Week 4 Meal Planning

Hopefully everyone has hit the mysterious "tiger blood" phase by now.

Here are our meals for week 4!

Meals for the week

Breakfast 

Same as Week 1 (Same casserole as last week, but with bell peppers, sausage, onions, sweet potatoes, and broccoli! ) 

Chicken Sausage Casserole and fruit

Lunch

Leftovers

Dinner

Monday: Sweet Potato Chili (It's a new recipe for us, and really good!)

Tuesday: Orange Rosemary Pork Tenderloin 

Wednesday: Turkey Meatballs and tomatoes (the recipe calls or ground beef, but we are using turkey!)

Thursday: Grilled chicken (olive oil, salt and pepper) and asparagus 

Friday:Bunless Burgers (top them as you please, we like raw onions, mustard, and Tessamae's ketchup) and Sweet Potato Fries
Saturday: Slow Cooker Pepper Steak

Week 3 Meal Planning and Grocery List

Another week down - if you have made it this far, hopefully you have started feeling much better than week one. The next week is all about avoiding boredom and staying to the program. Most people quit around day 11-13. Keep on going!

On to the third week...

Meals for the week

Breakfast 

Same as Week 1 (back to the old casserole, but this time with sweet potatoes, green onions and broccoli). 

Michael: 3 eggs over medium, an avocado, banana

Diana: Chicken Sausage Casserole and fruit

Snacks + Lunch

Leftovers, Chicken Salad w/ Apples and Grapes

Dinner

Monday: Carnitas and homemade guacamole 

Tuesday: Leftovers

Wednesday: Orange Chicken and Cauliflower Ricehttps://mythriftyhouse.com/whole30-orange-chicken/

Thursday: Zoodles w/ Beef Marinara Sauce

Friday:Bunless Burgers (top them as you please, we like raw onions, mustard, and Tessamae's ketchup) and Sweet Potato Fries 

Week 2 Meal Planning and Grocery List

Week 1 down - if you have made it this far, then I'm proud that you got through the hardest week (and hopefully did not kill anyone).

On to the second week - where you are going to ONLY be tired and bloated (it gets way better, I promise)

Meals for the week

Shout out to my wonderful wife, Diana for doing the majority of meal planning this week!

Breakfast 

Same as Week 1 - but with a new casserole 

Michael: 3 eggs over medium, an avocado, banana (I recommend fruit, especially early on to regulate sugar intake) 

Diana: Hash brown and Sausage Breakfast Casserole and fruit

Snacks + Lunch

Leftovers, Fajita Chicken Salad and snacks, which we mentioned in the Week 1

Dinner

Monday: Bunless Burgers (top them as you please, we like raw onions, mustard, and Tessamae's ketchup) and Sweet Potato Fries 

Tuesday: Lemon-Ginger Salmon and Asparagus (we just did asparagus instead of veggies)

Wednesday: Leftovers

Thursday: Zoodles w/ Beef Marinara Sauce (we substituted ground beef for sausage) 

Friday: Compliant Chipotle and/or leftovers

Saturday: Coffee au Poivre Steaks with Spiral Potatoes

Sunday: Indian Chicken Tikki Masala  (we add a little additional cayenne pepper) and Cauliflower rice 

Grocery List

I am assuming you have some of the basic herbs/spices. Double check against the recipes if you have any questions.

As a note - if you make the Indian Chicken Tikki Masala, make sure you have all of the spices, I left the out of the list below, but some of them are less common. 

• Aidells Chicken Apple Sausage (just in case we need a emergency meal)
• Breakfast Sausage
• Chicken (2 recipes)
• Ground Beef (1 lb for burgers, 1 lb for zoodles)
• Rib Eye Steak (We will probably use something less expensive) 
• Salmon
• Compliant Mayo 
• 48 Eggs (might be overkill, but we eat a lot of eggs) 
• Onions
• Green Onions
• Bell Peppers
• Spinach
• Sweet Potatoes
• Potatoes
• Lemon
• Ginger
• Cilantro
• Zucchini 
• Strawberries, Bananas, Apples, All Sorts Of FRUIT
• Coconut Milk (2 recipes) 
• Diced Tomatoes
• Tomato Paste
• Coffee
• Arrow Root powder (for breakfast casserole - we are just going to leave it out)

Have a great week! 

Week 1 Meal Planning and Grocery List

Planning is a critical part of Whole 30 - Diana and I are going to have the same dinners every night, but our breakfasts, lunches, and snacks (snacks aren't encouraged, but we like them) differ slightly. 

Meals for the week

Breakfast 

The first meal of the day is an important one, and to my overall idea on the cheat sheet, we basically have the same breakfast for 30 days in a row. It just makes life easier, and if you think of it as fuel and not as an indulgence, it gets pretty easy. 

Michael: 3 eggs over medium, an avocado, banana (I recommend fruit, especially early on to regulate sugar intake) 

Diana: Chicken Sausage Casserole and fruit 

Snacks

Purist Whole 30 people don't do snacks, they have larger meals and stay to stay away from snacking. My overall thoughts is that if you schedule them (i.e. I have one snack in the morning) then you roughly have the same benefit of scheduling out your day. 

• Compliant Lara Bars
• Cashews (make sure they don't have any vegetable oil or other non compliant ingredients) 
• Hard Boiled Eggs 
• FRUIT 
• Compliant Almond Butter (I like it spread on apples or bananas) 

Lunch

We will mostly eat leftovers from the night before or part of the big crockpot/smoked meat that we make on Sunday. We will also have Aidells Chicken Apple Sausages on hand for lunches when we don't have left overs handy. If you need to go out to eat, then Chipotle is a great option (as long as it's compliant!) 

Dinner

Monday: Smoked Pork Shoulder (if you don't have a smoker, do carnitas) with BBQ Sauce

Tuesday: Crock Pot Buffalo Chicken + Sweet Potatoes

Wednesday: Leftovers

Thursday: Pork Tenderloin with Apples, Pear, Sweet Potato and Garlic

Friday: Mexican Night (Lettuce Tacos + Pico De Gallo + Guac) OR Compliant Chipotle 

Saturday: Grilled Chicken Breasts (just olive oil, salt, pepper) + Sweet Potato Fries 

Sunday: Egg Roll in a Bowl - below is ingredients for 1 meal, but double it, you won't regret it

Grocery List

I am assuming you have some of the basic herbs/spices. Double check against the recipes if you have any questions. 

• Aidells Chicken Apple Sausage (2 packs) 
• 48 Eggs (might be overkill, but we eat a lot of eggs) 
• Onion
• Bell Pepper
• Spinach
• Lettuce
• Pico De Gallo (Our Kroger has a compliant version in the produce section)
• Guacamole (make your own or buy compliant) 
• 1 lb Pork Tenderloin 
• 1 lb ground chicken, turkey, or pork 
• 1 lb chicken breasts 
• 1 lb ground beef
• Frank's Red Hot
• Ghee
• Tessamae's Ranch (or make your own)
• Tessamae's BBQ Sauce (if you do smoked pork)
• Coconut Oil
• Coconut Aminos (I had to get it on amazon)
• Sesame Oil
• Rice vinegar 
• 8 Green Onions
• 2, 12oz bags of Cole Slaw
• 1 Pear
• 1 Apple
• Garlic (you'll need lots)
• Sweet Potatoes (10 small to medium ones)
• Compliant Lara Bars
• Compliant Cashews
• Compliant Almond Butter
• Strawberries, Bananas, Apples, All Sorts Of FRUIT
• We also got some Nut Pods from Amazon for Diana's coffee (it was a deal breaker without it) 

The Cheat Sheet

If you have made it this far, then I’m assuming you want to do Whole 30, and you just need more information. If you need more info on what Whole 30 is go here, if you want to know why I do Whole 30, go here.

Tips for being successful on Whole 30

We will get into the the more in depth part later - but seriously, if you want to be successful, here are my three biggest tips.

Do it with someone else

It could be a friend, your spouse, a co-worker, it really doesn't matter. What does matter is that you have someone to share your enjoyment and pain with as well as share recipes, share food, share the whole experience. The people who I find are most successful on Whole 30 do it with someone else. 

Make breakfast and lunch simple 

You can make dinner simple as well, but breakfast and lunch should be super simple. I usually eat the same thing every day for breakfast (3 eggs and an avocado) and then leftovers for lunch. It doesn't have to be fancy, it doesn't have to take long, but doing the same thing over and over for these meals will make your life a whole lot easier. Some of my favorite recipes to follow. 

Have an emergency food stash 

I get hangry (hungry + angry) and make bad decisions when I am hungry. I always have W30 compliant snacks on hand to make sure I have something to snack on if I get hungry. 

A few of my "emergency foods" include: 

• Compliant Larabars (full list here)
• Fruit (Tons of bananas and apples… and whatever else is on sale - For me fruits are critical because it helps with the sugar hangovers.) 
• Veggies (Carrots, cauliflower, etc.)
• Nuts (Cashews, pistachios... and NOT peanuts, they're legumes :) )  
• Almond Butter (probably too much, but paired with bananas... yum) 
• Flavored Seltzer Water (not a food, but delicious)
• Aidelle's Chicken Apple Sausages (found by the hot dogs - make a great snack or meal) 

Why this blog?

There are a ton of Whole 30 resources out there, and while they are all good. My main goal of this is to put the right resources into people's hands so that it is as easy as possible for everyone.

I love Whole 30. I have done it a handful of times and have actively encouraged others to do it as well.

Here are some things that I love about it:

• At the end, you feel better than you ever have before 
• You don't HAVE to buy anything (I have done it totally free three different times - you can buy additional resources if you choose) 
• I lose weight every time I do it (not everyone does, but 90%+ people do) 
• I am more aware of what I put into my and my family's bodies 
• I sleep better 

What you will find on this website:

• Easy charts on what you can and cannot eat 
• Meal Plans
• My real world thoughts (for what they are worth) on how to be successful 

I am always open to questions, comments, or feedback - let me know if you have any along the way.

Thanks! 

-Mike