Melinda's Whole 30 Log - Beginning May 30 Vi

[chicagomelinda]

Catching up on day two.  As of 10:30 am, I'm feeling a little rough, but it it's for eating poorly:

 

Day One

 

Breakfast

• ​Omelet with 2 eggs, sautéed onions, asparagus and red and orang peppers.  Some sliced avocado on the side.

Lunch

• Fresh sliced chicken breast from the deli section with imported dijon mustard, baby carrots, tomatos

Dinner

• Fresh salad -- mixed organic greens, one hardboiled egg, chilled baked salmon (baked with fresh dill) with a mason jar of fresh fixin's -- cauliflower, baby cucumber, mixed fresh yellow and red peppers, lightly sautéed asparagus. Sliced watermelon for dessert.

Summary of the Day

 

Today had full potential to be a complete meltdown, but I was determined.  Breakfast was easy, but we were headed on a 100 mile drive to look at a new vehicle so we had to pack a lunch.  (Husband not totally on the program, but sticking supporting me as he can when we're alone together.)  The lunch actually worked well as we were snacking and driving home.  While we were downtown, a dear friend called to invite us to dinner. Buoyed by what I'd read prior to beginning the program, I said yes with conditions:  I simply offered to bring my dinner.  Turns out the host was making homemade gazpacho and agreed to make mine without dairy (sour cream). There were about 12 kernels (literally) of corn in the soup, but I decided to let that go. No reason to go back to square one. At most, it was a small teaspoon of corn. I didn't mind, and that's what matters.

 

Summary of Feelings/Health

 

I must admit that I felt AMAZING.  Victorious on every level.  Thrilled with how my day evolved.  I was responsible for my own food, I ate delicious, whole and meaningful food that fueled my body.  I did not allow myself to be swayed by dinner with friends who were enjoying wine with dinner and eating "off plan."  In fact, my dinner tasted great!

[chicagomelinda]

Day Two (May 31)

 

Breakfast

• ​Omelet with 2 eggs, sautéed onions, asparagus and red and orange peppers.  Some sliced avocado on top.
  

Lunch

• Chilled baked salmon (delicious!) with asparagus and a small sweet potato.
  

Dinner

• Crispy Kale "chips" with salmon on top; baked chicken with onion, asparagus and half a sweet potato.
  

Summary of the Day

 

Tough day, primarily because I can feel the detox.  Runny nose, sore throat, tired and generally achy.  That said, it's a good feeling! It's clear to me that the junk that so frequently enters my body is flushing itself out (I'm drinking tons and tons of water), so it's all goodness.

 

Summary of Feelings/Health

 

I don't think I've ever gone two days in a row without snacking.  It's actually a good plan for me because a) I'm actually not hungry; and 2) it relieves me of choices of what to eat!  As I said up top, though, today was a bit of a tougher day.  Bracing for even more tough stuff tomorrow. Very glad I began this program on a Saturday. Much easier than on a week day!

[juliepatchouli81]

Hi chigagomelinda, I also started on the 30th! My husband was on board- for 2 1/2 days, he said it was too hard. That makes me more motivated to finish, but I can use all the help I can get from those who are going through the same thing. I've been feeling about the same as you, tired and achy but it is a good feeling, letsme know I am doing something good for myself. Anyway, just wanted to introduce myself and I hope we can be whole30 friends! This is my first time with whole30, but I know I can do it with a little help from my friends!

To happy and healthy eating,

Julie

[chicagomelinda]

Hey, Julie!

 

Yay for the 30th!  My husband, too, had said he'd go along, but he's off it big time.  He is supportive, however, helping with meal preparation and eating what I eat.  (He's just having milk and cookies and all those other things!)  For a while, I thought we had to do it together, but I'm now feeling -- like you -- more motivated than ever!

 

Yes, let's be Whole30 friends.  I need every last one I can get -- especially those like you with a great attitude! :-)

[chicagomelinda]

Day Three (June 1)

 

Breakfast

• ​Omelet with 2 eggs, sautéed onions and apple. Yum, yum, yum!
  

Lunch

• "Office salad" -- best ever. Spinach and mixed greens with all sorts of fresh veggies (tomatoes, sunflower seeds, asparagus, green onions, shredded carrots, hard boiled egg whites (the office doesn't give us yolks!) and a dollop of guacamole alongside balsamic vinaigrette and olive oil.  Delish!
  

Dinner

• Crispy Kale "chips" with broken up hard boiled egg on top; sautéed chicken with broccoli, onion and mushrooms and a sweet potato.
  

Summary of the Day

 

Better than I expected.  A long day to work (Mondays are a major commute day from our farm in Michigan), but I felt surprisingly focused and relatively upbeat at the office!  I really am focused more on what I can have to eat than what I cannot eat.  The shopping list is GREAT.  I do need to be careful about any "packaged" ingredients.  (Turns out that organic olive oil in a spray can is not compliant!)  The simplest way for me to shop, I believe, is to never buy anything in a can! I'm pretty much there now that I've given up organic olive oil in a spray can!

 

Summary of Feelings/Health

 

Three days without snacking is perhaps the biggest accomplishment for me.  No sugar, no gluten, no dairy... Only real stuff.  I'm headed into tomorrow with true confidence.  Feels great!

[juliepatchouli81]

Hi Melinda, hope day 4 is going well for you so far! I've been feeling pretty good, so glad I didn't go off the deep end before starting and tapered off my unhealthy habits prior to starting.

What kind of farm do you live on? I grew up on a farm in NH and the older I get the more I miss fresh produce that was grown with love and beef that I knew the name of ( yes, we named our bull calves, mostly after candy bars!). I also had a beautiful mare that I miss tons and miniature donkeys, they are the cutest!

Have a great day, we are that much closer to a happier and healthier life!

[chicagomelinda]

Hey, Julie!

 

Day 4 is going well!  I really feel like I'm in a groove here.  The main change to my eating habits (other than totally changing what I eat!) has been the complete elimination of snacking.  I cannot believe how great that's been in terms of helping me control my food intake!  (Historically, I've been a big-time grazer -- and a true binger at night.  One major change that came with "no more snacks" was "no more food after dinner" -- an enormous change that I'm very happy with!

 

As for the farm, oh, we love it so!  We try to spend four nights a week there whenever we can (Thursday night - very early Tuesday morning).  We typically grow much of our own produce, and there's nothing better.  We have no animals that you would eat (just squirrels, coyotes, chipmunks and some extraordinarily beautiful birds).  We do, however, have easy neighborhood access to fresh organic eggs and fresh corn (which I'm not eating!).  The farm is such a tonic.  Life there is slower and healthier (lots of gardening leads to lots of burned calories).

 

Have a great day back atch'a, Julie!  I'm enjoying this process -- and the community of folks I'm meeting here on the forums!

[chicagomelinda]

Day Four (June 2)

 

Breakfast

• ​Omelet with 2 eggs, sautéed onions and apple. Some might fear this is going dish is going to get boring, but I'm loving it!
  

Lunch

• "Office salad" again.  Mixed greens with tomatoes, walnuts, guacamole, shredded carrots, hard boiled egg whites and balsamic vinaigrette and olive oil.  The switch from sunflower seeds to walnuts was GREAT.  Loved the taste and the crunch.
  

Dinner

• Roasted chicken alongside roasted eggplant, shallots and half a small plain potato.
  

Summary of the Day

 

Day four is coming to a successful close!  No major issues.  This forum is helping a lot.  I'm checking in here on various forum pages and it's very, very helpful. Yay!

 

Summary of Feelings/Health

 

Day four of no snacking! This is HUGE! Nobody has ever suggested dropping the snacks. For me, it's helped me be better on proportions on my meals (not large) and look forward to meals just three times a day -- not all the time all day!

[juliepatchouli81]

Melinda your farm sounds wonderful, and a lot like my home in NH! I am lucky enough to rent a lockoff apartment in a beautiful spot in Colorado, our landlords have two horses that they let out to free graze so I often have some beautiful lawnmowers right outside our door. They also have two dogs we adore and an adopted cat that has adopted us, we have essentially stolen their cat and we love her to pieces! Recently our landlord has put up some more bird feeders so we have a ton of beautiful birds in the soon-to-flower crab apple out front too. We had a bear visit it on Mother's Day!

 

I also am a big grazer, it was pretty mindless while watching tv at night so I also am enjoying the structure of 3 meals a day. I also was drinking multiple vodka soda every night, which disrupted my sleep, made me more apt to snack, and raised my tolerance to an unhealthy level. I can happily say that it has been pretty easy to give up when I put my mind to it. This is the first time I will be truly sober for such an extended period of time since I was 16 ( I smoked pot pretty heavily through highschool, college, and after, gave it up about 5 years ago- so not everyone in Colorado smokes! Since then drinking just about every day, not getting hammered but still). Sorry if that was too much personal background!

 

Yesterday (day 4) was amazing! I had the day off and got to sleep in so my meals were later in the day. I was tired all morning but by afternoon I did 30 minutes on the elliptical and ran errands and felt euphoric! I felt almost high, haha! I'm sure some much needed vitamin d from sitting outside helped, but if this is how I feel after just a few days I can't imagine what the "tiger blood" stage is going to feel like!

 

So far my fav meal is 1/2 baked potato (I used white and should have used sweet potato but I just wanted a standard baked potato) with guacamole in place of butter, taco meat, salsa, fried egg and fresh cucumber, tomato, and green onion on top. it was so good I almost didn't miss the cheese!

 

Sorry for the long post, please let me know if you prefer for me to comment over on the june1 forum. I have really enjoyed interacting with others on this journey and find it really motivating and fun!

Only 25 days to go, although I feel like I will be taking a lot of what I am learning here forward past 30 days.

[chicagomelinda]

Hey, Julie!  

 

Loved your post!  We learn so much from each other this way.  I'm very impressed that you're exercising, too! I can't admit that I'm there, yet, but hoping to get there soon!  For now, the food is the focus.  A bear on Mother's Day? That rocks!  Well done!

[chicagomelinda]

Day Five (June 3)

 

Breakfast

• ​The restaurant refused to make an omelette with veggies but no milk/eggs.  Seriously?  Settled for poached with sliced tomatoes. The tomatoes consisted of one slice and one end piece. Not the most satisfying, but I decided to accept it graciously.
  

Lunch

• "Office salad" again!  Mixed greens with tomatoes, walnuts, guacamole, purple asparagus, shredded carrots, hard boiled egg whites and balsamic vinaigrette and olive oil.  I don't think I'll ever get tired of this!
  

Dinner

• First date night with my husband while on the program. Made a note of my dietary "preferences" on the reservation form and they were WONDERFUL!  It helps that it's a very high end restaurant in Chicago - I think they're accustomed to meeting various customer needs.  While my husband dined on a fancy appetizer, I began with an asparagus salad.  Entree was Olive Oil Poached Cod with razor clams, spring vegetables, lemongrass.  No sugar, no gluten, no dairy, no additives of any kind. Just pure whole wonderful food and taste!
  

Summary of the Day

 

Day five is done!  Great, comfortable, wonderful day.  I'm honestly enjoying this program!  A couple of great benefits: 1) clarity around what I'm going to eat (i.e., no moments of considering going off plan simply because it's not an option); 2) I have awakened with such energy and feeling lighter each day.  It's such a great feeling.

[chicagomelinda]

Day Six (June 4)

 

Breakfast

• ​Omelet with 2 eggs, sautéed onions and apple. Planning on switching it up tomorrow (stay tuned)!
  

Lunch

• "Office salad" again!  Mixed greens with tomatoes, walnuts, guacamole, shredded carrots, hard boiled egg whites and balsamic vinaigrette and olive oil. 
  

Dinner

• Dinner at Freshi en route to our farm in Michigan. It's a pretty darn good fast food joint offering the opportunity to totally customize your meal. In my case, I ordered a spring salad mix with tons of compliant foods (including a salmon and avocado).  It was all tossed together with a little olive oil and balsamic and it was terrific.
  

Summary of the Day

 

I had input a ton of content today about how I'm feeling and then my computer burped. Suffice it to say it's been a great day. Will go on and on about it tomorrow! 

[chicagomelinda]

Day Seven (June 5)

 

Breakfast

• ​Omelet with 2 eggs and sautéed peaches. It was so good it was like a dessert!  Just half a peach in my eggs made all the difference. Wonderful!  Will have it again tomorrow.
  

Lunch

• We were at the farm in Michigan today, so no "Office Salad" today!  Instead, my husband and I made a fantastic fresh greens salad with hard boiled egg, scallions, mushrooms, cherry tomatoes and the most marvelous concoction of sunflower seeds, asparagus and Brussel sprouts "crisped" in walnut oil. Dressing was virgin olive oil and an aged vinegar, which makes all the difference. Truly wonderful.
  

Dinner

• We decided to try to reconstruct the dinner I had Wednesday night at Boka, a really great restaurant in Chicago. Duncan made it -- cod poached in grapeseed oil and Dijon mustard. Superb!  That, coupled with a salad (see our lunch salad to get a taste of what our dinner salad was like) and a small sweet potato rounded everything off perfectly.  
  

Summary of the Day

 

Tomorrow, it will be a week since I began this countdown. It is wonderful. The thing I like most is that I'm eating really, really good food. I'm having only three meals a day -- no snacking!  Keys for me are to have a substantial meal (although I am being conscious about portion sizes, fat content, etc.) and to drink tons of Le Croix.  My husband had said he'd he'd be with me on this journey, but over time I've released him from duty. Tonight he's having a glass of very good wine. The good thing is that he isn't offering me any, nor do I feel pressured to join him.  That's ok.  I'm doing great!

[juliepatchouli81]

Hi Melinda,

Can you believe it has been a whole week of whole 30?! It looks like you are doing great too! I laughed that your husband has been "released from duty". My husband is now in the house for the first time since I started and is being very supportive. He brought home some tequila because he knows I hate it, haha. I made some tikka masala in the crockpot to keep him fed for the next few days, it made a lot of compliant food and smells amazing! I also ordered a bunch of spices from the Savory Spice Shop, my favorite place to order new flavors. Hopefully it keeps my enthusiasm for cooking going- I really love to cook so I'm not too worried. I also made some almond milk this week for my coffee and some homemade mayo! The mayo failed at first but I was able to recover it, now I just have to get used to the taste, it's nothing like storebought! It feels so good to be eating and cooking real food.

As I was typing this my husband gave me a piece of pineapple that he just cut up and oh my, it was the sweetest most delicious thing ever. It is unbelievable how much sweeter fruit is when you don't have the fake stuff in your diet.

Have you watched the documentary Fed Up? It is really good, I highly recommend it. It makes me want to keep eating like this for a long time. I also recommend Hungry for Change, and Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead. All on Netflix if you are into that kind of thing, very motivating to be successful in this journey.

Hope you are having a great day!

Julie