Trying Something New...and Hoping I Survive the Journey!!

[songbird4916]

Day 0 - Ready or Not....

 

Ok, so this is my very first attempt at the Whole 30 and I am both totally pumped....and utterly terrified. Mostly because I'm a hot mess in the kitchen and have very little patience for meal planning and cooking. However, I desperately need to improve my relationship with food and I think this is a good way to start. 

 

I did some shopping this evening and hope I'm ready for tomorrow morning. The Whole 30 Daily recommends setting out your goals before you start, and I'm the kind of person who needs to write things down, so here goes:

 

1. I will pack a Whole 30-compliant lunch to eat at work every day and I will not stray from what I've brought. 

2. By the end of my Whole 30 I will be able to cook two quick and easy breakfasts, lunches, and dinners without having to look at a recipe.

3. Every day I will make conscious decisions about what I choose to eat rather than letting my emotions and cravings run the show.

4. I will journal at least 5 times a week to reflect on this journey and keep track of the way my mind and body is feeling.

 

Tomorrow morning begins a new adventure in my world. Here goes nothing!!

[songbird4916]

Day 1 - In the Kitchen

 

I survived Day 1 of my first Whole 30!! My biggest struggle for the next 30 days will be cobbling together meals without the use of convenience foods, and finding the time to actually spend cooking. I am on the go a LOT and don't have time to spend an hour each morning making breakfast plus preparing a lunch for work. 

 

I need to sit down and actually make a weekly meal plan, but I find that overwhelming and haven't been ready to do that, so I just made up today's meals as I went along. It was fun to cook my own meals and know every bit of what was going in to them, but was also time consuming. I had fortunately taken the morning off of work for an appointment, so I was able to spend 45 minutes cooking and preparing, but that will not be a regular luxury. I think frozen, microwaveable veggies are going to become my best friend - especially for quick lunches at work.

 

Breakfast: two eggs sauteed with onions, peppers, zucchini, avocado, tomato

 

Lunch: salad with lettuce, tuna fish, carrots, peppers, oil and vinegar, and a mandarin

 

Pre-Workout: hard boiled egg

 

Post-Work-out: an apple

 

Dinner: shrimp sauteed with peppers and avocado, grape juice

 

The great thing about today was that I never felt hungry, and it was easy to pass up any off-limits foods. In fact, with all the fat and protein, there were times I felt almost uncomfortably full. As an aerobics instructor, I'm a total calorie counter - it's so important that I'm getting enough food to fuel all the exercise I do, and I've experienced the horrible feeling of not having eaten enough before class and feeling like I'm going to pass out. I'm worried that I won't be getting enough calories during the Whole 30. Today I think I was barely hitting 1200 (I know, we're not supposed to count, and I'm not officially keeping track, but logging it in my brain is such an ingrained habit I always have a pretty good idea of what I've consumed.) I'll really need to trust the way my body feels during the next 30 days rather than relying on the number of calories I'm eating.

[ShannonM816]

Hi ,songbird4916. Have you seen the weekly cookup idea from Mel Joulwan? She also has actual Whole30 meal plans too based on the same idea -- here's week 1, it should have links to the others if you're interested. It's more like what I do, not really a plan for each day, just a way to have plenty of food on hand for the week that you can then mix and match into whatever meals sound good. It's a lot of work on cookup day, but it makes the rest of the week easier.

 

You might also check out these recommendations for post-WO meals. If you're needing to be sure you keep on weight, you'll want to eat at the upper end of the meal template for sure. Other tips for maintaining weight on Whole30. You don't need to count calories, but you will probably want to be sure you have at least one, and probably more, servings of starchy vegetables a day, and don't skimp on the fats. 

 

If you have any questions, or are ever not sure if you're eating enough or the right things, feel free to make a post over in the Troubleshooting section of the forum. 

[songbird4916]

Day 2 - Again...

 

So, I ended up starting my Whole 30 over because I inadvertently ate some non-compliant foods. I realized there was probably added sugar in my fruit and walnut infused balsamic vinegar, and I used lemon and lime juice that had sulfites. It never occurred to me to read the ingredient list in lemon and lime juice - they're just juice, right??? Apparently not. So here I am again back at Day 2. 

 

Breakfast - 2 eggs with kale, onion, garlic, and olive oil, 1 apple

 

Snack - coconut cream pie Larabar

 

Lunch - tuna with frozen veggies and guacamole, mini sweet peppers, a grape juice box

 

Snack - cherry pie Larabar

 

Dinner - 1 hard boiled egg, mini dill-pickles, green olives, baby carrots, mustard

 

I know snacking, Larabars, and drinking fruit juice are iffy on the Whole 30, though not explicitly against the rules, but I'm trying to find a good balance of energy sources. When I taught my Jazzercise class on Friday (before I had to start over) I felt absolutely horrible. I barely made it through class, my limbs had no energy to move, I felt nauseous and like I was going to pass out. Normally I bounce through class with tons of energy and can sometimes teach two in a row, so I found this really concerning. I'm trying to up my carb/sugar intake with fruit to see if that helps. I do have weight to lose and so am not concerned with keeping weight on, but do need to keep my energy up. I may not be a professional athlete but I do get paid to teach very high intensity aerobics. My customers depend on me to give them a great workout and I can't do that feeling the way I felt on Friday. In addition to the 3-5 classes a week I teach, I normally exercise on my own as well, so I am giving myself a rest from those other workouts while my body finds a good balance. I'll probably slowly try to replace some of the fruit/juice/Larabars with starchy veggies and fat/protein options so that my body can still learn to use fat as a fuel source rather than carbs, but I think it's a change I need to make more slowly.

 

The context of my snacks and food choices are also really important, I'm discovering. Larabar #1 happened at 9am - after having eating breakfast at 6:30am, knowing my lunch break wasn't going to come until 11am, and having that nauseous "I'm going to pass out" feeling. I wasn't trying to fill a craving or eat something sweet. I just needed to get some calories and it was handy. No big deal. Larabar #2 on the other hand was totally me bargaining with myself and will be avoided in the future. For some reason on the way home from work I wanted a cinnamon roll like nobody's business and was just a hop, skip, and a jump away from throwing in the towel and giving in. Now ideally, I would have just fought off the craving and waited a couple hours for dinner, but there was a Larabar in my glove compartment and given the choice between eating a compliant Larabar or diving face first into a cinnamon roll, having to start over, and dealing with the guilt and shame all that would bring, the Larabar seemed the lesser of two evils   But I will continue to work to master my cravings!!!