Amy's Clean Fourteen

[AmyS]

I'm a long-time Whole30er (see post count for evidence   ) and Whole30 has made a huge difference in my life.

 

Usually these days I don't Whole30 100% of the time, just because I Whole30 almost all the time.  I've done this long enough that my go-to food choices tend to be compliant.

 

I'm getting ready to go on a two week trip, leaving in 15 days.  So tomorrow I'm going to start a Whole14 to really get clean before I go, no added stuff.  On my trip I'll eat however feels best, and I'll do a reset if needed when I return.

 

Today is my Day 0 and tomorrow will be Day 1.  The biggest change I'll be enjoying this go-round will be logging my food.  In all of my Whole30 time I have NEVER logged my food.  For some reason, this time it feels like the happy thing to do.

 

Right now I am avidly consuming something non-Whole30-approved, which shall therefore remain nameless.

 

Another change I'll be making is to read a chapter of It Starts With Food every evening, just for a reminder/inspiration.

 

A final change I'm making is to revive my exercise program, which I'll include in my food log.  I probably won't log sleep or stress since I just finished my teaching semester and I'm going to be able to sleep well with less stress than usual, phew.

 

Looking forward to all of the lovely roast beef and chicken and compliant Italian chicken sausage (a recent TOTAL FIND at my local grocery store) and daunting amounts of veggies that are filling my fridge and freezer.

 

I almost feel like I should get a t-shirt that says "Ask Me About Clean Fourteen" or something.

[GFChris]

Go AmyS! 

[GlennR]

 

Right now I am avidly consuming something non-Whole30-approved, which shall therefore remain nameless.

 

 

Oh, c'mon, you can tell us. We're all friends here. 

[AmyS]

Oh, c'mon, you can tell us. We're all friends here. 

I had several lovely things but at the time I was drinking a raspberry mocha.  I don't have the stamina for those kinds of drinks any more, so I'm glad to be back at the clean eating today.

 

I started off in true Whole30 fashion with a dream last night that I ate crackers and potato chips and had to re-start!

 

This morning's breakfast was a classic - wilted country greens (don't ask me what that means, I just buy them in a bag at Safeway), grape tomatoes, canned salmon, homemade mayo, golden balsamic vinegar (compliant), and dried dill.  I say it's a classic because it's one of my favorite meals day or night.  Also, I have always disliked traditional breakfast foods, so imagine my delight when I first discovered Whole30 and no longer had to hide my proclivity for eating dinner leftovers for breakfast!

 

Exercise (reporting on yesterday) included a lovely long walk with spurts of slow jogging   - working up to sprints.  But, um, not just yet.

 

Sleep was fine, the dog woke me up too early but that's not my hormones or anything so I feel fine.  Of course the aforementioned dream was a problem, but after I talked myself down and remembered that I hadn't done Day One yet, plus I haven't ever eaten crackers and potato chips while on a WholeSomething, I felt better.

 

I'll be more cryptic as I go on, but this is fun so I'm rambling.  As many WholeSomethings as I've done, I've never had my own log. Woot!

[AmyS]

Day One in the bag.

 

After breakfast I finished the children's fresh pineapple chunks (in the interest of full disclosure this was more than a fistful, but 'tis the season for ripe pineapple in Hawaii so I went for it).  Had a decaf coffee and a decaf Americano in the morning.

 

Lunch was cold roast beef over salad greens with a mustard/mayo vinaigrette.  So good.

 

Dinner was a bowl of chocolate chili and a huge (HUGE) bowl of salad greens (eat 'em before they go bad) with a chopped avocado, Frank's hot sauce, and olive oil.  A monster amount of fat for a person my size but the first day or two back on WholeX I generally feel pretty fat-deprived so I eat up.

 

Not much in the way of exercise today.  Tomorrow I have therapeutic massage, unless I run away from home.  Eeps!  No, no, I'm really going through with this tomorrow.  I've rescheduled it enough times. 

 

Glad to be back.  Always glad to be back.  Phew.

[AmyS]

Eeps!  I am back to my usual remembering the end date but forgetting what day I'm actually on habits.  I've had a good last two (three?  something) days and I'm in the middle of a very satisfying cookup.  I'm trying green beans in the crock pot with some of NomNom's gravy (I had it left from making both her chicken recipe and the same gravy recipe with a round top roast).  No idea if it will be good but it smells good and seems like a decent idea.

 

Cooked cumin roasted carrots and Greek-style broccoli from Well Fed, cooking a huge batch of green beans (I may have overbought...), baked some sweet potatoes, roasting a batch of mini peppers.  I have roast beef and chicken and some chocolate chili in the fridge, and some compliant (hear the angels singing) Italian sausage and chicken wings waiting to be cooked soon.

 

I don't remember all I ate, but it featured roast beef, greens, sugar snap peas, canned salmon, grape tomatoes, and some other stuff.  I had some snacks that were not mini meals, need to curb that particular enthusiasm.  Grape tomatoes and dill pickles are great, combine them with a bite or two of canned salmon.  I know this.

 

The kitchen smells great, now I'll go for a walk soon.  Had a monster therapeutic massage the other day and plan to spend the summer working out some chronic neck tension.  Already my neck feels softer and my voice sings higher!!!

[GlennR]

Hey! Just noticed the moderator tagline under your pic. Congratulations! They couldn't have chosen a better or nicer person as the newest mod!

[AmyS]

Thank you!!!!!

[AmyS]

Oh hello Six Meal Day!!  Good gracious.  If I hadn't been around this block a few times already, I'd be freaked out.  But some days I just get hungry for a full meal about every two or three hours.  It's usually tied to my monthly cycle, so it's a good clue that, er, somethin's comin'.  I should be a lot more stuffed feeling, but since this was a Super Hungry day, I finally feel ready to call it a day, meal-wise.  Phew.  I'm all for eating plenty of food, but these days would be rough if they happened often. 

[AmyS]

Truckin' along on day somethingorother.  My food has been fine, no real issues there.  I've been doing this long enough that I tend to have the correct foods on hand most of the time, so my meals may be weird, but they are compliant (especially if I'm rushed and have about two seconds to shove some sweet potatoes and ground beef into my mouth).

 

The big news is elsewhere: I'm spending the summer getting into shape, and two weeks into the program I'm feeling and seeing results already.  I'm very pleased.

 

I'm also trying out a new thyroid medication.  I like the energy it gives me but I'm not thrilled that it seems like even a little bit is too much.  I keep dialing down the dose and it is still too powerful.  On the other hand, the other kind of medication I was taking left me sluggish and my hair was falling out.  Somewhere there must be balance!

 

Also, I will be going back on blood pressure medication again in a couple of weeks when I get back from my trip.  My bp has climbed up again in the past six months and it's probably going to stay up, since I've been eating healthy all this time.  I expect exercise will help moderate it, but the fact is that I had life-threatening blood pressure/pre-eclampsia when my daughters were born and it was going to come back at some point.  Fortunately not directly life-threatening this time, but it still feels scary.  I do have a doctor now that I really trust, and I know she won't steer me wrong.  In the past, blood pressure medications have left me with little result in the lowering of the blood pressure, with maximum negative impact from massive side effects.  So we'll be taking it very carefully. 

 

Enjoying the summer and with the new thyroid medication I had energy to do my exercising AND clean the house today (unheard of)!  So if I can keep calm about dealing with these chronic conditions and just recognize that a new equilibrium will take time (and keep eating clean in the meantime), I'll be all right.

 

Serenity now!

[AmyS]

I ate out successfully last night!  This was the first time I ate out on Whole30 (obviously, I'm not a person who eats out a lot).  I made and took my own dressing in an old spice bottle.  I ordered a steak dry grilled with no seasoning; a double order of steamed vegetables instead of half veg/half starch; and got the accompanying salad with no dressing.  When the salad came I took off the croutons and poured on my dressing.  When the steak and veg came, the dressing went over the veg and tabasco went on the steak.

 

It was good but a bit bland because I forgot to also bring salt.

 

Funny that though it was successful and I am glad I could eat Whole30 compliant at this restaurant, the food was really not that good.  It reminds me again of how much our food gets doctored up with soy and sugar to cover up that it's just not very good.  I like Restaurant Amy better.

 

But it was a successful night out and I'll remember to bring along more seasoning next time. 

 

Woot!

[AmyS]

Well, my Clean Fourteen went great, then my Not-Clean-At-All Two Week Vacation went great. 

 

I may or may not have come home and enjoyed a monster size bowl of vegetables this morning at the tail end of breakfast.  You know you're weird when you crave monster bowls of vegetables.  Tsk.