We are home. Hallelujah. Traveling is fun, until it isn’t.  Returning home after a long trip away usually finds me bouncing back and forth between happy exhaustion and anxiety over getting back into a routine. We returned home Thursday night and I must say, I was happy exhausted (no debilitating anxiety this time from returning to the city that has been poisoned by she who shall not be named).

While I was at my brother’s house in Salt Lake City, I was diligent about checking my morning blood sugars and morning blood pressure readings. My blood pressure was slightly elevated all week, but I can only assume it was due to the anxiety over my being separated from Blue Eyes and also being in a strange environment. During the week with my brother, I maintained all my eating rules, kept my calories at about 1300, and took some really long walks in the neighborhood and yet my morning blood sugar readings were wildly inconsistent vacillating between low 100’s into the 150’s throughout the week. Once I left SLC and we headed to Amsterdam, I stopped checking my numbers altogether. I am not sure why I do this… abandon everything once I am traveling, especially when traveling to a foreign country. Everything I do I do for myself, after all, right? The first couple days I tried to keep to my rules, but then, I didn’t.

Once we hit Paris, all bets were off. We had Steak Frites and mini boeuf burgers at Laduree. We ate sweets and hot chocolate, and more beef, and bread, french bread, of course–so much french bread. I was obsessed with the poulet baguette sandwiches they served from room service. All of this will show up in pictures on my travel posts, because as I have said, I love taking pictures of food. Then from Paris, we visited Stockholm where I was obsessed with tasting their famous Kanelbullar cinnamon rolls. We made mostly really good choices in Sweden, however, we did eat a sweet every day (as it turns out, they have amazing crepes there too!). Then, by the time we were visiting New York, our son took us to a little hole in the wall in Brooklyn named Pies ‘n’ Thighs, and this is what we ate:

I was the one who ordered the salad as my side, but the chicken is deep fried. Our skinny son ate the plate of fried chicken and black eyed peas. The chicken on the chicken and biscuit is doused in hot sauce and honey. Yes, it was very delicious. I also ordered my favorite Eggs Benedict from the hotel breakfast menu on our second day there:

and it was amazing. Okay, enough decadent travel food photos. We returned home late Thursday and yesterday morning I was dreading getting out my OneTouch for the blood glucose reading and plugging in the old blood pressure machine, not to mention getting on that scale! The reason I decided to get on the scale is because on the plane home on Thursday, I had decided I was going to start my 30 days on the Whole30 program on FRIDAY! No excuses. I know a lot of people who embrace the Paleo eating lifestyle, but a fellow betrayed spouse blogger (CheaterFantasy) recommended I try the Whole30 and so I did some research. I have to be honest, I am a little skeptical of all the claims and of adding back in red meat (I have actually toyed many times with going vegetarian), however, since I am effectively eliminating all grains (including my beloved legumes), all dairy, all added sugars, and all processed foods, I am thinking how could I not see some results. The results I am specifically looking for are… lowered blood sugars, fewer tummy aches, and a reduction in allergy symptoms. I would also like to see a few pounds of fat go bye-bye as well, of course. Another rule of the Whole30 is that you are not allowed to weigh yourself for the entire 30 days. I can do that as I absolutely hate weighing myself.

But yesterday morning, weigh myself I did (I needed to know what my starting point was) and miraculously, I weighed exactly the same as what I weighed the last time I weighed myself (way back when, I cannot even remember the date): 191 pounds. I am okay with this. Considering the fact that while away I ate sugar, fried foods, red meats, and a lot of bread, I would have expected worse. I actually expected to have undone any progress I had previously made. We did walk a lot in Europe, but we walked less in New York as it was so friggin’ cold there. New York was colder than Stockholm! We even opted for taxis in NYC on a few occasions.

Coming home I did not feel terrible, physically (which surprises me a little with the foods I had been eating), but that does not mean I felt good about straying from the plan I had set out for myself. Next up yesterday morning was taking my blood pressure. It was 132/79, 54. Considering we did very little walking on Thursday and are jet lagged and didn’t get enough sleep, I’ll take it. But best of all, my morning fasting blood glucose reading was 103… that is nearly in the normal range for a normal non-diabetic person and I was very happy about that.

Yesterday I did start the Whole30 program. Even though there was no real food in the house, and I had a travel hangover, I did it. I made a shopping list and set about eating the Whole30 way. I can do anything for 30 days, right? Day one was not bad although I was exhausted and fell asleep at 9:20pm last night (could have been the jet lag).

Breakfast: 2 scrambled eggs, sausage patties, sautéed chard with garlic.

Lunch: Large salad with grilled chicken breast.

Dinner: Smaller salad with sliced rib-eye steak.

This morning I decided to cook up some breakfast items that I could reheat over the next few days so I don’t have to cook every morning. I still need to eat within 20-30 minutes of getting up, so having compliant breakfast items ready to go will be crucial for me.

First off, my family is obsessed with chorizo scramble breakfast burritos. I sauté onions and red peppers with good quality organic lean ground pork mixed with lots of spices and toss in cubed garnet yam and eggs. Prior to Whole30, I would have eaten a smaller portion of the chorizo scramble with a high fiber whole wheat tortilla and a little greek yogurt. Now I will eat a larger portion of the scramble with no tortilla or dairy. This was this morning’s breakfast:

I also made a chicken sausage breakfast casserole. I really wanted it packed with vegetables and so it doesn’t look as pretty as if it had a lot more egg, but I like the balance of veggies to proteins better this way. I cooked up some organic free range ground white meat chicken with some sage added for flavor and added it to the bottom of the pie plate. I sautéed onions, red bell peppers, jalapeño pepper, zucchini, and cubed garnet yams, then added in fresh spinach towards the end and added all that to the ground chicken. I then added beaten eggs to the whole thing, as much as would fit in the pie plate, and cooked for about 30 minutes on 350º. I let it cool to room temperature before slicing. Blue Eyes tried a piece and he gave it a thumbs up. I tried a bite and it is packed with flavor. It will be an easy, healthy breakfast option this week.

Well, if you hadn’t been able to tell already, I love to eat and I love to cook. I made it through day one and am well on my way through day two. Time to get out and get walking. I can’t weigh myself for 30 days, but I will keep posting about my other numbers and any other results as they happen. I’ll probably also post some pics of more food, because that is how I roll!