Hopefully no one is getting tired of my salad recipes yet, because I've got yet another one!
I can't help it, but I just love using coconut cream as a base for dressings..
I'm so glad it's almost weekend again.. My last weekend in the Netherlands before heading to the USA! Because of some festivities in my city, 80% of the hospital will be closed tomorrow afternoon, so I only need to work 4 hours tomorrow. That's not so bad.
I finally finished planning my holiday, and am now busy making a 'what to pack' list, which is almost finished as well. Although I think some stuff will pop up in my head over the next few days.
I practiced some double unders again yesterday, with a different rope this time. I did almost 30! The rope you use definitely makes a huge difference. I now have 2 days of rest, because this weekend is going to be very intense, workout-wise.
Saturday: CrossFit WOD at CrossFit Twente
Sunday: SealFit WOD at Breda Strength & Conditioning
Especially that second WOD is going to be really, really (really) hard.. We'll see what happens!
Cinnamon Carrot Slaw (serves 2)
- 3 medium winter carrots, shredded
- 3/4 cup coconut cream
- 3 tbsp lemon juice
- 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 2 tbsp cilantro, chopped
- 1/4 cup raisins
- 1/4 cup chopped walnuts
1. In a small bowl, combine coconut cream, lemon juice, cinnamon and cilantro and mix well.
2. In another bowl, combine shredded carrots, raisins and walnuts.
3. Stir in the dressing until well-combined. Serve and enjoy!
I'm back! Just took a short break from blogging after my Whole30. At first it was strange I didn't 'have' to take pictures of my food every time anymore, but I've already gotten used to it again. Plus, now I don't need to make my food look so 'decent' with each and every meal. Sometimes you just want to throw together a bunch of food, as long as it tastes good.
Foodwise, I haven't changed anything so far. Except for those raisins and walnuts I had yesterday morning, I have been eating pretty much in the same way as I did over the last month.
But, it's time for a new recipe now! Braised purple cabbage. It takes up some oven time, but preparation is quick and easy.
Braised purple cabbage (serves 4)
- 1 head purple cabbage
- 1 onion, coarsely chopped
- 2 medium winter carrots, chopped
- 1/4 cup coconut oil, melted over very low heat
- 1/3 cup apple juice (or water)
- 1 tbsp cinnamon
1. Heat oven to 165 degrees Celsius.
2. Rinse the cabbage and cut it into 8 wedges, don't remove the core, it will help keeping the wedges together.
3. Put the cabbage wedges into a large baking dish and divide the onion and carrots over them.
4. Add the coconut oil and apple juice to the baking dish and dust everything with cinnamon.
5. Cover the dish with aluminium foil, tightly wrapping it around the edges, and bake for 1 hour.
6. Remove the dish from the oven, carefully remove the foil and turn the wedges over. Add some more apple juice if the dish is starting to dry out.
7. Cover with foil again and bake for another hour.
8. Remove the foil, turn the heat up to 200 degrees Celsius and bake for another 20 minutes until the vegetables are starting to brown.
9. Divide the wedges over 4 plates and serve with protein of your choice. Enjoy!
Day 30! Or actually, day '31'.
Why am I posting this a day late? I wanted to let you know what happened to my body on the outside, which I didn't measure until this morning.
So, here they are, my measurements:
Before - After
Weight: 60 kg - 57,4 kg
Waist: 69 cm - 66 cm
Hips: 90 cm - 88 cm
Thighs: 53 cm - 50 cm
And, best of all, I definitely got leaner!
Now that we've got that covered, let's get on to the part where I tell you what I've learned from this Whole30. After all, I didn't do this just for the sake of doing it, I was hoping to learn something from it and so I did.
1. I am perfectly able to survive without overeating on potato chips and paleo cookies on weekends.
2. I even feel much better without those foods.
3. Planning meals is easy, as long as you make big batches every time.
4. My cravings for carbs are 99% gone!!
5. I love meat. (oh wait, I already knew that..)
6. It's hard to find a good balance between protein and fat intake, I found that I don't start leaning out until I eat some more protein and a little less fat.
7. I do miss eating nuts every once in a while, they just make some dishes even better.
8. Coconuts are awesome!
9. I don't need food to reward or comfort myself.
10. This program actually works!
Note: This morning (day 31) I made a carrot salad (recipe will be posted later on) and added a few raisins and walnuts. I wolfed it down, tasted pretty good, but all in all, it would have been equally good without the raisins and the walnuts. 'Missing' certain foods is just a mental problem after all!
And here's what I ate on my final day of the Whole30:
Breakfast:
Beet salad, 1/2 avocado and shredded chicken with roasted carrots and onions
Lunch:
Lettuce with tomatoes and carrot, and a 2 egg scramble with sardines and chives
Dinner:
Beef burgers with oven roasted cauliflower and some more beet salad
This is one of those recipes that's just so easy to make.. You could hardly call it a recipe (since it only has 2 steps), but I liked it so much that I wanted to share it with you.
I guess most people who like beets sometimes have too much of them (leftovers..) and wonder how they can serve them in a different way than usual. I turned my leftovers into a simple, yet tasty salad.
You can make a meal out of it by adding in a few chopped boiled eggs, some shredded chicken, or some salmon or mackerel. All works really well! If you do still want it to be a salad, it might be wise to double the dressing ingredients so you'll keep the creamy texture.
And if you don't have any chives, spring onions, cilantro, parsley or even some mint will do the trick just fine. Well, I hope this inspires some people to get creative with those leftover beets!
Beet salad (serves 2)
- 2 cups finely chopped, cooked/roasted beets
- 1/3 cup coconut cream
- 2 tbsp lemon juice
- 3 tbsp chives, chopped
- black pepper
1. Combine coconut cream, lemon juice, chives and black pepper in a bowl and stir everything together.
2. Stir the coconut dressing into the chopped beets and serve. Enjoy!
The 2nd last day of my Whole30. It's not even hard anymore.. And while it'll be over by Tuesday, I have already started planning some meals for next week, and they're all as strict as I have been eating over the last 29 days.
I'm certainly not in a hurry to add nuts and more fruits to my diet again. I do know that I will enjoy those next week, but not that much. Perhaps some berries and some walnuts. Not sure yet!
Today was a pretty relaxing day again, except for the workout I did this morning:
- 5 rounds of 7x clean-front squat-press-back squat-press
I started out with 20kg, but went back to 15kg because my clean technique was suffering from it. I'd rather do this correctly with less weight, than tiring myself out and suck at it at the same time.
Then we went on to the deadlifts! I like those much better :)
Here's what we did:
1 - 10 - 1 - 20 - 1 - 30 reps (I did: 50kg - 40kg - 52,5kg - 40kg - 57,5kg - 40kg)
Why the 57,5kg? I wanted to be able to deadlift my own weight, feels pretty awesome that you can actually lift yourself.
We finished the whole workout off with 25 pull ups.
Back home I almost fell asleep on the couch, hmm.. But after an hour of resting I felt fine again and started working on my trip planning, once again. I only need to look up a few things about Chicago and that's it!
But for now, I'm going to show you what I ate today and then I'm off to bed.
Breakfast:
Grilled trout, fried egg, 1/2 avocado and oven roasted broccoli
Lunch:
3 egg fritatta with celery and cinnamon, baba ghanoush and some oven roasted beets
Dinner:
Lettuce, carrot and beet salad with chives, smoked mackerel and sardines
I'm kind of late posting my food intake for the day today, but I just got back from the cinema.. I watched the latest (and last) Harry Potter movie and it was pretty awesome!! And even though I haven't read any of the books, nor am a huge HP fan in secret, I loved the movies!
Besides that, I also did my very first pull up from dead hang today! Cool huh? Yeah, I'm proud of it! Pull ups are awesome!
Still struggling with the double unders though.. But I got 2 today, already double the amount of what I had last week.
The WOD we did at CrossFit Twente was really tough, we did a relay race with teams of 2. I was on the Paleo team, and just because of that fact, we were awesome. (didn't win, but that doesn't matter)
We did 16 rounds of: 10 burpees, 10 box jumps, sandbag run (so every person did 8 rounds in total)
I had to start by learning how to clean the sandbag onto my lower arms and then toss it over my head onto my shoulders. My shoulders actually have bruises on them, but I did it! I love the feeling you get after a CrossFit workout; tired, yet satisfied, and because it never takes a really long time to complete a WOD, it doesn't take too long to recover from it.
As you might have figured out already; I'm all better! Luckily :) I hate it when it takes a long time to recover from a virus.. But I guess a few days of rest, taking some extra supplements and, most importantly, eating well, works magic on your body and immune system.
Well, it's actually time for bed already, so I'm going to show you what I ate today. (day 28! 2 more days to go) I just realised I ate 2 chicken breasts, 1 steak, 1 mackerel fillet and 4 eggs today. That's a whole lot of protein! (approx. 140g)
Breakfast:
Leftover pumpkin and swiss chard mash, with lamb steak, chicken breast and chives
Lunch: (post WOD)
Chicken breast with a 2-egg fritatta with some chard, spring onions, tomatoes and parsley
Dinner:
Leftover oven roasted veggies with smoked mackerel and 2 scrambled eggs with chives
Can't believe it, but I've been hungry pretty much all day long.. Growling-stomach-hungry that is.
Could be explained by a lot of activity except for the fact that I hardly did anything today, except for sitting on my couch, watching movies, planning my trip, some reading.. And I cycled to the shopping center nearby (only 5 minutes of cycling..), just to see how some activity would feel and because I needed a few things. I impulsively bought another eggplant, but I have yet to turn it into baba ghanoush. (and I certainly will do that soon! I think it'll taste great with walnuts too..)
How's that for an addiction? Baba ghanoush, of all things.. At least it's healthy!
Way better than my pre-Whole30 addiction to potato chips! (and nutty cookies, 'paleo' baked goods, etc etc) I don't even crave chocolate anymore. Not that I'll never eat it again, but it feels good to know that I am able to survive without a cocoa fix every now and then.
As far as that virus goes, I slept 9 1/2 hours last night, already felt better but still a bit light-headed and weak this morning. But I feel pretty good by now! I really miss being active and want to go out for some sports, I simply have too much energy now.. That's a really good sign I guess! If my body was still using up all its energy to battle a virus, I would never feel this way.
The planning for my trip is almost done now.. Just a few more things to look up. I'm going pretty slowly since I get all enthusiastic about every place I'm planning to go to and end up endlessly surfing google maps and other websites with information on what to do and where to go/eat/shop. I can even get lost in time while checking out restaurant menus..
By the way, I made a really nice dinner today! My mom had given me some lamb steaks last Monday and I decided to grill those today. This was the first time I successfully grilled a steak, without it getting all tough and chewy! Maybe because it was such good quality meat.. I also oven roasted some of my uncle's organic home-grown carrots and shallots, and some broccoli too, topped with fresh rosemary. Especially those shallots were really tasty!
And it's a super easy dish to make. Just chop the veggies into equal pieces, drizzle with olive oil and pop them into the oven on a parchment paper lined baking tray at 200 degrees Celsius for approx. 20 - 25 minutes. Done!
Here's what else I ate today:
Breakfast:
Leftover egg salad, mixed with a diced cooked chicken breast, and stir-fried kohlrabi and swiss chard
Lunch:
Salad with leftover tomato fish curry, tomatoes and parsley
Dinner:
Grilled lamb steak (delicious!!), a fried egg and oven roasted carrots, shallots and broccoli with fresh rosemary and parsley
