____Emily____

Day 8 - Jan 9 Breakfast (10am): two hard boiled eggs and iced coffee with compliant milk Lunch (1:30pm): Smoked salmon, diced cucumber, shredded carrot with the mayo + chili crunch. I also topped it with sesame seeds this time and tried to eat it scooped into the seaweed snacks I have, but they were too brittle so that didn't work. Dinner 1 (6:30pm): carrots and celery + guacamole; grapes Dinner 2 (9:15pm): Buffalo Chicken Casserole (I added approximately three tablespoons of mayo and extra hot sauce to make it more moist since my mix looked a little dry; turned out delicious). So, the story behind this: I went to a game night where we all bring food and eat during the night. It starts at 6:30 and I decided to make this casserole to bring so that I would have something filling and satisfying to eat, because I didn't expect anything else there to be compliant (I was wrong, someone brought grapes!). Turns out, the prep took much longer than expected - I went to put it in the oven and discovered I needed to leave in 20 minutes while the casserole takes 45-60 minutes to cook. So I left my husband with instructions to get it out of the oven for me after I left and instead brought the celery and carrots and guacamole (and I stopped to buy tortilla chips for people to eat with the guacamole since carrots and celery aren't normally guacamole accompaniments; I gave that bag away at the end of the night). Then I served myself some at the end of the night when I got home. Exercise: None How did I feel? The game night was tough - the food there is always delicious. And there are generally candy in dishes sitting along the table to snack on while we play as well. So I just munched on carrots and celery all night to keep my mind off the M&Ms sitting in front of me. I'm also super sore from Day 7's workout - in the Legs and Glutes class we did deadlifts and my hamstrings are so tight from that. I did some stretching, but I probably should have devoted a bit more time to it. Planning to get some light movement in on Day 9 to help ease the tightness

Agreed! I was worried it'd be dry after I mixed everything (I had a little over a pound of chicken and felt like I had extra cauliflower as well), so I added three spoonfuls of mayo and was very generous with my hot sauce. Turned out perfect! I ate it with extra hot sauce and compliant ranch because I love saucy foods. Unfortunately, I timed cooking the casserole very poorly - I put it in the oven 20 minutes before I had to leave for my gathering and it takes 45-60 minutes to cook . So I packed up carrots and celery, bought a party-sized guacamole, and left my husband with instructions to pull it from the oven. Glad my husband and I both liked it since it's going to be lunch for the next few days The primal kitchen and other compliant sauces are such a find! They can be expensive, but I justify buying a bunch since I'm saving so much on takeout

Day 7 - Jan 8 Breakfast (9:45am): two hard boiled eggs, then coffee at a coffee shop at around 10:15am (I brought along some of my compliant milk in a small container to add to my coffee) Lunch (2pm): Sauteed potatoes, peppers and onions + Cholula hot sauce; two scrambled eggs + salsa Dinner (7pm): Red Thai Curry (Red Thai Curry Paste + Coconut Milk + chicken + green pepper + onion + potatoes) with Spaghetti Squash nests Snack (9:30pm): Apple Slices with Almond Butter Exercise (4pm): Went to the gym and did 20 minutes of Pilates, 10 minutes of legs + glutes, 10 minutes of arms + shoulders, and 20 minute full-body stretch. Not sure if I said this before, but I use the Peloton app and have been doing their classes; I was going to walk on the treadmill, but my mom called me and I decided to finish up How did I feel? Day 7 was a decent day until the very end. I finally made it back to the gym, which I've been wanting to do regularly but didn't have the energy for up to this point. I wound up being super hungry about an hour or so after dinner, which was a surprise since we added potatoes to the curry. I tried to wait it out, assuming it was just my normal evening snack cravings, but I finally decided to eat something else around 9:30 because I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep if I was super hungry and trying to go to bed. Unfortunately, I wound up having some insomnia anyway and couldn't fall asleep until nearly 4am.

Let me know how you like it! I'm looking forward to it.

Hope everyone is having a good weekend! I had a couple of club meetings out and about (I'm in a lot of clubs, mainly book clubs) and managed to stay compliant. The first club was at a bar where there was literally nothing compliant on the menu, but since it was a bar where you walk up to order, I just didn't get anything. It was hard though because the food looked good (other people in my group got food). The second was at a coffee shop, so I packed along my compliant almond milk and ordered a plain coffee. I made sure to eat right before. Tomorrow I have a game night where I'll need to bring a dish. I've decided on this Buffalo Chicken Casserole, because I wanted something substantial in case it's the only thing I can eat at the party. I'll probably eat some food before the event begins as well so that I'm not super hungry regardless because normally there are a bunch of yummy (and very not-compliant) dishes there and I'll definitely be tempted.

Day 6 - Jan 7 Breakfast (11am): Shakshuka (We use the Mina brand and add two eggs per person; so easy and delicious) Lunch (2pm): Smoked salmon, carrots and guacamole Dinner (6:30pm): Camel Wings from Lebanese Taverna (Article about Whole30 Compliant Restaurants in the DC area) Exercise: None How did I feel? Pretty good overall. Not super hungry most of the day. I had my first real test as I had a club meeting at a sports bar. There was literally nothing on the menu I could eat - it was all fried foods and beer and wine. I was prepared to order an unsweetened iced tea or see if they had a sparkling water, but there wasn't waiter service at the table were we were seated so I wound up just not buying anything, which works because I don't like unsweetened iced tea or sparkling water, lol. The toughest part was watching the others in my group order big pretzels and burgers.... Thankfully I ate lunch right before I went so I wasn't hungry. I did chug like 24 oz of water to distract myself from their food

Congrats! That is a such an achievement. I have a Lara Bar in my pantry from last time I did Whole30. It's my emergency snack, so I usually only have like 1-2 the whole month. By mid-month it'll taste so sweet to you, almost too sweet Yep! Although I need to expand my herbal tea collection - most of the teas I like are black teas. I think I'm going to pick up some peppermint tea this weekend though

Day 5 - Jan 6 Breakfast (11am): One hardboiled egg (I got distracted by work and didn't think to eat til 11, so I just grabbed this to tide myself over); iced coffee with my almond milk. Lunch (1:30pm): I sauteed up some diced peppers and onions, diced chicken sausage, and then had two fried eggs on top Snack (6pm): This hardly counts, but I had a single dill pickle Dinner (8pm): Hot wings + the Primal Kitchen ranch and Sweet Potato Fries with an aioli (mayo + Southwest seasoning) Exercise: None How did I feel? Mostly fine, but I was having cheese cravings. This is a first for me - usually it's sugar I'm craving. But today I kept obsessing about how good cheese would be with everything.

According to the Whole30 timeline, this is totally normal around this time (they have it at days 6-7, but I personally think it's happening all the first week and we're not noticing until later thanks to the the sugar hangover), but I'm sure staying up late isn't helping. Sorry to hear about your family problems I've been having problems falling asleep at night and I'm wondering if I need to be more cautious about which teas I'm drinking in the evenings. I haven't really been thinking about it, but I think the caffeine from the black teas are possibly keeping me up.

I'll admit I think I've forgotten some of my food - I need to start recording it somewhere throughout the day Day 4 - Jan 5 Breakfast (10am): Two hardboiled eggs; Comfort and Joy black tea Lunch (12:30pm): I did the smoked salmon salad again, but I doubled the cucumbers and didn't do the carrot (too crunchy, but I may try it with shredded carrots); I tried using riced broccoli that I got from Costco to mimic rice since this feels a bit like a sushi or poke bowl, but once I microwaved it, I could tell the flavor profile just wasn't going to work, so I ate that by itself. Tea (5pm): Cardamon Cinnamon Herbal Tea Dinner (7pm): Primal Kitchen frozen Chicken Fried Riced Cauliflower. (This was actually really good - I didn't have high hopes for it after seeing it in the package, but it cooked up really nicely and easily); Salad with Barcelona Vinaigrette; Sliced Apples with almond butter (mixed a little cinnamon into the almond butter and that was tasty) Exercise: 5 minutes or so of abs; I was hoping to follow a Peloton Ab class, but my TV was not cooperating, so I just did some general ab moves How did I feel? It was a pretty unremarkable day. I felt a bit unmotivated to do anything, but it wasn't a bad day in general

I set a goal for myself to not snack during Day 3 after all of the snacking I did during Day 2 Day 3 - Jan 4 Breakfast (11am): Three hardboiled eggs; iced coffee with my almondmilk (although I wound up letting this go bad and had to dump it as I made my breakfast at 9am when I started my work day and didn't bother eating it til close to 11) Lunch (1:30pm): Salad with citrus zest dressing; a smoked salmon mixture I created on the spot - smoked salmon, diced cucumbers, diced carrots, dressed in Primal Kitchen mayo + chili crunch (turned out surprisingly good, although I wish I had sriracha instead of chili crunch); finished off with a cup of tea Dinner (7pm): Panang Curry (Mike's Organic Curry Love Penang Curry Paste + Coconut Milk) with chicken, green peppers and onions (we just ate this like a soup since we can't have rice and I've gone off cauliflower rice) "Snack" (8:30pm): Made another cup of tea (Teekanne Winterzeit tea) because I needed something to occupy my hands and mouth instead of a nighttime snack in front of the TV (habit I'm hoping I can break!) Exercise: None How did I feel? Not bad! I was a bit low energy and unmotivated most of the day, but that's fairly standard for me. I actually got really focused around 3pm and managed to finish some work I've been procrastinating since before the holidays. I'm hoping that'll happen again on Day 4, although maybe a little earlier since I'll be stuck in a meeting from 4-5pm.

Hope everyone had a good Day 3! I've set a goal for today of not snacking today and have so far succeeded. Sipping on some tea now to try to curb my urge to snack this evening. I'm not hungry, but I'm used to having some snacks in front of the TV, which is a habit I'd like to break

Day 2 is a notoriously tough day for me. Usually I get headaches, brain fog, and super intense cravings. For that day, I just snack a ton to help reduce the misery, so I'm going to skip the snack times and just list them at the bottom. Also, I didn't say this on Day 1, but I'm linking all my products the first time they're referenced for my reference next time I do a Whole30 round Day 2 - Jan 3 Breakfast (9am): Two hardboiled eggs (not enough - I'll up this to three moving forward); La Colombe Cold Brew (I'll just call this iced coffee moving forward - this is my go-to bottle iced coffee) with my almondmilk. Lunch (12:30pm): Two Chicken and Apple sausages (I'm blanking on the brand, but got them from Whole Foods. Very easy to microwave and eat); carrots and one Kirkland Signature Chunky Guacamole cup Dinner (7pm): Primal Kitchen Frozen Steak Fajitas with guacamole and Cholula hot sauce (My husband and I bought this last time we did Whole30 after seeing a few types at Whole Foods; it's... okay. It looks entirely unappetizing and we both added stuff to it for taste, but it was certainly edible. One of the benefits of Whole30 is the delicious and fresh food you eat daily and this just doesn't do it for me, but it does do it in a pinch); salad with Noble Made Citrus Zest dressing. Snacks (ALL day): Archer Mini Beef Sticks (I get these from Costco); Pure Organics Layered Fruit Bars (also Costco); Solely Mango and Orange Fruit Gummies (lol, also Costco); Gimme Seaweed Snacks; Dill Pickles (I think we just have the generic store brand); Tea (Both Republic of Tea - Apple Pie Chai and Comfort and Joy) Exercise: None How did I feel? ROUGH. I was in the office yesterday, which compounded the issues I normally have on Day 2. I keep candy in my office for my coworkers, and I also have a snack drawer for myself. I'll be leaving everything as is because I only go in once a week and my willpower will be even stronger next week. The organization I work for also occasionally puts on programs where we offer catering that we typically also get to eat, so I was sad to pass that up since the food is normally very good (I didn't look too closely yesterday, but it looks like steak medallions, rice, and salad, with mini cheesecakes for dessert). I did get to take home a bunch of free salad though! Like, a 2-3 gallon container of it (just lettuce, shredded carrots, shredded cabbage and tomatoes). So that'll be featured in a lot of my meals for the next few days

Hi Chloe, There are a group of us who also started on Jan 2nd over on the thread called Whole January. Come join us! I can only imagine how difficult it is to be in contact with noncompliant ingredients - both my husband and I are doing Whole30 so we've made sure to put away noncompliant ingredients. Good luck with the rest of your Whole30, regardless of whether tomorrow is Day 1 or Day 3!

Day 2 has been ROUGH for me. I expected this as I normally eat a bunch of sugar so going off it suddenly always hits me hard, usually gives me brain fog and a headache. I also had to go into my office today, which meant I had to get up about 1.5 hours earlier than normal and was surrounded by tempting noncompliant foods. I keep candy in my office for coworkers, so I was staring at that bowl pretty much all day lol. From experience, I know that I won't be tempted by that next week as my cravings are really only intense during week 1. I give myself grace during hard days like today and let myself have snacks I normally wouldn't, so for today that meant Solely: Mango and Orange Gummies and Pure Organics Layered Fruit Bars. I actually had both of those in my pantry from pre-Whole30 and was surprised to find they were compliant. I'm viewing them a bit like Lara Bars - technically the ingredients are compliant, but I'll avoid making them a normal part of my Whole30 round. After an evening of snacking, I'm now sipping away on some tea and hoping that'll kill the intense desire to eat sweets lol. Looking forward to having a better day tomorrow I was pretty tame with my potato seasoning - olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, and cayenne. I dip them in compliant ketchup normally, but I bought the Primal Kitchen ranch dip for our hot wings and wound up dipping the wedges in that instead. Batch cooking seems like a good idea! My husband and I have found some decent and easy meals we rely on, but it'd be nice to be able to just reheat something filling for dinner

Started round 4 yesterday. My goals this time are weight loss, reducing my sugar intake in the future; and regulating my cycle (I am TTC and have discovered that my cycle is really long, and often anovulatory) Day 1 - Jan 2 (All times for meals are approximate) Breakfast/Lunch (noon): Scrambled Eggs with sauteed peppers and onions; one Nespresso pod with about 4oz of Almond Breeze Unsweetened Coconut Vanilla Almond Milk Snack (3 pm): New Primal Turkey Meat Stick Snack (5pm): Two pickled beets from my Love Beets pack Dinner (6:30pm): 6 hot wings with Primal Kitchen Buffalo Sauce; Roasted potato wedges; dipping sauce: Primal Kitchen Ranch Dip (I think this may be new as I've never had it before, but it was delicious. Didn't taste much like ranch, but still super tasty with the wings and with the wedges) Exercise: - Went to the gym around 1pm - 20 minute upper body with hand weights; 20 minutes lower body with hand weights; 10 minute full body stretch; - Walked the dog for about 30 minutes around 4:30pm How did I feel? Today felt pretty easy. With this being my fourth round, I know what to expect and where to go in the store for the foods I need. Both the scrambled egg and hot wings are my go-to easy meals during Whole30. I started developing a headache right around bedtime, which is the expected sugar withdrawals.

Day one went well for me. I woke up late since it's a holiday and wound up having scrambled eggs with peppers and onions for brunch. Went to the gym for a little strength training and had a Chomps meat stick to tide me over to dinner (also snacked on some beets while cooking dinner). For dinner we had hot wings and roasted potato wedges. Today honestly felt easy, but I'm sure the sugar withdrawals will hit me soon

This is what I like to hear! Good luck to everyone on Day 1 tomorrow! I'm about to go hard boil a bunch of eggs in my new Instapot (Christmas gift). Hardboiled eggs are my go-to breakfast. I've lately been skipping breakfast, but I know I need to start my day off well to get through the day. I always really struggle with the sugar withdrawal during week 1 and I'm aiming to not rely on fruits to feed the dragon this time.

I'll be joining you all on the Whole30 this January with my husband. We were going to start Jan 1, but figure we'll make it a Monday start. This will be my 4th Whole30 (although I ended the second Whole30 a day early on day 30 with a bachelorette party). I have been TTC for about 7 months now, and I have discovered that I have long cycles, some of which are anovulatory. During my previous Whole30s, I had an IUD in and wasn't getting periods or tracking my cycle, so I'm hoping that I'll discover that Whole30 helps regulate my cycle. Regardless, I need something to get me into a good diet/exercise mindset and I find that Whole30 normally helps get me thinking about my body more than I have been Going to spend today cleaning out my pantry, fridge and freezer to prep for the month. Then we're going to Costco for some basics (eggs and mayo, mainly). I'll probably pick out some recipes and plan the meals for the next week as well. We're saving the trip to Whole Foods and the grocery store for Sunday.