Day 3 of my Paleo Prison Sentence (xD)

[caTones]

Good morning Day 28, finishing strong!

Yesterday's Menu:

M1: (2) Eggs Over easy, (3) strips of bacon and a sort of pan fried mashed yellow sweet potato in the shape of a pancake (yesterday's mashed sweet potatos flattened out...VERY YUM!)

M2: Dino Kale Salad with lots of Turkey Breast, avocado, white mushrooms, heirloom tomatos and sliced Persian cucumbers in an avocado oil/balsamic vinegar/apple cider vinegar dressing.

M3: Antipasto: a can of sardines; Entree: about 4 ounces of sliced steak with diced yukon gold potatos and stir fried zucchini.

Dessert: 4 very ripened mangos, sweet and delish!!*****

 

****- ate so many only because they were getting very ripe and don't wanna throw my precious food investments in the trash for being rotten.

State of Mind:

I see the finish line before me and I feel pretty good.  Still getting quality rest and dozing off to sleep by 11:30pm or so which is a very big victory for me.  My fatigue from the half marathon is dissipating as I upped my fluid intake to flush out all that lactic acid in my legs, arms and shoulders.  My focus is pretty darned good and my overall vigor is pretty high but not overly manic.  Sometimes, when I feel these incredible bursts of energy, I get a little too fidgety.  I think with the routine and the exercise, my resting pulse will continue to drop to a level that keeps my moods very balanced.  Not quite there but very close.

In five days, I will step on the scale for my weight loss group.  Of course, I'll weigh myself on the morning of day 31.  I'm gonna cheat by weighing after my morning 10 mile run.  My "Weight Watchers" scale is a little too liberal in calculating my weight so I'll be more excited about how much I weigh according to "Mr. Detecto" the old school manual weighing scale that you see in most Doctor's offices.  According to the Weight Watcher's scale, I was at 229 and according to the Detecto scale, I was at 232.  The weight I post on Sunday will be my weight watchers scale +3 lbs.

Exercise:

Had a pleasant 4.5 mile yesterday after work.  I ran at a 9:30min/mile pace.  I'm used to 9:00min/mile as my "slow, relaxed run".  This tells me that I cannot be lighter than 215-220 lbs because at any weight below 215 lbs, I run very quickly without much effort.

After work today, I'll rest my legs but will pump iron for 30 minutes doing curls, lattice pull reps along with stretching and ab exercises.  Now that I am lighter, I want to have more consistent running in order to help get my weight down to my goal of 200 lbs.  If I am at 200lbs by the end of July, the SF Marathon will be a lot easier to run.

Overall:

Everything seems to be in order over here.  I will note that in my 30 days, two ingredients I hardly added to my diet were Ghee and coconut.  I'm not a huge fan of either.  I'll eat them but found that olive oil, olives, animal fat and avocado are fats I prefer instead.  I'm pretty excited and surprisingly patient about my upcoming Day 30.

I don't have any significant cravings.  Because of that, I will reintroduce the healthiest items from the "do not eat" list: legumes first.  Still trying to figure out what will be my breakfast legume.

My biggest lesson from this is to minimize my snacking to a handful of unsalted nuts.  I am surprised at how disciplined I am with nuts now.  I used to eat bowls of nuts along with whatever snack was lying about.  The basic discipline of eating seems to be the greatest gain I've gotten out of the Whole30.

[kellyfoss]

20 hours ago, caTones said:

I don't have any significant cravings.  Because of that, I will reintroduce the healthiest items from the "do not eat" list: legumes first.  Still trying to figure out what will be my breakfast legume.

Congrats on your progress! Maybe incorporate peanuts/peanut butter in some way for breakfast? Or beans in a huevos rancheros-type deal?

[caTones]

3 hours ago, kellyfoss said:

Congrats on your progress! Maybe incorporate peanuts/peanut butter in some way for breakfast? Or beans in a huevos rancheros-type deal?

I like the sound of that.  Oh yeah, peanut butter, of course!  Thanks for the tip.  In 2 days, that's probably gonna be incorporated in breakfast

[caTones]

Hello ~~Day 29~~!!!

It's almost like a feeling of nostalgic regret that I'm a day away from my completion of the Whole30.  It seems like 100 years ago when I it was Day 3 on a Sunday night and I had absolutely no idea what to eat for dinner and in a hurried rush baked two Japanese Yellow sweet potatoes and sat there with those two round bricks on a plate and questioned aloud: "why go thru all the trouble of trying to be healthy????"

It's funny now to look back at that night.  It inspired my thread title "Day 3 of my Paleo Prison Sentence."

Let's look back at Day 28's menu:

M1: (2) Eggs overeasy, (3) strips of nitrate free bacon; half an avocado.

M2: A huge spinach salad with a nice 4 oz piece of roasted chicken thigh; lots of veggies in it on balsamic/olive oil dressing.

M3: 1/2 Yellow Japanese Sweet Potato; 1/2 Purple Japanese Sweet Potato, 5 oz piece of New Zealand Sea Bass, a huge serving of asparagus.

Dessert: 3 Kiwi's with skin.

State of Mind:

I don't look at the Whole30 as being a prison sentence anymore.  I look at the experience as being freed from imprisonment.  I was imprisoned by junk that was in turn turning me into someone less than the whole, real me.  I think back at all the lost hours of sleep and wonder how much easier life would have been had I just done what all doctors tell you to do: eat healthy!!!

But the past is water under the bridge.  The big question now is what to do looking forward.  A huge surprise during this process was the help and support of my girlfriend.  It was her idea announced aloud (sometime around the end of February) at one point that somehow inspired me to look into the details of the program to see if were feasible.  I think i've inspired her equally by acting on the program and she's casually adopted a lot of the Whole30 habits without fundamentally incorporating it.  In 28 days, she's actually now lost 5 lbs and she's still sipping wine from time to time and still veers off occasionally, but not as often when we'd both negatively feed off of the worst of each other being devil's advocate to convince one or the other to eat pizza or go out and grab a cheeseburger or eat tons of ice cream late at night.

It's refreshing and common sense logic given how we both philosophically understand and encourage healthy eating when we actually put our minds to it.

She said something yesterday as we were eating dinner that made me quite happy: "Why stop at 30 days?"

It made me think of the freedom I have to wear many more t-shirts and jeans that stopped fitting.  WIth my waist down from 40 to 36, my favorite jeans are now much easier to wear.  With my weight down and inflammation on my knee minimal, I can run again, something I do with a passion 4-5 times a week when I'm in shape.  

Like my lazy slacker older brother once said, lol...."Why mess up a good situation?"

[caTones]

Day 30 here I am!!!

Very exhausted today after we had spent over 2 hours preparing and cooking an irresistable Whole30 Moussaka recipe yesterday.  My woman can cook!!!  Talk about comfort food at it's finest.  Who knew that cauliflower could turn into such a creamy sauce?  

Day 29 Menu:

M1: (3) Eggs Overeasy, (3) Strips of Bacon and 1/2 avocado.

M2:  DIno Kale, leftover roasted chicken and Turkey, Mushroom, Heirloom Tomato, Persian Cucumber, and unsalted nuts salad with balsamic, apple cider, extra virgin olive oil dressing.

M3: Whole30 Compliant Moussaka (see link above).  Warning!!!  It took two hours to prep and coook before eating.  I had dinner at 10:30pm, lol ..but it was worth the wait and have leftovers for today.

State of Mind

Was very productive at work.  Perhaps my most productive day of the year.  Just fell into a rhythm and stayed in it for the entire work day.  At lunch, I really enjoyed my kale salad. I'm a notoriously fast eater and enjoyed the salad over an hour's time without the need to rush.  It was a pleasant experience to eat slowly.

Exercise:

Was able to run 3 miles on the treadmill and stationary biked for 10 minutes as a warm up.  Have not had time to do weights as I skipped on Thursday.  Eventually, I need to be loyal about weights.  I've always been a wimp when it comes to weight.  Endurance, I'm grand...but weights..I always avoid.  Need to build up that muscle.

Overall:

I'm pretty mellowed out at the moment.  Not worried about how much I weigh or about my reintroduction phase.  To be honest, I am looking forward to my whole30 break days in between the reintro days.  I've gotten my whole30 diet in a routine now that I'll have as much trouble breaking as I had so much trouble initiating.  

Funny how 30 days can make such a big difference in choices!

[jmcbn]

8 minutes ago, caTones said:

Warning!!!  It took two hours to prep and coook before eating

About as much as a traditional home-made Greek Moussaka - trust me, this is a treat - the Greeks don't eat this week in week out

[caTones]

Wed did it!  Hello day 31!!

Weighed myself and can announce that I lost 11 lbs!!!

[MeadowLily]

            

 

Free. Free at last.