Off we go to week 2 of my journey through the 30 Days to Healthy Living bootcamp!

I’m still working on healthy dinners that are low to no carb. This isn’t necessarily a requirement of the bootcamp but I’ve found that it is a good area of improvement needed in our lives. After all, this experience is about making a lifestyle change that sticks beyond bootcamp.

So far we’ve found some great recipes and have made or modified a few of our own. The main issue I’ve seen here is that the kids are not as happy with our meals as they usually are. That being said, we’ve never allowed our kids to be super picky about food, even prior to bootcamp. They eat whatever we cook that night, we don’t prepare special kid meals for them. In most cases they’re usually fine with whatever we eat, there’s the occasional lukewarm reaction to something but overall they like dinners and if they don’t they still have to eat it. Since we’ve been looking for new recipes that are carb free or low carb, free from unnecessary sugar (aka marinades, sauces, dips, etc), and dairy free they haven’t been as enthused about dinner time. They’ll still eat it but a nice plate of beef stroganoff would go over with much more excitement. I’m ok with all of this, I like to expand their palettes and expose them to new things so it’ll be a little adjustment. I liken it to our switch to all organic food, there are foods out there that just don’t taste the same as their non-organic varieties, lots of them really, and it takes a while for your tastebuds to adjust to this. I assume the same will continue to happen as these cleanse/whole30/keto/paleo recipes stick around. This is just a small thing I’ve noticed with the kids, no deal breakers yet!

I have to admit week 2 was a bit challenging for me, I cheated with the alcohol but made some lower calorie choices in my beverage selection. That’s a small improvement right? I also had trouble with snacking at dinner time, damn pretzels go down much too easily while I’m waiting for dinner to finish. Not gonna lie I am a carb queen so the progress I’ve made thus far is great but I’m by no means getting the perfect boot camper award this week.

Also noteworthy, Hubby and I had a date night! This was our first time out together at a restaurant since starting the bootcamp. We attempted to eat healthy rather than indulge, go us! We opted for a hummus/veggie type appetizer to share and then shared a charcuterie plate for our entree since it was the lowest carb option on the menu. Obviously we cheated on the whole no dairy idea with some cheese but I still look at our selections as a win. They are also high protein and very keto friendly. We had another lunch out this week at Red Robin of all places, opted for burgers that had lettuce buns and side salads over fries. Again trying to make healthier choices when we’re out and about, after all once the detox is over this will be our real life scenario. I found myself looking at the menus for these places thinking oh geez that sounds super heavy for all the choices that I would’ve made prior to the detox. My brain was not nearly as interested in those choices which was kind of surprising to me. I didn’t have to force myself to behave, so to speak, nearly as hard as I thought I would have to.

Hubby is down several pounds but more noticeably for him is that he is out of belt holes on a belt that he bought right before we started this cleanse. He is doing phenomenal! In fact the scale is lower than he’s seen it in over a decade, I’m so proud and happy for him, you can see his confidence as well because he is feeling great.

I jumped up a pound or so from my 5 lb loss on week 1. I attribute this to cheating a bit, I can do better and I know that. I’ve been doing great with dinners but I should probably stop eating small lunches and just do the shakes. I also need to get our schedules balanced a little better so that I can get food on the table quicker because I start snacking if I’m hungry and this also makes me crave my nightly beer mostly because I’m starving!

I also attribute the minor weight gain this week to hormone issues, I have a 4 month old and my body is still not quite back to “normal” yet on top of switching around birth control pills it’s got my body all out of whack and that’s not helping my weight, water weight, or cravings.

My typical day at the moment is doing the Digestion in the morning with my daily vitamins. I do not eat breakfast (I know, I know). For lunch I usually have a small portion of the previous nights left overs. If I’m still hungry I will make the fizz stick in water with a scoop of the fiber powder. This will get me to dinner but I quickly get hungry in the midst of prepping  food so I should probably add in something else to stave off the snacking temptation later in the afternoon.

This is obviously not the recommended program regimen, there’s a lot more eating and and/or shakes involved with the actual plan but I’m trying to push the envelope (as I always do 🙂 and get some extra weight gain during all of this. Perhaps it’s backfiring on me? I may revisit this next week during the cleanse and add in more calories to my day.

Still enjoying making new dinners that are healthier, I can envision the long term of all of this because we’ve tailored meals to our likes/dislikes which will make it easier to merge real life with better choices after we’re done with the 30 days.

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