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Whole 30 Take Two: My first week's Log


Brandon Antoinette

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Whole Thirty: Day One--Sunday, February 9, 2014

 

So, I started my Whole 30 yesterday, and nutrition-wise, it went off without a hitch. This doesn't really surprise me, though. My first time around was the same, and I didn't run into any major food cravings until around day three.

 

Here's what I ate:

 

Meal One:

 

Last time around I fell into the Egg trap for meal one. For one thing, they are a great cheap source of protein, and I am definitely on a budget. Also, they are easy to make and versatile. I figured if I made them all different ways, I wouldn't get super bored of them...so I had scrambled eggs and fried eggs and poached eggs and hard boiled eggs and omelets and...Yeah. Eggs for thirty mornings. I used to love eggs. I can count the times I've made eggs since that experiment on one hand now. So one thing I knew for sure--I wasn't having eggs the first morning.

 

Instead:

Tuna Salad (No Eggs)--4 oz Tuna fish, 1/2 stalk chopped celery, 1/4 Avocado, 1 tbsp Olive Oil Mayo, salt, pepper, onion powder, and dill, over a bed of baby spinach.

1/2 Banana

1 cup Peppermint Tea

 

Meal Two:

 

Last time around the thing that most intimidated me going into the program was the thought of how much cooking I would have to do. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love to cook. Cooking ninety meals over a period of thirty days, however, is just another story. So I decided to order a batch of forty meals from Pre-Made Paleo. I figured by the end of my Whole 30, I would have figured out how to cook more economically and would be able to prepare my meals without outside help. Well, I did get used to cooking and by the end of the program I had learned better how to cook without dairy, vegetable oils, starches, and wine--things I would have never tried to cook without before--but I sure didn't get any more faster at cooking. So I decided to save myself a headache and order another batch of meals from our Pre-Made Paleo friends. That's what I had for lunch.

 

Pre-Made Paleo Meal: Dijon Chicken, Roasted Parsnips, Roasted Broccoli

1 Banana

1 glass decaf iced tea w/ lemon

 

Meal Three:

 

For my first Whole 30 dinner, I went to one of my favorite creations from last time around. I absolutely adore Italian food (it's the one food genre I would have to pick to take with me on a deserted island). So I came up with a paleo friendly version of Sausage and Peppers Classico. It's not that hard to do. You just have to leave out the pasta, make your own Arrabbiata sauce, and make sure your sausage doesn't have any sugar added to it (I made my own, using ground beef and spices I had in the cabinet.)

 

Sausage and Peppers Paleo: Sausage (ground pork, salt, pepper, sage, garlic powder, onion powder, red pepper) Bell Peppers, Onions, Arrabbiata Sauce (tomatoes, salt, peper, onion powder, garlic cloves, parsley, red pepper)

1/2 Banana

1 glass decaf iced tea

 

And that's all folks. See you tomorrow.

--Brandon Antoinette

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Welcome back Brandon.

 

A couple of notes. 

 

- You might want to have more protein with your first meal. 4 oz of tuna wouldn't make a palm sized portion for me and I'm a fairly small female. 

- Cooking 90 unique meals would definitely be a lot more work than I would be willing to handle. Generally when I cook I make at least 2-4 servings of what I'm making so I can have the leftovers at another meal(s). Are the Pre-Made Paleo meals entirely Whole30 compliant? I've not researched them before.

- If you were wanting the pasta with your sausage dish you could do zucchini noodles or spaghetti squash.

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Hey Physibeth!


 


Thanks for your input. I certainly welcome all notes. With some of the food cravings I'm up against I know that I'll need all the help I can get.


 


As a general rule, I've found that I just don't eat a whole lot of food compared with some other people. I don't have an extremely active lifestyle work-wise right now, so I just don't get as hungry. Also, when I am in my correct weight zone, I tend to be a small guy--around 155-160 lbs. So when I at the 4 oz of tuna yesterday (along of course with the two servings of veggies I put with it and the two tablespoons or so of fat) I was completely satisfied. In fact, this morning I consciously ate a bit slower because after I finished meal one yesterday I felt I had bordered on over eating. My five ounces of protein at lunch as well as my six or so at dinner both filled me up nicely. I do intend to keep a close watch on my satiety levels throughout the program, though. If they drop as I get used to eating like this again, the first thing I plan to do is add a couple ounces of protein--particularly, as you mentioned, at Meal One when it is at its lowest.


 


I agree completely that cooking 90 unique meals is a high task. I cook for myself and my partner, Jae, and between the two of us so far one meal has compiled about four servings, so that means only really having to do 45 meals. The Pre-Made Paleo is my main plan to reduce the number I'm going to have to prepare further. They claim to be completely Whole 30 compliant and they are on the list of Whole 9's "approved products. They also list all of the ingredients clearly on the front of the package so I can double check each one for peace of mind. You should really check them out if you are interested, they are a great time and worry savor. Jae and I are splitting that package, and that gives me twenty meals or so that are taken care of, reducing the count to a total of 25 meals. Though that still is a bit daunting, it is at least something I consider manageable.


 


I had never actually considered subbing the rigatoni in the Sausage and Peppers dish, it works so well without it, but I love spaghetti squash so that is something I will definitely consider doing the next time I make it. Thanks for the suggestion!

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Whole 30 Day Two: A New Rule


 


Hello Again! Here I am, back for day two, and here's what I put in my mouth yesterday:


 


Meal One:


 


Left over Sausage and Peppers Paleo (still no eggs!)


1/2 banana


2 cups coffee


 


Meal Two:


Pre-Made Paleo Meal: Herb Roasted Turkey, Cauliflower and Tomatoes, Sautéed Kale


1 banana


1 glass decaf iced tea w/ lemon


 


Meal Three:


 


So when I went shopping last weekend I knew that I wanted to try my hand at making bone broth. Last time I used Imagine's pre-made product which is both great and Whole 30 compliant, but I am really excited to make my own from scratch and see how it turns out. With that in mind, I purchased a whole chicken so that I could roast it and then use its bones afterwards. I roasted chicken a lot previously, and I love the tenderness and juiciness you can get when you roast. The one thing I hate about chicken is that it can potentially turn out so dry as to be inedible no matter how you cook it. If you roast it just right, however, it is falling off the bone. I had never attempted to roast a Whole 30 compliant chicken, and my go-to never fail for poultry roasting has always been wine--obviously not an option. So I started looking at a bunch of different chicken recipes, both paleo and otherwise that I thought I could adapt to my needs. That's when I came across a recipe from the cookbook Well Fed. Now, one of the first things mentioned in the recipe is the exhortation to never skip brining the bird--which means that when it comes to poultry cooking at least, the fabulous Melissa Joulwan and I are cooking soul mates. My criteria for accepting a poultry recipe is based solely on whether or not brining is recommended. If it isn't mentioned or if it is mentioned in a kind of fence-sitting optional way, I throw the recipe out the window. At first I was worried that I would have to run out to the store to pick up ingredients for the recipe that I hadn't planned during my initial shopping trip to use. A cursory glance at the ingredient list, however, showed me that my pantry already contained everything I would need. That sealed the deal. I was worried that the recipe called for grilling just chicken breasts while I was attempting to roast a whole bird, but I figured I'd give it a try anyway. I was also slightly nervous that the spice rub recommended wouldn't go well with the vegetables I had planned to use stuffing the bird, but I took a deep breath and tossed them in. I was not at all disappointed! Everyone should check out this recipe no matter how they plan on making the chicken.


 


The Best [Roasted] Chicken You Will Ever Eat, (adapted from Well Fed and stuffed with baby carrots, celery, and onions


Salad of spinach, mushrooms, radishes, and Pantry Vinaigrette (from It Starts With Food)


1/2 cup grapes


1/2 glass decaf iced tea w/ lemon


 


So, I was completely compliant with the rules.  The end, right. I can go now?


 


Okay, so yeah. I have to confess. I complied with the rules, but didn't exactly attain all of my goals I've identified for breaking the unhealthy food relationship. I did something that is top on my no-no list. I had--gasp--a late night snack. I'm deeply ashamed. (Tongue-Firmly-In-Cheek.)


 


So here's what happened.


 


I live in Atlanta. If you have been watching the news, you might be aware that of late my dear city has been the butt of a national joke. There was a snowstorm last month that shut everything completely down, but unfortunately no one was prepared so everyone ended up stranded on the side of the highway for eighteen hours. There were even kids who had to spend the night at school. So now that another storm has been predicted, the city has declared a state of emergency--even though no snow has fallen yet, I might say. My partner, who we'll call “Jae,†is doing this Whole 30 with me on the promise that I cook all of the meals because when he tries to cook paleo it turns into a greasy tasteless mess. He came home last night with the idea that he was going to be sleeping at work tonight so as to be sure not to miss his shift the following day. Being a kind and generous person, not wanting him to have to go without a good home cooked meal for two days and, more importantly, intensely desiring to avoid the necessity of watching him gluttonously download bags whose contents are full of all my favorite guilty-pleasure-comfort-fast-foods every night for the next month, I selflessly volunteered to prepare an additional two meals for him. The problem is that at ten o'clock when I should have been in bed, I was in the kitchen taking a covert bite of each of the two new meals--a late-night-snack! Definitely against my stated nutrition goal of not snacking after dinner.


 


Whew. Confession is good for the soul.


New resolve--no cooking after dinner!


 


Until Next Time,


--Brandon Antoinette

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Whole 30 Day Three: Snack Crisis


 


Take that Day Three! You're finished! Here's what I ate:


 


Meal One:


Chicken Salad (left over The Best [Roasted] Chicken You Will Ever Eat, 1/2 stalk celery, 1/2 apple, 1/4 cup grapes, 1/2 avocado, 1 tbsp Olive Oil Mayo, black pepper, onion powder, pinch of cinnamon.)


1 cup baby spinach


2 cups coffee


 


Meal Two:


Egg Salad (3 hard boiled eggs, 1/2 stalk celery, 1/2 onion, 1 tbsp Olive Oil Mayo, 1 tsp yellow mustard, salt, pepper, cayenne powder.)


1 cup baby carrots, raw


1 glass cucumber water


1/2 apple


 


Stress Snack:


5 grapes


 


Meal Three:


Pre-Made Paleo meal (Smokey Brisket, Roasted Broccoli, Cauliflower Puree)


1 apple.


 


I can hear the shouts from here! Snack! Snack! He had a snack! Not even just a snack, a “stress snack.†So let me tell you what happened.


 


I didn't even realize it was a stress snack until I had already eaten it and then thirty minutes had passed. Talk about being disconnected from the food I eat. More important than the fact that I had a snack is the fact that I was reminded something about my food relationship--I eat my feelings, and I need to add fixing that component to the nutrition goals I've set myself. So, with that in mind, I'm putting the following plan into implementation.


 


You're Hungry, what do you do? Halt!


 


Step One: Identify why you are considering eating. If it's not because it's meal time, it must mean that you are either hungry between meals, angry, lonely, or tired. So figure out which one it is.


 


Step Two:


Angry--or Stressed? Then clean or organize something. Or go for a walk. Or try this mediation thing that is all of the rage with the kids these days. (Yeah, that last one is probably not going to happen.) Use one of those three mechanisms to distract yourself for the craving. (Fact: [that I may or may not have just made up] the average craving is 6-10 minutes in duration, after which it generally dissipates or disappears altogether.)


 


Lonely--or Bored? No problem. Make a phone call or text someone. Post to this forum (this particular post is, in fact, cravings fueled.) Read the next five pages of a book.


 


Tired--â€Fire ze missiles!†


“But I am le Tired,†


“Well, zen take a nap...zen fire ze missiles.â€


Just a quick nap though. No more than 15 mins. And set an alarm clock--because you know you won't wake up.


 


Hungry? That's the only answer that should yield eating, but first:


Drink a glass of water. Wait fifteen minutes. Still hungry? Okay, just wanted to establish that you're not thirsty. Now you can proceed to:


 


Step Three: Eat--but not fruit. No sweets. Eat one of the hard boiled eggs in the fridge and have a slice of avocado to go with it.


 


Hopefully, that strategy will fix my snacking problems.


 


Snack avoided, cravings reduced!


--Brandon Antoinette

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Whole 30 Day Four: Let's Have a Family Cook-Out...(in February?)

 

Well, I finished day four and I have to say, I'm sleeping better than ever. But I don't know if that is because my cortisol levels are realigning themselves, or if it's just because I'm generally exhausted.

 

Here's what I ate:

 

Meal One:

Italian Frittata (Beef sausage, eggs, zucchini, bell peppers, parsley, topped with Pantry Vinaigrette)

1 apple

1 cup coffee

 

Meal Two:

Left over Italian Frittata

1/2 cup grapes

 

Meal Three:

 

Jae had a dream that he was at a family reunion style cook-out, and awoke not only guilty that he had pigged out, but when he realized that he hadn't really, mad and wanting that type of food--so that's what I made at dinner. (I even served it on some left-over disposable plates from last November when we had every homo in Atlanta over for Thanksgiving.)

 

Deconstructed Burgers (ground beef, egg, seasoned with salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, paprika, celery flakes, dried parsley, dried chives) 

Served with grilled lettuce, mushrooms, bell peppers, onions, and tomatoes

Dreamy Avocado Dressing from It Starts with Food

Sweet Potato-Chips (seasoned with salt, peper, onion powder, garlic powder, paprika, cayenne, tumeric)

1 apple

1 glass decaf tea w/ lemon

 

I have to say, the results were extremely encouraging. I didn't even miss the buns.

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My Week in Review

 

Wow! I've finished a whole week, and what a week it has been! Let's talk about that.

 

But first off, the last log was for Day Four.  Where did day's five and six go? (This is effectively the entry for day seven.) Well, the answer is, I couldn't get access to the forum to do my day five report--which I would have posted on Friday. I think that maybe there was maintenance being done, or maybe my internet connection was just being contrary. Who knows. At any rate, after taking a day off on Friday, I struggled to pick back up with daily posts yesterday and failed miserably. Altogether, yesterday was a less than stellar day, but more on that in a minute.

 

There are three goals that I have set for my thirty days, and along with the log of everything I put into my mouth I have been tracking my progress in each of the three on a daily basis. Let's see how I performed for the week as a whole.

 

Independent of the three goals, I've been checking that I am following the rules to the program each day. A violation in this category would be eating anything off-plan. I see this as the bare minimum required to constitute a Whole30, and if these rules are violated even once, I have to start over, as that is the point of the program--30 days of completely clean eating. This week, there have been no violations! That means that I am almost 1/4th of the way done. Go me!!!

 

The first goal I set was in terms of sleep. I know how I feel when I get adequate sleep, and I have not been feeling that way lately. So I set as my Whole30 sleep goal the rather modest "I will get a full 8 hours of sleep at least four nights per week during my Whole30" I restricted the goal to four nights for two reasons. First and most importantly, I thought if I set it any higher, there was no way I was going to be able to accomplish it during the first week, because I knew that I would need several days for my cortisol levels regulated. Secondly, because I knew that even during a good week, five nights might be pushing it. I wanted something achievable as well as measurable, and I knew both that I could make it four nights a week with a little planning and determination and also that I would be able to feel the results as well. (That having been said, I plan on stretching myself beyond the four and trying for five next week.) This week I found that at the beginning I was completely unable to make it. I would make myself lay down at 9:30 every night and I would lie there for an hour to two at least before I could get to sleep. (After doing this for one night I gave up on just lying there and began reading--but a physical book, not an electronic one, so as to keep the computer light out.) Even once I did get to sleep during those first couple of days, I would wake up around 3 or 4 AM and be absolutely unable to get back to sleep, although I committed myself to at the very least lie in bed for the duration of the 8 hours. Eventually, this phase did pass, however, and last week I met my sleep goals on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Success!

 

Next was an exercise goal. Now, I'll start off by saying that I have some severe joint problems right now due to medications that I have been put on over the past couple of years. As a result, I have not been exercising at all. I just hurt too much afterwards. But I reasoned that if I set some very modest goals, then I would be able to start exercising again, hopefully both feeling better and feeling better about myself. So my exercise goal was "I will walk for a minimum of twenty minutes per day three times per week during my Whole30." Highly achievable, maybe even going a little too easy on myself, but I don't want to do any further joint damage, so I settled on that. My results this week: Abject failure. I went walking Monday morning. As I haven't exercised at all in the last six months I was understandably sore, tired, and even a little disappointed. I let the soreness, which of course was still present the next day, deter me from walking on Tuesday. By Wednesday Atlanta was struck by a winter storm, and that gave me an excuse to stay in both Wednesday and Thursday. after that, it was all too easy to say "But today is Valentine's Day," and "I've missed the goal of three days per week for the week now anyway, I'll just stay in." With such a modest goal in this area, there is absolutely no excuse for missing it. So I have resolved that to meet it this week I will implement a schedule, complete with back-up plans should I fail to follow it. I will be walking on Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday. (I've already gone today, so yay!) This will give me a rest day between to recover from the soreness and get accustomed to exercise again. Should I miss any of these days, the schedule will shift to Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Finally, should I miss more than one day, or should I miss Friday, Saturday will function as a make-up day. This gives me two opportunities for a slip during the week while still reaching my goal. Plus, it punishes me slightly for making two slips, because I will then have to walk on both Saturday and immediately on the next day. I'll talk about how well this goes during my review post for next week.

 

Finally, I have certain nutritional goals that I want to achieve beyond simply following the Whole30 rules. For me, more than anything else, this Whole30 is about breaking my unhealthy relationship with food. Now, that relationship has several different components. The big one that I have identified is late night snacking. I have gotten to where I feel like I can't even sleep unless I eat something right before hand--needless to say my food choices at this point of the night are never healthy. So, I resolved that "By the end of my Whole30 I will have broken my habit of late-night snacking." I achieved that on every night of the past week with the exception of my Day Two, and since I mentioned that in the post for that day, I won't go into it. I have several other things that I want to tackle under the nutrition area, but I haven't had a problem with any of them yet, so I'm not going to talk about them right now in the interest of time. 

 

What I want to talk about instead is my rough day Seven. Did I stick to all of the rules. Yes, most definitely. The pickles I had were Whole30 compliant. Am I proud of my Whole30 performance for Day 7? In a pig's eye.

 

During my first Whole30 I discovered that there were certain things that, though I could tolerate them as an ingredient, I simply couldn't eat alone because they promoted an unhealthy response. Foremost among them were dried fruit--which I have scrupulously kept out of my diet this time around. Like dried fruit, I found during day 7 another food that might as well be potato chips to me because when I eat one I immediately get a near irresistible craving to eat another: pickles. I found some compliant pickles and bought them in order to make tartar sauce for the fish dish I made last night. Now, I don't really care for tartar sauce, but Jae loves it so I made it. I prepared it before lunch and tasted it right after to see how it had turned out. Then I thought, "Nope, I still don't care for tartar sauce. But that pickle sure tasted good." Then began the pickle binge. I was finally able to stop myself after I had eaten four pickle spears, but by that point the damage had been done, and I had found another food that though compliant, I simply can't have.

 

So, to review, though I am extremely proud of my efforts during my first week and though I didn't technically break any rules, there are three major opportunities for improvement. My two illicit snacks on Days Two and Three, and the "Great Pickle Binge of Day Seven," as it shall henceforth be known to history. Mitigating the disappointment I feel over these setbacks is the fact that I have put in plans in place to ensure that they don't happen again, and I have a renewed determination going into my second week.  I'll see you all there.

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