Bodlon's first Whole30

[bodlon]

12/6/13 - Day One

Off to an explosive start, literally.  Part of the reason I'm attempting the Whole30 is because I seem to have either a. some inflammation happening, or b. some undiagnosed sensitivities that sometimes cause me to feel really terrible after I eat.  This morning's breakfast scramble (3 eggs with greens, avocado and red bell pepper on the side) didn't sit well at all.  No sir.

 

Lunch -- canned salmon bites with olives, carrots, red bell pepper, and raspberries -- sat just fine.  So did tonight's beef stew (beef, onion, carrot, celery, and tinned diced tomatoes with avocado on the side).  

 

I'm ending the day feeling a little hungry, which may be me craving carbs, but may also suggest I need to bulk my meals up a little bit more.  

[amberino21]

Working out the right portion sizes to satisfy you between meals can take a few days - it's hard to tell how much protein and fat you had at each meal, but they sound perhaps a bit light on in vegies. Aim for 2-3 cups per meal, and include some more starchy vegies - you have a little carrot, but perhaps consider adding sweet potato or butternut. other starchy vegie options are beetroot, parsnip, turnip, pumpkin etc.

 

your digestion may be a little unpredictable to begin with, but if your explosiveness continues, it may be worth looking in to intolerances to certain ingredients.

[bodlon]

Thanks for the advice!  

 

I'm aiming at around the 2 cup mark on the veg to start -- more than a cup of greens and half a pepper at breakfast, more than a cup of carrots and the other half of the bell at lunch, and the stew would have had half an onion, one cup of carrots, half a cup of celery, and half a tin of tomatoes -- but I freely admit that I'm probably still being a little too light on things generally.  I might also consider bumping up to a whole avocado when I use that for my fat, since the olives (about half a can) did the job more robustly.  

 

I've got sweet potatoes and beets on deck, more avocadoes in the house, and a trip to the store this weekend for more goodies.  I'm hoping to do a big root vegetable thing of some sort this week.

 

And yeah, I have some concerns about the eggs -- I went through a period during adolescence where they'd give me stomach aches, but rediscovered them in my twenties and was fine -- but the indigestion/stomach ache/digestive badness doesn't always seem just connected to them.  Possibly soy is an issue, possibly dairy.

 

Any advice on what to use for a binder in things like salmon patties if I do need to drop eggs?

[Tom Denham]

I can't imagine what could take the place of eggs in salmon patties, but you might try making salmon salads instead of patties. I go through phases where I eat salmon salad every day or every other day because it is convenient and I can make it slightly different without much trouble. Here are a couple of recipes to give the idea of how I do it... You can also mash an avocado to use instead of mayonnaise. I tend to use mashed avocado when they go on sale 5 for $5.

 

http://www.wholelifeeating.com/2012/11/salmon-salad-over-salad-cut-hearts-of-palm/

 

http://www.wholelifeeating.com/2012/07/salmon-salad-with-diced-pickles-chopped-onion-and-dried-cranberries/

[bodlon]

Thanks for the ideas!

 

 

Day Two went pretty well and involved culinary adventures!

 

Breakfast was a whole sweet potato (wet sauteed) with some salmon patties and a whole avocado.  The sweet potato went down great, as did the avocado, but I started to feel just a little rough when I ate the patties, and I had a minor stomach ache after breakfast, but I'm not 100% sure if that's the eggs (these patties are literally just salmon and egg) or my stomach being grumpy in the morning.  Tomorrow's breakfast will be eggless as an experiment.

 

Lunch was pretty substantial: beef stew (leftovers from Day One), a salad of greens with a roma tomato and a bit of oil and lemon juice, half a can of olives, and some raspberries.  Also, a big cup of Earl Grey, because I like tea.

 

Dinner was fun, because it was initially just going to be roasted root veggies (sweet potato, turnip, beet) and some steak with a fat for me, and turned into a full-on beef and chicken Thai curry fest (incorporating the roasted root veg) for nine people.  The recipe from It Starts With Food is amazing, and definitely becoming a part of my regular diet.  Coconut milk is magical, magical stuff.  We also drank hawthorn berry tea with dinner, which is very tasty indeed.  Oh, and one very ripe persimmon.  

 

Still feeling kind of hungry at bedtime.  Possibly my body is still figuring out signals?  Will keep an eye on it.

[bodlon]

Day Three, and eggs are out.

 

Breakfast was sweet potatoes, apple, and ground turkey, and it was amazing.  I did feel a bit weird in my guts as my digestive system "powered up," but otherwise things were pretty comfortable. 

 

For lunch, I finished up the last of the salmon bites made with eggs, along with a salad the size of my head (with garlic, evoo, and lemon juice), and some shredded coconut.  I got the same stomach ache I've been worried about not long after, albeit less intense since it was eggs mixed in with something and not on an empty stomach.  

 

So.  Goodbye, eggs.

 

Dinner was a breast of chicken, some spinach greens, some roasted veg (carrots, beet, mushroom, onion), a bit of leftover curried veg from last night, and half a can of olives.

 

Am STILL hungry at night, sometimes right after eating, but I know I'm getting enough food and fat because tonight's meal was a very full plate AND a small bowl of olives.  So odd.

 

Also had a minor freak-out today about whether I have enough food here at home, and whether I can manage until my next paycheck.  I think I'm probably just having an irrational moment, but I feel better overall than I have in a while, and don't want to have to fall off the Whole30 wagon because I'm skint.

[bodlon]

Day Four!  Rar!

 

Breakfast today was leftover roast chicken and veg with olives from last night, and also a banana, which I'm not entirely sure was Sugar Dragon or not, but it was definitely tasty and satisfying.  It also helped with what I think is one of the issues I'm having, being that putting food on an empty stomach is kind of uncomfortable for me.  

 

Lunch was half a can of mackerel, an avocado, beet greens, cauliflower, fresh mixed greens, and a tomato.  Most of the way through I felt kind of "meh" about food, but made sure I finished the meal.

 

Dinner was a mix of leftover ground turkey mix from the weekend, a bit of leftover chicken breast and veg, and some shredded coconut with a handful of raw carrot and some kalamata olives.  I'd pulled a ripe persimmon from the fridge -- kind of a succumb-to-sugar-craving move -- but by the end of dinner I was satisfied and didn't want it, so back into the fridge it went.

 

Today was a blend of "OMGCRAVINGS" and "ARGHWANTANAP" that I mainly handled by browsing NOM NOM PALEO and going outside in the cold when I got too drowsy.  Wanting easy carbs and sugar is very much a thing today.  I am a badass and refuse to be stopped, but argh.  ARGH.

[bodlon]

Day.  Five.

 

One thing I haven't mentioned in the logs here is that I live with four other people, none of whom eat Paleo, Primal, or are doing the Whole30.  While cravings were generally down today from yesterday, and energy was up, I am contending with being around things that smell really good to me.  

 

Pie.  Hot dogs.  Bacon with sugar in it.  People offering me pizza.  

 

Behold, my tooth-gritting willpower, even if I am fantasizing about off-roading next month.  (Upshot: it's all healthy-ish off-roading, like yonanas and avocado chocolate pudding, etc.)

 

Breakfast was ground chicken, sweet potato, and an apple in a skillet with some coconut for a fat.  

 

Lunch was a chicken breast, half a cup of sauerkraut, olives, and some carrots and celery.

 

Dinner was ground chicken, zucchini, and summer squash with an avocado, with a persimmon and a small handful of raw hazelnuts because I still felt a little bit peckish.

 

Energy levels are a little bit better, but not quite 100%.  Still, light at the end of the tunnel and all that.  SO.

 

Five down, twenty-five to go.

[bodlon]

Day Six!

 

Today was difficult.  Both lunch and dinner were away from home, today was my department's winter luncheon, and I had a meeting with friends at Panera.  Worse, I think I've pretty much determined that there's just no way to make canned fish as palatable as other proteins, and having it twice in one day makes me decidedly whiny.

 

Did I mention my roommate has pies in the house?

 

Breakfast was awesome beef stew with zucchini and summer squash with some coconut to nibble on the side.

 

Lunch was canned salmon mixed with roasted kuri squash, olives, sauerkraut, and cauliflower.

 

Dinner was canned salmon mixed with an avocado, a tomato, and some carrots with a banana on the side.

 

I kind of freaked out on the way home and bought some pork and chicken because, ugh, none of my attempts so far are even remotely as palatable as a salmon cake.  Tonight, chicken and veg are in the crock pot, and there's more stew in the fridge waiting, too.

 

One of the roommates has started to catch on to what I'm doing and has started also buying and preparing whole foods for the household.  Another of the roommates is kind of picking up bits of Whole30 here and there because she's got some known sensitivities and wants to feel less bad when she eats.  Adventure!

[bodlon]

Day Seven!  One week down.  

 

I feel pretty good today.  Energy levels are good, I've pretty much stopped feeling hungry after dinner, and while part of me thinks I really want the pumpkin pie my roommate has on the dining room table, I'm mostly like, "eh."

 

Breakfast and lunch were both crock pot chicken with roast veg and some coconut on the side.  Dinner was beef stew with veg and some coconut.  Tomorrow will have a bit more variety, but given I had to eat away from home again, I mostly just packed what I had ready.

 

I may have to ration fats a little bit until I can get to the store -- I'm down to some coconut (2-3 units), two cans of olives (4 units), and an avocado (1-2 unit) -- but I can probably hit the store for the seven units of fat I'll need to get through to payday.  If I run out of meat, though, I may have to eat a roommate.  

[bodlon]

Days Eight and Nine happened! 

 

Day Eight was an intense work day -- crunch time at the office -- and I think it was my first "good day" of the sort written about in It Starts With Food.  I at meal 1 at home, meal 2 at work, and didn't bring meal 3 along with me, so it had to wait until I got home at 8:30 PM.  Meals were simple: pork chops with apple and squash, chicken baked with spicy RoTel tomatoes.

 

I was not shaky, cranky, or anything.  I was hungry, sure, but not scary hungry. 

 

Day Nine was a very intentional day on the couch playing Skyrim.  It was absolutely everything I hoped it would be and I regret nothing.

 

Meals were pretty simple here as well: left-over spicy baked RoTel chicken, grilled beef burger with sauteed summer squash and zucchini, ground turkey with apples and sweet potatoes.

 

Fats concerns have abated -- the house is now full of avocadoes!  Mmm.  I need a couple of cans of olives, but between that and the coconut, I'm good.

 

One thing I'm noticing in general is that by the end of a meal I'm really, REALLY done eating.  Also, raw hazelnuts and baby carrots are dangerously close to foods-without-brakes, but I portion my food out before I bring it out to eat, so that helps.

[bodlon]

Day Ten went well! 

 

- Breakfast was leftover ground turkey with apples and sweet potatoes (coconut flakes mixed in),

- Lunch was a grilled beef burger with some roasted acorn squash and greens and olives. 

- Dinner was a chicken experiment: chicken and veg cooked in tomato sauce with green chiles. 

 

Dinner in particular attracted the roommates, one of whom ate some herself.  Slowly but surely, I am subverting them all, bwa ha ha.

 

Energy level remains good, though I noticed that my desire to put cheap carbs in my mouth kicked in a bit toward the end of the day.  A lot of that comes down to availability: roommates baked cookies, there's a candy jar on the coffee table, etc.  Discipline won out, aided by the knowledge that what I wanted wasn't really the thing itself so much as the action of snacking and consuming a cheap treat.

[bodlon]

I had some weird allergy stuff going on starting toward the end of Day Ten, and all through Day Eleven.  I think I got cat dandered or hit with some environmental ickiness.  Ew.

 

Breakfast was sweet potato with ground chicken and the last of the coconut.

Lunch was leftover experimental chicken with some ground chicken added to make up for the bits roommate nicked with greens, tomatoes, and olives.

Dinner was an effort at compliant laziness in which I had a pork steak, canned pumpkin, and -- argh, kicking myself now -- lima beans. 

 

No, really.  Kicking myself, because I thought, "Oh, a canned vegetable with no bad additives.  Yes.  This will be compliant and delicious!" as I was doing it.  Only when I came here to log did the Bus of Realization hit.

 

Granted, if the worst thing I put in my mouth this month is half a can of lima beans, I am probably doing okay.  But still.  ARGH. 

 

Am hoping this doesn't mean I have to start over.

[bodlon]

Day Twelve/One

 

Fun with crock pots!  I discovered that putting some chicken, tomato sauce, onion, green chilies, zucchini, and summer squash in a crock pot overnight results in the most AMAZING CHICKEN STEW ever. 

 

Which I had for breakfast and lunch, once with olives and baby carrots, and once with avocado, some cooked pumpkin, and a bit of saurkraut. 

 

Mmm, chicken stew.

 

Dinner was a grilled pork chop with some cooked squash, spinach, and an avocado.

 

Energy levels continue to rock and be even, still not seeing fallout from the Lima Bean Incident, but will continue to be vigilant.  Have semi-reset my day counter (today is 12/1, tomorrow will be 13/2...) so that I can track overall days of effort and perfect days.

[bodlon]

Haven't posted in a few days, but wanted to make an update. 

 

Days 13/2-18/7 went really well, with only a couple of speed bumps:

 

- I was hungry a LOT on Day 16, so I had a mini-meal part way through the day.  This was also Solstice, so while I ate on plan food-wise, I was kind of off-template for the evening feast.  I regret nothing.

- I did need to eat a meal out on Day 17 for a friend's going-away shindig.  I did my best to make good substitutions (avocado instead of rice, steamed veg instead of other sides, no cheese), but worry that the beef in my alambres may have been marinated in something slightly sweetened.  Then again, it could have been the sweetness in the onions coming out!

- I finally had weird food moments in my dreams this weekend: a bean and cheese burrito in a flour tortilla, and a big, sugary energy drink.  Both of these are things I've been known to consume prior to my W30, and both times in my dream I was like, "Ah, crap.  I'm not supposed to eat that."

 

I've also learned how to make goat stew.  Mmm, goat.

[bodlon]

Days 19 & 20 have gone pretty well!  Lots of chicken stew, the last of the goat, a delicious steak, and some crock pot roast beef.  

 

Tonight I made a personal decision not to stress about the Lima Bean Incident, or the possibly dodgy alambres, in no small part because tonight when I went to the gas station I didn't feel compelled to buy anything sugary.  Yeah, I'm thinking about post W30 treats, but with a view toward paleo and eating cleaner.  

 

However this W30 shakes out, I've won.

 

Tomorrow I'll need to grab more groceries -- I'm running low on meats and veg -- but still feeling pretty good overall.

[bodlon]

Day 21 was "freak out and make a curry" day to go along with the crock pot roast beef and such.  I did make a trip to the store and have stocked up the stores for the next couple of days. 

 

I've noticed a return to being hungry in the evenings, and even sometimes right after meals, and some nostalgia/craving for snacks, convenience foods, and junk.  The daily e-mails say this is a thing -- mmm, extinction burst -- but argh. 

 

And yet, I've done pretty well in the presence of things I would ordinarily have been all over (wee cupcake-style truffles!  a gas station full of snacks!  an open jar of peanut butter!) without grabbing for them. 

 

I'm wondering a little bit about post W30 life.  Like, I'm not having some sort of insane miracle -- I'm still chubby and asthmatic and prone to sinus crap and allergic to things -- but I feel pretty good in a consistent way, I can definitely see some changes in my body composition, and it's nice not groping meal-to-meal or being incapable of passing vending machine with change in my pocket.  And really, eating like this -- meat and veg from the store, a few canned items here and there -- is a lot cheaper than what I was doing before. 

 

Yeah, I've had some weird food nostalgia moments (most notably Doritos and maraschino cherries), but overall?  What I'm eating is pretty awesome, and there are sites out there that are teaching me to make it even more awesome.  And honestly, even if none of the foods we drop doing W30 is a problem for me, eating this way has forced me to eat moderately and healthfully in ways I wasn't before.

 

I guess I'm just starting to stress a little on how to maintain without going W365.  Reintro, obviously, is going to happen, and I will discover that some of these foods are okay for me to eat. 

[bodlon]

22 days down!  

 

Hungry still happening around 8 PM, but I made sure to have enough food at dinner, and especially made sure to have adequate good fats (half a can of olives).  It's not hangry hungry.  Just sort of empty craviness. 

 

It occurs to me that a lot of the time prior to my W30 I avoided having an empty stomach.  Part of this is that I've been prone in the past to awful nausea and dry heaves when my stomach is empty.  I haven't had this happen during my W30, though, even though some of the feelings I might typically have had with this in the past have existed.  Maybe something to do with sugar/carbs?  No idea. 

 

In any case I'm now into my last week.  Kind of looking at things that are commonly around the house that are off-plan and trying to figure out how they fit in, or if they fit in.  Chocolate: how does it work?  Nobody else is eating the ice cream sandwiches in the freezer.  Do I start eating them again?  Or do I fine an awesome vegan paleo substitute for the moments when my sweet tooth kicks in?  

 

Oh hi.  Yeah.  Still aware of my sweet tooth, even though I haven't been exercising it.

 

So there's that.

[bodlon]

Days 23 and 24 went pretty well, though I have mild concerns that my lunch on the 23rd may have been dairy contaminated (found a little bit of cheese in the salad, pretty sure I picked it all out). 

 

Evening hunger kind of came to a head on the 23rd, and so I made a mini-meal with beef, coconut, and a tomato.  When that didn't work, I added a small handful of walnuts and some olives.  All has been well since.

[bodlon]

Still having hunger challenges on Day 25.  Not understanding why, really, especially given that I'm not eating small meals.  Then again, I'm also having some serious-ass cravings (last night was ice cream), so either a) I've unwittingly dropped calorie consumption below a magic threshold that's invisible because I'm eating portion-style, or my body is not messing around with extinction burst.

 

 

I did make a small snack-meal last night (ground meat, cashews, and squash), which mostly helped.

 

Argh.

[bodlon]

Days 26 and 27 were easier than the previous few days.  Hunger has been less of an issue, so must've been something I ate/didn't eat?

 

I did ring in the new year with some organic, no sugar added, carbonated apple/cranberry juice (I'd originally planned for kombucha, but the good shop for that was closed) which I chose to have two servings of instead of one, but a) NYE, and I was able to stop at two.

 

I'm noticing that part of my desire to eat some of the junk in the house is related to the presence of uneaten junk.  I'm kind of a scavenger by nature, and I hate seeing food wasted.  There's a box of ice cream sandwiches, languishing forgotten in the freezer, and my instinct is to eat them to get them eaten and out of the way.  Likewise, a box of Boca burgers.  And the metric ton of cookies the roommates are still working through.  It's weird.  I'll want to pay attention to this.

 

I'm preparing for reintro, which will probably take me until around Jan 20 to fully complete.  I'm finding myself less intimidated the closer I get to the 30 day line. 

[bodlon]

Day 28 went really well!  Dinner was late -- last night was the night our grove volunteers with a local soup kitchen -- and so working with food (including food that's off-plan) while hungry was an interesting challenge.  I seem to have made it through, though! 

[bodlon]

Days 29 and 30 went well!  I finished my first W30!  It was slightly imperfect and challenging in places, but I'm okay with that.

 

Jan 5 - Dairy Reintro:

Drank milk with breakfast and dinner, had cheese at lunch.  Noticable symptoms during reintro day was skin itchiness, sinus congestion, and feeling kind of "gross" when consuming it, then intestinal discomfort later in the day.  It wasn't so miserable that I can't have dairy occasionally -- and I think I do want to leave ice cream, cheese, etc. open as options -- but not as a regular part of my diet.

[bodlon]

Jan 8 - Gluten Reintro:

I thought Wednesday would pass without incident.  I couldn't have been more wrong.  I had bloating, GI discomfort, gas, and really unpleasant changes to my bathroom routine.  Two days later, I still don't feel super great, but eating clean on Thursday helped a lot.

 

Whereas it looks like I can off-road with dairy now and again, off-roading with gluten is probably not a good choice.

[bodlon]

Nearly done with reintro! 

 

Jan 11 was non-gluten grains, and I included quinoa, rice, and corn in my diet that day.  The quinoa and rice went well, with no ill-effects noticed.  I have very mild concerns about corn, but suspect that any weirdness I had may have been in association with other things, since I ate it in peculiar ways (e.g. an experimental sausage-and-hominy thing).