This was the final push - the 4th and final week of my Whole30 experience. You can read about why I'm doing Whole30 here.

Day 22.
I went into this week knowing it was going to be a big one. Really busy with writing stuff and really busy with mommy stuff, because Stevie was going to be out of town for the week. There was also an emotional component of losing my Whole30 buddy, because I gave him my blessing to stop eating Whole30 before his trip. This was the beginning of a slew of business trips he was going on, and we didn't really want him to be put in a position where he's the awkward guy on the team not eating anything normal because of his "diet". He didn't want to be that guy, and I really didn't want that for him either. So he prepared to break the Whole30 commitment a little early, but still eat super clean until I was finished. All that being said, I went into this week with lots of feelings...

Breakfast: Quick egg scramble. Black Coffee.
Lunch: Chicken salad with Greek toppings (kalamata olives, marinated artichokes, sundried tomatoes and sliced avocado).
Dinner: Leftover Spaghetti Squash Spaghetti.

Day 23.
Breakfast: Egg scramble with random veggies thrown in. 1/2 grapefruit and black coffee.
Lunch: Chicken salad with Greek toppings.
Dinner: Pulled beef with homemade ranch dressing (recipe in the Whole30 book), kale chips, cauliflower mango rice, and 1/2 sweet potato.

My sister came over and had dinner with me, so I wasn't such a lonely lame eater. Also, I resumed rewatching Gossip Girl. Because I was missing New York and Stevie was having slamming amounts of fun somewhere without me and I just needed a little indulgence.

Yeah, I was pouting a little. But the sweet potato tasted like pie and that was the jam!

Day 24.
Breakfast: Frittata with diced onion, tomato, chicken sausage and spinach. Hot tea.
Lunch: Chicken salad with Greek toppings. (You might get bored doing this same lunch everyday, but I finally found one that I love so I just kept making it :)
Dinner: Sweet potato and kale chips.

I'm telling you. The breakfast frittatas are delectable.

Day 25.
Breakfast: Frittata, sliced apples and hot tea.
Lunch: Mexican salad (ground beef, salsa and avocado on a bed of spinach, drizzled with homemade ranch dressing).
Dinner: Pulled beef, cauliflower-mango rice, sweet potato, kale chips.

As real food continued to taste better and better during the course of Whole30, cauliflower tasted increasingly worse. It's probably because it's a broccoli cousin. I kept trying to cook with it (like in the above cauliflower-mango rice) but I just kept hating it more and more. Ugh. So cauliflower-y.

Day 26.
Breakfast: Egg scramble and 1/2 grapefruit. Black coffee.
Lunch: Chicken salad with Greek toppings.
Dinner: Baked salmon with lemon-herb mayo, sweet potato, steamed kale.

Again, I was eating so many sweet potatoes because PIE. They tasted like pieeeee.

Day 27.
Breakfast: Egg scramble, sliced plantains pan-fried in coconut oil and dusted with cinnamon. Black coffee.
Lunch: Leftover salmon with homemade cream dressing, capers, olives, diced cucumber, sundried tomatoes and avocado.
Dinner: My homemade Grandma Soup (no noodles, but add diced red potatoes).

Dressing up my usual lunchtime salad with leftover salmon instead of chicken was so fancy. It tasted SO GOOD. I loved the leftover salmon times. As much as I could love anything, with all the lack of chocolate in my world.

Also, salmon felt fancy and celebratory because Stevie was home for two days before resuming more travel. We partied so hard. With our sparkly water and early bedtimes and church in the morning. Are you getting the sense for our wild life? Like the JUNGLE.

Day 28.
Breakfast: Church day, so this was an early, busy one. Breakfast was a banana and a Lara Bar. I hunted for coffee in our new church location until I found it. And then I had a lot of it.
Lunch: Grandma Soup!
Dinner: Don't judge. Stevie was out of town, so I had soup again for dinner. Hallelujah for not having to cook again. Good times had by all. But mostly by Everett. Because he was blissfully eating waffles every single day.

Day 29.
Breakfast: 2 fried eggs and 1/2 grapefruit.
Lunch: Chicken salad with Greek toppings.
Snack: Lara Bar. My favorites are blueberry and key lime :)
Dinner: Leftover pulled beef and a sweet potato.

I honestly wasn't feeling pouty about food at this point. It was all sort of routine and not heartbreaking anymore. Because I got to have my sweet potato, so I was pretty good with life.

I know what you're thinking. WEIRDO. Well I would have to agree with you.

Day 30.
Breakfast: 2-egg scramble with diced tomato, chicken sausage and spinach.
Snack: Clover coffee at Starbucks and 1/2 bag of dried apple crisps. The clover was my treat to myself for being such a GOOD GIRL for thirty days.
Lunch: Chicken salad with Greek toppings. Hot tea (Trader Joes Harvest Herbal Tea!)
Dinner: Grandma Soup (minus the noodles, add diced red tomatoes) and some pineapple.

Overall Recap:
Honestly, this last week wasn't hard. It was challenging in other ways - I felt extremely busy and didn't have time to really pine away for treats. I finally had my cooking/meal prep routine down, and I needed to be in autopilot in order to keep our lives running smoothly while single-parenting it with my husband out of town. So those emotional and time-management components were challenging - but the Whole30 had become an almost fond way of living.

"Almost" is the key word in that phrase.

I still obviously was excited to have wine and chocolate and, you know, breaded stuff.

In fact, I was anticipating the end of this Whole30 experiment with glee.

And, my friends, it ended. With glee. More on that next week!

P.S. Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 of my Whole30 diary :)