Greetings!

10 days down…20 to go in the “whole 30”!

The GOOD news is…it is working! There have truly been some serious results! In the first 7 days, I have lost FIVE pounds! Family and friends have commented that they can SEE some difference already, and so have I. (maybe at the end of this journey, I will post some before/after photos) My complexion is better than it has been in years; I actually leave the house without make-up on! (This is a big deal for me!) I have more energy to chase my kids on the playground!  I made it over “the wall” ALL BY MYSELF at the fitness course! I have also not had to deploy the “emergency nut sack” as much since my last posting. However, that doesn’t mean my sweet tooth has stopped communicating with my brain, and that the whole food deal is still a challenge both gastric-ally and monetarily.

I have tried saving money (and drive thru clerk sanity) by eating out less, but with our family’s busy schedule, sometimes the drive thru it is. At a recent trip to Burger King I ordered the only thing remotely diet-friendly on the menu. I ordered the grilled Chicken Apple and Cranberry Salad, asking them to hold the apples, cranberries and blue cheese. After repeating this twice, the cashier said in an exasperated tone “So…you just want chicken and lettuce?” My reply: “*Sigh*…Yeah, I guess so”. I still had to pay $5 and change for it, too.  Ridiculousness. Now, I buy a $6 package of chicken breasts, grill them and then keep them in the fridge to reheat as needed. I get about 3 meals for the price of one Burger King salad (no annoyed drive thru clerk either! Bonus!)

While I have saved some money by not eating out, my grocery bills have skyrocketed…mostly because of the new aisles I am shopping in but have never explored before! The reason why is because I was craving some variety, especially at breakfast. Not gonna lie, After over 7 days of egg beaters every morning, I thought I was going to vomit if I had to eat another egg beaters scrambled or in an omelette. I tried mixing in every meat and every veggie topping I could think of, but without the gooey, melty cheese, it’s just not the same! Seriously, even BACON couldn’t remedy this situation! So, I needed to find some sort of SWEET reprieve and started getting creative. To find ANYTHING creative, where does one turn these days? Pinterest, of course! I searched for “Whole 30” and Paleo breakfast bars or “faux-sserts”, and picked the one that looked the simplest.

Here is what I found: “Paleo Coconut Pecan Breakfast Bars”. It needed only 10 ingredients, and I calculated @ 3 carbs per serving. Do-able. 🙂 Then the grocery adventures began when I wandered in to uncharted waters…the organic-gluten-free aisle at my local grocery store. (I used to previously refer to this as the “I’m sorry you have some sort of ridiculous allergy aisle”, thinking it was reserved for those parents of kids with peanut or gluten allergies and there was no other food choice.) I know some of you are already thinking: “why didn’t you just go to Whole Foods store”? Well…Whole Foods is about a 40 minute drive from my house, and there is a reason it is nicknamed “Whole Paycheck”. 😉 Once in my local store, I looked over my brief list of about 10 items I needed to make the Coconut Bars and 2 other recipes I had found. Some of these items were almond milk, coconut milk, coconut flour, almond flour, pine nuts, chopped pecans. I had a teeny panic attack not having ANY coupons for these items, then about soiled my pants when I saw how much these items were. $11 for a small bag of almond flour! $7 for coconut flour! $6 for a bag of pecan pieces! $5 for the pine nuts! I left the store with ONE bag of groceries and my wallet was $60 lighter.

I had a mini-epiphany…no wonder obesity is an issue in this country. Anyone on a limited income can’t afford to eat this diet unless they have some bad-ass will power and will eat grilled chicken and vegetables for every meal. I could have bought 2 packages of hot dogs and 3 boxes of mac n cheese for what I paid for one bag of pecans. Imagine all the PB&J I could have made for the price of pine nuts! For what I paid in fresh avocados and other produce, I could have fed my whole family 3 meals from the dollar menu at McDonalds. Remember that chicken and lettuce salad I had at Burger King? I could have bought 2 full meals with burgers and fries off the value menu with that same amount of money. Healthy food really does take more money and time to prepare…things I know are luxuries to many women and their families. (Mine included!)

Later that same day, I counted my blessings (and my carbs) as I concocted the  closest thing to a sweet I have had in over a week…the coconut pecan bars. I of course was beaming with pride and shared the paleo-love when the bars were done. As my husband, son, toddler daughter, (and later even my food-savvy neighbor ) grimaced and spit into the trash about $4 worth of the finished product, I savored every bite of my serving…and can’t wait to have it again for breakfast.

Because it’s NOT egg beaters.