time to start eating like a grownup and healing from old bad behaviors

[sheisaclerk]

Day 8- significantly less glamorous than days past, but fine enough, I guess.

 

TL;DR: right on schedule with the stupid template and suffering through anyway

 

Breakfast: neigh untouched mixed veg hash, avocado, and homemade turkey sausage-- I just couldn't choke it down. I ate the sausage (surprised I went with that over the veg!) but the avocado and hash went mostly to waste.

Lunch: left over cauliflower fried rice, a couple bites of the chicken salad I prepped for lunches this week, and some sweet potato fries

Dinner: Pot roast, vinegar cole slaw and smashed & fried baby sweet potatoes (bake them until tender, smash until about 1 inch thick, and flash them until crisp outside in a pan with ghee. so good).

 

I came seconds away from stirring ovaltine into coconut and cashew milk twice. I kept thinking to myself "come on. this whole30 thing is nuts. this type of militancy can't be good for you. what about the health brought by metered indulgences. I've had more than 9 cups of vegetables a day for the last week. what harm can it do. who would know-- who would care?" But, fortunately, I became too embarrassed by my fixation on a treat to follow through. I sounded like a junkie. It reminds me of how I used to justify smoking cigarettes because the "stress it mitigated would have done way more harm than a cigarette." (yeah right). I obviously DO have a psychological issue with sweets if I want one that badly. I'm perfectly well nourished (dare I say better nourished than I've been in years). I don't need one. I wasn't socializing or celebrating anything. I was just desperate for a treat. 

 

Mood's fine. Energy's fine. It's been snowing big, thick, snow globe flakes since about 11am, so I stayed lazy in the house with the exception for a few walks with the dog around the block (definitely under a mile for the whole day), some arm stuff with 5lb weights, russian twists, and 50 squat kicks (ouuuch). Still sleeping like garbage. Every day I wake up around sunrise, but I'm not rested and fall back asleep. I wonder if I should just start getting up at that ungodly hour.

 

The program is getting harder to follow because there's no magical newness or new results to drive me forward. I know what I'm doing-- I don't have to browse recipes or check and recheck the template to make sure my plate is on point. I'm bored. My skin cleared up so quickly-- I almost wish I was more miserable this week so there would be some newness or excitement to push me forward. 

 

Tonight I feel like 30 days is going to be a stretch.

But I can do another week.

Ha. I don't have enough money after my last grocery run to eat anything other than what I've already bought. And, according to the timeline, I'll be walking on air at that point... and maybe the last 14 days will be no big deal at all.

[rozamu]

I know for the first 1/2 or so of my whole 30 I kept waking up around 3 am and could never get back to sleep. I did decide to just get up most of the time and eventually I started sleeping longer. Now I wake w/o an alarm around 730 every morning.

Looks like you're doing pretty well, maybe just need to experiment more with spices? Day 8 and doing so well! Continue on! You got this!

[sheisaclerk]

Day 9. 

I stared at a bowl of shakshuka (spicy tomato sauce, loaded with veggies, and poached eggs) for 20 minutes. Couldn't bring myself to eat more than a few bites of the sauce and a couple of cashews. I need to find a breakfast that works for me-- but this is one of my absolute all time favorites. I just want pancakes. Is that too much to ask? (yes.) 

 

When I got to work, the lady next to me in our open planned office was eating honey nut cheerios and I almost ripped them from her hands. Instead I got a seltzer water with lime and a black coffee and took a dang breath.

 

Lunch is almost here and I'm still not hungry but I will dutifully eat my chicken salad and greens and roasted veggies the best I can. I've spent so long training myself to listen to and honoring my hunger cues that it feels really weird to "make" myself eat if I don't want to. I know it's bad for me. I understand that eating regularly helps keep my hormones and blood sugar at an even keel. I just dooonnn't wanna.

 

Sleep was absolute garbage last night and I finally figured it out-- the snow is reflecting the courtyard's light into our bedroom and is turning it into basically daylight. Going to the store to get a heavier duty shade after work and a sleep mask. Hope it helps.

[AmyS]

Just remember, you won't feel the physical sensations that you used to associate with hunger anymore.  So for a while you'll be refining an understanding of what your hunger cues are now.  In the meantime, eating by the clock is OK.

[sheisaclerk]

Day 10 went. I ate very, very little. Just left over roasted veggies and chicken salad that I started at lunch and finished at dinner, before rolling directly into bed.

 

Day 11 is OK. Better. Another morning of staring at my shakshuka and eating but lunch, I had my appetite back. Salad, roasted sweet potato, poached chicken, and green beans. Dinner is some posole (home made, without the hominy), kale chips, and avocado. I always eat at least two servings of this-- it's my fave-- so I bet I'll make up for lost time.

 

Cravings are getting more manageable and sleep is better. I still feel physically great. I'm just bored. So. Bored. So mind numbingly bored.

Right on schedule.

 

I'm sticking with this, but staying clear of here until I'm feeling perkier.

 

I wondered why, when I was flipping through these logs before I started, everyone petered out around day 10. Now I know.

[jent103]

Ha! Yeah, I was on a thread with people who started the same day as me, and on days 10/11 we were all definitely in "screw this!!" mode. It doesn't make it any more fun, but at least you know you're not alone!

[moh4m]

Hey! I just wanted to say I love reading your log, you're a great writer. I just started (I'm on day 2). I hope i can do as well as you

[sheisaclerk]

Whelp. I knew this was probably going to happen.

I stayed true to the program for the last few days-- it's getting easy to follow the template, didn't need to do much crazy planning, just ate veggies, meat, fat, fruit in that order-- but my mom came to visit yesterday and we got burgers and fries. It was great. Then we went to the movies and we split a cherry coke, buttered popcorn, and junior mints. This morning we went to dim sum with some of our extended family. It's tradition and it's fun and was worth participating in fully. I had plenty of soy and rice and probably MSG and definitely sugar (mmmm fried sesame balls and egg tarts!). I feel okay physically (though admittedly a little bloated), and  I don't feel guilty-- I actually feel really fulfilled and happy with my decisions.

 

I'm not starting again at day 1 and I'm not going to *do* a "Whole30."  I do know that this is how I want to eat the majority of the time, indefinitely. Maybe I'll have 30 consecutive days at some point, I'm sure that I will, but it's just not worth going crazy about it. This was a definite dietary reboot and I'm glad that I tried it. It's just not for me.

 

I've learned a few things:

• My body feels better when most of my diet, by volume-- if not calories, is plant based.
• My body feels better when I get lots of fat-- which is why I think I love fried stuff so much. It's the only time that I really ate a lot of fat before this.
• My body feels better when I eat less wheat and grains-- but rice and dairy seem like things I can tolerate well. I can't imagine eating a bagel or bowl of cheerios for breakfast any more.
• Stable blood sugar. It's important. While I'm nowhere near diabetic or even pre-diabetic, the peaks and valleys during the day definitely impacted my cognitive abilities and mood. I can see how I was snacking to maintain that even keel and how that snacking may have been causing me to eat more than metabolically necessary.
• Food is social, and that's important.
• Health is a spectrum of different factors. Mental health, cardiovascular health, metabolic health, muscular-skeletal health, social health, spiritual health. Sacrificing the physical ones for the more ephemeral is just as bad as sacrificing the ephemeral for the physical. For me, the whole30 sacrificed some mental and social health-- it also kept me pretty fixated and preoccupied in a way that I'm not sure is mentally healthy. I'm looking forward to eating a diet that strikes a true balance between the two needs. Nutritional off-roading, I think that's the path for me. 

For what it's worth. I did reduce 2 inches off my waist, about 1.5 everywhere else except my calves which are 1/8th inch larger. That's interesting.

 

Good luck to you all on finding the path that's right for you!