Meg's Whole30#1 Log

[nutmegananne]

Ok, so I'm starting this log on day 5 of my first Whole 30. Better late than never Unfortunately, I have a bad history of trying to keep up with food logs, but maybe since this is out there, in public, I'll be more motivated to keep it

Day 5 - Thurs 9/20/12

Breakfast-

2 Aidell Chicken Apple Sausages

stone ground mustard (comp.)

1/2 small clementine

Lunch-

possibly going to Fogo de Chao yum. I know to avoid the chicken (marinaded in beer), as well as the sausage (more than likely nitrates), but plan to eat steak, a good vegetable salad (olive oil to dress), and maybe a single bite of the banana (which is sauteed in olive oil). Will definitely miss the cheese at the salad bar, but I can deal! - will update if necessary

Dinner -

making chicken tenders, roasted cauliflower and radishes, and maybe a salad - will update if needed

[Quinn]

Nice job! Your breakfasts look suprising similar to mine

[nutmegananne]

Thanks, Quinn! I'll have to check out the breakfasts on your log

Well, I did great at Fago de Chao. Lots of good food, so I didn't feel too bad missing out on the amazing cheese, or the chicken legs, or the filet mignon wrapped in bacon, LOL. And I seemed to get full faster. Yay! That is a good thing!!

For dinner I did organic chicken tender loins. Great recipe I have, where you finely crush pork rinds (just the kind with pork + salt), dip the chicken in egg, and then roll them in the rinds. Baked them in the oven on a cookie sheet greased with melted organic leaf lard (BTW, almost out of that lard...gotta order more). I've been making this recipe for a while now, and I usually put grated parmesan cheese in the with the crushed rinds...obviously I didn't yesterday. But I did put salt, pepper, and italian herbs. So good. The whole family enjoys this. I also made some roasted cauliflower and radishes, as well as some thinly sliced Japanese sweet potatoes drizzled with olive oil and baked. Good, satifying meal.

Yesterday I felt pretty good all day, and NO headaches. I've been eating paleo/primal for a while now, and I thought the major change for me on the Whole30 was going without dairy, but I'm beginning to think more sugar had crept into my eating than I thought. I was headachy for the first 4 days. But yesterday, none. Pretty good energy yesterday, too. Felt peppy on my late night treadmill walk.

Now on to day 6!

Not sure about much of my menu today yet. For breakfast I am going to have some leftover chicken from last night, a few slices of cooked apple with cinnamon, and a few pieces of SF/preservative-free bacon.

ETA: I almost forgot!! A little victory yesterday...giving up dairy for me is hard mainly because I love cheese. I'm not a big milk or yogurt person. But cheese, oh cheese!! A week or so ago, my husband and I ate at a yummy local farm-to-table restaurant and had some amazing charcuterie. We loved the asiago cheese so much we found out there source, and special-ordered some for ourselves. That was before I committed to the Whole30. Well, the cheese was delivered yesterday. A huge hunk of it. Husband tasted it and said it was pretty darn amazing. Of course I would have liked to try it, but it didn't make me as crazy as I thought. We're going to freeze a big portion to let me try some after my Whole30 is over. Just wanted to share

[Guest tenabodena]

Hi Meg!!!!

[nutmegananne]

Tena!!!!!!!! How cool to run into you here!! Are you doing a Whole 30 right now???

[nutmegananne]

Ok, day 6 was yesterday. Felt pretty good, pretty decent energy (not over the top). No headaches. A little bit of indigestion?? I'm going to chalk that up to what the book says is my digestive tract healing. I also seemed to have a little lower-GI distress off and on in the first few days.

Meals for Friday (day 6) --

Breakfast was leftover chicken, plus SF sausage

Lunch was leftover spaghetti sauce (homemade, with GF beef and all allowed ingredients) + sauteed japanese sweet potato strips, and a handful of pecans, and cucumber/arugula salad with homemade citrus vinaigrette

Dinner was more leftover chicken, leftover roast cauliflower, and about 1.5 eggs worth of a spinach frittata.

Today I went on a major shopping trip at Whole Foods. Loaded up with lots of yummy Whole30 stuff. I've got Well Fed Chocolate Chili bubbling on the stove right now for dinner. Just finished a lunch of thinly sliced italian roast beef and prosciutto, dipped in mustard, and some cucumber dill salad. At Whole Foods they have a counter where they will slice freshly cooked meat ultra thin for you. The Italian Roast Beef just had olive oil and herbs, so I got some. Unfortunately the rest had canola oil . Oh and for breakfast this morning I had a handful of pecans, an Aidell chicken apple sausage link, and a half clementine.

Nothing major to report. Feeling good today. Sleeping pretty good too. Just got too much to do - trying not to feel too overwhelmed because I know stress is a big issue for me and probably contributes to a lot of stuff. Going to get in some treadmilling and qigong today, and see a movie with my husband tonight (both teens are going to be out with friends...so date night for us!).

[nutmegananne]

Woo-hoo! I made it through seven days. Feeling pretty good! No headaches, no extra tiredness...not huge increase in energy, but maybe in a few days? Low energy wasn't so much an issue for me (most of the time), anyway! Oh, and hey..my jeans are fitting better :)

So far today:

Breakfast-2 zucchini fritters leftover from dinner last night, homemade sausage patties (3 small)

Lunch - leftover spaghetti sauce, sliced cucumbers, about 1/2 a fresh fig

Dinner will be grilled steak, green beans cooked in duckfat (love!) and a half-sweet potato with ghee, pecans and cinnamon

[nutmegananne]

Well....obviously I did not do such a good job keeping a log...as I mentioned, I have a history of trailing off on logs BUT!!!!!!!!!! the most important thing is that I am on day 26 and I have been adherent the whole time! In some ways, it seems as if it has really gone by quickly. And now of course I'm starting to think through what will happen at the end.

I already know two things:

1- I am not going to go back to exactly the way I was eating before (and that was already paleo + some dairy and dark chocolate). I am still hammering out exactly what I think I'll do, but I'm thinking it's going to look something like no gluten or other grains (which was me prior to this anyway), keep eating nuts minimally, and doing some grassfed butter and maybe the occasional cream in my coffee ( I am not a regular coffee drinker, so we're talking maybe once per week or so). It will also be nice to worry so much about whether there is a bit of dairy in an item in a restaurant, but I am trying to stay 100% gluten free, so I'll be asking a lot of questions anyway. Dark chocolate is the thing I need to figure out. I had admittedly gotten into having this "treat" of 70% or 80% chocolate every day. I do want to see how I do with having the occasional square of it on occasion...again, perhaps once a week? But I'm not going back to my pattern of regular consumption. I'm also going to avoid eating almond butter by the spoonful, which was another thing I regularly did pre-W30. Although I did allow myself a few nuts here and there, I knew I had portion control issues with almond butter, so I haven't eaten it during my W30. I would like to re-intro almond butter, but I will be working on porition control.

2- I will doing the Whole 30 again. I tentatively plan on starting one in early January. I can definitely see myself doing this perhaps once every 3 months or so.

Well, that's it for now. Sorry I did not keep up with my log. Perhaps next go round I'll make it further. I will say that I enjoyed participating in the forums anyway. Even though I did not keep up my log, I did log on most every day, and made quite a few posts. I feel like it has been a great support and I enjoyed helping others as well. I will definitely be visiting and posting regularly even when i'm not on a Whole 30.