For the next 30+ days, I will be eating meat, vegetables, healthy fats, fruits and nuts. I will not be eating processed food, sugar, dairy, grains or legumes, and I won’t be consuming any alcohol.

I’ve done a few Whole30 challenges before, but this time I’m looking for something a little different. I lost touch with my Paleo choices last year and I would like to reconnect with what it means to feel healthy, vibrant, and in tune with my whole self.

If you’re doing a Whole30 or other challenge, if you are living/exploring the Paleo lifestyle, or if you are simply looking for some tasty recipes to add to your repertoire, be sure to leave a comment to let me know you’re out there! I am so glad you stopped by!

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Day 22 is done!

Quote of the Day: “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.” – Aristotle

Guess what? It was menu tasting day! It was a lot of fun and I got to enjoy myself with two lovely friends as we sampled different dishes for our event. And now it’s back to the final week of my Whole30.

Sometimes I think these quotes are picked out of the Universe (in advance) for exactly what is happening. Not really, I guess, but maybe… Because today, I broke the rules of the Whole30 in order to do the tasting for my charity. Tomorrow, I will be back on my path. Does this one day negate all the progress that I have made so far? I don’t think so. If it were my first Whole30, I would probably start over because there really are internal, external and psychological changes that have happened for me with each challenge I’ve completed. This one is a little different. But this one doesn’t end on January 31 either. What I repeatedly do is eat mostly Paleo. What I occasionally do is splurge.

I also like the part about excellence being a habit. I’m definitely not claiming excellence, but when I think about the most successful days and weeks I’ve had with my eating, they have all begun with a lot of planning and preparation. That piece has become a habit. The things that I need to have on hand in my refrigerator are always available. That means that tomorrow will have me hard boiling eggs and making some sort of protein in large quantity that I can eat for the week. It also means making sure I have some veggies that are either cooked or prepped. I have a head of cauliflower, so it’s very likely that I’ll make some cauliflower rice and I have a spaghetti squash that I can roast off. My husband is out of town, so that will probably be all I’ll need this week. With greens and lettuce and cucumbers and celery, of course, because those are always around for breakfast and random salads.

Day 22 – The Details

4:30am – Black coffee

6:15am – 2 eggs, 1/2 tsp. coconut oil, 1/4 avocado, cucumber, curry powder in a smidge of mayo (I mixed it all together in a salad. Yum!)

12:30pm – Tasting

6:00pm – Chili, 1/4 avocado, broccoli with a drizzle of evoo

Food: Wow! Normal breakfast, normal dinner. I could have let the whole tasting experience turn into a different kind of day, but it actually felt really good to have a normal dinner, almost as if the lunch didn’t happen. For some people, it might seem totally normal to do that. Balanced, in fact. And that’s what I work on. Constantly.

Mood: Great!

Sleep: 6 hours. Up late, up early. Tomorrow will be the same, but hopefully I’ll get to bed a little earlier.

Activity: Weights and a dog walk! Seriously – Cloud 9. It was a beautiful evening and I just had to get out for a little bit. It was great! I guess I’m pretty easily pleased. Just give me a pretty sky and some fresh air and I’m good to go.

Focus – Meditate Daily: Early morning. I’m beginning to enjoy my morning meditation quite a bit. For the longest time I was doing it more in the afternoon because I seemed able to find a pocket of time and I liked how it divided my day. But I’m really enjoying the morning right now. I feel like I still need this as my focus because seeing it at the bottom convinced me to meditate a couple of times when it was already night and I hadn’t found the time earlier. But I think I have something else that needs even more attention. I plan to continue my daily meditation practice so hopefully it’s solid enough right now that I can let it go from the blog. Tomorrow will have a new focus.