ArtFossil PostW30 Log - Over 60 & Simple Living (Version 1.0)

[ArtFossil]

This log is my post-Whole30-reintroduction-and-life-after-Whole 30-record. I want it to help keep me mindful of my goals and I welcome comments!

 

Having successfully completed my Whole30, I am now eager to ride my own bike and design my own food plan. I know from my studio practice that "following your nose" can sound easy but be frightening, as it leads you into the unknown. 

 

I regard this half of Whole30 as where the hard work begins (at least for me). I timed my Whole30 during the most demanding part of my work year (last month of the fall semester) so that I could focus on Reintroduction during the month when I'm on winter break.

 

As context, I'm committed to resolving my GERD and healing my esophagus before my follow up endoscopy next May. I'm also committed also to moving, strengthening and aligning my body as much as possible BEFORE hip replacement surgery next May. My diet (diet in the sense of a food plan/way of eating, not a quick fix diet) is part of a strategy that includes water exercise three times a week, working one on one with a Pilates instructor once a week, and periodic acupuncture.

 

The bigger picture is that I have a demanding work life (university professor) and a robust creative life (studio artist and creativity researcher). I intend to transition out of my "job" and into independent work in a couple of years.

 

And, I want to live in a tiny house, circa 160 square feet, and to radically simplify my physical lifestyle. How and what I choose to eat is very much a part of envisioning how I want my life to function.

 

I want to design a way of eating that is nourishing, satisfying, sustainable and yes, pleasurable. I want my food to fuel my creative work and I don't want to be derailed by between meal hunger, or cravings or emotional eating or digestive issues or low energy. I want my food to fuel my activity as I continue to stretch, strengthen and move my body and I want to have plenty of restorative relaxation and sleep. I want to eat in a way that I continue to release weight until I am at a weight I have determined which is healthy and which will best serve my lifestyle goals.

 

I am in my late 60's and I consider that I am in training for my 90's as I desire to maintain an active and prolific creative life.

 

I will do a "slow roll" reintroduction as I plan on reintroducing a single food at a time, not a food group. I'll do this reintroduction for as long as it takes (or until I exhaust my patience). 

 

Here are the foods I am considering re-introducing. Some of them I will definitely reintroduce and others I may delay for "a while". I expect that "sometime" I will have a piece of cake or a piece of pie or a brownie but I'm in no hurry for that day and so you won't find brownies on the list. :-) I have no desire right now to dive into ice cream or nachos or any other food that would combine different food groups and thus mess up my reintroduction experiment.

 

I also don't know when I may eat bread again. For me, bread and butter (or crackers and butter) is, I suspect, my gateway drug to a sugar binge. I know, it's weird and sad but there it is. And I do love sandwiches, but I also got so lazy with just throwing things onto bread that didn't really need to be on bread . . . .

 

I don't have any food sensitivities that I know of. I'll be looking not just at sensitivity/allergic type reactions but at how the food makes me feel and how it fits or doesn't fit into an active day. My acupuncturist encourages me not to eat cow-dairy. (Goat or sheep is OK by him).

 

I definitely want to continue banning Diet Pepsi or other diet drinks. I'm really pleased that I haven't had a Diet Pepsi for 31 days and I want to continue that. I'd also like to continue not having any kind of artificial sweetener on anything as, regardless of how I react or don't react to it, they are so many, many times sweeter than any sugar in nature and I believe that that could fuel sugar cravings for me.

 

Here's my eccentric slow roll reintroduction list, not in priority order, although I am going to do black beans and then hummus first. I "think" that I miss legumes. I'll see if I really do. (Some of these foods fall into the "give yourself some breathing room, relax on the 'no added sugar' rule" category. I'm still going to take those slowly and one at a time.)

 

Black beans 2 x week

Hummus 1 or 2 x week

Kidney beans - a few times a month in chili

Peas - occasionally

Peanut butter - occasionally. (I don't crave it or overeat it)

Corn chips 1 or 2 x week, perhaps. Corn chips are "on probation"

Popcorn - occasionally

Oatmeal? Not sure yet. It seems like oatmeal might require almond milk.

Almond milk? Only if I eat oatmeal? I don't think I need it for my coffee anymore as I've rediscovered the joys of drinking coffee black.

Corn - occasionally

Goat cheese 1 or 2 x week

Feta cheese 1 x week

Parmesan cheese - occasionally

Blue cheese or gorgonzola - occasionally 

Flat white latte (whole milk) - occasionally 

Cheddar cheese - occasionally

Soy protein/TVP - yes, I like TVP in my chili and I also love Morningstar sausage!

Soy sauce in soups at the fabulous vegetarian/vegan soup place

Croutons in Caesar salad - occasionally; see Parmesan!

Worcestershire sauce - occasionally

Commercial salad dressings - 1 or 2x week. See Trader Joe's broccoli kale salad, eg.

Commercial catsup/meat cooked in "other" oils

Sliced ham or turkey - I'll have to read the labels on the "natural" ones to see if this is a sugar issue, carageenen issue, etc.

Bacon - occasionally

 

My plan is to start today with black beans at two meals. Whoot!

 

I'll post what I reintroduced and my thoughts and reactions, and also my musings on how my food plan fits into my life-work balance.

[kirkor]

Tiny houses are cool except for the bathroom situation.

[ArtFossil]

Tiny houses are cool except for the bathroom situation.

You can have any kind of bathroom you choose. Even a tub! It's just a matter of how much space you want you want to take away from other functions. The same with kitchens.

[ArtFossil]

PostW30 day 3:

On day 2, yesterday, I had black beans at lunch and dinner (1/2 cup with some salsa, and Whole Foods plain chicken, and carrots, and fruit.) I had no digestive or other issues, except to remember beans are filling! Beans are usually part of my emergency studio stash.

I guess I'm working up to Amy's Black bean soup, but that has corn in it so it will wait till after I reintroduce corn.

Saturday will be hummus, I think. Will the excitement never end? :-)

[ArtFossil]

PostW30 day 5, Sunday: It's hummus day!

 

OK, it's not the ideal weather for it (it should be snowing and instead it's pouring rain and 40 degrees, reminding me of the worst of winter in Portland, Oregon) but I'm still looking forward to trying some hummus (with balsamic vinegar, cucumbers, kalamata olives, tomatoes and bell peppers) as part of M3 today.

 

My classes ended on Wednesday, and I set a new personal best by having all my grades completed and posted and emailed to students by Friday. This is unheard of for me.

 

Saturday I worked in my studio in a long session, and this is an interesting challenge because the project I'm working on involves stand-iron-cut-sit-sew-stand-iron-cut for about a million iterations and I get to apply all my Pilates training so that I don't aggravate my chronic hip pain. 

 

Because of my physical work load and the psychological stress of the last two weeks (I DO get invested in my students' learning and want them to succeed), I was very tired this morning. I got up at 7 AM to feed the cats, then went back to bed to "rest my eyes" and then woke up at 11:30! So, only two meals today.

 

The cool part is, after eating "breakfast" I felt really, really good all afternoon. I didn't have that "f--k it, I'll just sit here and watch Netflix and eat" letdown I've had in some years past. Hooray! And thank you, Whole30.

[ArtFossil]

PostW30 day 8, Wednesday: kale and broccoli salad day!

Continuing the slowest of slow rolls, today I had a favorite salad from Trader Joes, which, in addition to the kale and broccoli and chicken, has a dressing I love. The dressing has some sugar and soybean oil OR canola oil. So in some sense it falls into the "relax about added sugar" part of the slow roll reintroduction, but I didn't have any soybean or canola oil on my Whole30 that I know of, so I wanted to give it it's day.

The salad was fabulous and I continue to feel great.

I am considering corn on day 11, as I do miss it and I want to see how I react, especially to something like corn chips.

Meanwhile, I've been thinking about how and what I want to eat going forward.

I've been reading interesting discussions about how much some people love the Whole30 but struggle after it's over. They go "off road" and have trouble finding their way back.

The word "control" comes up a lot. Some say they love feeling in control and they love not having to make decisions about food when on a Whole 30 and they lament their food choices post Whole30 and feeling out of control.

I have a little different take on my Whole30 and my post Whole 30 life. (And this is my personal take).

I really am not looking for control. For me, (and again, this is for me), "control" implies too much rigidity and has too many connotations of all or nothing type thinking. Of being "good" or "on a diet" or "clean" and then being "bad" and "blowing it," leading to a "what the hell attitude" and feeling stuck or powerless.

I have realized that I don't want control, I want balance. I want to make choices about my food and observe the consequences and adjust my choices based on those consequences. I want balance, which is a dynamic process of a little this way, then a little that way; more of this, now more of that . . . . (I think about the challenge of standing still on the bosu in Pilates and how that requires tiny adjustments, again and again, to keep the weight equal on each leg.)

I enjoyed my Whole30 because I saw its rules as a challenge, and a 30 day experiment which could give me important information about how I feel without certain foods and then, in the reintroduction phase, how I feel if I add them back..

The important thing for me about my Whole30 wasn't that I didn't have to make decisions but rather that, within the basic structure of the Whole30, I could make so many decisions about what I chose to eat. This flexibility helped me not to feel deprived. I felt relaxed about food and about eating. I want to keep these relaxed feelings and lack of deprivation.

I love structure and because because I love structure I want to design a structure for myself and my own nutrition that supports my health goals and my life goals and helps me have balance in my life.

I have structures in my studio practice that keep me on track and help me work toward my goals. The structures I have in place don't repress my creativity, they support it. I know in in my studio that perfection is impossible. Instead, I do my best with the intention to improve, and seek excellence, not perfection, which brings both failures and successes. I practice "little and often" and understand that any process takes . . . time.

I want to put some structures in place in my nutrition that function in a similar way.

I expect I will have "what the hell" moments in my eating just as I have "what the hell" days in my studio. But I don't want those to occur every day for weeks on end, or even every week but to be rare events.

I know that I "can" eat anything. And I want my eating to nourish me and yes, give me pleasure. I'm happy that I get to choose what I eat and I just want to gradually find my way toward making choices the vast majority of the time that are good ones for me.

[SimpleNotEasy]

PostW30 day 8, Wednesday: kale and broccoli salad day!

Continuing the slowest of slow rolls, today I had a favorite salad from Trader Joes, which, in addition to the kale and broccoli and chicken, has a dressing I love. The dressing has some sugar and soybean oil OR canola oil. So in some sense it falls into the "relax about added sugar" part of the slow roll reintroduction, but I didn't have any soybean or canola oil on my Whole30 that I know of, so I wanted to give it it's day.

The salad was fabulous and I continue to feel great.

I am considering corn on day 11, as I do miss it and I want to see how I react, especially to something like corn chips.

Meanwhile, I've been thinking about how and what I want to eat going forward.

I've been reading interesting discussions about how much some people love the Whole30 but struggle after it's over. They go "off road" and have trouble finding their way back.

The word "control" comes up a lot. Some say they love feeling in control and they love not having to make decisions about food when on a Whole 30 and they lament their food choices post Whole30 and feeling out of control.

I have a little different take on my Whole30 and my post Whole 30 life. (And this is my personal take).

I really am not looking for control. For me, (and again, this is for me), "control" implies too much rigidity and has too many connotations of all or nothing type thinking. Of being "good" or "on a diet" or "clean" and then being "bad" and "blowing it," leading to a "what the hell attitude" and feeling stuck or powerless.

I have realized that I don't want control, I want balance. I want to make choices about my food and observe the consequences and adjust my choices based on those consequences. I want balance, which is a dynamic process of a little this way, then a little that way; more of this, now more of that . . . . (I think about the challenge of standing still on the bosu in Pilates and how that requires tiny adjustments, again and again, to keep the weight equal on each leg.)

I enjoyed my Whole30 because I saw its rules as a challenge, and a 30 day experiment which could give me important information about how I feel without certain foods and then, in the reintroduction phase, how I feel if I add them back..

The important thing for me about my Whole30 wasn't that I didn't have to make decisions but rather that, within the basic structure of the Whole30, I could make so many decisions about what I chose to eat. This flexibility helped me not to feel deprived. I felt relaxed about food and about eating. I want to keep these relaxed feelings and lack of deprivation.

I love structure and because because I love structure I want to design a structure for myself and my own nutrition that supports my health goals and my life goals and helps me have balance in my life.

I have structures in my studio practice that keep me on track and help me work toward my goals. The structures I have in place don't repress my creativity, they support it. I know in in my studio that perfection is impossible. Instead, I do my best with the intention to improve, and seek excellence, not perfection, which brings both failures and successes. I practice "little and often" and understand that any process takes . . . time.

I want to put some structures in place in my nutrition that function in a similar way.

I expect I will have "what the hell" moments in my eating just as I have "what the hell" days in my studio. But I don't want those to occur every day for weeks on end, or even every week but to be rare events.

I know that I "can" eat anything. And I want my eating to nourish me and yes, give me pleasure. I'm happy that I get to choose what I eat and I just want to gradually find my way toward making choices the vast majority of the time that are good ones for me.

 

This. Especially the bolded sentences stood out to me.

 

I want balance. Yes. I want to design a structure for my nutrition that supports my health and goals and helps me to have balance in my life. Yes. I just want to gradually find my way toward making choices the vast majority of the time that are good ones for me. Amen! 

 

Let's continue to converse about these ideas, Art. Thank you for putting these into words. This helps me identify what I want, as well. 

[AmyS]

I love your logs here, and also your website! (Also, I teach music at my local university, and I haven't finished grading yet, so I'm very jealous!!!) Thanks for your thoughtful writing about balance and how to live a life that is full of life. 

[JenHZ]

Your take on life and W30 is very inspiring.

[thegoldengrahamgirl]

I want to design a way of eating that is nourishing, satisfying, sustainable and yes, pleasurable. I want my food to fuel my creative work and I don't want to be derailed by between meal hunger, or cravings or emotional eating or digestive issues or low energy. I want my food to fuel my activity as I continue to stretch, strengthen and move my body and I want to have plenty of restorative relaxation and sleep. I want to eat in a way that I continue to release weight until I am at a weight I have determined which is healthy and which will best serve my lifestyle goals.

 

The word "control" comes up a lot. Some say they love feeling in control and they love not having to make decisions about food when on a Whole 30 and they lament their food choices post Whole30 and feeling out of control.

I have a little different take on my Whole30 and my post Whole 30 life. (And this is my personal take).

I really am not looking for control. For me, (and again, this is for me), "control" implies too much rigidity and has too many connotations of all or nothing type thinking. Of being "good" or "on a diet" or "clean" and then being "bad" and "blowing it," leading to a "what the hell attitude" and feeling stuck or powerless.

I have realized that I don't want control, I want balance. I want to make choices about my food and observe the consequences and adjust my choices based on those consequences. I want balance, which is a dynamic process of a little this way, then a little that way; more of this, now more of that . . . . (I think about the challenge of standing still on the bosu in Pilates and how that requires tiny adjustments, again and again, to keep the weight equal on each leg.)

I enjoyed my Whole30 because I saw its rules as a challenge, and a 30 day experiment which could give me important information about how I feel without certain foods and then, in the reintroduction phase, how I feel if I add them back..

The important thing for me about my Whole30 wasn't that I didn't have to make decisions but rather that, within the basic structure of the Whole30, I could make so many decisions about what I chose to eat. This flexibility helped me not to feel deprived. I felt relaxed about food and about eating. I want to keep these relaxed feelings and lack of deprivation.

I love structure and because because I love structure I want to design a structure for myself and my own nutrition that supports my health goals and my life goals and helps me have balance in my life.

 

I expect I will have "what the hell" moments in my eating just as I have "what the hell" days in my studio. But I don't want those to occur every day for weeks on end, or even every week but to be rare events.

I know that I "can" eat anything. And I want my eating to nourish me and yes, give me pleasure. I'm happy that I get to choose what I eat and I just want to gradually find my way toward making choices the vast majority of the time that are good ones for me.          

 

Love, love, LOVE the bolded stuff (and all the other stuff) above!!

 

Thanks, ArtFossil!  You put my thoughts into your words more eloquently than I could!

 

-Lauren

[ArtFossil]

This. Especially the bolded sentences stood out to me.

 

I want balance. Yes. I want to design a structure for my nutrition that supports my health and goals and helps me to have balance in my life. Yes. I just want to gradually find my way toward making choices the vast majority of the time that are good ones for me. Amen! 

 

Let's continue to converse about these ideas, Art. Thank you for putting these into words. This helps me identify what I want, as well.

Thank you SimpleNotEasy. I'd like that!

[ArtFossil]

I love your logs here, and also your website! (Also, I teach music at my local university, and I haven't finished grading yet, so I'm very jealous!!!) Thanks for your thoughtful writing about balance and how to live a life that is full of life.

Thank you, AmyS. I am learning as I go. Which, at my age, is somewhat LOL. :-)

If it's any consolation, I had to go to a University committee meeting today, to review teaching award applications. 400 pages worth!

[ArtFossil]

Love, love, LOVE the bolded stuff (and all the other stuff) above!!

 

Thanks, ArtFossil!  You put my thoughts into your words more eloquently than I could!

 

-Lauren

Thanks, Lauren! This food and eating stuff is . . . tricky, isn't it? I've had years where it wasn't a problem and YEARS where I got derailed by . . . life and the result was an unhealthy mixture of fatigue and becoming sedentary and emotional eating and . . . . It's hard to unravel that. There are so many strands.

 

I'm glad (now) that I HAD to start exercising 11 months ago. I would usually think, "oh, I'll get the food part resolved and lost weight and THEN I'll exercise, and that didn't work out very well. :-) I'm finding, for me, it's easier to get the exercise part going and THEN address the food part of the equation. I do get a lot of joy from moving. Especially once "moving" became so painful last year because of my hip. But chronic pain is a GREAT motivator. (This falls into "the jokes just write themselves" category.) It did make me wake up about my neglected health.

 

I do feel really good now, chronic pain and all.

[ArtFossil]

Your take on life and W30 is very inspiring.

Thanks, Jen. I'm a work in progress . . . .

[ArtFossil]

PostW30 day 11: corn day!

 

I forgot this is a reintroduction day and so I had to make a trip to the store, LOL.

 

I picked corn for today. Partly because there is corn in Amy's Black Bean soup, and corn in some of the soups I love from the vegetarian/vegan soup place in town, and I'm also thinking ahead to the possibility of some goat cheese and corn chips.

 

So today I'm eating a serving of corn chips (12!) with salsa, some canned corn, and yes, some popcorn.

 

I enjoy corn chips and popcorn but neither one are foods that I tend to eat too frequently or overeat. We'll see how it goes.

 

With everything I reintroduce, I look at how I feel, whether I enjoyed it, and whether it's a food that I might want to eat either too frequently or in unlimited quantities.

 

It's day 11 post Whole30 and I dropped another two pounds. I'll also be monitoring my weight as I go on. I don't care how slowly I lose weight, just that the arc is going downward. This is because losing weight is part of my preparation for a hip replacement this summer.

[ArtFossil]

I'm a baseball fan. And a Yankees fan and so I loved this article about Yankees first baseman Mark Teixeira and his no-gluten diet. At first, he was mocked mercilessly on the Yankees blog I frequent but when he showed up this year in such great shape and had such a good season, there were calls to make player gluten-free!

 

Note that Teixeira also eliminated dairy and refined sugar and that he made these changes to reduce the inflammation in his body.

 

http://www.modernwellnessguide.com//news/yankees-mark-teixeira-scores-big-by-going-gluten-free?utm_source=bowsprit

[ArtFossil]

PostW30 day 12

My corn reintro day (yesterday, Saturday) went well. (Corn chips with salsa as part of M2; popcorn as part of M3.)

I enjoyed the crunch of the chips but didn't want any more than my serving of 12. I put the popcorn in a "small" bowel (this means it wasn't my biggest mixing bowl!) and didn't eat it all. It was part of my weird dinner of tuna salad and avocado and broccoli. Again, the crunch was enjoyable.

I didn't have any bad experiences or side effects.

I have no idea--yet--what I'll reintroduce on Tuesday or on Friday (Christmas) but I'm sure it will come to me! This week is a welcome holiday in that I don't have Pilates and have only 2 water exercise classes! Hooray for a break!

[ArtFossil]

Post W30 day 14 (Tuesday, posted Wednesday) - Solstice celebration!

 

OK, the Solstice was at 10:49 PM last night but I was in bed . . . .

 

The Solstice is absolutely my favorite day of the year (reinforced by the years I spend in Fairbanks, Alaska) and I listened to my usual holiday mix of the Bach Christmas Oratorio and . . . Motown.

 

Today was the Day of Cheese from Goat and Sheep.

 

I had a kale salad with feta (Whole Foods) with my lunch, which was accompanied by a rotisserie chicken ($2 off on Tuesdays; learned this from my water exercise companions; who says exercise doesn't have benefits?) and zucchini/summer squash.

 

For dinner, I  began with a party (of one) plate of olives, cashews and a small piece of goat gouda and a small piece of locally made goat cheese with herbs. Delicious!

 

I wanted to try sheep/goat before dairy as my acupuncturist thinks these are fine but dairy is to be avoided. (I don't always take his advice. :-) )

 

I don't take pictures of my food but I'm including pictures of these cheeses . . . .

 

They were delicious! Or, as Andy Pettitte, one of my baseball boyfriends, used to say after a game: "It was good. I pitched good. I felt good. It was really good."

 

Most importantly, I completed an important phase of a project, only one day behind my own deadline! I'm a sculptor but I've been working with cloth in various forms for the last 20 (!) years. I'm not a quilter, although I make things that are quilted and I swore I would never "piece" a quilt (I'm not counting the pillows, place mats and tree skirt I made in the 70's). 

 

This kind of "never" is usually the kiss of death for me and sure enough, I'm now making a life size, pieced and quilted, reversible "prairie skin" which has circular flaps and can wrap a human (a/k/a the human burrito). 

 

The exterior requires 57 twelve inch pieced squares (all different). I was on square 23 in August and finished square 57 yesterday. I celebrated by cleaning my studio and reorganizing fabric and that's when I realized that one of my work tables has been covered with the fabrics for this phase for 18 months. Yes, I am slow. And, I intentionally design labor intensive processes . . . .

 

So, a very joyous day.

 

[thegoldengrahamgirl]

Yay!  Celebrating with you!  It's Christmas Eve here now as I read this...

 

Goat cheese sounds lovely.  I'm eyeing a gift box of (ironically) Belgian chocolates that landed on my desk yesterday.  I'm sure there are milk ingredients (along with the sugar).  I still haven't even baked my "Paleo" gingerbread cookies - tonight's project.  And now that I have compliant coconut milk (go figure I would find it AFTER the Whole30), I'm making some coconut milk hot chocolate. THAT will be indulgent!

 

Cheers,

 

-Lauren

[kirkor]

Or, as Andy Pettitte, one of my baseball boyfriends, used to say after a game: "It was good. I pitched good. I felt good. It was really good."

[ArtFossil]

High-larious!

[ArtFossil]

Post W30 day 17

 

Happy holidays, Whole30 peeps!

 

I'm off-roading some today. I had Moroccan Tomato soup from the local vegetarian/vegan soup place for lunch today. This soup is spicy and delicious and incomparable. (I had to buy it on Wednesday, the one day they're open this week). It has peanut butter in it, and I've already done legumes and it has a little sugar (which I ignore as falling into the "small amount of added sugar"category, although I did make a point of devoting a day to a commercial dressing with sugar since I hadn't had any until then). I also had . . . a cheese scone. Also incomparable and it has, of course, some cheese and gluten grains. (Think of a cross between a croissant and a scone). Depending on how or if I react, I'll repeat this meal for M3, then back to two days of template eating. (I'll count this in the gluten category.)

 

I'm spending a good portion of my long holiday in my studio, and yesterday I started on phase 2 of my prairie skin project and completed a BIG studio cleanup. Supplies and materials are back where they should be and my floor is mopped and order is restored. (The photo is just a tiny portion of my bins. I cleared out a ton of stuff I don't need now, and I now have an empty bin!)

 

Today, to "celebrate" I boxed up a few books to sell to Amazon and a ton of books to donate to the local library foundation. This is another chink in my decluttering/simplifying project and very gratifying.

 

And the scale moved down again, which is the direction I intend for it to move in, so hooray!

[SimpleNotEasy]

Hi Art - 

 

Your shelves in your studio look so nice & tidy. Hooray for an empty bin! Double hooray for the scale continuing to move down. You are going to be so ready for that hip replacement surgery in May. 

 

How did your gluten experiment go yesterday?

[ArtFossil]

Hi Art - 

 

Your shelves in your studio look so nice & tidy. Hooray for an empty bin! Double hooray for the scale continuing to move down. You are going to be so ready for that hip replacement surgery in May. 

 

How did your gluten experiment go yesterday?

My studio is organized with the obsessiveness of the ADD-inflicted. It's a strategy that helps me juggle a lot of different projects and still have space to have a thought. (When I was in graduate school for my MFA, one of my committee members and a mentor to me said, "Elizabeth, you don't have to APOLOGIZE for having a neat studio.")

 

M2 with the tomato soup and the cheese scone was great! For meal 3, I added broccoli (will the party never end?) and olives. The really interesting thing was I could only eat a small amount of the soup and a few bites of scone #2 before satiety set in and I was done. 

 

No digestive or other upsets.

 

What's great is that the satiety I rediscovered during Whole30 is still intact. This is something I haven't really experienced in about 8 years but certainly was familiar with for long periods in my life before that. 

 

It is just so terrific to have that "I'm done!" signal back! This does NOT mean I can't still make poor food choices and it doesn't mean I might emotionally eat but it does mean that there is a wide variety of foods out there that I won't overeat. It also doesn't mean I'm going to test it with potato chips (at least not yet) as that may be an example of a food with no brakes for me, satiety be damned.

 

My next reintro day is Monday and I'm pondering a dairy day, with some blue cheese (a roasted beet salad from Trader Joe's) and—perhaps—a whole milk latte flat white from Starbucks. I'll ponder about the coffee as I haven't had milk in my coffee for over six weeks . . . . but I'll probably test cow cheese for sure.

 

The other thing I want to get to is soy, and perhaps the tofu dish from my favorite Chinese restaurant. I'll ponder this as well.

[AmyS]

I'm really enjoying reading your log and following your thought processes. I teach music at my local university, and at some point I'd very much like to move into a smaller living situation and have a life outside of the work I do at the university - and somehow Whole30 feels like a part of that shift. So reading your log always brings a smile to my face. Very inspiring, thank you!