june whole30 robotstyle!

[robotarmy]

Breakfast/Lunch yesterday: Eggs with spring onion, eggplant with chicken and onion. Eaten late because of work stuff. Where I'm staying, I'm also helping out with some things in an extracurricular way, which took over some time yesterday. Fortunately, my schedule in general is pretty relaxed, so I didn't kick myself for eat breakfast at 11am. But I made darn sure to eat within an hour of getting up today!

Dinner yesterday: Green salad with chicken (cold), warmed chicken with onion. Apple.

Oh and there were some pistachios in there somewhere too.

Breakfast today: Eggs with spring onion, large sliced tomato with sea salt and black pepper, 2 small plums, and a few pistachios.

Lunch today: green salad and chicken.

Dinner: steak, veggies, 1/3 sweet potato. With three full meals at regular times today, I feel like I ate a lot. But I think that now that my work schedule is going to settle down for a few weeks, I'll be able to plan better. I just had an unpredictable schedule for a couple of days. Ugh. Still are well, but this is better.

There's not a huge variety of food here where I am, and they tend to eat a lot less than I do, so the pistachio supplementation, while not ideal, is helpful. Other food entries later today

[robotarmy]

Breakfast this morning was spectacular: scrambled eggs with scallion, sweet potato home fries (left over baked sweet potato, cubed, with onions), sliced tomato, and a nectarine. It was a beautiful, colorful plate--yellow eggs with green sprinkled throughout, pale white/yellow sweet potato with browned onion, bright red tomato, and fiery orange nectarine. Just lovely. Iced tea to drink.

 

Yesterday I tried to do a computer detox by not doing any work. Though I ended up doing some (like a half hour), it was really nice to mostly be away from it--made a huge difference to be away from the computer. Since work hours are extremely flexible for me right now, I'm taking the rest of the day off and won't touch my own personal work project until Monday. I still have some light client work over the weekend, but that's all working with them one-on-one with their individual projects, and computer time will be 5-10 mins each, and that's just record-keeping. The rest of the weekend is going to be spent reading, swimming, spending time with sr robotarmy, and eating great food. My brain feels good just thinking about it.

 

Oh! Last thing. I checked in with my friend who had been doing a w30 with me (the one who went to Mexico and had boozy drinks). I mentioned to her that alcohol means a restart. "I'm doing the spirit of the law, not the letter," she said. "I feel good, that's all that matters." I told her that was great and that I was happy for her. Especially since she's recognized that she has the power to break away from the sugar dragon. For the first time she realizes she isn't using food as a crutch, and has been able to say no to her sugar cravings. Powerful stuff. I'm so happy for her, and told her so.

 

But. The whole point of this is following the rules, you know? Do a whole30 or don't. There's no "Whole30 + a few drinks" or "Whole30 + a sandwich" or (to my dismay) "Whole30 + deep fried spicy potato balls that your boyfriend insists on ordering at his favorite restaurant and eating while you sit there, hungry, picking at the world's most disappointing salad." I told her as such, because one of the reasons she asked me along for the ride was for accountability. And, though it's hard to speak to a friend about accountability sometimes (because it can be taken as confrontational), it was important for me to fulfill my role. "Your new start date is the day you got back from Mexico, if you really want to do a Whole30," I said, expecting a negative reply. But she got it. "I understand. You're right, and thank you," was the reply. She's going to keep going into July, and I'll go along to support her. So I'm happy about that. I want her to feel better and be healthier, and think she's well on her way.

 

I may check in here and there over the weekend, but I'm going to try for as much time away from the computer as possible.

 

Happy day 20!

[robotarmy]

Weekend done, so here's a Sunday night check-in.

 

There was good and bad. The good: computer detox was amazing. Spent a lot of time doing stuff, and got in some excellent quality time with the boyfriend. The bad: got potentially bad to very bad news about two different friends in two days. Last night was spent crying, and I was way too upset to eat the dinner that we'd made. Managed to scarf down a few bites of tri-tip, but no appetite. Oh well. Life moves forward.

 

Friday we went out to dinner. Boyfriend wanted to go to any number of restaurants. I suggested a local Mediterranean-type place that I know has food I can eat without modification. It's not his favorite type of food so he was lukewarm about the place, so I said I'd go anywhere and just order whatever I could. Then, I changed my mind, stood up for myself, and insisted on the place I could go and really enjoy a meal. Awesome.

 

Saturday, I don't remember what we ate. Eggs in the morning, with sweet potato. Lunch was...? I don't remember. Dinner was nonexistent.

 

Today, breakfast was leftover dinner from Friday (salad/chicken), lunch was tri-tip and sweet potato, and dinner was tri-tip/zucchini/sweet potato+onion. It was good stuff.

 

I gotta say. The kind of news received in the last couple of days is the kind of news that would send a lot of people straight to a pint of Ben&Jerry's, a taco platter, or a few (many) stiff drinks. I'm grateful for the relationship with food/drink that Whole30 has given me. It's easy to think you're coping with stuff when you're really just medicating. When one is in a good place mentally and has a good relationship to what/how one eats, one can actually, you know, just cope instead of using food/booze as a line of defense and an emotional deflector.

 

So it's a late night here at my place. Staying up a bit watching Orange is the New Black and unwinding. Funds are short this week, and there will be a lot of sweet potatoes.

 

Day 22 in the books.

[robotarmy]

Looking at the calendar, I see that a week from today is the last day of this thing. It's really flown by! Except for those moments where boyfriend ordered the spicy potato balls at dinner. Those dragged by really slowly.

Breakfast: andouille sausage, sweet potato and onion, braised greens, watermelon. Been loving all the veggies lately, and even a piece of fruit once or twice a day. I feel (and look) a TON better when the bulk of my diet is plant-based. Eat your veggies, yo!

[robotarmy]

Yikes so time really got away from me! Been working quite a bit the last couple of days. Also, with some stuff that's been going on outside of the whole30, I've been super busy trying to manage some other stuff. I think I'm going to continue doing the whole30 eating until I leave for some out of town work in just over 2 weeks. When I'm travelling in July, I'll be eating with some colleagues quite a bit, and it will be hard to avoid butter as an ingredient. Yeah, I could be persnickety and bring my own food to dinner, but one of the people there used to be a chef, and he cooks great food. I'd be silly to turn down excellent dinners cooked by him. Plus, he uses all local produce and excellent meats. It's beautifully simple eating.

Now I'm doing some prep work for my travels, and watching National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. Good stuff.

Breakfast was: tuna cakes, salad of tomato and cucumber, fried squash.

Lunch: salmon cakes, salad (lettuce tomato cucumber), sweet potato.

Diviner: chicken, roasted carrots, green salad, watermelon.

[robotarmy]

Okay so life got extremely busy. Busy in a very very very very very good way though, so I'm not complaining! Finished up looking and feeling great!

 

As mentioned above, it will be tricky to keep W30 as July progresses (but it will be worth it--and I can easily stay away from sugar and grains), but I'd like to come back and do #5 in August. "So soon?" you may be asking. Yeah. This time around I will admit that my heart was not in it every day. And I let myself get into cooking ruts, as well as falling back on eating out more than usual with the boyfriend. It was always compliant stuff, but it got boring. In August I have to hit the ground running, with a ton of work and the implementation of a new project that I've been working on. Being mentally on point by eating this way will be really helpful.

 

As for now, I may start a post W30 journal, but it's also possible I just won't have time. If I don't, I'll be back for August!

 

All the best.

[Kmlynne]

Looking forward to seeing you again! Congrats on a w30 done!