January | 2017 | Fighting Fibro with Fire

Whole 30, Day 22!

23 Jan 2017 Leave a comment

by Christina H. in How to Fight Fibro Tags: chronic illness, Fibromyalgia, food, food as medicine, paleo, recipes, whole 30 compliant

We are officially more than 2/3 of the way trough this round of Whole 30!
This last week, we stuck with our breakfast smoothies, so nothing new or exciting there.

Last week, I mentioned we had a bunch of all new recipes to try out, so here’s the run down. For lunches this week, we had a veggie laden pulled pork stew, (my own recipe, which I haven’t written out yet). I used left over pulled pork, bone broth, carrots, mushrooms, parsnips, turnips, potatoes, celery, onion and kale to make this super filling stew in the instant pot. One serving rolls in at about 307 calories and it kept me full all afternoon, win-win!

My husband wasn’t happy about the mushrooms in it, but otherwise loved it, so next time I make it, I’ll probably omit them.

Sunday, we made another new recipe: cilantro lime chicken, with roasted cauliflower and cabbage steaks. The original recipe suggests serving this chicken over rice, but since rice is forbidden while on the Whole 30, I roasted up some cabbage steaks instead. I wasn’t sure how the cabbage steaks would go over, but they were awesome. We had a non Whole 30 friend over for dinner that night and he even enjoyed it!

Monday, we decided to make some grilled garlic shrimp with grilled asparagus since my husband was home from work for MLK Day. Oh my gosh, I love these shrimp. Not only are they super simple to put together, they are delicious!

As you can see, with our shrimp, instead of pasta or another carby side, we had some more roasted cauliflower, (I am obsessed, not sorry), and we roasted a few of our home grown carrots, too.

The rest of the week, we enjoyed curried shepherd’s pie. I made several changes to this recipe, the most obvious of which was using white potatoes and cauliflower in place of sweet potatoes. I also omitted the peas, since they’re not Whole 30 compliant and used bone broth rather than plain beef broth. I added in some finely diced mushrooms, a turnip and some extra cauliflower to make it a bit more filling. Next time I make this, I think I’ll add a lot more curry powder and probably a teensy bit more salt, but otherwise, it was excellent.

Saturday was a little different this week since Aaron was working, but my good friend and fellow Whole 30 buddy, Amber came over to make dinner with me. We made NomNomPaleo’s Cracklin Chicken (sooo good!), roasted cauliflower and some kick ass garlic green beans.

Amber brought her dog, Willow over to play with Freyja and we made a whole girl’s night of it, complete with scary movies. The only thing missing was chocolate and wine, mmmm….

For this next week, we’re having oven roasted pork ribs for dinner and chicken soup (with bone broth!) for lunches. I’ll probably be having just the soup today since my stomach is unhappy about something. Not a great start to the week, but hopefully things will be back to normal soon.

Whole 30, Day 13

14 Jan 2017 Leave a comment

by Christina H. in Uncategorized Tags: chronic illness, Fibromyalgia, food, paleo, recipes, ulcerative colitis, whole 30

One more week down! This week was mostly leftovers, which made it super easy, but here’s a run down of what kept me going!
For breakfasts, we had smoothies! Yum. We tend to find something we like and use it until we’re sick of it, so all of our smoothies this week were the same:

90g (1 cup) frozen spinach or kale
1 frozen banana
70g (1/2 cup) frozen blueberries
32g (2 tablespoons) almond butter
1 scoop of collagen peptides
6 oz coconut milk
6 oz cold coffee

I use a kitchen scale for most of my measuring, which is why everything is in grams. I just find it easier to just sit the pitcher on the scale and dump everything in, plus no need to dirty extra utensils! (I am a fairly lazy creature, after all.) I didn’t really take any pictures of the smoothies because they’re not very pretty. The coffee makes it a dark, unappealing color, but damn if it doesn’t make all the difference in my morning!

This week, I really tried to start cutting out the snacks, but the results were disastrous. I’m going to stick to small, compliant snacks and leave it alone. Being grumpy and tired is just no way to be. For snacks this week, (once I realized cutting them out was a lost cause), I had an orange in the morning, if I needed it and a handful of raw almonds and plain walnuts in the afternoon. This helped keep my energy steady and kept me from being such a sourpuss.

So, lunch! I tried sweet potato toast! It sounds weird, but I was very impressed; it’s super simple and very yummy, so win-win!

Take a whole sweet potato and give it a good scrub. Dry it off and slice it (lengthwise) so you get long, 1/4″ slices and stick it right in the toaster!

I toasted mine for about 5 min, until they were tender but not mushy. Slather on some almond butter, sprinkle with some cinnamon and a teensy bit of sea salt and enjoy!

On the days I didn’t have sweet potato toast, I just had the kale and potato soup from last week,(equally quick and easy, since it was already made).

Last weekend, we made the Paleo Beef Stew with roasted beets, carrots and parsnips; those leftovers served as dinner for the week.

I did, however make fresh roasted veggies to go with it, since I’ve found that those don’t reheat very well. Roasted cauliflower is officially my new favorite side dish. It’s soooo good!! I figured it would be fairly bland and tasteless, but it’s definitely not. Properly roasted, cauliflower has its own amazing flavor. It’s not a strong flavor, it’s very mellow, a little sweet and almost cheesy. Seriously, you have to try it!

The other dish we made over the weekend was the Carne Asada, which is definitely a favorite around here.

We found the recipe back in July when we did the Whole 30 for the first time and we’ve been making flank steak like this ever since. We had some cole slaw and pan seared asparagus to go with it. I can’t wait to make it again with the roasted cauliflower!

This weekend, we’re trying all new recipes, including a curried shepherd’s pie, cilantro lime chicken and a pulled pork vegetable stew, (which I started this morning and it smells amazing!). Stay tuned!

Whole 30, Day 7

08 Jan 2017 Leave a comment

by Christina H. in How to Fight Fibro, My Journey Tags: clean eating, Fibromyalgia, food, living with chronic illness, paleo diet, paleo recipes, whole 30

One week down, 3 more to go! Ugh, I miss cheese! And chocolate, but mostly cheese. That’s really about it though, yay!! I don’t miss the sugar in my morning coffee and while my evening cup of tea isn’t quite as pleasurable as it was before, I’m learning to enjoy it.

Overall, I’m feeling really good. Pain is still currently an issue, but the cold and I are old enemies, nothing new there. Winter is always bad for me as far as pain goes. The Reynaud’s really starts acting up, adding an extra layer of pain to my already aching hands and feet and the fibro itself always seems to get more active in the cold. The snow storm I mentioned in my last post has finally cleared up, so that helped a little. We’ll be back up in the 60s by the end of the week, so I’m hoping the rest of my pain will ease up by then.

In the meantime, I can enjoy the extra energy and clear headedness I’m experiencing from clean eating. So, what have I been eating that’s allowing me to feel so good? Here are a few of the things I’ve been eating during week one of my whole 30:

For breakfast, I’ve been enjoying fried eggs with, (un cured, no sugar added), bacon and a hash made of baby potatoes and fresh veggies such as kale, cabbage, asparagus and Brussels sprouts.

Earlier this week, I used my instant pot, (AKA the most amazing contraption EVER!), to make a huge batch of kale and potato soup, which I’ve been eating for lunch. Note: to make this recipe Whole 30 compliant, I omitted the beans. I also added some ground turkey “sausage” and used no sugar added chicken broth, so my version is definitely not vegan.

I’m not supposed to be counting calories while on the Whole 30, but I have to point out that this whole bowl of soup comes in at under 300 calories and is super filling!

One of the more difficult things about the Whole 30, for me, is that you’re not supposed to snack between meals. I’m terrible about eating 3 meals a day, I prefer 5 small meals, so this is a huge adjustment for me. This week I ate a larger breakfast and an earlier lunch to cut out my mid morning snack, but I couldn’t quite make it to dinner, so I’ve allowed myself a compliant afternoon snack of either fruit or this awesome roasted cauliflower “hummus“. I think it sort of looks like cat food with green bits in it, but it tastes awesome.

Dinner this week was Kalua Pig (another instant pot success!!) with coleslaw, (epic use of the home made mayo), and fresh green beans. Note: while most legumes are banned on the Whole k30, green beans are an exception since they’re mostly pod.

For those of you wondering, yes, we did eat the same thing for dinner every week night this week. I made a huge batch of everything and portioned it out into lovely little boxes to make life easier. I don’t know about you, but I rarely have the energy to worry about cooking every single night, so this process helps A LOT. It also helps cut down dishes, so major bonus.

On the weekends, I do try to make dinner both nights, as a kind of reward for finishing up all of the prepped meals. Last night, we tried a paleo beef stew with roasted beets, carrots, parsnips and Brussels sprouts and some mashed potatoes.

Tonight’s dinner is going to be carne asada with pan seared asparagus, but I’ll have to share that in my next post since I haven’t made it yet.

Happy Sunday!

Whole 30, Round 2!

06 Jan 2017 Leave a comment

by Christina H. in How to Fight Fibro Tags: depression, Fibromyalgia, food, weight loss, whole 30

I was really excited to write this post because I wanted to share my Whole 30 experience this time around, but I find myself struggling to get started. The main issue is that I’m having a really horrible day pain wise, which I’m 99% sure is due to the snow storm about to hit us. All of my old injuries are aching, I’ve got this electric tingle flowing through my limbs, almost like it’s pinging off of my trigger points and causing them to pop. At the moment, I’m at about an 8/10; this is the worst I’ve felt in a long time. So, now, instead of writing a post simply to share what I’ve been eating and how I’m feeling about it, I’m also writing as a way to escape the pain. Bleh.

Where to start? For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Whole 30 plan, here’s a quick overview. The basic idea is to reset your body by cutting out “all psychologically unhealthy, hormone-unbalancing, gut-disrupting, inflammatory food groups for a full 30 days”. –whole30

For the next 30 days, (25 for me, since I started this on January 3), there will be absolutely NO:

Added sugar/sweetener of any kind; including maple syrup, honey, agave, coconut sugar, stevia, Splenda, equal, nutrasweet, xylitol
Alcohol, not even for cooking
Grains (or pseudo grains): wheat, eye, barley, oats, corn, rice, millet, bulgur, sorghum, amaranth, buckwheat, sprouted grains, quinoa
Legumes: beans, peas, chickpeas, lentils, peanuts, soy
Dairy (except ghee or clarified butter)
Carrageenan, MSG or Sulfites

By now, you’re probably wondering, (like I did initially), what is even left to eat?

“Meat, seafood, eggs, tons of vegetables, some fruit, and plenty of good fats from fruits, oils, nuts and seeds. Eat foods with very few ingredients, all pronounceable ingredients, or better yet, no ingredients listed at all because they’re totally natural and unprocessed.” – whole30

I know, it sounds like a lot. It is. I’m not going to sit here and tell you how easy it is. If I’m honest, it’s a pain in the ass. BUT ITS WORTH IT. Yes, I desperately miss cheese and chocolate and bread and pizza and all of the yummy things, but this is the second time I’ve done this diet and I will be the first to admit that I am just too lazy to do something like this if it didn’t do something for me. I’m only on day 5 and pain issues aside, I feel wonderful. My head is clear, I’m sleeping better, I have energy and my mood is excellent.

The one thing that I have found to make this easier is meal planning. Before we, (my amazing husband is doing it too!), start the diet, I sit down and write out 5 weeks worth of meals, so there is never any question of “what am I going to eat today?”. No, I am not writing out different meals for each day. What we do is make a big batch of something on the weekend and then portion it out for the rest of the week. Here’s a sample of what I wrote out for this first week:

See? Not that bad. The only real decision I have to make is which option I’m having for breakfast and lunch. I write this plan out for the next 5 weeks and we follow it.

The hardest part is finding things that are compliant. Like bacon, for example. I never even considered sugar being used to cure bacon. It is possible to find bacon cured without sugar, but it ain’t easy. Another thing is mayo. So far, I haven’t been able to find a store bought mayonnaise with out added sugar or non-compliant oils. I’m sure there is one, but I hate to pay shipping costs on something that I can just as easily make myself. It took me a few tries to get it right, but I have finally mastered avocado oil mayonnaise. No added sugar or junk; just oil, eggs, a bit of salt, lemon juice and mustard and now I have mayonnaise that I can use to make compliant sauces or dressings. Yum!

Now that we’re all caught up, I hope to keep updating on how it’s going and probably at least a few posts about what I’m actually eating. I’m really hoping that my current pain is only due to the weather and not the start of another flare up, but even if it is an actual flare up, I’ve found that eating cleanly really helps with the duration of the flare. Fingers crossed!!