6/1/2015 - Riding Our Own Bikes, Together!

[vozelle]

Ok ladies, if you've fallen off this thread because you're out there thriving and doing great, good for you! More likely, you've been swimming in the deep waters of the Post30 experience, have had ups and DOWNS, had reintroduction confusions/disasters or whatever... if so, this is a good read: http://whole30.com/step-four-finished/

I wish you all well. Don't be afraid to share your stories with us!

I'm introducing legumes today... Had beans with breakfast, so far so good. Looking fwd to peanut butter... Ahhh!

[vozelle]

WELL. My adventure into the land of legumes was illuminating, but not awesome. Had a lot of GI weirdness and fatigue as a result of the beans... and the peanut butter, while utterly delicious, just made me want to eat mountains of chocolate, carbs and sweets... a total FWOB.

 

SO there you go.

 

Going to try out gluten tomorrow, then I am pretty much done with reintroductions! Jeez, it's been a long journey.

 

Definitely considering another Whole30 in September...

[Crimsann]

It has been a weird week for reintroductions...with all the chaos of the new baby I admit my planned schedule got tossed up in the air.  I'm still eating nearly all my meals Whole30, but I have had some add-in's that I wouldn't strictly have chosen given the chance to plan better.  In other words, someone sat my bike at the top of a hill, stole my training wheels, and gave me a shove all while laughing maniacally.  Probably there was some mustache twirling involved as well. 

 

The first monkey wrench happened right after I last posted that I was off to the grocery.  To save time, I went a bit closer to home than I have been doing and the market I used doesn't have as extensive a "whole" food selection as the ones I prefer.  This means my recipe for pork with cranberry was impossible to pull off with compliant cranberries.  I mean, how can a cranberry be uncompliant?!  Well...when the only version of a cranberry you can find comes in a can, is actually cranberry sauce, and contains the evil corn syrup.  NOT something I had intended to reintroduce anywhere in like my top 100.  But having no back up recipe in mind, no time for a second stop further afield, and managing to talk my exhausted self around to "it's only just a bit in the sauce, not like you plan to eat it with a spoon"...I went with it. 

 

Now friends...do we need to take a survey to estimate how many packaged food items contain this crap?!  I think not.  So imagine my surprise/dismay/relief/dismay/shock/dismay...to find that of all the things I've tasted post-Whole30, this seems to be the first and only I have actually felt horrible on. 

 

Eye.  Opener. 

 

I don't always buy the science of everything that is written up to be good or evil in the way of food, I mean let's be honest if they claim it causes cancer today it's likely it will be touted as the cure for cancer by October.  Even I wouldn't have put up much argument that this corn syrup stuff is remotely healthy...but I don't remember hearing a lot about it actually making you feel like crap aside from it accumulating on your hips or something.  So while I wouldn't go out of my way to eat it, I hadn't really thought it was something I would need to avoid.  I honestly would have chalked it up with "sugar" as an avoid when you can, but if you can't limit it and move on.  But it's the only thing I ate a couple of days this week, in pretty minor quantities even, that was not part of my diet since June.  More testing will naturally occur, but I skipped eating that dish for lunch today and suddenly I feel fine. 

 

In fact, I feel FINE despite the fact that skipping the pork meant I had to forage for lunch and I ended up eating several bites of a turkey sandwich by which read BREAD and CHEESE and some nuts roasted in PEANUT oil.  I mean why not just throw all the rest of the reintroductions at the wall while I'm at it. 

 

Sigh.  I would be really kicking myself if I had a reaction to something today having no way to determine what was at the root of it, so it's a miracle those all seem to have passed muster, at least in small quantities.  Not sure I would grab a loaf of bread and a wheel of cheese and make a meal out of it just yet for all kinds of reasons, but I'm feeling more confident about the occasional use of both.

 

But that corn syrup thing, if that proves to be the "out"...what a mixed blessing.  If I know something specific like that is likely to wreak havoc I will be highly motivated to avoid it and good at sticking with that...and I can't say there is anything that contains it that I would regret parting ways with...but that's a huge list of convenient items.  That one item could singlehandedly keep me on the straight and narrow when it comes to processed foods.        

[vozelle]

Wow Crimsann... great info and perspective on the evil HFCS. Have not crossed paths with it yet myself, so appreciate your words of wisdom.

Your style of writing and self-expression always makes me smile... "mustache twirling", HA ha! You so funny.

[Crimsann]

Wow Crimsann... great info and perspective on the evil HFCS. Have not crossed paths with it yet myself, so appreciate your words of wisdom.

Your style of writing and self-expression always makes me smile... "mustache twirling", HA ha! You so funny.

 

What can I say, I like vintage villians. 

 

Actually what I was hoping to convey I think was more an image of me as poor Nell Fenwick...helplessly tied to the railroad tracks of a non-compliant cranberry sauce.

 

 

Oh the horror!  LOL!

 

I do know it was a conscious choice though so I can't honestly claim damsel in distress status.  (Well...maybe AFTER eating it there was some "distress".)

 

Still feeling good today though, but struggling with next weeks meal plan.  I think I tucked a recipe away a few weeks ago for five-spice ribs done in a crock-pot which seems sensible plan wise since I could put those on in the morning and not be stuck in the kitchen.  Just need to run it down again. 

[vozelle]

Well, gluten is not good for me... I ate whole wheat bread with each meal yesterday, and each time, within an hour I got a headache and felt like there was cotton stuffed in my brain. I went to bed with a stomach ache, and woke up gassy and bloated. BUT the effects are already fading, so my system is coming back into balance pretty quickly (NICE!). It was a joy to eat my Whole30 breakfast this morning.

This result is fine with me, because I have been eating mostly gluten-free all year anyway (after reading the amazing book "Grain Brain"), and I haven't missed it much. But if a piece of birthday cake or a special treat comes along that is totally worth it, I'm gonna enjoy the HECK out of it, knowing exactly what "price" I will pay for the pleasure.

I'm really appreciating the Whole30 program for this newfound wisdom, and I LOVE knowing more about which foods do what to me... It seems so long ago that I was struggling with daily stomach aches and other problems! It has taken some serious diligence, patience and perseverance to get here, but it was SO worth it.

My main re-introductions are complete now. I will continue to eat primarily Whole30 at home, with occasional treats when out at a restaurant or social gathering. I have adjusted my meal template to a slightly smaller portion of protein, which seems to work better for me and still keeps me satisfied for 4+ hours. Those healthy fats keep me lean and happy, and I am hopelessly in love with ALL varieties of vegetables. Life is good!!

[Crimsann]

So, I got a bit more done this weekend than I thought I would! 

 

I reintroduced goat cheese, had it twice so far with no noticeable reactions.  I wasn't sure where goat cheese falls on the lactose scale, so did some quick poking around on the internet and it seems that cheese in general is lower in lactose than milk but that goat cheese isn't any lower than other cheese.  So I'm guessing the short answer is, cheese may be fine in the smaller amounts that I would consume it in compared to drinking milk but it remains to be seen if milk is fine. 

 

I never really drank milk on any kind of regular basis to begin with, my primary source was frappucinno's to be honest and I'm likely to swap to coconut milk with those even knowing that Starbuck's version isn't the best option for coconut milk.  I tried a small one over the weekend out of curiosity, swapping in coconut milk and asking for no sweetener...I'm not entirely confident they got that right as it still tasted incredibly sweet to me.  This is a social thing for me, I'm not a social drinker or smoker, but I seem to be a social coffee consumer, LOL!  Starbucks is a frequent weekend stop while running around with my sister.  I like their new cold brew, no sweetener, just fine but there may be times when I want a bit less coffee and a bit more filling fat.  

 

I also made blueberry muffins using a coconut flour/paleo recipe I found.  The end results were pretty heavy in a moist banana bread kind of way with a lot less sweetness than regular muffins, but also very eatable and filling.  I found I could eat two at most and enjoy them, but not find myself desperately wishing for more which would probably be the case with traditional cake muffins being lighter/sweeter/and less filling.  I'm anxious to try some other variations, particularly with almond flour and pumpkin.  I think I will be able to adapt this recipe myself now, having a better visual on what the batter should be like.  If anyone reading this tries the recipe (will link below) just a heads up that the batter is very thick...almost like cookie dough in that you will basically scoop it into the muffin wrappers and mound it up to the top.  It will NOT puff up while baking (or at least mine didn't) so no worries about it running over in the oven.  I was concerned that the batter should make more like 24 muffins when I saw it but I took the recipe at face value and piled it all into 12 muffins.  Filling a muffin tin that full with a traditional recipe would have been a "hot mess", literally, in the oven.   I was also a bit nervous about using that many eggs in the recipe, but I wanted these as part of a very different breakfast so I decided the more eggs the merrier for protein/fat and I do not taste them in the muffins. 

 

Recipe:  http://powerhungry.com/2015/03/coconut-flour-blueberry-muffins/

 

The five-spice rib recipe seems to have worked well, tender for sure...but haven't really tasted it yet since I just packed it up for lunches. 

 

For next week, I'm thinking about sticking with the muffin idea but looking at doing some kind of egg frittata baked into "muffins".  I might even shake things up and pack those for lunches.  That will mean exploring something different for breakfast so it will just depend on what I come across this week.  Meal planning has been such a life saver for me.  We had just moved to a new office in May and I would be struggling even more with packing a lunch if I hadn't been forced into a "think ahead" mindset during our June adventure. 

[vozelle]

Hey Crimsann,

Here's a Sept 1st thread to join if you are gonna do a second Whole30: http://forum.whole9life.com/topic/30061-starting-september-1-whos-with-me/?p=328371. I'm in.

V

[ShannonM816]

 

I never really drank milk on any kind of regular basis to begin with, my primary source was frappucinno's to be honest and I'm likely to swap to coconut milk with those even knowing that Starbuck's version isn't the best option for coconut milk.  I tried a small one over the weekend out of curiosity, swapping in coconut milk and asking for no sweetener...I'm not entirely confident they got that right as it still tasted incredibly sweet to me.  This is a social thing for me, I'm not a social drinker or smoker, but I seem to be a social coffee consumer, LOL!  Starbucks is a frequent weekend stop while running around with my sister.  I like their new cold brew, no sweetener, just fine but there may be times when I want a bit less coffee and a bit more filling fat.  

 

 

I'm pretty sure one of the ingredients in Starbucks' "coconut milk" is actually sugar, which would explain why even if they didn't sweeten your drink it would be pretty sweet anyway. I can't imagine what it would be like if they sweetened it on top of the sweetened coconut milk. 

[Crimsann]

@ShannonM816

 

I think you are right about the sugar in the coconut milk...I remember looking it up right before my June Whole30 to see if it was considered compliant and while I don't remember if I ever found out exactly what brand it was, I do know it was in no way compliant.  I don't even think it was just the sugar that was the problem, it runs in my mind there was also a non-compliant additive or two or twenty. 

 

I may be able to stick to milk there, if it passes reintroduction, but dairy is the one thing I suspected going into Whole30 might be an issue for me.  I will probably move towards doing the cold brew primarily either way, for sure if I needed to do the coconut milk option it's sweeter than I can handle and that was with the plain coffee flavor and allegedly no additional sweetener!!!  Could be I've just readjusted my taste buds to the extent that any variation is going to come across as cloying now.  

 

But that would be a good thing.   

 

@Vozelle, will check my calendar for unavoidable pitfalls before signing in, but I'm reasonably sure September is going to be a good month so tentatively count me in as well! 

[Crimsann]

Just a note, will be actively posting on the September 1 start date thread throughout the month...Vozelle is there, and I've seen abiswarbrick as well.  Wish us luck!