Meal Plan Monday: Whole30 | Week 3

We just completed week 2 of Whole30 and have never felt better.

Also, I cannot thank you all enough for the insane amount of emails I received with amazing recipes and tips. If you haven't already, I highly suggest peeking at my Whole30 pin board as I've tried to collect all of the recipes that have been shared with me there.

Before I dive in to our week 3 meal plan I wanted to answer the number one question I received last week from many of you...

How do you have time to plan, shop and prep for such a complicated diet as a full time working mama?

Meal Planning: Planning our meals out usually takes me somewhere between 30 minutes to an hour depending on how focused I am on the task (ahem, Netflix binge). I typically meal plan during the kids' naps on the weekends or in bed at night. My first step in the planning process is reviewing the weekly Harris Teeter grocery ad to see which meats, veggies, fruits, etc. are on sale. Once I know what type of meats I'm working with I'll turn to my pin board to select my meals and start a grocery list. I always purchase enough of each meat to make one recipe last for at least two meals (dinner + leftovers for lunch).

Grocery Shopping: Since I don't have time during the work week to grocery shop, we are limited to the weekends to tackle it -- usually on Saturday mornings. Before Whole30 we could knock everything out at Harris Teeter and visit Trader Joes every few weekends. However, we must shop at both stores to get everything we need at the prices I'm willing to pay (sorry Harris Teeter, I can't pay $19 for Almond flour or $3 per Larabar). This usually takes us about 2 hours as a family to tackle.

Meal Prepping: This definitely takes the longest time but is totally worth it. Let me explain. I usually use nap time on Sundays to prep everything. I make a breakfast casserole for the entire week of breakfasts, I boil tons of eggs, bake tons of bacon, prep all the snacks, prepare a few lunches and chop up as many ingredients as possible for the week. This takes me 3 hours. It's a LOT of time. But you know what? It's really not. On a normal night it takes me somewhere between 30 minutes and an hour to get dinner on the table. But with all the prep done, it takes me somewhere between 5 minutes and 20 minutes. I also try to ensure at least 1-2 meals are done in the crock pot. So meal prep is actually totally worth it to me.

What About the Kids? The kids are eating what we're eating and are happy about it for the most part. Some recipes I have to hand pick every damn tomato out of for Caroline or every carrot out of for Thomas so they'll eat it. But overall, they have really appreciated the break from frozen chicken nuggets and lunchables.

Biggest Challenge: This week presented challenges with planning meals around my several days of work travel as well as our trip home for the long weekend. Thankfully my mom was suuuuuper supportive and cooked compliant meals for us. As for travel, I ate a lot of RX bars and salads with balsamic vinegar.

On to the meal plans! Sorry for the redundancy but I think it's helpful to see all the previous meals in one place so I'm including week 1 and week 2 meals...

WEEK 1

MONDAY

B/L: Sweet Potato Breakfast Stacks

D: Slow Cooker Sweet Potato Chili
 

TUESDAY:

B: Scrambled eggs over roasted sweet potatoes

L: Leftover Slow Cooker Sweet Potato Chili

D: Baked Pesto Salmon with Kale Chips
 

WEDNESDAY:

B: Scrambled eggs over roasted sweet potatoes

L: Leftover Slow Cooker Sweet Potato Chili

D:  Avocado Chicken Salad
 

THURSDAY:

B: Scrambled eggs over roasted sweet potatoes

L: Leftover Avocado Chicken Salad

D: Ground Turkey Taco Bowls with Spanish Cauliflower Rice
 

FRIDAY: 

B: Scrambled eggs over roasted sweet potatoes

L: Leftover Ground Turkey Taco Bowls with Spanish Cauliflower Rice

D: Chicken Fried Rice

SATURDAY: 

B: Banana Pancakes

L: Salad
D: Oven Baked Ribs w/ Roasted Green Beans

SNACKS: celery or apples with almond butter, plantain chips and hard boiled eggs

**Favorite recipe of the week: TIE between Sweet Potato Breakfast Stacks and Ground Turkey Taco Bowls with Spanish Cauliflower Rice

WEEK 2

SUNDAY
B: Banana Pancakes
L: Eggroll in a Bowl (this wasn't our favorite, but the kids ate it) 
D: Slow Cooker White Chicken Chili

MONDAY

B: Breakfast Casserole

L: Leftover Slow Cooker White Chicken Chili

D: Paleo Carnitas

TUESDAY

B: Breakfast Casserole

L: Leftover Slow Cooker White Chicken Chili

D: Leftover Paleo Carnitas

WEDNESDAY

B: Breakfast Casserole

L: Leftover Slow Cooker White Chicken Chili

D: Ground Turkey Taco Bowls with Spanish Cauliflower Rice

THURSDAY

B: Scrambled eggs

L: Salads with leftover Paleo Carnitas
D: Leftover Ground Turkey Taco Bowls with Spanish Cauliflower Rice

FRIDAY

B: Scrambled eggs

L: Salad

D: Roasted chicken with green beans

SATURDAY
B: Scrambled eggs, bacon & fruit
L: Salad
D: Steak, sweet potato & salad

 **Favorite recipe of the week: Breakfast Casserole!!!! Oh my goodness, it is SO good. Runner up was Paleo Carnitas

WEEK 3

MONDAY

D: Slow Cooker Buffalo Chicken Stuffed Sweet Potatoes

TUESDAY

B: Breakfast Casserole

L: Leftover Slow Cooker Buffalo Chicken Stuffed Sweet Potatoes

D: Rotisserie Chicken

WEDNESDAY

B: Breakfast Casserole

L: Salad with leftover rotisserie chicken

D: Ground Turkey Taco Bowls with Spanish Cauliflower Rice

THURSDAY

B: Breakfast Casserole

L: Leftover Ground Turkey Taco Bowls with Spanish Cauliflower Rice

D: Slow Cooker Chicken, Kale & Sweet Potato Stew

FRIDAY: 

B: Breakfast Casserole

L: Leftover Slow Cooker Chicken, Kale & Sweet Potato Stew

D: Tilapia with Avocado Salsa

SATURDAY/SUNDAY: Vacation. Off diet, for sure.

Three on Friday!

We are en route to Florida today -- thankfully FLYING this time! Dad is doing really well and we want to spend as much time with him as possible while he's feeling great! That being said, things are a little chaotic this morning as we pack our bags and wrestle the kiddos out the door for the airport. So today I've only got time for 3 things! Happy Friday, friends!

one. For Christmas Matt surprised me with some work dresses and this one is my favorite! It's a dress I would have never picked out for myself, in a color I never think looks good on me and at a store I rarely shop at and I LOVE IT. I even wore it twice this week (perks of traveling to different offices).

Dress

two. While uploading all my iPhone pictures to Dropbox I found some pictures from a recent date night at one of our favorite restaurants, Good Food on Montford! This place is so delicious that there's always a line outside the door before they even open for dinner. It's that good...especially the steamed bun. omg.

2017 | 2015

three. I need some book recommendations! So the last time I actually sat down and read a book (that wasn't self-help or a devotional) was during our Jamaica vacation. The last two books I read were The Good Girl and The Girl on the Train sooooo I'm sure I've missed a ton of amazing books since those two came out forever ago. I really like twisty-turny suspense thrillers and really don't like chick-flicks or sad books.

Hall of Fame

Y'all! Matt won Business North Carolina's 2018 Legal Elite Young Guns award. I can't describe how impressive this is. I've worked for big law and now a mid-size firm and getting our attorneys recognized in this publication is a really huge deal. For most of you who aren't familiar with this award, each year BNC honors lawyers across the state in business-related categories. Winners are chosen by the state’s lawyers and the top vote-getter in each category becomes a member of Business North Carolina’s Legal Elite Hall of Fame. So when Matt told me he won Young Guns this year I was SO proud. I mean, he's done a lot of amazing things and won a lot of impressive awards and been featured in a lot of cool places (let's not forget his TV commercial!) but this is especially huge because they picked him to be FEATURED ON THE MAGAZINE COVER OF THEIR JANUARY EDITION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I seriously cannot get over the fact that my very cute husband's face is on the cover of Business North Carolina this month. So proud! SO SO SO PROUD!

  Here's the excerpt with his interview:

 And now I'm off to buy one million copies. Go, Matt! You're a rock star!