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Starting Today.... Looking for group support!


PaolaA

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Hey there! Welcome!

I finished my Whole30 a few weeks back, and I have a very large, imposing, nasty Sugar Dragon. If I can make a suggestion: cut out fruit, or at least cut back. My cravings lessened significantly once I cut fruit back to 1x/week because I realized I was just substituting natural sugar for the processed sugar I was craving. Just a suggestion :) Might shut the Sugar Dragon up a bit.

Best of luck!

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Thanks for replaying .... I do have to acknowledge that fruits bring me the sweetness that you mentioned .... It is a good advice ... I will start as of tomorrow to reduce them from my meals. Let's see how it goes .... Looks like a long way but 100% committed this time 

 

I have also subscribed for a 10k in 6 weeks so another good reason to start and finish ... I need to be fit and full of energy 

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Hi there!!

I started today as well with the primary goal of taming that sugar dragon. I feel like an addict and am scared I am in danger of going over that edge where it gets very hard to pull yourself out. I'm not overweight and don't eat much processed food (aside from all things sweet!) but I feel myself getting into a rut of poor food choices, becoming lethargic and unmotivated, then heading out for some ice cream to make me feel better. I am hopeful this will realign my relationship with food and even out my energy levels a bit. I am armed with an arsenal of recipes and made sure I planned in prep time this month. I am going to have fun with it!

You got this!!!

 

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Gardner177 looks like we will be supporting each other .... I have to admit in my case it is not about loosing weight neither, but getting the strength to stop snacking or having the need to have 'the sweet' after a meal 

 

I started last time and ended up substituting my afternoon snack for nuts and then could not stop eating them and finished a full bag. So obvious no question why I did not see or feel any results 

  

I am not concerned about the 3 meals as I am very good at veggies, love eggs and have no issues of not eating pasta or bread or any type of this stuff... I have already stop having dairy and change to coconut milk and yogurts .... My challenge is not to have the in between meals snack as I am used to eating 5 times a day ... and I think this is what keep my sugar dragon so alive 

 

let's see how I manage ... For now I am heading to have my morning coffee and eggs frittata .... Then for lunch I will definitely include a starch like sweet potato to give me the energy to go all the way till dinner :wacko::wacko::wacko:

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13 hours ago, Staggolee41 said:

Hey there! Welcome!

I finished my Whole30 a few weeks back, and I have a very large, imposing, nasty Sugar Dragon. If I can make a suggestion: cut out fruit, or at least cut back. My cravings lessened significantly once I cut fruit back to 1x/week because I realized I was just substituting natural sugar for the processed sugar I was craving. Just a suggestion :) Might shut the Sugar Dragon up a bit.

Best of luck!

Just to echo this advice, cutting back fruit has made the biggest difference for me in operation slay sugar dragon!  Still a work in progress but I realize now that I was overeating fruit to compensate for sugar.  Now I have a maximum of two servings per week, and always with a meal, never as a snack.  In fact, I don't snack anymore.  Good luck with your W30!!!

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So day 1 was a breeze (as expected according to the timeline); I felt satisfied all day which kept cravings at bay. When the BF asked if I wanted a snack after dinner, I was able to easily decline.  I took a decent walk (I live in TX and it is pretty darn hot this time of the year, so my outdoor exercise is pretty much limited to walking at the moment!) and fought the urge to nap after work (which has become a habit over the past few months and I tend to do it even if I'm not sleepy!).  

On a regular day, I eat pretty well with generally a decent fat / protein / veggie balance so I've only had to modify my meals slightly to get rid of that sneaky sugar and other unfavorable ingredients companies like to slip into condiments. My big hurdle is going to be eating well all day AND choosing not to top off my success with an ice cream sundae:). 

So far for day 2, I feel pretty good. I am fixing to sit down to lunch (super hearty salad with mixed greens, sliced steak, avocado, vinegar picked onions, lemon chive vinaigrette, green beans, and a tiny bit of tart cherries). Luckily I live just a mile or so away from our local grocery store because I foresee needing to stop there few days to replenish the fresh stuff. 

Hope you all are doing well so far on your journey! 

 

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Day 2 is gone .... good meal balance and a 6.3km run but I was starving after dinner - just about to go to bed- and I have to admit I went down to explore my cubboard ... Luckily did not have anything interesting to eat - so just closed it and drank two glasses of water ... And the BF just went away and stopped bothering for today 

Thanks for reinforcing the advice about cutting fruit.... It is looking tricky but I will start at least once a day - I have always enjoy fruit during breakfast - let's see ... To take it down to twice a week ... Uhhhhhh

 

Thanks for the support ... This is exactly what I need ... Good luck garner177 during the rest of the day in sunny TX ... Here is it a cold week during summer :wacko:

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Day 3 yes... It feels good !!! 

M1:  egg tortilla with baby potatoes, chicken, olives, 1/2 avocado + 1/2 green apple

M2: 1/4 chicken Brest with salad (lettuce, broccoli, aubergine, carrots)

M3:  cauliflower rice ... Amazing ... I love it ... And will love it forever!!! I really encourage you to try it!! + compliant sausages 

 

I feel satisfied :Dand with great spirit...  Hope you continue to do well 

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@PaolaA - make sure you are adding fat all of to your meals. Cooking fat barely counts.  Your lunch today also seems really small. 1/4 chicken breast is a very small amount and salad, unless it's enormous (think mixing-bowl-sized) is not enough food.

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@ladyshanny Thanks for the advice. I thought that it was either cooking fats and sometimes eating fats but not always. I did not mentioned I ate cashew nuts while preparing the food as I was starving ... So I guess that counts for the eating fats. I will include them now for sure. What is the limit of avocado per day? 

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Day 3 down!! 

I always eat quite a bit of volume, but I've beefed my meals up a bit more to ensure I don't feel the need to snack and it is working great. I find the meal template really well proportioned (obviously why they made it that way) and I am full for hours following meals, which never happens (I tend to be a grazer). 

I haven't experienced any of the expected day 3 tribulations and count myself as very lucky!! This is my second Whole30 and on the first round (several years ago), I went into it with a much less healthy diet and experienced the typical "symptoms". I attribute the smoother transition to better diet, but have prepared myself for the ball to drop just in case. 

I've got my food all prepped for tomorrow and hope I can stay on the upswing! I hope you all are killing it! Keep it up!

 

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Another day ... Day 4... And I really like that I have started to get creative on the kitchen. Even my husband enjoyed the meals today and was telling some friends that I did some pretty good meals today ... My daughter loves the kale chips for lunch and I was so happy she did not complain while eating the veggies 

Here for some inspiration; 

M1: veggie quiche with hash brown crust - I really recommend it

http://thenourishinghome.com/2015/06/veggie-quiche-with-hash-brown-crust/

M2: shrimp salad with lettuce, avocado, vine tomatoes, pine nuts with kale chips - my daughter loves the chips so great recipe also 

http://www.justpaleofood.com/foolproof-kale-chips-whole30-friendly/

M3: I ate at a restaurant so ordered a seafood grilled platter ... Only salt with sautéed potatos and spinach ... Very proud I did not wanted to touch the bread and felt very satisfied with sparkling water only 

 

yessssss :P

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3 minutes ago, PaolaA said:

M1: veggie quiche with hash brown crust - I really recommend it

http://thenourishinghome.com/2015/06/veggie-quiche-with-hash-brown-crust/

M2: shrimp salad with lettuce, avocado, vine tomatoes, pine nuts with kale chips - my daughter loves the chips so great recipe also 

http://www.justpaleofood.com/foolproof-kale-chips-whole30-friendly/

Those meals sound absolutely delicious!

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That quiche looks super tasty and nice and portable for breakfast! 

Luckily I love cooking because I've certainly been spending a fair amount of time in the kitchen. It is my favorite hobby, but I can see how prepping all of this food could be tough if you were a busy family! I am having fun with it, and like Paola, am enjoying new recipes. I made a big batch of Thai meatballs the other day with a curry coconut sauce which is really easy to heat up and toss over some spaghetti squash with roasted broccoli (which I make huge batches of because I can pretty much eat it with any meal).  I also made a large batch of Tomato Watermelon Gazpacho a few days ago which I've found to be a really nice refreshing side along a veggie omelet with guacamole!  

I'm so pumped that you all are doing well! You should be proud of yourself - saying no to nice, warm bread is like blowing off a longtime friend for those of us addicted to carbs and sugar! It is nice to have a choice rather than your body taking over:).

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I started on Monday, too :) 

I am Bronwyn, a 29 year old Food Programmer and student from Toronto. This is my second Whole30. I have majorly fallen off-track with my eating over the summer, and want to get back to a healthy place re: my relationship with food before school starts in the fall.

End of Day 4 over here and I am feeling good! The brain fog I've been experiencing has lifted. I must say, the first day was the hardest. But it has all been uphill from here. I started posting in another thread, but this one looks way more active!

M1: http://balancedbites.com/content/paleo-avocado-toast/ with 2 sunny side up eggs, cabbage slaw with ranch

M2: Mustard glazed chicken thighs, cauliflower mash, sauteed kale and a cup of mixed fruit

M3: Sweet potato coins topped with pork carnitas from the W30 book (SO GOOD), topped with salsa, guacamole and even more slaw. 1/2 a glass of kombucha.

What's everyone's plans for the weekend!? 

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@Bronwyn super welcome and great you are on the right track. I have to admit that the forum is an amazing idea. I felt off track the first time I tried but I am finding that group support makes a huge difference, it is keeping motivated while also getting great advices from the moderators is super important. I think that last time I did I was not using the meal template correctly ... Then I felt hungry most of the time 

 

I love this idea of sharing recipes... I will definitely will have those avocados toast...

I am not very good at the kitchen... I am from Colombia , working mom, always used to have help at home at the house and with the kids (the beauty of developing markets) and we moved to the UK one year ago. Never cooked in my life before and I am founding it challenging as Gardner said... For the time consuming it is ... But as I said it is also fun. Definitely making huge batches is also important. I am having again some of the delicious quiche again for breakfast 

 

I have a challenging weekend ahead as we are going to the beach so mostly will be eating out in restaurants ... But good I do not have to cooked. So when I am back on Sunday definitely will prepare my next week ahead ... 

So let's share recipes ... and drive some inspiration for the challenging days ahead 

 

Enjoy the weekend ☀️☀️

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hi everyone.. i am on day 3 and doing pretty good.. i hate cooking so its been a learning curve but i am motivated.. my husband just had gastric bypass and i opted for this.. we are on our way to a better more active life.. 

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Howdy @Bronwyn and @Misvic - Welcome to our humble thread, lol! 

I am a bit worried about the weekend, but  am going grocery shopping as soon as I get out of work so I will be armed with fresh food and there will be 0 excuses for anything less than 100% compliant. During the week, I have an extremely steady schedule and it is easy to plan out grocery shopping, meal prep, and all that other fun stuff; weekends are less mapped out, but I am going to try and keep my routine as close to my weekday routine as possible to give me an edge. 

Sweet potato coins with pork carnitas sound amazing! I am going to go with that (plus pork carnitas is a great thing to just throw in the oven and forget about while I'm cleaning the house!) and definitely another batch of Tomato Watermelon Gazpacho (I used this recipe: http://dailyburn.com/life/recipes/watermelon-tomato-gazpacho-recipe/ but roasted my tomatoes before adding them in - it gets better as it sits!). The carnitas will be good too because you can use it several dishes.

I don't have a food processor and was pretty sad because I've made homemade mayo before and loved it but thought I would have to forego it for this Whole30 because I am not going to go out and buy a food processor. I decided to experiment with trying to make it in my Ninja AutoIQ Blender and was able to get a really nice, thick, tasty mayo out of it! It was a bit tricky (partly because the volume of ingredients didn't come far enough up the blade) but with patience, it is possible. I threw an egg in the blender cup and let it hang out on the counter for about half an hour to come to room temp. I made my mayo a chili lime mayo, so I put in some lime juice, salt, pepper, chili powder, and about 1/4 cup of oil. I pulsed that for 2 or 3 pulses (I kept tilting the blender to it reached the blade), then took the cup off, added another tablespoon or so of oil, pulsed 1-2 times and repeated until it thickened up. It ended up being much faster than when I used to do it in the food processed (although much messier! ) and I don't think it took quite as much oil (I wasn't really paying attention to measurements) but was a really nice consistency and didn't separate at all even after storage. I only made it once, so perhaps it was an anomaly but I am going to make another batch this weekend so we will see! 

@PaolaA Have fun this weekend! I haven't been to the beach since I moved and miss it!  

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Hi all! This thread seems right up my ally too. I started on 8/10 so am on day 3 and doing MUCH better than the last two days.  @PaolaA & @gardner177 – I'm definitely in your boat. My first priority is taming the Sugar Dragon and recovering from some ill health effects from falling off of my healthy eating ways. Family meals are never a problem – except for when we eat out, I always tend to cook paleo-style meals for dinners and weekend breakfasts. It's when it's just me that I've started slacking off... little bits here and there, but mostly it's in the snacking – buying specialty pastries at the Farmers Markets, splurging a bit too much on ice cream, etc.

Cutting back on fruit seems to be good advice and I've considered it. Though I've also read that when it's super hot/summer, you might naturally gravitate towards fruit more often as it's in season. I love having blueberries with my breakfast! I don't know that I could cut back that much, but once/day would be doable for me... and keeping it with meals makes sense. Something my brother once shared with me (reads a lot on nutrition/digestion) is that if you have fruit with a meal you should eat it first (along with veggies) as they are faster to digest and if you eat them at the end of the meal, it will get stuck behind the harder to digest items (i.e., meat) and then ferment in the gut. That's kind of stuck with me.

LOVE the recipes. Can't wait to try the carnitas – pretty sure I'll make it this weekend. Today was a bit boring for me. Made a double-batch of scrambled eggs in ghee for breakfast with fresh mixed cherry tomatoes, green onions and cilantro topped with pico de gallo and drizzled with guajillo (hot) salsa. Then a side of blueberries and coffee with coconut milk. Then was too busy working to make another lunch so I had the rest of the eggs but with a side of giant green olives. Need to make more veggies tonight. I wasn't great about planning far ahead but am doing a full meal plan today and hitting the farmers market tonight!

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Good morning everyone!!! Starting Day 6... Almost a week! We need to feel very proud of ourselves :D

For the new ones on this thread... welcome! I am convinced now that group support will make a difference to take us until the end 

My breakfast was delicious ... To change the taste for so many eggs in the week ... Grain free apple cinnamon porridge... Without any vanilla to make it whole30 complaint (and my commitment to eat fruit for breakfast but not for the rest of the day)

http://thenourishinghome.com/2014/10/grain-free-cinnamon-apple-breakfast-porridge/

I saw the recipe beginning of the week but as @gardner177 did not have a food processor. But many of the recipes I have been searching ask to have one at hand. So went to Amazon and luckily found a very cheap one - refurbished - £4 only - I could not believe it as it was with a motor incluiding Turbo pulse ... So I thought was a good idea to buy it and give it a try. So breakfast was very nice!!! And looking forward to use my food processor for the Mayo recipe and many more ... A little of motivation I guess to continue trying new stuff l

Now on my way to the beach with a homemade chicken salad -  with a delicious vine ripe tomato and olives sauce... I am getting a bit hungry now so might eat it soon!!! 

 

Good luck for the rest on Day 6... I feel pretty good, no headaches or symptoms ... And Mr Dragon under control 

 

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Good morning!

I woke up this morning and noticed something odd; I am tall (5'10") and fairly thin (but not toned at all, lol) but could push out my belly and it would pop out and look like I was several months pregnant.  I've always had to consciously keep posture and keep my belly tightened so my stomach looked flat and the bottom didn't pooch out. This morning, my belly is flat - I can't even push it out to that pregnant look!  I always thought that puffiness was a product of me not really working out (I walk, but not much else) but now realize it may be more related to food and bloating. Very nice surprise and I hope it stays this way!

@bellamama810 - I hear you on the fruit thing! I LOVE fruit and always put a bit of mango on salads or throw some cranberries into homemade sausage but for me, emotionally, I realized that super sweet bite still triggered my sugar dragon. I decided to try avoiding fruit pretty much all together and after a few days found I no longer miss it and can really taste the sweetness in veggies like red peppers and tomatoes (although tomato is technically a fruit!). I will still incorporate some fruit into recipes but only if I can't pick it out of the dish and eat a piece on its own, like watermelon in gazpacho or fresh orange juice with pork roast. I was really hard but for what I am trying to accomplish, I think it was necessary for me. 

I was talking to my Mom earlier this week who also tries to eat healthy but tends to gravitate towards processed foods portrayed as healthy (flavored oatmeal packets, flavored yogurts, etc.) and while I don't necessarily think that is terrible although I think she is probably consuming a lot more hidden sugar than she thinks, she keeps saying that she is always hungry and still feels sluggish. I have been taking pictures of my food (because I am a nerd! I always try to make colorful and appealing for my own personal benefit - we eat with our eyes first) and sending them to her and she is so surprised at how much food I eat. She is contemplating using a similar template (she isn't prepared for a Whole30, but likes the concept of eating real food, actually feeling full, and minimizing processed stuff).

I got my grocery shopping done last night as I had hoped and am ready to tackle this next week!

(Breakfast: 4 egg omelete stuffed with 1/2 and avocado, a bunch of peppers, onions, & spinach sautéed in coconut oil topped with tomatoes)

FullSizeRender.jpg

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Another day ended for me ... I have to admit I do not feel as great tonight ... Not sure if was dinner ... I ate some  spaghetti squash with bacon, maybe it was the bacon as I am not use to eat it but it has been part of me trying new recipes. 

 

The weekend was fun, but I did rely a lot on complementing my meals with fruit as the choices were limited. This next week I will definitely will start cutting in out to every other day and then I will see if possible to take it down to 3 times a week 

 

@Misvic here it is a nice blog with great ideas on how to cook lots of food in badges to eat all week including nice recipes http://meljoulwan.com/2013/12/29/whole30-2014-week-1-meal-plan/

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