LisaZ

I assume you have to eat these as finger foods because you're driving? Some ideas might be: Hard boiled eggs cooked and peeled in advance. Chopped veggies packed in a container. Nuts. Fruits peeled and chopped if needed. You might want to prep this food on the weekends in some of those divided containers. You could make it like those "to go" snack-y meals the coffee shops have--a couple of hardboiled eggs, some compliant meat or meat sticks, chopped veggies, some nuts or coconut flakes, and maybe a little fruit--try to get everything on the template in there. Ziploc makes these containers so you don't even have to spend much money on them. Also, can you take 10 minutes to heat something you've already prepped (egg and veggie frittata, for one, keeps a few days in the fridge) and sit and eat it before leaving for work? Is there a way to tweak this lifestyle even by a few minutes for the sake of your healthy eating?

I notice that most of the W30 cookbook recipes (and other recipes too) give a serving amount, and if there are 2 servings listed, you can just do the math and see how much protein, veggies, and fat that covers. For instance, if a soup recipe called for a pound of meat, and you normally eat 1/3 to 1/2 pound of meat at a W30 meal, then you'd need to eat a full 1/3 to 1/2 of that soup recipe to get your protein in. If an egg frittata recipe calls for 8 eggs, and you normally eat 3-4 eggs at a meal, then you need to eat about 1/2 of that entire frittata to get your protein in. You can break that down with the vegetables and fat too. Fat may be the main thing to watch out for, as the fat used in cooking is probably not enough. You could always add a handful or coconut or nuts, or an apple with almond butter, or something like that to the meal to get more fat.

I grew up in the '70s on Tang for breakfast. Yuck! No wonder I had so any cavities as a kid!

I will try more salt though...the only packaged foods I really ate before W30 are Canyon Bakehouse Gluten Free bread and oats in the form of homemade granola or meusli. As well as a sweet treat almost daily like dark chocolates and some cookies, etc. Oh, and cheese. And once a week pizza. So I guess those are a few packaged foods that probably had some salt I'm not now getting.

Oddly, I feel like I salt my food a lot. I'm eating bananas and avocados pretty much daily, and plenty of salt. I already searched the foot cramps topic, but I'm not sure I can add more. I will do an epsom salt bath tonight, as well as take some Natural Calm magnesium supplement. Thanks for the help though!

Thanks for asking this questions, @Aries287. I'm on Day 16 today (is that the exact same as you?!) and have been having the same low mood issues for several days too (long history of mild to moderate depression though none for several years). I'm on my second Whole30 and trying to eat more according to the template and fewer nuts/Larabars this time because I had an issue with that on the first round in January 2016 (although that W30 still ended up curing many digestive issues for me and was so successful in that way). I have also tried to cut back somewhat on starchy carbs, due to reading other forum q & a's, and I don't think that works for me. I think I need a starchy carb for almost every meal, and I'm going to add the sweet potatoes back in. I've had a banana most days, but I feel like that's not cutting it. I'm also experiencing some foot cramps and on the first W30 I had dizziness, which was helped with adding in a sweet potato every day. Please update us if you find anything that's helpful. I'd love to know.

I also love kombucha or sparkling water or club soda with limes as a "mocktail" type of drink. I feel like the ritual of a beverage--whether hot or cold--is even more important than the actual beverage. But I also know I prefer strong tastes over sweet in beverages, so I try to find compliant beverages that still taste good to me. Hot, strong coffee or tea, kombucha with ginger or even cayenne pepper, and club soda with limes and olives all have a nice feel and flavor to me. They help with cravings for the non-compliant stuff. The olives are also a great idea--I wish I liked eating olives more. As I'm on day 13 of my 2nd Whole30 (first one was in January 2016), I'm working even more this time on eating the meal template (enough protein+veggie+fat) for all three meals a day, and eating enough not to snack in between. You might want to tweak that as you go along too--so that the work time snack craving isn't so strong because you're so satisfied from your meals.

I'm sorry you've struggled so much! Do you enjoy cooking at all? Do you cook with any interesting flavors or techniques? You might try learning some new recipes and using some of the cookbooks with approved foods, like the Whole30 cookbooks (which are fantastic--I've never enjoyed food more since using W30 recipes) and Mel Joulwan's Well Fed books--plus many, many recipes free online if you google for Whole30 ideas. Cooking and tastes are so trial and error, and if you could think of it as playing around instead of serious business, you might enjoy it all more. Of course, food costs money so you don't want to waste too much. Taking a cooking class and learning basic techniques might help with that. I'm lucky in that my husband grew up in a family that cooks really, really well--whereas I did not, at all (my parents are pretty terrible, bland food cooks and eaters, to tell you the truth). So in the 22 years I've been married, I've learned so much from him and I'd say now I'm an even better cook than he is. He started by teaching my how to hold a knife and chop things, way back when we were dating. And it was like an epiphany! There are ways to do this correctly?! I remember thinking... Two key ingredients in my opinion: enough salt and enough health fats like olive oil, avocado oil, ghee, and coconut oil in the cooking. Don't be afraid of any of those ingredients, despite years of cultural brainwashing to the contrary. Salt is needed for flavor, and fat is needed for both flavor and vitamin absorption. That makes quite a difference in my enjoyment of foods. Good luck, and I hope you find some foods you love!

I'm 46, 5'5" and about 145 pounds, and I can eat this much per meal on the W30 (more than my husband, often!). It's hard to switch the mindset about this, I think. Two pieces of chicken seems gluttonous to me, but I used to not think twice about two slices of bread or a bun or 2 cups of pasta with a piece of chicken--and calorie-wise, all those things have higher energy density (calories) than the extra piece of chicken. Two plates of salad might just mean your body really wants a lot of greens right now! Which, to me, seems normal and good in the springtime. I think we've all been so brainwashed by the USDA Food Pyramid, which recommended we get the vast majority of our calories from grains, and it's hard to overcome that programming to eat enough and satisfying amounts of protein and veggies. But I feel so much better eating Whole30 style! And it really fixes my digestion, which gets so messed up from gluten.

@Gramma Susie, I haven't read to the end of this post yet but wanted to ask if anyone has ever suggested you do intense things to help with your intensity, rather than quiet things like yoga and meditation. My chiropractor recommends things like kickboxing or other more intense forms of exercise. We can't always meditate away the stress--sometimes we have to get it out of us! I haven't actually done any kickboxing, but I did go on a weeklong personal retreat at the Hoffman Institute in California 3 years ago, where we got to do a lot of intense expression of anger and other emotions over the course of the week, and it was an incredible, life changing process for me. We also did visualizations/meditations and lots of fun stuff that week, but I'm convinced I could not do that quiet and fun stuff so well if I hadn't had the chance to literally yell and bash a cushion with a baseball bat first. It sounds totally weird, and you don't have to do it that way, but are there forms of exercise and/or verbal expression that could make use of your intensity and that would interest you and be possible for your body?

Thank you, @Questforhappiness, for posting this thread. I'm on day 12 of my second Whole30 and while it's been easier than the first (January 2016) in many ways, I'm feeling more "blue" than I remember feeling last time. Being reminded to go look at the timeline really helped! It turns out those feelings are quite the norm on days 10 and 11, and I think I'm just not quite over it yet here on day 12. I feel like I'm more aware of the foods I'm missing this time, probably because I know even more so now that my body really needs me to eat like this for good and less like I have eaten my whole life--with lots of bread (gluten-free the last few years), oats, etc. I enjoyed a full year of better digestion after my first Whole30, but certainly didn't stick to the way of eating well at all (especially with the political situation in America this year calling for lots of comfort eating). I'm so thankful for that past year of better digestion, but now my body is telling me to get back to eating better...so here I am doing another Whole30. Anyway, I wanted to chime in here and add something about the being out with friends part. I read a great blog post by Melissa Joulwan of Well Fed fame, where she gave tips on going out. She said the first thing to do is get a club soda with lime slices and olives in your hands so that you're not left out of the "drinking" part entirely, but you're still compliant (I don't know about you, but I love club soda with lime and find it a great cocktail substitute when out--kombucha is another favorite for that). Then for the food, can you eat a burger wrapped in lettuce, with W30 compliant add-ons like pickles, mustard, onions, tomatoes, etc.? That still feels like "going out" food but it's usually compliant even when eating out. I know it's important to socialize with friends, so maybe there are other ideas for that part of it too? Again, just thanks for starting this thread. It's good to know we're not alone!

What did you find out about cravings? I am finding my tastebuds are reset so much too, in that fruit tastes like candy, and my black tea that I used to HAVE to have a little bit of sugar in now tastes almost too sweet without any sugar at all. It's weird! I'm nervous about reintroducing any sugars because I love this new, sugar-dragon-free me, but I know I'll eat something like dark chocolate at some point. I just don't want to go back down the slippery slope.

Thank you for asking this question! I'm trying to eat "Whole30-ish" while waiting to actually start the Whole30 in January, after the holidays. But I gave in to pizza night tonight! Friday night it's family tradition to eat pizza at home. I like that I don't have to cook or prep anything but the salad, and tonight I just couldn't get past that. I think I'll try the "meatza" idea but also Chipotle is a good option for Friday nights when I just don't want to cook. Anybody have any other ideas for a convenient, low or no prep meal on Friday nights that will compete with the kids' pizza? I'd love more ideas! Even reheating my Whole30 Italian meatballs (that I prepped ahead and have in the freezer) in jarred, compliant spaghetti sauce, just didn't cut it tonight. I need stuff I can just pull out of the fridge or freezer and not think about at all on Friday nights!

This is such an interesting thread! Thanks to all who have contributed. I'm "just" 45 and still pre-menopausal so I don't really quality for this thread, but I find all of your stories inspiring. We're changing our lives with this amazing way of eating!

Thanks for that! I use Pace Medium and was wondering about it--don't have a label to check now. It would be great if I could keep using it. And I'll know to stick to French's mustard. I just checked my favorite tea bags--Twinings English Breakfast--and according the their website it only contains tea. Thank goodness! I did see that my favorite little snack packs of cashews (Emerald brand) contains peanut oil, darn it. But their "natural almonds" is just almonds so I'll stick with those. It's good to keep hunting these things down!