jpmjanelle Posted March 10, 2015 Share Posted March 10, 2015 Hi all! I'm a college student in Boston. Been struggling recently with anxiety, sleep, and energy levels. Going to try the whole30 to see if it will resolve some of these issues! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jpmjanelle Posted March 11, 2015 Author Share Posted March 11, 2015 Woo, hi, Janelle here. It's the morning of the first day of my whole 30! I'm drinking my coffee and getting ready to go do some schoolwork, and obviously I wanted to procrastinate that work for a little bit, so I wanted to write a little more on my experiences leading up to the whole30 and challenges that I'm anticipating while on it. I eat mostly paleo all the time, because I have a very sensitive stomach. However, I am also a stress eater. During stressful weeks at school, I find myself binging at night after dinner on things like multiple bowls of fruit, almond butter, etc. I like the fact that the whole30 approach isn't just about what you eat, but about your attitude towards food. I hope that having the structured 3 meals/day guideline will help me avoid binging and learn to separate my food and my stress. I also love the fact that whole30 is not restrictive at all, the program guidelines encourage you to adequately feed your body. I think another reason I have a tendency to overeat at night is that I struggle with getting enough carbohydrates and enough food in general during the day, and I think that following the whole30 meal template will help me incorporate larger, more satisfying meals during the day. However, as I said in my first post, the thing I want to get out of the whole30 most is improved mentality. I would love to avoid the afternoon energy slump that always hits me during class. I hope that focusing on the quality of my foods will lead to decreased anxiety, as I have seen several anecdotes online where this occurred. So, I have some high hopes for my whole30. Breakfast this morning was fried plantain, 2 eggs and 2 egg whites scrambled with spinach, and a cup of coffee. Of course this would be the week that I run out of salt and forget to buy it at the grocery store too! So I put some onion powder and garlic salt on my plantains, and they were just a bit too flavorful for me in the morning. I might try putting cinnamon on them tomorrow. I also plan to switch to using whole eggs, but I have a carton of egg whites I'd like to finish first. I really enjoyed the plantains -- hadn't tried them before! I found having a starch at breakfast very satisfying; usually I just have eggs, and I noticed I felt much more full. Breakfast is my PWO meal so I'm not sure why I didn't include a starch in it before. Okay now I'm done rambling and I guess I have to go and get to work. I'll check in later tonight on the rest of the day! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jpmjanelle Posted March 11, 2015 Author Share Posted March 11, 2015 Okay here's the rest of my day: Lunch - salad with chicken, avocado, homemade Italian dressing Dinner - salad with chicken, jicama, guacamole. Fried plantain. Not sure if it's okay to be eating fried plantains twice a day since they're a very starchy food. I don't know if this will prevent me from becoming "fat adapted." I initially didn't eat them with dinner, but I was still hungry afterwards so I made the plantains, and afterwards I felt satisfied. I'm wondering if maybe I should increase my protein and fats instead. Either way, pretty happy with my first day! Going to have some seltzer and watch Netflix for the rest of the night Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jpmjanelle Posted March 12, 2015 Author Share Posted March 12, 2015 Checking in after breakfast again Today for breakfast I had a 3 egg spinach omelet and a fried plantain with cinnamon on it! The cinnamon was so amazing on plantains. I guess I'll have to alternate between garlic salt and cinnamon. Breakfast is my PWO meal, and I generally don't eat before I workout. My PWO meal also includes fats, which isn't recommended by the meal template...I don't really have a reason for doing this; it's just my routine to have eggs in the morning after I workout and since it was whole30 compliant I didn't really think to change it. Next week I am going to experiment with following the template, by splitting my breakfast in half. I'll have some eggs/veggies before I workout, and then plantain and either turkey/chicken afterwards. Feeling really energized so far but I still have a long way to go. Slow and steady Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jpmjanelle Posted March 12, 2015 Author Share Posted March 12, 2015 Okay know what I miss??? Gum!! Seriously I cannot believe how frequently during class I want to chew gum. Ah. Okay so food today: M1: 3 egg spinach omelet, fried plantain M2: chicken salad with avocado and olive oil dressing M3: sauteed ground turkey and kale with a ton of garlic. It was mmmm. Mini meal: I ate m3 really early caused I was so hungry (4:30) so I made a snack to get me to bedtime. I basically made an RX bar: smashed almonds, smooshed banana, eggs whites, cinnamon, bake for about 20 mins. Yesterday and today I got ravenously hungry for dinner and basically scarfed it down :/ I don't think chicken is really that filling for me at lunch and my lunch just doesn't seem to hold me over. I'm going to be experimenting with a different lunch option next week. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Krista Billows Rodriguez Posted March 13, 2015 Share Posted March 13, 2015 You might try upping your breakfast veggies even more. I definitely find that the more vegetables I eat at breakfast the easier the whole day goes. Remember the template and the vegetable recommendations that are per meal. I know that salads are convenient, especially for a busy college student, but they aren't always the most filling for the long haul. (And be careful with that mini meal, the moderators will probably tell you that's SWYPO ) I must say I envy you doing this in college! My college days are far behind me and they were not healthy days at all! They were filled with processed convenience foods, fake cheese, fake butter, way too much diet soda and sugar. I would LOVE to go back through college feeling awake and alert like I do on a W30. Keep it up!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jpmjanelle Posted March 13, 2015 Author Share Posted March 13, 2015 Krista you are totally right about the mini meal :/ sigh. Lol thanks for your input! A while ago I went on a kick where I had brussels sprouts at breakfast and it was quite delicious I have a pretty light course load this semester, so I figured it was a good opportunity to do something like this! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jpmjanelle Posted March 13, 2015 Author Share Posted March 13, 2015 Guyss I'm all done with class for the week and really looking forward to the weekend Here's my day so far: Woke up with a sore throat and a cough, so I didn't workout. Might go for a walk this afternoon. Meal 1: 2 eggs, compliant italian pork sausage, spinach, and sauerkraut Meal 2: 1.5 chicken breasts, mayo, and kale cooked in ghee ... I ran out of garlic salt!! How did I manage to run out of salt and garlic salt DURING the whole30?? Lol good thing I can get groceries this weekend. Having a bit of a dilemma with planning dinner. I'm going out to dinner with my team to Bertuccis (I'm a coxswain for my school's men's crew team, btw). I wanted to order the tuscan chicken wings and their roasted vegetables, but after looking at the menu, the tuscan chicken wings contain gluten so they must have something in the sauce. The veggies are whole 30 approved though; they're just roasted in olive oil. I don't really feel comfortable making a ton of special requests to the wait staff when I'm with a large group (if it was just me and my boyfriend I would probably request plain chicken or something). I also dislike going with a group to a restaurant and not ordering something. I think my best option is to eat some chicken at home before I got and then just order the veggies at the restaurant. I know this is worth is though, because I want to see the effects of completely cutting out even small amounts of gluten from my diet. So... that's my plan and I'm putting it down here to help me stick to it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chocoholic382 Posted March 13, 2015 Share Posted March 13, 2015 Okay know what I miss??? Gum!! Seriously I cannot believe how frequently during class I want to chew gum. Ah. Oh my gosh, I'm right there with you. Gum and mints. That's the only thing I seem to crave anymore. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Krista Billows Rodriguez Posted March 13, 2015 Share Posted March 13, 2015 I love sprouts in my breakfast! Good luck at dinner, it's always a challenge to navigate the restaurant waters. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jpmjanelle Posted March 13, 2015 Author Share Posted March 13, 2015 Thanks! Dinner went so well I was worried the veggies dish was going to be kind of Meh but it was really tasty. Also wanted to add that I had a snack this afternoon - 2 hardboiled eggs and 2 handfuls of cashews. Just got too hungry to make it to dinner. Would have been ideal to have veggies but I'm not gonna stress over a small thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jpmjanelle Posted March 14, 2015 Author Share Posted March 14, 2015 So its day 4 for me and I'm simultaneously sick and in the "pants do not fit" stage. Argh. This is fine, I'm going to push through this and keep chugging along. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jpmjanelle Posted March 14, 2015 Author Share Posted March 14, 2015 So I am supposed to be being super productive with schoolwork right now but I just couldn't sit down and do work yet. So I did a huuuge batch of meal prep for next week. What I prepped: Egg and veggie bake Shredded chicken Baked plantains with cinnamon "Meat slop" (basically ground beef with garlic and chili powder, simmered with kale, cabbage, and onions til the veggies are soft. You can Google meat slop and find the recipe lol) Might spend the rest of the day relaxing and then save my schoolwork for tomorrow haha Meal 1: chicken breast spread with mayo, kale and mushrooms sauteed in ghee Meal 2: a small portion of the meat slop I made, with 2 eggs cooked in, and 2 handfuls of cashews. Meal 3 still to come! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jpmjanelle Posted March 14, 2015 Author Share Posted March 14, 2015 Alright so I had a little bit of not whole30 behavior this afternoon. I snacked on one of the baked plantains I had prepped and ate a few spoonfuls of cashew butter! Looking back, I can totally see that this was a result of being stressed out about school AND not have any starchy veg the last two days. I work out a decent amount and I think it's gonna be super important for me to include plantains. Meal 3: chicken, mayo, kale Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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