Hope my garden sleeps well...I made them 3 beds!

I have been gone, but have not forgotten you all, not this challenge. I have been pretty busy this week with work, my son's flag football practices and games, CrossFit, Graphic Design and printing of CrossFit packets and new people paperwork (that I had procrastinated on for almost 3 weeks). I have also been preparing foods...all the freaking time! It's getting annoying and I realize why I normally eat like crap. Because it's easy.

I know that it is best to take a weekend and prepare, which I did last weekend and even today. But still there are things you must prepare. Cook some eggs in the am (I did have frozen ones, but those were for snack or low blood sugar times for me). So last week I made the Moroccan Meatballs and those were pretty good, but I was tired of having them for every lunch, so today was still a nice day and I BBQ'd up about two chickens, 4 fish, and some sirloin steak. This should liven up my lunches a bit. I now need to cut up and mix up my vegi-mix for the week but I am SO TIRED!

I have built 3 raised garden beds and over ordered on soil (by only about twice the amount I needed). I was only planning to build 2, but I went back to the hardware store and got more lumber and made a big one 5'x10'...then got my shovel and wheelbarrow and started to move some earth into the beds. I still now have about 2 of my 5 square yards left on my driveway, so if any of you are nearby, just come and take it away.

I got the plans for the garden beds from Sunset Magazine and you can see the easy instructions right here. They look real nice and are easy to make--even a wimpy dad can build 1, or 2, or 3 even!


So that's it for now...I gotta start thinking of what to put in the gardens and how to keep my 3 stupid dogs out.

Failing To Prepare is Preparing to Fail

I have had that mantra throughout this first week of my W30 process. I believe this has been on my mind because I ended up diving into this at the last second with my group of CrossFitters at Mahoney CrossFit. I ended up, even though I knew what I was getting into, just not preparing for this new whole food deal. Eggs were easy to do, so I went to those. I didn't have much grass fed proteins, so had shrimp instead. Vegetables  were mainly carrots, celery, asparagus and bell peppers. All of which I had on hand. I couldn't clear the cupboards because my wife does daycare and is required by the FDA to have sugar and carbs galore (and beans) as a staple to the food for the children she watches.

This was why she was not on board with me for this (I am not going to say the D word) diet (damnit, I said it anyway)! So the Whole30 "D-word" is going to be a struggle for me and has been for my first week. After the first day, I did end up going shopping and picked up some items I will need for my new way of eating. Two things I am having trouble with is finding Coconut Oil and Ghee...sorry, but WTF is GHEE? I did end up finding the special butter that was asked of us, but have only used it to prepare for one meal. Since I no longer eat bread, cutting butter has been pretty easy.

Some of the new foods that have been saviors to me have been:

• Asparagus
• Bell Peppers (red, yellow, and orange)--never cared for them before
• Eggs
• Sweet Potatoes--Used to love them, now not so much since it's the only real starch I can eat. I don't want sweet flavor, I want salty greasy crap.
• Shrimp

Of course I eat other things, but these seem to be my mainstays, but I am beginning to get tired of all these items all ready. I have to prepare different foods to get me through this next week. 

So yesterday (SUNDAY), I ended up preparing a bunch of stuff:

• Moroccan Meatballs http://www.theclothesmakethegirl.com/2009/03/05/mmmmm-moroccan-meatballs/ 
• BBQ'ing (in the rain--it's Oregon...that is what we get in spring and winter and summer, but not so much in the fall oddly enough).
• I BBQ'ed some Grass Fed Longhorn steaks
• and BBQ'ed up some chicken tenderloins.

Moroccan Meatballs (I made with Ground Turkey though)

Then packaged all those items into single proportions to take to work with me, have a quick breakfast or dinner.

So that is it for now. 

-theDUKE-