The Kingston 30

Last month, I ended my first Whole30, where I followed the guidelines from fitness gurus and authors of the book It Starts With Food.  In a nutshell, for 30 days you eat meat, veggies, fruit, sweet potatoes, and drinks of your choice as long as they contain no sugar, no artificial sweeteners, no dairy, and no alcohol.  It was a successful 30 days for me, and I learned a lot about the food I eat and what certain foods do to my body in a negative way (weight gain, muscle aches, bad skin), and positive (better digestion, weight loss, increased clarity of mind, increased energy, better sleep, clearer skin, etc).  Both members of my family were so impressed with my ability to stay dedicated to 30 days of clean eating that they decided to embark on one themselves.  Of course vacation would come first because the Kingston Trio loves to enjoy vacation and I can't think of anything less enjoyable than following a strict diet.  I took a 19 days break and paid for it with 5.4 pounds and the many other side effects from eating too much processed food, grains and sugar.  Do I regret it?  Well, yes and no.  I ate junk simply because I could and not because it tasted all that great, and that old habit filled me with regret, and put me in a lousy mood at times.  On the other hand, I ate THE most delicious bread, and balsamic/molasses glazed pork chop with a loaded baked potato that I have ever had, plus ice cream that made me really happy, and donuts that are better than Krispy Kreme.  Yes, I said it.  Seriously, if you ever go to Carolina/Kure Beach, and you can only eat at two places, one must be Freddies Italian (Kure Beach) and the other HAS to be Britt's Donuts on the Carolina Beach boardwalk.  You will thank me, I promise. 

As soon as vacation was over, it was time to hit the old Whole30 concept again, although this time, I made a few allowances in the area of dairy, and this time I would be joined by Anthony and Kira. While I realized during my first Whole30 that I had been consuming way too much dairy, and feel much better when cheese is not a food group, I really missed my cheese eggs and sour cream.  I adore avocados and especially when paired with salsa, a little sprinkled cheese and my beloved sour cream.  I don't eat it every day, although since we are daily egg eaters, I do eat a sprinkle (a light one) on my eggs on a daily basis, and I love it.  We are also not eating clarified butter or ghee either, because frankly, I don't have the time and patience to clarify every single stick of butter in my fridge, and I am NOT going to pay almost $8 for ghee.  We are also not killing our own grass fed cattle, nor am I always buying organic chicken.  It helps to be able to afford to eat, and spending our money on the best of the best is just not possible right now, especially if it means giving up vacations.  I will give up the beach under NO circumstances!  The other allowance I thought I might have to make for Anthony turned out to be a false alarm.  I was afraid that he would never be able to give up his Cokes and only drink water, but this has been a serious endeavor to him, and when he jumps in, he jumps in completely.  My man is going on two weeks without having any carbonation at all, nor any artificial sweeteners.  I am amazed at this!

All three of us began what I am calling the Kingston 30 on July 13, and since we have completed 10 days, I thought I would give a rundown on what we have learned:

1.  Eggs are fantastic!  While I do not buy grass fed beef or always eat organic chicken, I always try to buy either organic eggs from the grocery store, or better yet, I buy them farm fresh from locals.  The color is amazing, and the taste even more so.  I have also perfected the scrambled egg thanks for practice and a little help from the Southern Living kitchen folks.

2.  Cherry juice stains, and when you are trying to smash them for a recipe, if you are not careful, your kitchen will look like a crime scene.  This is Kingston 30 related because we are eating a LOT of fruit, and right now, cherries are on the top of my list.  As I was typing this, I dropped a pit out of my mouth and onto my white capris, which has bummed me out a little, but not enough to stop eating them.

3.  Sleeping late is a thing of the past.  Anthony has always looked forward to his Saturday mornings so that he could sleep in since he is a round the clock worker a lot of the time.  This past Saturday, however, he was awake by 7:00 stating that he just couldn't sleep later.  Apparently when your body is not weighed down by a lot of processed stuff and tons of unneeded carbohydrates, it wants to wake up earlier and make the most of the day.  If I can get him to go to bed at a decent hour, he will feel even better.

4.  I am cooking a LOT!!!  We made the decision to eat all of our meals at home, which means that yours truly is spending a lot of time in the kitchen preparing meals for the week.  As exhausting as this can be since I also work a full time job, it is totally worth it when I hear "oohs and aahs" coming from my family and they can't wait to eat again.  It also helps that Anthony is a grill master and can make anything we throw on there taste better than anything we can get at a restaurant.

5.  Kira is the envy of her co-workers at day camp.  During the past 10 days, she has taken delicious chicken salads and beautiful mouth watering fruit salads complete with fresh basil to work and without fail, someone has asked her to make them one or both.

6.  Both Kira and Anthony are running circles around me in regard to exercise, and I am okay with that.  Anthony is doing Instanity, which is insane, and Kira works out several times a week at the gym.  I ride my bike, and I am just fine with that since all other exercise seems too much like torture to me.

7.  Watermelon is our MVF---Most Valuable Fruit.  We love it!  It is dessert for the Kingstons and someone in the house has it at least once per day.

8.  We are spending less on food.  It would appear that would be the opposite given all the meat we are buying, but it really is not.  I buy meat that is on sale, except where steaks are concerned, since one of us will now only eat ribeyes, and all of us agree they taste the best.  As for fruit and vegetables, I buy what is in season, and we try to go to the farmer's market and buy local.  Local growers are on fire this summer, and the produce has never looked better.

Those are a few of the positive things we have noticed.  All of us miss certain foods that we are not allowed to have, and I have found it more difficult personally to do this the second time around, and have had a couple of slips here and there, mainly because of bad habits that creep in.  We are a pretty competitive trio, and have decided to make this into a contest.  All three of us weighed and took our measurements on the 13th, and will do it again at the end of the 30 days cycle, which will fall on August 12th, when we will weigh again, take our measurements again, and the winner will be announced.  The cycle actually ends on the 11th, but all tallying up will take place the next morning.  The winner will be chosen by using a body fat formula we got offline, which is not the best way to measure success, but it is the way we have chosen.  Each person has decided what they want as a reward, and they are as follows:

Anthony----Kira and I have to enlist in his 30 day training regime.  I REALLY don't want him to win.
Kira------Anthony has to clean up the room upstairs that contains all of his junk, and she gets to watch.
Tammy-----Four day beach trip at the beginning of Thanksgiving week.  I think we can all agree who needs to win.

Ten days in, and we are not killing each other.  Already the Kingston 30 is a lot more successful than I ever dreamed it would be.  Right now, if you were to walk in my kitchen, the only red stains you would find would be those belonging to cherries.  Let's hope it stays that way.

It Is Still The Beach

I am Frankie Heck.  If you do not watch The Middle, you have no idea what I am talking about.  If you do watch that show, you know the character Patricia Heaton plays is a frazzled mother of three who is constantly intruding in her children's lives, and makes goofs more times than not.  I am reminded often by our daughter that I am just like Frankie, and after what happened to us on our vacation, I can no longer deny that comparison, and here is why.  In the season finale of The Middle, the family traveled from Indiana to Orlando to go to Disney World on a trip the daughter had won in a contest.  When they got there and presented their tickets at Magic Kingdom, they were told they were at the wrong PARK!  Frankie had mistakenly booked them a vacation at Disney LAND.  After flipping out a bit, they were upgraded to deluxe accommodations, and everything worked out perfectly because is was television.  For the Kingstons, things did not go as well.

I plan family vacations for us.  It is why I have a job.  I work so I can take vacations, and I am constantly thinking of where we can go next and when.  As a matter of fact, as I type this, I am thinking of somewhere to go during Thanksgiving..............and Spring Break.............and Kira's senior trip.  For years, I have used Vacation Rentals By Owner, and have booked some killer deals.  As proof, I was responsible for booking this:

This was our family vacation during Spring Break two years ago, and it was fabulous!  This is proof that I do a pretty good job of finding great vacation spots.

This year was no different.  Back in December, I found a two bedroom condo in Carolina Beach, which was a beach south of my beloved Outer Banks, and one we had never visited.  After cajoling Anthony into an 8 hour drive, I booked it with the owner for July 5-12.  At least, that was what we both agreed to.  The contract was signed, all fees paid, and we were looking forward to our week at this new beach and our lovely views of the ocean from our condo.  When we arrived, however, we found our condo already inhabited and not by us.  Thankfully all we saw was someone else's stuff and not the someone elses.  I flipped out and immediately pulled up the many correspondences that had transpired between the owner and myself since December.  Apparently the dates we had agreed on were different than the dates the owner actually reserved for us, and while those dates (the 12th-19th) were clearly listed on the contract, I had missed the error.  Again and again, I missed it.  Even though I went over the contract several times, I still missed it!!  We had driven 8 hours and had nowhere to stay.  I continued to flip out, realizing that it was entirely possible that we would have to drive home and that there would be no Kingston vacation this year.  Thankfully, I have a cool headed husband who called the owner and after many calls back and forth and a night in one of the worst motels I have ever stayed in, where they didn't even ask how our stay was because they knew the answer, we were booked into the Surfside Motor Lodge.  Yes, we went from a two bedroom condo, to a motor lodge.  Think church camp with smokers, and you will have a pretty good idea what I am talking about.  It was oceanfront, but the dune was so high that the ocean seemed pretty far away, although we were able to see dolphins our last morning there.  We had a balcony, but it wasn't really ours since it was shared by everyone else, although whenever someone saw me out there, they quickly retreated back inside.  I am pretty sure I gave off the vibe of "I paid for an oceanfront balcony, and this one is mine."  Kira had her own bedroom, which doubled as the living room, kitchen.  Anthony and I had our own bedroom as well, and even had our own individual beds which was not a bad deal at all. 

 That was our walkway to the beach, and our balcony was the top floor end of the building in the foreground.

The day we got there, we had some adapting to do----a LOT of adapting.  There was a kitchenette which thankfully included a full size fridge, but absolutely no utensils or pots and pans.  We took off for Food Lion for food that I could cook there, and then to Dollar General for items to cook with.  It is not difficult at all to get what you need at Dollar General for less than $30 and we did just that.  Granted, we had brought paper products, dish washing detergent and the like from home, because that is what you do when you are staying in a condo, but we did not think we would need items to cook with.  I was able to cook breakfast every day, and fixed a couple of other things with just these items:

Those were really good ice trays, by the way, and who can't use a couple more plastic storage bowls?

We went to bed that first night resigned to our new and unexpected living arrangement, and very thankful that we had a place to stay.  I could have been depressed and angry over spending so much money on a condo we never got to use, but the depressed one was probably the owner because he came out of pocket for 7 days at a motor lodge, and as far as I know, his condo is sitting empty this week.  I am grateful that he didn't hold us to the signed contract, and that we weren't forced to go home.  I learned a lot about us as a family, and me as an individual.  First, I realized that you don't need a fancy condo to make great memories, and that I am in no position to be a hotel snob.  I like nice hotels, and never rent a condo that doesn't have great reviews, but I am not above anyone else, and can make most anything livable as long as I have plenty of air fresheners and a comfortable bed.  As for my family, they are THE BEST!!!  Neither of them complained about my egregious mistake, and both found themselves comforting me and making the best out of what could have been a disaster.  The wifi did not work, which meant Anthony couldn't do a lot of the work he planned to do, which was a good thing.  He spent more time at the beach with us, and we spent more time sitting around playing cards and binge watching Flip or Flop on HGTV. 

Other than spending as much time as possible at the beach, we took the ferry over to Southport, which is a beautiful town on the Cape Fear River, ate great Italian food, visited Fort Fisher, Wilmington, and Kure Beach.  We went to the Boardwalk a few times where we had the best donuts EVER, and where Kira shopped for souvenirs.  I walked to both piers, the Carolina Beach one and the Kure Beach one which was over three miles away.  I formed blisters between my toes, because I chose to walk back on the road wearing Teva flip flops, which was very dumb.  All in all, we had a fantastic vacation, and one we will never forget. 

The biggest takeaway?  It doesn't really matter when we stayed. What mattered was that it was still the beach, and as long as there is an ocean close, I can adapt to just about anything.

These were taken in Southport, which is just the prettiest little town of less than 4,000 residents.  I could seriously live here.

These were taken at Fort Fisher, and the trees were so beautiful.  The sound of the cicadas was so eerie and altogether wonderful to hear.

Different sunrises.  My favorite is the top one where the shrimp boat is going out and the paddle boarders are up early taking advantage of the calm Atlantic.

Every Thursday night, there are fireworks on the beach.  They were spectacular, as was this view at sunset.

And finally:

"Mahalo" is a Hawaiian word meaning thanks, gratitude, admiration, praise.

Pretty much how we all felt.