The Skeptic’s Whole30: Day 30
Tuesday, March 20, 2018
This post is part of a series. For the previous post, click here. For the whole series, click here.
Last day! Last day last day last day! I made it this far!
I’ve been thinking of how to sum up this experience, but it’s only made me realize that I can’t sum it up until after I’ve been off it for a while and see how things go. What I should probably do is, report back to you in a week or so and let you know what happened. I mean, I hope I don’t just bounce right back to where I was before I started, but I also hope I can find a way to enjoy the foods that have been forbidden to me this past month without just abandoning all the new things I’ve learned.
But right now we can start with all the new recipes I made while on the Whole30.
1. Chicken Zoodle Pho (travels well by thermos!)
2. Fajita Beef Skillet (kids won’t eat it unless it’s in a tortilla)
3. Pork Apple Meatball Noodle Bowls (yum all around)
4. Turkey and Squash Chili (learned my lesson and put it in quesadillas for the kids)
5. Egg Drop Soup (made heartier with potato noodles)
6. Burgers and Fries with Homemade Ketchup (burgers and ketchup excellent; fries a little soggy)
7. Quick Turkey and Sweet Potato Soup (but not that quick)
8. Salmon and Sweet Potato Latkes (the latkes fall apart without flour)
9. Pork and Zoodles (what do kids hate more about zoodles: that they’re slimy, or that they’re green?)
10. Spaghetti Squash Bolognese (good enough to eat at a dinner party while everyone else eats real pasta)
11. Indian Butter Chicken (loved it; kids didn’t agree)
12. Pork Tenderloin with Rosemary Baby Carrots (AMAZING)
13. Salmon with Caramelized Pineapple (wherein this salmon neophyte learns that only the really expensive salmon comes with pin bones already removed)
14. Indian Beef and Bell Peppers (a recipe that could have used a better copy editor)
15. Coffee Rubbed Steak and Potatoes (still can’t figure out how to keep potatoes from sticking to tinfoil and burning)
16. North African Chicken (really really good)
17. Mexican Soup (with easy method of cooking raw chicken)
18. Seared Ahi Tuna with Mango Salsa (totally worth facing my fear of preparing rare tuna)
And then the breakfast recipes, such as chia pudding, that avocado-egg thing I hated, and the various things I did with bacon.
Of the dinner recipes, I think my favorites were the pork tenderloin with carrots, the North African chicken, the Indian Beef, the Pork Apple Meatball Noodle Bowls, the burgers, the Indian Butter Chicken, the ahi tuna, maybe the Pho, and I think I would have liked the coffee-rubbed steak better if I hadn’t left it in the oven quite so long.
Anyway, my last day: Sweet potato and bacon for breakfast. Leftover ahi tuna for lunch. Leftover North African Chicken for dinner. Cashews for snacks. Easy peasy.
And you know, that’s how things kind of settled, as I kept this up over the past month: I knew what I was going to do, for the most part, and I did it. A lot of the time I wished I could eat things I wasn’t allowed to, but when you’re forced to answer the question, “What COULD I eat?” the answers become more concrete. And you start going through it, day by day, making your recipes and eating them, and that’s that.
Tomorrow there’s supposed to be another fucking snowstorm. And I don’t know how eating will be.
Tomorrow: The answer to the long-awaited question of how much weight I would lose.
