Emily's Second Whole30

[elrochy]

It's been a year -- I successfully did Whole 30 last January, and here we are again! Admittedly, I'm a little concerned this year. My best friend is getting married in 2 months, which means a lot of bridesmaiding, a lot of parties, and a lot of things that are definitely NOT Whole 30 compliant. Luckily, the bride herself has done Whole30 at least a couple of times, so I have no doubt I can still count on her for support.

 

If anyone has any tips to survive things such as showers, bachelorette parties, etc. when I don't know what the menu will be ahead of time, I'm up for any ideas! May just be that I have a hidden bag of snacks all for myself at any given time.

 

Wish me luck! Day 1, here we go!

[elrochy]

Day 1 is in the bag! Although it certainly seems too early for any sort of hangover, I felt pretty crummy all day. I'm going to chalk that up to a mixture of allergies and waking up at 5:30 in the morning after almost a week of sleeping in. The Monday after new year's is the worst!!

 

On the Day 1 menu:

 

Breakfast:

Ground pork with breakfast sausage spices from the Well Fed cookbook, mixed with onion, bell pepper, spinach, and an egg. Topped with some cholula for spice! 

 

Lunch:

Chicken breast with arugula-mint pesto, and a salad with spinach, cucumber, tomato, avocado, and a homemade dijon vinaigrette.

 

Dinner:

Veggie-Beef "sloppy joes" from the e-meals Paleo menu. This includes ground beef, bell pepper, onion mixed with chicken brother, tomato paste, dry mustard, and Montreal steak seasoning. Serve it on some Bibb lettuce leaves and you'll definitely get the "sloppy" of "sloppy joes."

 

Snack:

I ran to Whole Foods and was dying. Hungry, headachey. I bought some of the "Barnana" dried banana and coconut snacks. So delicious and gives you a nice boost of potassium.

 

Happy eating, all you Whole 30-ers!

[elrochy]

Day 2

 

Day 2 was a success! The second time around is feeling less of an "event" than the first time. It is my hope that that just means I've already got the hang of the rules, and not that I'll be complacent. My goal is surely not to get complacent.

 

So, here goes food:

 

Breakfast:

 

Same as yesterday: pork with sausage seasonings mixed with bell peppers, onions, spinach, and an egg.

 

Lunch:

 

Leftover sloppy joe mix from yesterday's dinner. I didn't want to make sloppy wraps at work, so I just mixed in some shredded bibb lettuce. Sliced bell pepper and snap peas as a side.

 

Dinner:

 

A delicious boneless pork chop coated with almond flour, and a spinach salad with avocado and oil & vinegar. For dessert, I had some berries and whipped coconut cream with cinnamon and vanilla.

 

Energy was high today. I bunked off work early and enjoyed a nice long bike ride in the gorgeous 55 degree Houston weather!  

 

Day 3 is starting high with plenty of energy as well (minus the weird mix of exhaustion of having worked out at 6am). We'll see if the hangover decides to hit some time in the next couple of days.

[elrochy]

Day 3

 

I may have experienced a bit of the hangover today, although it's hard to tell the difference between the no-sugar hangover and the headachey mess I often become when the weather changes rapidly. Question to the group: is there any reason to think that normal excedrin or non-coated ibuprofen are not whole 30 compliant?

 

I unfortunately realized last night that my Zyrtec, which I have to take every day lest I become horribly itchy and welted (dermographism is the best...), contains sugar - or at least one of those complicated names for some sugar by-product. Considering I literally can't leave Zyrtec out of the equation, I'll just have to deal.

 

Food choices went well. They really aren't a challenge at all as soon as I cook every night and have leftovers the next day. Luckily, even if that doesn't happen, there's a snap kitchen with at least a few Whole30-compliant meals to choose from.

 

Breakfast:

 

Same ol' same ol' - ground pork sausage, onion, bell pepper, spinach, and egg topped with a bit of cholula.

 

Lunch:

 

Left over pork chop from the night before and some raw snap peas.

 

Snack:

 

Dried apricots, apples, and figs (in moderation, of course!)

 

Dinner:

 

Chicken Curry Soup from the e-meals Paleo plan, with some cauli-rice mixed with onion, carrot, and a bit of chicken broth.

 

Exercise: Succeeded in getting my ass up at 5:30 for my cross-training class. It involved a lot of running, which I hate. And I was oh-so-thankful for the rain that hit in the middle that forced us to switch to jump roping inside instead of running.  The exhaustion that comes from these early-morning classes also may have contributed to my afternoon headache.

 

Day 4 is going well so far. No fogginess, no headache, slept well, etc.  I'm starting to enter the "Don't trust a fart" stage of Whole 30 where you have to go ALL. THE. TIME. Am I the only one this happens to?

[elrochy]

Day 4:

 

Another fine day -- didn't feel particularly good or bad. I did get pretty exhausted toward the end of the evening and went to bed early. But that could be just as much a product of getting up early several mornings this week as it could be the effects of cutting sugar and processed foods.

 

I had a dream that I cheated on my diet but wasn't even that bothered by it. Then I was really bothered about how I wasn't bothered. Super delicious bread at a nondescript nightclub was apparently worth it to my dream brain.

 

Food!

 

Breakfast:

 

Same as yesterday. Today was my last day with spinach. I'm pretty proud of myself for finishing a 10 oz package of spinach. I often use it in my breakfast cooking, but then do other things intermittently and the last third or so will inevitably go bad. So yay for finishing fresh produce before it goes bad!

 

Lunch:

 

Left over chicken curry soup with cauliflower rice and a mandarin orange. This ended up leaving me quite hungry about an hour later, so I had a snack of some dried fruit.

 

Dinner:

 

Pork sausage stuffed bell peppers. This was DELICIOUS. I used regular ground pork, but added the breakfast sausage spices from Well Fed (like I do in the morning). Mixed with onion, garlic, a head's worth of cauliflower rice, tomato paste, and creole seasoning then stuffed into a bell pepper. My husband, who is not doing Whole 30, had some cheese on top. 

 

Today was the only day this week I haven't done any kind of exercise. The exhaustion hit a little too hard and I opted to binge watch more of The Office. Such is life.

[elrochy]

Day 8. I'm terrible at blogging over the weekends, and likely never will, so here I am 3 days later. I've also come to the conclusion that I don't believe I'll get much out of logging my food and experiences every single day of the Whole 30 this time. I log all of my food in MyFitnessPal, so repeating it here doesn't do much for me. If I wanted accountability, I could just as easily lie to all of you as much as I could myself.  But accountability in this journey is not a problem. I'm sticking with it, and not having any trouble doing so, even in difficult situations.

 

For example, on Saturday my best friend hosted a brunch for all of the bridesmaids in her upcoming wedding. As a Whole30 veteran, she understood my need to have something Whole30 compliant, so one of the two frittatas she prepared was W30 compliant. I supplied a massive amount of fruit, and drank a ton of black coffee, and all was right with the world. The challenge, however, hit when I had to drive back home (a 2.5 hour drive from Austin to Houston), with nothing but a light frittata and fruit in my stomach.  Turns out that finding compliant snacks on the road is damn near impossible. Even roasted cashews often have canola or peanut oil. And even local, non-commercialized beef jerky often has unnecessary sugar or MSG (who even uses MSG anymore?!) in it. I was able to find raw almonds and dried apples with no sugar (all other dried fruits had needlessly-added sugar), which sufficed to get me home where I could find something else to fill the gnawing void in my tummy.

 

Today, on Day 8, it appears the hangover has finally hit. Whether its the hangover or allergies (a definite possibility this time of year in Texas), I feel pretty crummy. The good thing is that I don't have that much work to do today, so (1) I don't have to use my foggy brain, and (2) I can likely duck out early. I'm pretty sure this will mean no working out today - every time I move my head throbs. But I'm downing water like its...well, water...and hoping upon hope that this passes by this evening.

 

Today is also the day my work bestie begins her W30.  Mine will likely turn into a W37 while I finish up her 30 days with her. This will hardly be a challenge once I get past the next day or two.