Day 15

Day 15 and still down 6 pounds. Not gonna lie. It was pretty discouraging to step on the scales this morning and see that a week went by with no change. But I'm not giving in. Still going to make it to day 69! 

Mostly I've been eating:

•  plain hamburgers with salt, pepper and onion powder with grilled onions
• nuts, lots and lots of nuts!
• Zucchini noodles with bolognese sauce
• pork chops 

Today I played around with this Tyler Florence recipe and it was out of this world. Obviously I left out the noodles :) Using zucchini noodles would have worked though. Tonight I made the Trail Mix Bars out of The Wheat Belly Cook Book. OMG! Seriously worth buying the cook book for. 

6lbs in 7 Days!

It's Day 8 and when I weighed myself this morning I am down 6 pounds from last week!!!! That I will take!!! So excited! Happy to report that both Lindsay and I had a successful weekend. She was great in a very mediocre play, Speed The Plow. I was nervous that a glass of wine or two would have me reaching for the bread basket. But I happily munched on olives and almonds.

A blog that I've always been a fan of is Gourmet Girl Cooks. She has tons of great grain free and sugar free recipes. Doing my Lebron challenge I can't have a lot of her stuff because she is heavy on the dairy. But I highly recommend her Cheddar Bay Biscuits if you are a dairy eater!! She posted a new recipe the other day for Chicken Broccoli Stir Fry and it has definitely gotten me through the past couple of days. I used almond butter to make the sauce and it was amazing! Seriously, I had it for breakfast this morning. Look at her pictures because mine came out pretty unappetizing! 

Other than that I've been eating lots of nuts and homemade hamburgers with sautéed onions. It sounds boring until you step on the scale! 

Day 3

This could quite possibly be the most boring blog of all times. But I'm the mom of a 2 year old who has decided she no longer requires sleep and therefore I am a zombie! And she forces me to fix her hot buttery toast every morning - the gall! Let me be clear, I don't even actually want the toast I just want to be ABLE to eat the toast. Does that make sense? No? 3 hours of sleep y'all! 3.hours.of.sleep.

Anywho.

I just woofed down the best bowl of faux cereal! I forgot to take a picture. That's a lie. I was too tired to walk upstairs and get my phone to take a picture. See first sentence of this post.

To make the "cereal" I put a handful of each in a bowl, walnuts, almonds, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, cashews, chia seeds and coconut flakes. Since they were all unsalted I sprinkled them with a little salt and about a teaspoon of cinnamon. Mixed it all up. Topped with about a half of a banana and added almond milk.

Breakfast of champions right there! 

I'm a little nervous about tonight. This day has been on my calendar for months! My girlfriend Jaime and I are headed out on a real live girls night out to see Lindsay Lohan in her London theatrical debut! Yes, you read that correctly!!! I cannot even wait! I feel like as soon to be 40 year old it is going to be a major self esteem booster to see just how much younger than a 28 year old I look :) I'm just nervous that after a few cocktails I'm going to be tempted to snack on something that isn't meat, fish, veggie or fruit. Wish me luck! 

Day 2

Well it's 2:30pm on a chilly London afternoon. So far today I've eating an apple sprinkled with cinnamon and dipped in almond butter with chia seeds. Why have I never tried that before? So good! That was breakfast after my first attempt at homemade breakfast sausage was a bust. Ellie liked it but I couldn't eat it. Gotta keep working on that one! 

Normally I am an 11:30 am lunch eater. I'm starving by 10 but hold myself off until the respectable time of 11:30. Today I couldn't even think about lunch until a few minutes ago. And to be honest I'm not so sure I was actually hungry but more concerned I'd be ravenous at dinner if I didn't eat something. Could this really be having that big of an effect already? So I had last nights dinner again. It was just as good! 

Dinner tonight for Chris and Ellie will be epic. For me it's going to be ok. I am making THESE ribs with THIS sauce. We've had them before & I'm really wishing I had them one more time before I started this little escapade. So I will be eating plain ribs. Which will still be good. But that sauce - finger licking good! I'm also going to make Elise's cole slaw. Can you tell I love her blog? Such simple, good food! 

68 Days To Go!

Day 1 is in the books folks! 

This afternoon Ellie and I had to go to the doctors. She's had a yucky cough and I just wanted to make sure everything was ok. Which it is :) On the way we stopped by Starbucks for a little pick me up before we got on the bus. 

Side note - when in London and in need of an iced coffee. You MUST say that you would like an iced filter coffee. Otherwise they have no idea what you're talking about. It was a long, hard summer before I figured that one out! 

I have to say, the degree to which I have not been hungry today has surprised me. That being said, check out this plate of food!

Dinner was more flank steak from Simply Recipes. Honestly, I cannot recommend this dish highly enough. So freaking good! I had it with zoodles. They are my new favorite side. There is a wonderful little device called the Vegetti, which you can get on Amazon. It spiralizes foods such as zucchini, cucumber, carrot, etc. Zoodles = Zuchinni + Noodles, get it? I sautéed a large shallot for a few minutes and then added the zoodles and a few sliced cherry tomatoes. When that was all ready I added the sliced flank steak to the same pan to warm through. Easy Peasy! I poured a little of my salad dressing from lunch over the zoodles and tomatoes. So good!! Don't be surprised if this exact meal shows up again tomorrow.

On to day 68....

Grilled Flank Steak Salad With Avocado, Apple and Cashews

"I had no sugars, no dairy, I had no carbs. All I ate was meat, fish, veggies and fruit. That's it. For 67 straight days." - Lebron James

So that's what I'm doing. Not a whole lot to go on. But if it's good enough for Lebron (who in my mind I keep thinking is Shaq) it's good enough for me. The reason I believe I can do this is that I can still start every day off with one of these:

Living in London has many perks. At the top of the list is a little gem of an Italian coffee shop right around the corner. I can do anything as long as I'm fueled with a large American with almond milk!

My two year old daughter, Ellie, just started nursery for 3 hours every morning. I now have the luxury of 3 glorious hours every morning all to myself. The beauty of that is if I want to have lunch at  10:30 am I can stop whatever I'm doing and do just that. Today I had this salad.  It is red leaf lettuce with cucumber, tomato, avocado, apple and cashews. It is topped with THIS flank steak from Simply Recipes. Make this steak! It is by far the best and the easiest thing I make. We eat it at least once a week. It is so simple and so good! I've found the trick is in letting it marinate for 2 days. If you've only got 12 hours, don't get me wrong, it's still really good. But if you can plan ahead, you won't be sorry! I quickly whipped up a balsamic dressing. That recipe can be found HERE. I added the minced to shallot recommendation and loved it.

So now it's 1:30 and Ellie is down for a nap. Oh glorious girl, please never stop taking a nap! I'm snacking on this pear & almond butter. Day One, almost done....

Here goes....

I have no idea why. But I woke up this morning and came across this article and this article. It inspired me. I've been trying to cut out the same very things for what feels like forever. But dammit then a piece of pizza calls my name.  I just decided, you know what, if Lebron can do it, I can too. AND I can do it a day longer! Now of course, in true Ginny style, I didn't double check before creating this little accountability blog. Just realized he went 67 days so I only need to go 68. Notice the title? Oh well, I'm in for two days longer than the King now! Here goes....