Welcome to Whole 30 Day 5! How’s it going? If you’re doing your own Whole 30, I’d love to know how you’re feeling. What about food – have you found some great meals that your whole family loves? Leave us a comment so all my readers can learn from your wisdom.

As for this house, here’s what’s on the menu today:

Breakfast: My breakfast was late, late, late because I had fasting blood work to do this morning. Last night, at 8:30, I ate about a quarter pound of ground beef, just fried up in a skillet, topped with some leftover cole slaw and mustard. And yet I still woke up hungry! SO fasting labs at 9:00 (they were behind so it turned out to be 9:30) was really hard!

When I got home, I had to dash right back out to take the kids to their homeschool activities so I cooked a little sausage and an egg and inhaled it.

Lunch: This was supposed to be dinner last night, but I was not in the mood to cook, so it became lunch today: shrimp over zoodles with pesto. I ate my portion for lunch and set aside the rest for my boys who will need a quick and early dinner tomorrow before heading off on their  weekend scout adventure. The video is available on YouTube.

Dinner: grilled cod with mango, pineapple salsa and roasted green veggies (broccoli, asparagus, okra and green beans). The video of this meal prep is also available on YouTube.

And day 5 is a wrap!

At the risk of jinxing myself, this Whole 30 is going much easier than any other I’ve attempted. Maybe once you fail so often at something totally within your control at which to succeed, you get fed up enough with yourself that sheer determination takes over.

All I know is that so far, for all of four days, I have not even been tempted to cheat.

This is likely due to the fact that I have been praying earnestly that God would help me do this thing right. And also, practically, I’ve been eating really tasty, hearty, filling meals. I do not feel deprived at all.

Even so, my typical withdrawal symptoms of headache and extreme fatigue have been absent. Halleluiah. I suspect I will still go through those ugly side effects to some extent and at some point in the process, but so far, so good.

Here’s what I ate today:

Breakfast: rehash of yesterday: sausage, kale and two eggs

Lunch: okra fritters done paleo style with coconut milk. These are extremely filling, yet I was legitimately hungry three hours later.

Snack: a few mixed nuts (roasted without oil), a couple slices of pepperoni and a few leftover plantain chips

Dinner: out! I was just tired of cooking quite frankly. I love making the cooking videos, because really, what kid did not dream of having their own radio or TV show? With the advent of the internet and YouTube, we can all get our own “show.” I do really enjoy teaching and I know lots of folks did not grow up cooking so it is somewhat of a lost art. It’s something I love so if I can share a bit of that love, I’m happy to do it. BUT it’s a lot of work to set everything up for the videos and then talking and thinking through each recipe. The work on the backend to get it presentation worthy is also hard work, but I don’t do that part!

Anyhoo, I just didn’t feel like going through all the hoops tonight, so we went to Wendy’s for dinner. I know that Chipotle is the golden child of Paleo and Whole30 diners, but it’s pretty expensive for fast food and we make do at Wendy’s just fine.

On my dinner plate tonight: Double stack burger minus ketchup, mayonnaise, cheese and bun. That left two small burger patties, mustard, onion and pickle. I brought my own mayo.

I also had a side salad, which consists of just lettuce, shredded carrot, a couple cucumber slices and cherry tomatoes. I brought my own ranch dressing.

I had lab work scheduled for 9 in the morning and I had to be fasted, so I had a little ground beef just fried in the skillet shortly before bed.