form or another (more about that soon) but it is just a feeling of accomplishment that I have made it this far.

• Breakfast: 2 eggs scrambled with parsley, 2 oranges juiced
• Lunch: plain beef hamburger with roasted vegetables
• Snack: 2 coconut energy bites and strawberries/raspberries
• Dinner: pork stuffed with dates an pecans and a side of roasted Brussels sprouts (recipe coming soon)

Words of wisdom:

• Order tea at restaurants – when I went out to eat at restaurants (day 17 and day 22) while everyone ordered a cocktail I ordered a hot tea. It was not only warming (it’s been super cold here in WI) but I sipped it throughout dinner and felt like it totally filled me up!
• Prep, prep, prep – so much prep, but it’s getting a lot easier (and my kitchen has never been as clean, because I need the pots and pans I’m using for the next meal so I’m constantly cleaning), I’ve found that roasting up a a lot of vegetables on the weekends is really nice because then during the week I can just make a protein in 15-20 minutes and don’t need to wait for an hour plus for the vegetables to be done.

Products I’m loving:

• Orange juicer – I’ve really loved having a little fresh squeezed juice in the mornings, and this little bad boy has made it super easy.
• Fruit leather – I just discovered this treat, it’s such a great snack for on the go and a little something sweet.

Thank you for following along on this journey! Any tips? Tricks? Favorite products? I’d love to hear from you!!

Disclaimer: some of the above links are affiliate links, if you purchase amazon products through my store at no cost to you, I will earn a few pennies (still haven’t made enough to buy a box of fruit leather – yet, but a girl can dream, can’t she?) As always, thank you for supporting the brands and products I love that make the Sweetphi blog possible.