My meal plans are set out for the next seven days! Today and tomorrow are my farewell-to-grain days, as I am preparing for the Moose is Loose half marathon in the morning. Monday morning is the start of my Whole 30 Challenge!!

Breakfasts:

• Egg muffins with spinach, sausage, onion, and pepper
• Ground turkey with onion, kale, and apples
• Shredded chicken with yam/carrot/onion hash
• Sausages with sweet potato hash brown cakes
• Omelette with spinach, onion, peppers
• Apples with almond butter, hard boiled eggs, left-over asparagus
• Shredded chicken with apples, onions and carrots

Lunches:

• Spinach salad with tuna, avocado, peppers, and cucumber
• Spinach salad with salmon, red onion, capers, and olives
• Peppers stuffed with tuna, carrots, peppers, avocado, mayonaise
• Shredded chicken, sweet potatoes, fruit
• Omelette with sausage, kale, and asparagus
• Left-over beef roast with kale, onion, green beans and sweet potato
• Left-over beef stew with apples, carrots, sweet potatoes, and onion

Dinners:

• Spaghetti squash with ground beef, diced tomatoes, spinach, onions, and peppers
• Beef roast with kale, onion, carrots, sweet potatoes, and green beans
• Beef stew with apples, carrots, sweet potatoes and onion
• Turkey chili with tomatoes, onions, and kale
• Cauliflower pizza dough with sausage, onion, tomatoes, and peppers
• Sausages with onions, apples, kale, and cucumber salad
• Crustless spinach quiche

I’ll be honest: looking at my meal plan, the estimated cost of groceries for this week terrified me! Nothing but fresh produce and meat! And this is my first week of living on cash only! What if it was more than the $200 I allotted us??

I had a handful of the ingredients already (5 peppers, green beans, cucumbers, riced cauliflower, diced tomatoes, almond butter, and capers) but I needed to buy everything else. When the cashier at Superstore finished ringing up my items, I was shocked!

Shocked!!!

Now, I still need 2 rotisserie chickens (those are my lazy-protien days ) and a spaghetti squash, so my final total will be closer to $150. I’m sure I could do a little better on the produce if I went to H&W Produce, but I didn’t want to make 2 trips into the city today.

Not bad, hey? And this is for ALL FOUR of us!

Switching to gluten-free grain flours and products bumped my monthly food bill from $600/month to $850. It kills me to spend $4-8 on a loaf of bread. This will take a huge chunk off that total, AND it will also keep Leith from buying lunch every day. $8-10 a day, 5 days a week?? That’s another $200 a month saved right there!

I am so excited, and my mouth is watering just looking at the menu. I can’t wait to start…48 hours to go!

The No’s: any grains/rice/quinoa, seeds (including peas and corn), soy, dairy, legumes, sugar, caffeine (other than tea), and alcohol

I can’t wait to share the results with you